Martin Fowler
npub1p56lzajj485ru3c353gw4qrnvqz0vl6sr0ghxq24pmx80nfegmzsyc57fq@drss.io
Master feed of news and updates from martinfowler.com
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Citizens Build, Agents Execute, Experts Govern
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19 Aug 2026
**TL;DR** *Why building an app over the weekend isn't the same as building enterprise software*  I’ve noticed an interesting gap opening
Practitioner Voice: The Writing Category Nobody has Named Yet
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19 Aug 2026
**Jim Highsmith** recognizes that effective writing from a practitioner is a style distinct from academic writing or thought-leadership content. It's a style that I advocate, and my contributors
Fragments: August 18
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18 Aug 2026
Part of the reason why I’m at Thoughtworks is because I’d like to see a software development organization founded on technical excellence as an example for the rest of the industry. The trouble
TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value?
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11 Aug 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/tdd-in-the-agent-loop.html) My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big
Fragments: August 4
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4 Aug 2026
There’s been a fair bit of publicity of the [Open AI “rogue agent” that hacked into Hugging
The Conductor Developer
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31 Jul 2026
**TL;DR** *Why I think software development is starting to feel a little more like conducting an orchestra.*  There’s a shift happening
The Economic Benefit of Refactoring
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30 Jul 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/refactoring-economic-benefit.html) **Giles Edwards-Alexander** does an
The Orchestrator's Tax
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28 Jul 2026
Subagents get justified by time saved and parallel execution, but **Rahul Garg** explains that's not what matters most. Every token in the orchestrator's context is competing for its attention, and
Why I’m Writing Rachel’s Ramblings
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28 Jul 2026
**TL;DR** *I have ideas. I haven’t been writing them. That’s about to change. I promise… myself.*  I’ve been thinking a lot about
Fragments: July 21
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21 Jul 2026
With this post, I’ll wrap up my notes from the second [Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html). But before I do, I should note that
The Archaeologist’s Copilot
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16 Jul 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/archaeologist-copilot.html) When people think of legacy modernization, most folks aren't
DSLs Enable Reliable Use of LLMs
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14 Jul 2026
LLMs generate code incredibly fast, but to ensure they generate exactly what is intended, they need clear boundaries. Abstractions and Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) provide a strong harness that
Fragments: July 13
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13 Jul 2026
Some more of my notes from [Thoughtworks Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html). When we had our first retreat in Utah early this
Experiences with local models for coding
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8 Jul 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/local-models-for-coding-experiences.html) **Birgitta Böckeler** now
Viability of local models for coding
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7 Jul 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/local-models-for-coding-factors.html) **Birgitta Böckeler** recently
Fragments: July 6
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6 Jul 2026
Last week, Thoughtworks ran a second [Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html), this time in Europe. As with the previous event, I’ll
Fragments: June 16
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16 Jun 2026
“Prag Dave” Thomas (co-author of the outstanding “Pragmatic Programmer”) [has loved programming](https://articles.pragdave.me/p/castles-in-the-air?triedRedirect=true) since he was young. >
Building Reliable Agentic AI Systems
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16 Jun 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/reliable-llm-bayer.html) One of the most interesting projects my colleagues have done with LLMs
Fragments: June 2
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2 Jun 2026
Greg Wilson has noticed that lots of folks are [using dodgy metrics](https://third-bit.com/2026/05/20/twelve-ways-to-be-wrong/) to figure out if AI tools are worth their costs. > Would you measure
Fragments: May 27
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27 May 2026
At the GOTO Conference in Copenhagen in 2025, [Kent Beck and I spent some time on stage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_rLjQfjp0&list=PLEx5khR4g7PINwOsYrkwz3lTTJUYoXC53) talking and answering
The test suite as a regression sensor
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27 May 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html#TheTestSuiteAsARegressionSensor) **Birgitta Böckeler**
The VibeSec Reckoning
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27 May 2026
Vibe coding has significantly accelerated software prototyping but AI agents frequently recommend insecure configurations, creating security problems. **Gautam Koul, Lucian Moss, Neil Drew-Lopez, and
Bliki: Vibe Coding
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21 May 2026
Vibe coding is building a software application by prompting an LLM, telling it what to build, trying it out, prompting for changes - but without looking at any of the code that the LLM generates.
Three more static code analysis sensors
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20 May 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html#StaticCodeAnalysisDependencyRules) **Birgitta Böckeler**
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
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19 May 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html) In her recent article about harness engineering for
Fragments: May 14
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14 May 2026
Last week I spent a day at The Orchard Retreat, hosted by [Mechanical Orchard](https://www.mechanical-orchard.com/). that brought together several people working in software development to talk about
Bliki: Interrogatory LLM
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14 May 2026
When we need an LLM to perform a complex task, we often need to feed it a lot of context. Coming up with a design for a new feature requires descriptions of how we want the feature to appear to the
What is Code
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12 May 2026
Increasingly humans delegate writing code to agents. Will there even be source code in the future? To wrestle with this question, we have to understand what code is. **Unmesh Joshi** sees code as
Fragments: May 5
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5 May 2026
Over the last couple of months Rahul Garg published a series of posts here on how to [reduce the friction in AI-assisted programming](https://martinfowler.com/articles/reduce-friction-ai/). To make
Bliki: Mythical Man Month
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5 May 2026
In the early 1960s, Fred Brooks managed the development of IBM's System/360 computer systems. After it was done he penned his thoughts in the book [The Mythical
Fragments: April 29
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29 Apr 2026
Chris Parsons has updated [his guide on using AI to code](https://www.chrismdp.com/coding-with-ai/). This is his third update, what I like about it is that he gives a lot of concrete information
Structured-Prompt-Driven Development (SPDD)
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28 Apr 2026
[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/structured-prompt-driven/) LLM programming assistants have demonstrated considerable
Fragments: April 21
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21 Apr 2026
Last week Thoughtworks released the [34th volume of our Technology Radar](https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar). This radar is our biannual survey of our experience of the technology scene,