The MonkCast

In this RedMonk conversation, Andy Stanford-Clark, Distinguished Engineer and Innovation Leader in IBM Research, and Clemens Vasters, Principal Architect at Microsoft, chat with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, about the history and evolution of messaging technology. They trace messaging to its roots from early telco technologies to modern events and streaming systems. The conversation highlights the significance of message queues, the role of IBM and Microsoft in advancing message-oriented middleware, and the evolution of open protocols like MQTT, AMQP, and CloudEvents.

In this RedMonk conversation, Kelly Fitzpatrick, senior analyst at RedMonk, talks with Tom Johnson, co-founder & CTO of Multiplayer about the evolution of observability into what some folks have termed “Observability 2.0”. They explore how Observability 2.0 is better positioned to address the specific needs of developers, particularly in debugging and system transparency. The discussion highlights the importance of open standards like OpenTelemetry, the need for better developer tools, and the impact of improved observability on developer experience and productivity. Tom shares insights on how these advancements can lead to more efficient workflows and ultimately foster innovation within development teams. This RedMonk conversation is sponsored by Multiplayer.

In this RedMonk conversation, Tom Johnson, co-founder & CTO of Multiplayer, discusses the evolving landscape of system design with Kelly Fitzpatrick, senior analyst at RedMonk. Tom emphasizes the collaborative nature of system design, and the necessity for all team members to understand the architecture of software systems. They explore the importance of documentation, the role of system design in job readiness, and the artistry involved in backend development. The discussion also highlights resources for learning system design and the significance of cost-conscious and secure software design. This RedMonk conversation is sponsored by Multiplayer.

In this RedMonk conversation, Kelly Fitzpatrick, senior analyst at RedMonk, and Tom Johnson, co-founder & CTO of Multiplayer, discuss the evolution of software development and the importance of collaboration and documentation in enhancing developer experience. Tom shares insights on the challenges developers face today, the need for dynamic tools that auto-update documentation, and the distinction between system diagramming and system design. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of adopting new tools to improve productivity and developer happiness. This RedMonk conversation is sponsored by Multiplayer.

Kelly Shortridge (Senior Director, Security Product Line at Fastly) joins RedMonk's Kelly Fitzpatrick to talk security. The Kellys cover isolation and modularity (with a few nature metaphors from Kelly S.), bridging the gap between security and development teams, and secure by design thinking (this time with an ice cream cone metaphor). Kelly S. also covers how her security philosophy translates to Fastly through her work with both the Security product line and the Security Research Team. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on October 17, 2024.

In this RedMonk conversation, Dan Moore, principal product engineer at FusionAuth, join James Governor, principal analyst and co-founder of RedMonk, and Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, to discuss the resurgence of newsletters as a tool for authentic expression and community engagement. They explore the importance of optimizing existing content, the power of voice, and best practices for creating effective newsletters. The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of digital communication and the role newsletters play in fostering relationships and sharing knowledge.

In this conversation about the evolving landscape of front-end development, Natalia Venditto, principal owner of JavaScript developer experience for Azure and Code extensions at Microsoft, and Igor Minar, senior director of engineering at Cloudflare, chat with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk. In addition to discussing the future of JavaScript, the significance of server-side rendering, and the potential of WebAssembly, they speak about the challenges of migrating from client-side to server-side architectures, the role of micro frontends in managing organizational complexity, and the importance of open source foundations like the OpenJS Foundation in ensuring sustainable development practices. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast belong to the speakers, and do not necessarily reflect those of their employers. Microsoft and Cloudflare are RedMonk clients, but this is an independent and unsponsored conversation.

In this conversation, James Governor of RedMonk talks to Adrian Phillips and Angela Kelly of Dynatrace about the growing importance of Observability, earlier and earlier in the software development lifecycle. Observability isn't something you need to think after production deployment, but rather it need to be a consideration from the earliest phases of development, right through to production and onto the next iteration. This video discusses the factors shaping this change, as companies strive to ship software faster, safely, with ever tighter feedback loops. James Governor highlights the complexity of modern deployments and thus the need for observability from the start. Adrian Phillips emphasizes that enterprise organizations today integrate observability into Day Zero so they can be proactive and offer a better developer experience. Angela Kelly notes that observability helps address tool sprawl, DevOps maturity, and scalability challenges. Customer examples included Dell improving developer productivity by focusing on developer experience. The conversation underscored the importance of standardization and platform engineering to enhance efficiency and productivity. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on September 24, 2024.

Steve Bussey, co-founder and CTO of Supered, talks all-things CRMs with RedMonk senior analyst Kate Holterhoff. They discuss the complexities of onboarding and user-friendliness in CRMs, the role of professional help in setting up and maintaining CRMs, the potential of AI in automating certain CRM processes, and the importance of privacy in CRM data. Steve also shares his journey from software engineer to co-founder and offers advice on finding mentors and fostering relationships.

Hear RedMonk's Kelly Fitzpatrick chat with Andrew Boyagi, head of DevOps evangelism at Atlassian, about the critical topic of developer experience. They discuss findings from Atlassian's 2024 State of Developer Experience Report, highlighting the importance of understanding developer satisfaction, productivity, and the misalignment between developers and their leaders. Andrew emphasizes the need for open communication and the role of AI in enhancing developer productivity. The conversation also touches on the concept of 'Developer Joy' as a key objective for organizations to improve developer satisfaction and overall productivity. This episode of the MonkCast is sponsored by Atlassian

In this RedMonk Conversation, Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, speaks with Luis Villa, co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift, about new challenges in security and privacy in the AI era. The conversation focuses on the legal and compliance implications of AI which Luis highlighted in a spicy LinkedIn post that inspired this episode. Villa discusses the tension between in-house counsel's responsibility to protect the company and the desire of workers to embrace new technologies. He highlights the disconnect between Silicon Valley's enthusiasm for AI and the concerns of the general public. The conversation also touches on the ethical considerations of AI, such as the need for transparency in data usage and the responsibility of companies to protect customer information.

Jay Miller, staff developer advocate at Aiven and founder of Black Python Devs, joins Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, for this RedMonk Conversation. Jay discusses what his military service taught him about the importance of real-world problem-solving. He shares his thoughts on the connection between Python and AI, highlighting the importance of responsible AI usage and critical thinking. Jay talks about the state of developer relations and developer advocacy as a profession. He also speaks about Black Python Devs, an organization extending the ecosystem of Python communities to black and colo(u)red communities around the world through initiatives such as supporting conference travel, providing mentorship, and promoting open source contributions.

In this conversation, James Governor of RedMonk and Simon Wistow, co-founder of Fastly, discuss the challenges and future of open source in the tech industry. James highlights a crisis in open source due to a trend of companies switching to source-available licenses, which he refers to as a "rug pull." This shift, often driven by investor pressure, threatens the sustainability of open source projects. Simon, who has a long history with open source, explains how Fastly supports various open source projects, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and non-reliance on short-term funding. He notes that Fastly's business model benefits from open source, which aligns with their commitment to contribute back to the community. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on August 29, 2024.

In this RedMonk Conversation, James Governor of RedMonk interviews David Annez, VP of Product at loveholidays, to explore the company's approach to adopting absolute cutting-edge technology while managing risk. The company relies heavily on Fastly's edge network services to build its scalable, high-performance platform, supporting its rapid expansion and growing customer base, processing a booking every 40 seconds across the UK, Ireland and Germany. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on August 27, 2024.

Adam Rackis, senior web engineer at Spotify, joins RedMonk's Kate Holterhoff to discuss upskilling, frontend development, and conference travel. They chat about Adam's service in the United States Air Force, his work experience in the software industry, and his thoughts about developer certifications. They also speak about the state of JavaScript frameworks, and the finer points of red-eye flights.

In this RedMonk Conversation Adam Seligman, VP of developer experience at AWS, chats with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, about the continuing importance of developer relations, the impact of developer certification programs, and the changing landscape of software engineering with the advent of generative AI. Adam shares AWS's strategy around AI and highlights the importance of community engagement and education to this new era.

Tina-Marie Gulley, Interim CEO at Ada Developers Academy, discusses her background and the intersection of technology, DEI, and education with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk. Tina highlights the importance of AI in the bootcamp industry today as well as the need for partnerships and community building to create a sustainable and inclusive future for tech bootcamps.

Rachel Stephens (Sr. Analyst, RedMonk) and Nevi Shah (Product Manager, Cloudflare) discuss the Jamstack application development model and how to build with Jamstack on Cloudflare Pages. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on March 31, 2022.

RedMonk principal analyst and co-founder Stephen O'Grady talks virtual machines (VMs) in this quickish take, outlining what they are, high-points in VM history, major players in the space, how containerization and Kubernetes shook up the infrastructure landscape, and why VMs continue to matter in 2024.

RedMonk analyst Kate Holterhoff and J Chris Anderson, cofounder of Couchbase and CEO of Fireproof, discuss trends in the data space including the history and importance of Apache CouchDB, the evolution of client-side technologies, and the local-first movement. Chris highlights the use of cryptography for data integrity and identity verification, as well as the future of data management in the AI era. He also shares Fireproof's go-to-market strategy, open source philosophy, and approach to community engagement.

As AI continues to reshape our industry, it's important to understand how it intersects with open source. AI is dependent on and composed of open source software, for one, and it's also triggering new questions on how to define open source in the context of AI. To explore these and other questions, Julia Ferraioli of AWS joined Stephen O'Grady of RedMonk for a lively discussion of all things AI and open source. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on July 9, 2024.

Join RedMonk analyst Kate Holterhoff and Sean McQuaid, Lead Software Engineer at Chick-fil-A, as they chat about the Atlanta conference scene, software engineering at Chick-fil-A, and some hot takes on the state of Frontend frameworks, micro-frontends, TypeScript, and leveraging AI code assistants.

As AI continues to reshape the technology industry, it's important to understand its foundations. In this RedMonk Conversation, Stephen O'Grady and Poolside CEO Jason Warner get together to discuss training data. Covering questions that range from ownership and licensing to accessibility and inspection, anyone interested in better understanding the roots of AI and the vital importance of training data will find this conversation of interest. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on June 26, 2024.

"Security at the expense of usability comes at the expense of security." Security consultant and OWASP board member Avi Douglen joins RedMonk's Rachel Stephens to explore how to build meaningful security practices into our applications. Is the OWASP Top 10 a useful standard? (Hint: nope!) What's the best tool for threat modeling? (Hint: a whiteboard!) Come listen as Avi explains practical approaches to security.

Rachel Stephens (RedMonk) and Diya Wynn (Senior Practice Manager, AWS) continue their conversation about responsible AI (more context about how Diya approaches responsible AI as a technologist can be found in our first conversation.) This conversation dives more into data bias and the holistic approach needed to drive responsible AI practices throughout an engineering team. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on May 9, 2022.

Rachel Stephens (RedMonk) and Diya Wynn (Senior Practice Manager, AWS) discuss why responsible AI practices matter. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on May 9, 2022.

Join James Governor and Simon Wistow, Co-Founder at Fastly, in a short discussion on why you should come to the Fastly Xcelerate event in London on June 18. London has evolved into a thriving tech hub, attracting investment and fostering innovation in deep tech and finance, as exemplified by companies like DeepMind. The Fastly Xcelerate event in Shoreditch highlights this dynamic environment by focusing on enhancing the developer experience and democratizing access to powerful technological tools, aiming to spur diverse creativity and innovation. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on May 31, 2024.

Amazon Web Services is not always known for its engagement with open source communities, but there are dedicated teams within AWS trying to change that perception. Listen as Tom "Spot" Callaway discusses building open source culture at AWS with Rachel Stephens of RedMonk. Learn more about AWS' open source teams, how AWS thinks about both adopting and releasing open source projects, and some of the ways that they assess project and community health. This The New Builders episode was originally pubished in video form on June 3, 2024.

As open source did decades ago, AI is now taking the technology industry by storm. This has led to questions of how open source applies to AI, and how open source can be used to improve the results businesses can expect from their investments in AI. To explore these and other questions, we sat down with Matt Hicks, the CEO of Red Hat, and Ruchir Puri, Chief Scientist for IBM Research. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on May 29, 2024.

Another RedMonk Conversation, this time between RedMonk co-founder James Governor and Ably CEO Matthew O'Riordan. They talk about the rise of real time, the power of WebSockets, the value of product led business models, serverless, and of course, the really big question - why are applications so terrible at handling the apostrophes in Irish names? So what's in a serverless stack anyway? Compute, cache, database etc. What's missing? The problem Ably is working on is a great developer experience for creating a stateful connection back to the client, so you can create a live connection. It's about doing one thing well. Composing services that scale with a great DX to make developers more productive. Why not just use Kafka, for real time? What's the difference? And why WebSockets again? This video delves into all that. Is it worth building your own real time architecture using AWS services? Lots of questions and in this episode you'll get some interesting answers. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on September 14, 2022.

In this episode of The Docs Are In, the excellent Alyssa Rock (Staff Technical Writer, VMware; Community Manager, The Good Docs Project; Coordinator, Write the Docs Quorum Program) drops in to chat with Kate and Kelly about the many, many hats she wears. Alyssa discusses her pathway into tech writing (it led through film studies!), some of the good things happening with The Good Docs Project, and her work on the Salt Project as part of her day job with VMware. Also of interest: how to empower folks who are not technical writers to produce effective documentation (while teaching them about tech writing along the way), and how to make open source “sticky” by helping contributors to get started with projects while also creating supportive communities around them. This Docs Are In episode was originally published in video form on January 19, 2023.

In this Docs are In conversation, RedMonk senior analysts KellyAnn Fitzpatrick and Kate Holterhoff chat with Dr. Rebekah Greene, assistant professor at the University of Rochester School of Nursing. Dr. Greene elaborates on her responsibilities in this role and how her as a scholar of 19th century literature actually dovetails and supports her work in clinical nursing. They also discuss the importance of technical communication to the medical profession, and share some strategies and best practices for fostering patient-medical professional communication. This Docs Are In episode was originally published in video form on May 9, 2024.

In this RedMonk Conversation with Keri Olson, IBM VP of AI for code, we discuss IBM's approach to generative AI, focusing on domain specific use cases, such as AI-driven application modernization for IBM's Z Mainframe platform with IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z. IBM is training dedicated models for these use cases, to give customers something they won't find with competitors' models. For example COBOL to Java conversion, with models trained to support all of IBM's mainframe subsystems such as CICS. Olson explains why IBM will allow customers to use AI for specific use cases while maintaining data privacy, security and customer trust. IBM also offers IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed, to enable operators to be more productive in using Ansible infrastructure as code for large scale systems. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on May 8, 2024.

RedMonk's Dr. Kate Holterhoff and Dr. Kelly Fitzpatrick (who each have a Ph.D.) kick off a new series where they sometimes talk to other docs and sometimes talk about documentation. In this video Kelly interviews Kate about Kate's excellent research on certifications in the tech industry. This is an older recording. This Docs Are In episode was originally published in video form on July 28, 2022.

We hear a lot these days about developer success, productivity, and happiness, but what about developer anxiety? Dr. Carol Lee stops by to talk about her research as Principal Scientist at Pluralsight's Developer Success Lab, and how her training as a clinical psychologist comes into play. Kate and Kelly also learn how Carol created an Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Pluralsight to clarify processes around the creation and maintenance of ethical standards and to enable scientific rigor. Also of interest: a research project on code review anxiety, and the creative process behind Carol's webcomic, Thriving Blobs. This Docs Are In episode was originally published in video form on April 25, 2024.

AI-based solutions are cropping up in every portion of the tech stack and at every stage in the SDLC. From chips to applications, from the instantiation of code to running it in production; when new AI solutions are available across the board, how can enterprises consider where to place their investments in this new and evolving space? Join RedMonk's Rachel Stephens as she discusses these questions with Himanshu Singh, who runs AI Product Marketing at VMware by Broadcom. VMware created their Private AI solution to help address these enterprise AI concerns. Join Stephens and Singh as they discuss how enterprises are adopting this technology, how VMware thinks about privacy and risk when it comes to AI, and how enterprises can orchestrate AI workloads to be part of their broader technology solutions. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on April 22, 2024.

RedMonk's Kelly Fitzpatrick and Ember Stevens (Technical Writer, LaunchDarkly) discuss technical writing and documentation (docs as code; what it's like being the lone tech writer at an organization vs. working on a team; working with SMEs) as well as their respective tech industry origin stories in public higher education. Ember also shares some tips on how to get started with technical documentation--tips that mirror approaches to piecing together jigsaw puzzles. This Docs Are In episode was originally published in video form on August 26, 2022.

Join RedMonk's James Governor and GitGuardian CEO Eric Fourrier for a discussion on the role of large language models (LLMs) in secrets management. DevOps processes and microservice architectures continue to drive application development towards a landscape that is more complex, distributed, and fragmented. This increases the prevalence of secrets such as database credentials, API keys, and tokens--which are used to connect all these pieces together--and increases the chance that such secrets may be inadvertently leaked, especially through code. This is where GitGuardian comes in, specializing in helping developers and their organizations with secrets detection and remediation at scale. This conversation focuses on potential advantages and challenges that the rise of generative AI technologies such as LLMs have introduced into the code security space and what this all means for the future of secrets detection and management. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on April 4, 2024.

Beginning in the 1990's, the term “edge computing” was used to describe a variety of compute services that were placed geographically closer to end users. In the ensuing decades, the term came to describe an ever broader array of compute services, and the services at the edge became much more robust. In this video, RedMonk and Cloudflare explore what “edge” means today, and how the evolution of edge services is forcing users to rethink what's possible at the edge. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on April 2, 2024.

The industry has centered around Kubernetes as the abstraction layer that promises portability. Helm charts are great for packaging, but are they enough? Senior RedMonk Analyst Rachel Stephens talks with Replicated co-founder and CTO Marc Campbell about the challenges of shipping software into heterogeneous environments. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on March 29, 2024.

Join RedMonk analysts James Governor and Kate Holterhoff as they chat with Dan Moore about Hacker News, the social news website for developers. This conversation digs into significant questions concerning this network that include not only what makes it unique, but also the special sauce that makes developers flock there. Moore suggests strategies for vendors hoping to successfully engage this community, and more general best practices for becoming involved. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on March 28, 2024.

Join Stephen O'Grady of RedMonk and Ed Anuff (Chief Product Officer, DataStax) in a conversation about application development and databases in 2021. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on January 27, 2021.

In this RedMonk Conversation Kate Holterhoff, senior industry analyst with RedMonk, talks all-things developer certifications with Justin Wheeler, AWS Community Builder, Senior Software Developer at Bravo LT, and developer certification expert. In addition to passing every AWS certification, Justin is also a CNCF Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate; Google Cloud Certified Cloud Digital Leader; and Oracle Certified Associate. Justin talks about his experience and enthusiasm for certifications, explaining the benefits and pitfalls of these tools for furthering both general tech education and career advancement. Justin weighs in of what study materials and exam prep makes a vendor's education portfolio successful, and speaks to the role employers should take in supporting continuing education for software engineers. Find Justin on socials: https://linktr.ee/wheeleruniverse This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on March 21, 2024.

What's VMware up to with multicloud? Find out in this interview with Betty Junod. She's pretty awesome. "Did multicloud eat hybrid cloud? What's happening with the customer?" This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on September 7, 2021.

Kate Holterhoff, analyst with Redmonk, and Carl Sverre, creator of SQLSync and founder of orbitinghail, discuss database management for frontend engineers: an issue that has never been more pressing. Carl expands on the subject of client versus server side data caching, explaining how SQLSync uniquely addresses the data management problem on the frontend. He explains the importance of “offline-first,” meaning that applications are intended to function offline, and lays out his optimism about the future of WebAssembly (Wasm). This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on February 29, 2024.

In October 2023, Amazon Web Services (AWS) invited RedMonk analysts Kelly Fitzpatrick, Kate Holterhoff, and Rachel Stephens to Austin, TX, so that they could report on AWS technology in action at relevant Formula 1™ events (AWS has an existing partnership with Formula 1™). In this the analysts discuss their initial impressions, the technology they saw in play, and their overall takeaways from the events. This Quick Take was originally published in video form on February 26, 2024.

In this RedMonk conversation James Governor catches up with Boris Bialek, Field CTO at MongoDB on industry solutions and scalability. Given the story of the company includes one of the most well known memes in database history - “MongoDB is web scale” we felt it might be time to take another look. Bialek has been working on database scale for decades, including work on IBM's venerable relational database DB2, so he's seen it all. He's enjoying life at MongoDB working on customer problems at scale with MongoDB, and that's what the show is about. The conversation looks at ACID compliance and transactionality, something MongoDB isn't known for, but which it has supported for some time. It explores the complexity and scale of managing ecommerce financial transactions at scale with Black Friday events.. From luxury brands to real-time data management in cars, Boris highlights MongoDB's real-time integration functionality. The discussion also touches upon scalability and optimization in database systems for real-time decision-making. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on February 22, 2024.

As generative AI drives demand for training and inference workloads, the tech industry has turned to innovations in chip, board and server design to provide the infrastructure and compute power to meet these demands. Annapurna Labs, which Amazon acquired in 2015, plays a key role in AWS's ability to innovate in this area, having developed the Nitro, Graviton, Inferentia, and Trainium families of processors. As a follow-up to RedMonk's tour of Annapurna Labs in Austin, TX, Senior Analyst Kelly Fitzpatrick sits down with Chetan Kapoor (Director of Product Management for the Amazon EC2 Accelerated Computing Portfolio) to discuss how the custom silicon developed at Annapurna Labs is a differentiator for AWS, some of the differences between the infrastructure needs of training and inference workloads, and what AWS is doing to support developers building genAI applications. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on February 20, 2024.

Dr. Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon, drops in for a discussion with RedMonk's Kelly Fitzpatrick on Web Assembly (WASM), philosophy, and Matt's intersecting interests in the humanities and technology. Topics covered include analytic vs. continental philosophy (and what Descartes has to do with them); Baudrillard on hyperreality; a TL;DR intro to Web Assembly; and how Kant figures into the chapter Matt would write for a book on WASM and Philosophy. This Docs Are In was originally published in video form on February 16, 2024. Related Resources: Learn more about Web Assembly: https://webassembly.org/ Information on Fermyon: https://www.fermyon.com/

Software quality and engineering metrics is a big topic in the industry right now, as companies seek to become more effective and competitive, and better understand how their engineering teams are performing. In this conversation Emilio Salvador, VP of Development at GitLab, and James Governor from RedMonk talk about the impact on generative AI on these topics, and take a look at GitLab's own framework for better understanding productivity - focusing on Task, Team, and Time dynamics. What is developer productivity, after all? What is team productivity? What does writing code 25% faster actually mean? What if you save an engineer an hour a week - what is that worth? What is breakthrough productivity? What if we could build 10 times as many things as we could before. What are the implications? Measuring, managing and understanding developer productivity requires us to consider these kinds of questions. The discussion delves into the complexities of measuring developer productivity, emphasizing that it cannot be reduced to a single number. The conversation explores the challenges in measuring performance, including the need for a combination of data sources and addressing cultural differences within teams. Emilio argues that we must recognise development as a team sport, with a focus on matching skill sets to internal transformations, always fostering collaboration within development teams. This RedMonk Conversation was originally published in video form on February 6, 2024.