Code with Jason

In this episode I talk with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, about her PhD research on Darwin's methods, speculation in science, and how 19th century evolutionary thinking influenced literature. We discuss epistemology, conjecture and criticism, and how these ideas connect to programming.

Links:

• RedMonk
• Speculation and the Darwinian Method in British Romance Fiction, 1859-1914
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Michael Ferranti from Unleash about feature flags, trunk-based development, and why DevOps metrics alone aren't sufficient. We discuss FeatureOps—focusing on customer outcomes rather than just code delivery—plus the "three voices" (engineering, business, customer) and AI's role in accelerating feedback loops.

Links:

• Unleash
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Josef Strzibny about his books Deployment from Scratch and Kamal Handbook, the economics of info products in the Ruby space, his new project Lake AI, and his road trip through the Balkans. We also compare driving cultures across Europe and the US.

Links:

• Kamal Handbook
• Deployment from Scratch
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Tom Akehurst, CTO and Co-founder at WireMock, about API mocking, testing philosophy (verification vs specification, contracts, the testing pyramid), inner vs outer loop development, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) for integrating AI coding tools with external services.

Links:

• WireMock
• WireMock on YouTube
• Tom Akehurst on LinkedIn
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Jarrett Yew about his 10-year programming journey, early freelancing failures, working with difficult clients, and we go deep on AGI, neuroscience, spatial reasoning in language, and David Deutsch's theories on perception.

Links:

• Jarrett Yew on LinkedIn
• jarrettyew.com
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Raphael Masson, CTO of Missive, and Craig Kerstiens from Crunchy Data. We cover bootstrapping Missive from a side project (Conference Badge), growing from 3 to 15 employees, migrating off Heroku, and why most developers underutilize Postgres.

Links:

• Missive
• Crunchy Data
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Mike Bowers, Chief Architect at Faircom, about ISAM—the bare-metal database layer that predates SQL and powers stock trading systems. We cover Faircom's pivot into industrial IoT, their JSON/SQL hybrid approach, and discuss AI, consciousness, and the symbol grounding problem.

Links:

• FairCom
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Mike Mroczka about his book Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview. We discuss why algorithmic interviews persist, how AI has disrupted hiring, and why personal branding matters more than ever. Mike shares strategies for bypassing flooded job applications by contacting hiring managers directly.

• mikemroczka.com
• Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview on Amazon
• Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell

In this episode I talk with Austin Chadwick and Chris Lucian about AI and machine learning. We discuss why LLMs may not lead to AGI, the history of AI funding, the philosophy of induction versus explanation, and my robot project idea for building intelligence from sensory experience up.

Links:

• Mob Mentality Show
• Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Gregory Kapfhammer about flaky tests. We cover their five main causes, why fixing individual flaky tests isn't enough, and how test suite health connects to broader engineering practices, team culture, and the overall quality mindset of an organization.

Links:

• https://www.gregorykapfhammer.com/
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/GregKapfhammer
• https://fosstodon.org/@gkapfham
• https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g0eDPjYAAAAJ
• https://github.com/gkapfham
• The Beginning of Infinity
• Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
• Nonsense Monthly