Wed, 25 June 2025 SE Radio 674: Vilhelm von Ehrenheim on Autonomous Testing Vilhelm von Ehrenheim, co-founder and chief AI officer of QA.tech, speaks with SE Radio's Brijesh Ammanath about autonomous testing. The discussion starts by covering the fundamentals, and how testing has evolved from manual to automated to now autonomous. Vilhelm then deep dives into the details of autonomous testing and the role of agents in autonomous testing. They consider the challenges in adopting autonomous testing, and Wilhelm describes the experiences of some clients who have made the transition. Toward the end of the show, Vilhelm describes the impact of autonomous testing on the traditional QA career and what test professionals can do to upskill. This episode is sponsored by Fly.io. Direct download: 674-vilhelm-von-ehrenheim-autonomous-testing.mp3 Category:guest/technology -- posted at: 2:29am CEST

Wed, 18 June 2025 SE Radio 673: Abhinav Kimothi on Retrieval-Augmented Generation In this episode of Software Engineering Radio, Abhinav Kimothi sits down with host Priyanka Raghavan to explore retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), drawing insights from Abhinav's book, A Simple Guide to Retrieval-Augmented Generation. The conversation begins with an introduction to key concepts, including large language models (LLMs), context windows, RAG, hallucinations, and real-world use cases. They then delve into the essential components and design considerations for building a RAG-enabled system, covering topics such as retrievers, prompt augmentation, indexing pipelines, retrieval strategies, and the generation process. The discussion also touches on critical aspects like data chunking and the distinctions between open-source and pre-trained models. The episode concludes with a forward-looking perspective on the future of RAG and its evolving role in the industry. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine. Direct download: 673-abhinav-kimothi-rag.mp3 Category:guest/technology -- posted at: 7:56pm CEST

Fri, 13 June 2025 SE Radio 672: Luca Palmieri on Rust In Production Luca Palmieri, author of Zero to Production in Rust and Principal Engineering Consultant at MainMatter, speaks with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about Rust in production. They discuss what production Rust means, how to get Rust code into production, specific Rust issues to think about when getting an application into production, what Rust profiles are, expected performance, telemetry options, error handling and what parts of Rust to use and avoid.  Palmieri discusses docker containers, tracing, robust Rust error handling, how performant Rust is in the real world, p50, p99, docker build techniques, project layouts, crates, speeding up Rust build times, unwrap(), panics, budgeting resources, inner development loops, the Facade Pattern, structured logging, and how to always use clippy. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine. Direct download: 672-luca-palmieri-on-rust-in-production.mp3 Category:guest/technology -- posted at: 1:09am CEST

Wed, 4 June 2025 SE Radio 671: Carson Gross on HTMX In this episode, SE Radio host Sriram Panyam explores HTMX with its creator, Carson Gross, who is also creator of Hyperscript, the mind behind the Grug Brained Developer, a professor of software engineering at Montana State University, and co-author of Hypermedia Systems. HTMX is a modern JavaScript library that allows developers to access AJAX, WebSockets, CSS Transitions, and Server-Sent Events directly in HTML using attributes. It represents a return to hypermedia-driven application architecture while supporting modern user experiences. The episode starts with a look at the current complexity in web development and how HTMX offers an alternative approach. Carson explains the core philosophy of "HTML as the interface" and how hypermedia principles influenced HTMX's design. From there, they dive into HTMX's technical concepts, including its attribute system, server-side integration, event handling, and state management approach. Carson shares some real-world implementation strategies, including migration paths from JavaScript frameworks, architectural patterns, and performance considerations -- as well as a few scenarios in which HTMX might not be the best fit. Finally, they look at the growing HTMX ecosystem, community contributions, and future development roadmap. Throughout the episode, Carson provides concrete examples and case studies of HTMX in production environments. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine. Direct download: 671-carson-gross-htmx.mp3 Category:guest/technology -- posted at: 9:52pm CEST