Code for Thought

Hosted by Peter Schmidt

Technology Science Education

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Episodes

215

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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EN-GB

About the show

Welcome to Code for Thought, the podcast about software for research and the people who make it. Languages: English, German, French

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60 recent

June 15, 2026Episode 2136 min

[EN] What happened to agile development? - A review with Dave Thomas

English Edition: I want to come back to agile development practices with my guest Dave Thomas, or Pragmatic Dave as he is also known in the trade. Dave is one of the authors of the manifesto for agile development - and we talk about what has become of the aims and aspirations of agile development since the manifesto's publication in 2001. Links:https://agilemanifesto.org the manifesto of agile software developmenthttps://pragdave.me/ Dave's home pagehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M Agile is dead by Dave Thomas - YouTubeGet in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

June 10, 2026Episode 2039 min

[ES] ¿Qué es la ingeniería de software de investigación?

Versión en espagñol: El software se está comiendo al mundo, y esto incluye al mundo científico. En estos días, hacer ciencia requiere también desarrollar software, ya sea usando Python para analizar datos, o construyendo aplicaciones web en JavaScript para compartir modelos computacionales con expertos. Mientras muchos científicos se encargan ellos mismos de estas tareas, otros las delegan a especialistas en desarrollo de software científico. Estos especialistas tienen el título de "ingenieros de software de investigación".En esta edición del podcast, Sofía Miñano y Carlos Gavidia-Calderón, ambos ingenieros de software de investigación trabajando en el Reino Unido, conversan sobre su profesión. Entre otras cosas, comentan:Cómo se puede hacer carrera en ingeniería de software de investigación.Las diferencias que ven entre construir software dentro y fuera de la comunidad científica.Los retos de la ingeniería de software y de la ciencia en Latinoamérica..La comunidad de ingenieros de software y científicos hispanohablantes.LinksSeminario “Charlas RSE en espanol”: https://charlas-rse-espanol.github.io/ Conferencia RSLA 2026: https://rs-latam.org/ ixpantia: https://www.ixpantia.com/en/ Link a la transcripción en español:https://raw.githubusercontent.com/charlas-rse-espanol/codeforthought-transcripts/refs/heads/main/20-S11-ES-RSEEspagnol_reviewed_ES.txt Link to the translated transcript in English: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/charlas-rse-espanol/codeforthought-transcripts/refs/heads/main/20-S11-ES-RSEEspagnol_reviewed_EN.txt Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

June 8, 2026Episode 1949 min

[EN] When Bits Rot - with C McKean, L Talboom, A Page-Mitchell

English Edition: floppy disks, hard drives, CDs, DVDs, SSD drives - no matter what you choose to store your data on - ultimately they all decay. With my guests Callum McKean, Leontien Talboom and Adrian Page-Mitchell, we're going to talk about what kinds of data we find on old drives, why we want to get them in the first place, and what can go wrong with the storage media. To all of you who love all things retro - we'll be talking about floppy disks a bit. Links:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A PDF A formathttps://www.ibm.com/history/floppy-disk history of floppy diskshttps://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=2140 The BBC Domesday projecthttps://domesday.computinghistory.org.uk/https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ The excellent Centre of Computing History in Cambridge, UKhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4849567/ stability of DVDs and CDshttps://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec5/ how environmental conditions affect optical drivesConference announcementshttps://rse.swiss/swiss_rse_day Swiss RSE Day, 31 August 2026https://www.researchsoft.org/irsc/ International Research Software Conference 7-8 September 2026, Sheffield, UKhttps://rsecon26.society-rse.org/ UK RSE Conference (the 10th anniversary) in Sheffield, UK 9-11 September 2026https://nordic-rse.org/nrse2026/ 9 June 2026, Tromsoe, Norwayhttps://events.hifis.net/event/3249/overview deRSE Collaborations workshop in Goettingen, Germany 23-25 Septemberhttps://us-rse.org/usrse26/ US RSE Conference, 19-21 October 2026, San Jose, CA, USAGet in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

June 1, 2026Episode 1838 min

[EN] Does Spec-Driven Development replace agile? With Graham Lee

English Edition: Will spec-driven development replace agile processes? My guest Graham Lee (https://chironcodex.com/ ) and I discuss if there is still a place for agile software engineering in a world of AI assisted coding.Links:https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/sdd-3-tools.html the discussion on spec driven development by Brigitta Boeckeler https://dev.to/cleberdelima/the-end-of-agile-when-the-assumptions-beneath-your-methodology-collapse-3g12 the blog post by Cleber de Lima quoted in the episodehttps://www.sicpers.info/2025/12/is-spec-driven-development-the-end-of-agile-software-development/ Graham's blog post on spec driven developmentDiscussions on Spec Driven and agile development:https://www.inflectra.com/Ideas/Whitepaper/Is-Agile-Dead.aspxhttps://www.thoughtworks.com/en-gb/insights/blog/agile-engineering-practices/spec-driven-development-unpacking-2025-new-engineering-practiceshttps://dev.to/jmontagne/mckinsey-just-killed-agile-why-commando-units-are-the-only-way-to-survive-legacy-migration-40lkhttps://marmelab.com/blog/2025/11/12/spec-driven-development-waterfall-strikes-back.htmlhttps://ronjeffries.com/categories/dark-scrum/ "dark scrum"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamsandman_is-agile-dead-is-ai-killing-agile-development-activity-7367308312620527616--3-2/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-agile-story-points-why-im-trading-sprints-spec-driven-park-6dfke/Some tools for spec driven developmenthttps://kiro.dev/ KIROhttps://github.com/github/spec-kit GitHub’s spec-kithttps://docs.tessl.io/ TeslaGet in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

May 25, 2026Episode 1740 min

[DE] Die Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften - mit Christina Quensel

Deutsche Ausgabe: Seit über 25 Jahren bringt die Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften (LNDW) Forschungsprojekte und ForscherInnen der Allgemeinheit näher. Zusammen mit Christina Quensel, die die LNDW leitet, habe ich mich über Ursprünge, Herausforderungen und wie es mit der LNDW weitergeht unterhalten. Die LNDW in Berlin findet am 6. Juni 2026 statt und Tickets noch am selben Tag zu haben. Also nix wie hin...Linkshttps://www.langenachtderwissenschaften.de/ https://www.langenachtderwissenschaften.de/programm hier ist das Programm zur LNDWhttps://lndw-tickets.reservix.de/p/reservix/event/2535589 Ticketshttps://www.campusberlinbuch.de/de/IndexGet in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

May 18, 2026Episode 1647 min

[EN] ByteSized: create your web-site with GitHub Pages - J Cohen, S Gibson

English Edition: In this ByteSized episode & online class we're talking about GitHub Pages and how it can help you to create a web-site for your research project (reasonably) quickly. With me are Sarah Gibson and Jeremy Cohen. I'd like to thank the UK STEP-UP project and Imperial College London for supporting this show. Links:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_GitHubhttps://docs.github.com/en/pages https://github.blog/developer-skills/github/github-for-beginners-getting-started-with-github-pages/ https://jekyllrb.com/docs/history/#v0-1-0https://jekyllrb.com/ https://liquidjs.com/tutorials/intro-to-liquid.htmlhttps://gohugo.io/https://jupyterbook.org/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_STFQc9Y2zY Sarah Gibson’s tutorial on Hugo and GitHub Pages on YouTubehttps://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax/ https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/pages/https://docs.codeberg.org/codeberg-pages/ Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

May 11, 2026Episode 1528 min

[EN] Managing Packages with Pixi - Raniere de Silva and Wolf Vollprecht

English Edition: there is a (relatively) new kid on the block - of open source package managers. It's called Pixi: and in this episode I talk to Raniere de Silva (GESIS) and Wolf Vollprecht (Prefix - the company behind Pixi), what the tool brings to the table. Links:https://prefix.dev/ the open source company making pixi availablehttps://pixi.prefix.dev/latest/ the package managerhttps://github.com/prefix-dev/pixihttps://mamba.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ mamba package manager Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

May 4, 2026Episode 1431 min

[EN] Computing, but not as you know it: Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) - with Michael McLeod

English Edition: In a follow up about "unusual" computers I want to focus on field programmable gate arrays - FPGAs. With my guest and former colleague at UCL, Michael McLeod, we talk about what they are, where they are used and what's so special about working with them.Links:https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/field-programmable-gate-arrays https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array https://fpga.epcc.ed.ac.uk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_description_language https://nandland.com/the-go-board/ the Go Board affordable FPGA for testing and learninghttps://nandland.com/ Nandland have more resources on FPGAhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xilinxhttps://web.archive.org/web/20070412183416/http://filebox.vt.edu/users/tmagin/history.htmhttps://www.amd.com/en/products/adaptive-socs-and-fpgas/fpga.html https://space.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/2024-10/FPL_13_B112a.pdf Paper discussing a use case of hardware preservation with FPGAshttps://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/FPGA-relatedWork/RISC.pdf Niklaus Wirth, the creator of the Pascal language, did some work with FPGA as wellhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_decision_process Markov decision processhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

April 27, 2026Episode 1339 min

[DE] ICON oder der Weg zu einer offenen Software mit H Bockelmann, J Engels, L Schlemmer

Deutsche Ausgabe: ICON, das große Software Paket für Klimamodellierung, Wettervorhersagen und andere Anwendungsbereiche, ist auf gutem Wege Open Source Software zu werden. Aber daß das nicht immer ganz so leicht ist, werden uns in dieser Folge Hendryk Bockelmann und Jan (Jeff) Frederik Engels vom Deutschen Klimarechenzentrum und Linda Schlemmer vom Deutschen Wetterdienst erzählen. Hier ein paar Links:https://www.dkrz.de/en/communication/news-archive/icon-open-source https://www.icon-model.org/icon_model/getting_startedhttps://gitlab.dkrz.de/icon/icon-model https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL31FjyhyyqwkvOaj_e-EbJa4F0Z0n8yGU online courseshttps://mpimet.mpg.de/en/communication/news/icon-team-receives-international-recognition-for-groundbreaking-achievements-in-high-performance-computing https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/news/archive/announcements/2025/icon-team-wins-gordon-bell-prize-for-climate-modeling Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

April 20, 2026Episode 121 hr 0 min

[EN] Making Data Last

English Edition: preserving digital data has become essential for archives and libraries, as we have seen an explosion of content. I met with various experts in the field who talk to me about the different aspects and facets of saving our data for future generations to come: Thomas Ries (University of Austin, Texas, US), Nanna Bonde Thylstrup and Katie Mackinnon (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Andy Jackson (Digital Preservation Coalition, UK) and Laurisa Sastoque Pabon (University of Southampton, UK). Some links to tools and sites mentioned in the episode:https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/format/proformatsearch.aspx?status=new Pronom database by the National Archive in the UKhttps://www.dpconline.org/ Digital Preservation Coalitionhttps://bit-list.dpconline.org/ list of 'endangered digital material'https://thorsten-ries.net/ Thorsten Ries home pagehttps://www.southampton.ac.uk/research/institutes-centres/digital-preservation-southampton Digital preservation at the Uni. Southamptonhttps://arcticworldarchive.org/ Svalbard Arctic World Archive https://piql.com/ piql data preservationhttps://github.com/piql GitHub Piql - the archiving file formathttps://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/434376-preserving-today-s-digital-data-for-tomorrow https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10042-w storing data in glass/silica https://unlocked.microsoft.com/sealed-in-glass/ Project Silicahttps://english.umd.edu/directory/matthew-kirschenbaum Kirschenbaum papers on recovering digital texts etc. https://www.kali.org/tools/foremost/ the open source "forensic" data tool https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls going back in time: a link with a description of the Dead Sea scrolls Get in touchThank you for listening! Merci de votre écoute! Vielen Dank für´s Zuhören!Contact Details/ Coordonnées / Kontakt:Email mailto:peter@code4thought.orgUK RSE Slack (ukrse.slack.com): @code4thought or @piddie Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/code4thought.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pweschmidt/ (personal Profile)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/codeforthought/ (Code for Thought Profile)This podcast is licensed under the Creative Commons Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/