Software should work, and talking about it needn't be boring
- ID
- 17164
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 24 Aug 2026, 4:31 PM
- Fetched
- 24 Aug 2026, 4:44 PM
- Provider
- The Register
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.theregister.com/columnists/2026/08/24/software-should-work-and-talking-about-it-neednt-be-boring/5290862
- Source URL
- https://www.theregister.com/headlines.atom
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 24 Aug 2026, 4:45 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersdatabase_learners
What happened
Rupert Goodwins reviews 'Software Should Work 2026,' a 13-video streamed conference on software reliability covering formal methods, complexity management, tooling, and team culture. He highlights Richard Feldman's comparison of web stacks across 1996, 2006, and 2026—plus eight contemporary language/runtime sites (TypeScript, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Rust, Zig, Go, Roc)—and Richard Hipp's talk on how SQLite's codebase evolved alongside its testing methods.
Why it matters
If you build production systems, Feldman's dependency-abstraction graph across decades and languages is a concrete lens for evaluating whether your current stack's complexity is justified or accidental. Hipp's SQLite testing journey is directly relevant to anyone maintaining a long-lived codebase and deciding how to evolve test strategy without losing motivation or coverage.
Discussion angle
Which of the eight language/runtime stacks Feldman compared would you bet on for a new project in 2026, and does his 'inexorable multiplication of abstractions' argument change your answer?