How Many CTOs · 2026-08-04 · 1h 2m
In this episode of "How Many CTOs Does It Take?" podcast, hosts Scott Porad and Brad Hefta-Gaub are honored to interview Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, who recounts his 60+ year programming journey from a three-bit binary device and years of assembly to C, C++, and Java, to now using AI agents to code. He explains how the Agile movement emerged from the design patterns community, Extreme Programming, and the 2001 Snowbird meeting that produced the Agile Manifesto. He argues Agile arose as a response to failed upfront analysis/design and emphasizes feedback, small iterations, and early discovery of uncertainty, while noting Agile was later overtaken by project managers and certification-driven Scrum. Martin discusses the ongoing tension between business roadmaps and engineering uncertainty, advising ranges over firm dates, and connects Agile lessons to AI coding: neither big upfront specs nor "vibe coding" works without strong engineering disciplines enforced by deterministic tools (tests, static analysis, CRAP metric), enabling developers to step back from reading syntax while still guiding quality.
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