Episode 224: 2026 End of Year Mayhem

The AB Testing podcast's year-end tradition—now in its 11th iteration—took an unusual turn this year. Regular co-host Brent was absent, still "working on Satya's castle," so host Alan (SPY) brought in two guests: Valmir, a QA engineer from Brazil now based in Barcelona with 20 years in testing, and "Global Warming," a recurring guest from Germany. Together they reflected on 2025 and made predictions for 2026, covering books, podcasts, remote work, AI's impact on software careers, and personal finance philosophy.

Books, podcasts, and the shifting value of code reading

Valmir's standout read of 2025 was Kent Beck's Tidy First?, a short book on software design that asks whether you should clean up code before making a behavioral change, after it, or not at all. Beck argues that the cost of software is approximately equal to its coupling—the biggest change you have to make is determined by how tightly connected the pieces are. Valmir contrasted this with John Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design, which inspired Beck's book. Alan connected this directly to the AI era: "The ability to read code would become more important than the ability to write," he said, and that prediction is already playing out. AI generates code that works but needs "caressing"—intelligent refactoring, tidying, and throwing away what's unnecessary. The s