mastodon 4.7.3baby goat enthusiast.
redmonk analyst.
best friends with @devinreams@snowmastodon.social.
The world feels particularly cruel right now, so I want to say this all again with my full chest.
--
To the transgender people I know and love,
To the colleagues, friends, and neighbors I am grateful to have in my community,
To the brave generation of kids out there being themselves in an unfairly hostile world:
You make the world better. 🏳️⚧️💕
And I will continue to do what I can to make the world better for you, too.
#TransDayOfVisibility
Modern software systems aren’t just complicated. They’re complex.
I loved this @redmonk@mastodon.social Conversation with @dpp@mastodon.social, @petrillic@hachyderm.io and @aeva@tech.lgbt
We talked about where our modern tooling and best practices fall short, how incentives shape complexity, and what open source communities get right about operating in messy, interconnected environments.
Listen to the full episode here: https://redmonk.com/videos/complexity/
Can everyone building agent orchestration tools *please* stop using the term "overseer" to describe human oversight?
We already learned this lesson with master > main. Words matter.
the most relatable part of Little Mermaid as a parent is the horror of discovering your child has built a shrine out of random trash they found on the playground, and they are emotionally attached to every single “treasure”
whole fucking house is full of dinglehoppers I can’t throw away.
I'm trying really hard to replace unnecessary apologies with gratitude (in the vein of "thanks for your help" instead of "sorry for the trouble")
The problem is my muscle memory around apologizing is strong
And so sometimes I ask a server for extra napkins and then say "sorry very much"
The @redmonk@mastodon.social team allows* me to plan activities for the team holiday happy hour every year, and I am SO EXCITED for today's Show and Tell festivities!
*begrudgingly allows...
Sometimes I forget that you can make your life just a little bit better by adding cheese to things.
(an insight brought to you by making _cheesy_ broccoli for lunch, not just regular broccoli)
I regret to inform you that people have officially started circling back around after the holidays
me, feeling sick over the weekend:
Ugh, why am I always the one who catches the preschool colds?
me, getting licked on the nose while putting my son to bed:
Ahh, I see.
Databases aren’t going away, but how they fit in the modern data landscape is changing.
Here's how we're thinking about the unbundling of storage, compute, and interface layers at @redmonk@mastodon.social
https://redmonk.com/rstephens/2026/02/19/database-disintermediation/
Come hang out with @kateholterhoff@hachyderm.io and me while we talk to AWS about visions of the future of software development
We're live at 9:30 Pacific!
www.twitch.tv/kirodotdev
I recently filmed a MonkCast episode with Audrey Bian from Broadcom. She explained the features of the latest VKS 3.6 release and talked me through how the platform benefits various roles in the enterprise.
Check out the full episode (with visuals!) here: https://redmonk.com/videos/vks-audrey-bian/
I recorded a delightful conversation with Jay Thontakudi, talking about how developers and platform teams can benefit from VMware's partnership with Canonical
New video up: a conversation about how the observability market is evolving and the role vendors like @dynatrace@bird.makeup are playing. Worth a watch if you’re thinking about tooling and data strategy.
It's a launch day at @redmonk@mastodon.social !
My colleague @monkchips@mastodon.social , along with his lovely coauthors Kimberly Harrison, Heidi Waterhouse and Adam Zimman have released their Progressive Delivery book into the world!
If you want to read more about how to read more, click on through and let me share some highlights with you :)
https://redmonk.com/rstephens/2025/11/04/progressive-delivery/
from an outsider's perspective, I spent 20 minutes this morning booking appointments.
but that myopic view erases the 6 months of avoidance, denial, and general anxiety it took to get me to this 20 minutes.
please respect my art.
The @redmonk@mastodon.social newsletter in which @amcasari@hachyderm.io sparks an existential crisis.
https://buttondown.com/redmonk/archive/redmonk-november-2025-update/
Here are some thoughts from the @redmonk@mastodon.social team on the recent @IBM@mastodon.social M&A news. Come read our deal analysis on the HashiCorp merger and the DataStax acquisition announcement.
With input from @sogrady@mastodon.social @monkchips@mastodon.social @drkellyannfitz@bird.makeup and myself
https://redmonk.com/rstephens/2025/03/14/ibm-hashicorp-datastax/
Y'all really should check out my colleague @kateholterhoff@hachyderm.io's piece on JavaScript bundlers. It's so so good.
https://redmonk.com/kholterhoff/2025/12/16/javascript-bundler-grand-prix/
If you're a technical IC who cares about application performance, you should check out Monster Scale Summit. I had a great time keynoting last year, and the speaker lineup this year looks excellent!
youtu.be/eon5E356kNE
@sortova@redwombat.social I sadly believe you are correct on that point