Benji Weber
@benjiweber.com
Tech Leader & Software Engineer • Tech and Teams, Extreme Programming, Java • CTO & Co-founder @ Geordie.ai • Previously Snyk, Unruly • Writes things at http://benjiweber.com/blog
Pinned
Benji Weber
@benjiweber.com
· Jan 1
Overcoming Resistance to Extreme Programming - Benji's Blog
Developers discount XP based on misconceptions. Managers say they support collaborative working while simultaneously reinforcing incentives that demonstrate the opposite. Let's explore sources of resi...
benjiweber.co.uk
New year's blog post on sources of resistance to XP, and helping teams overcome it without coercion.
benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2025/01...
benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2025/01...
Reposted by Benji Weber
Here Comes Jeffrey Combs
YouTube video by John C. Worsley
www.youtube.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Benji Weber
I wrote a post about why I don't like the name that Amazon uses for their post-incident review process: "Correction of Error". surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/20/w...
Why I don’t like “Correction of Error”
Like many companies, AWS has a defined process for reviewing incidents. They call their process Correction of Error. For example, there’s a page on Correction of Error in their Well-Architect…
surfingcomplexity.blog
December 21, 2025 at 12:27 AM
I wrote a post about why I don't like the name that Amazon uses for their post-incident review process: "Correction of Error". surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/12/20/w...
I want to see daylight again, Gandalf, daylight.
December 16, 2025 at 8:27 AM
I want to see daylight again, Gandalf, daylight.
Discovered there's a setting to change #intellij 's default infuriating behaviour of opening seemingly random tab when you drag/split editor views.
I really wonder why "Most recently opened tab" is not the default.
I really wonder why "Most recently opened tab" is not the default.
![Intellij options When the current tab is closed, activate: [ * The tab on the left , ( ) the tab on the right, ( ) Most recently opened tab ]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ebnleh2de6xxgnbp2k3n43or/bafkreidayfjkft4ijtpuahwuug7prazyie64pg6ffo26tsgqmvc3fvazsa@jpeg)
December 13, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Discovered there's a setting to change #intellij 's default infuriating behaviour of opening seemingly random tab when you drag/split editor views.
I really wonder why "Most recently opened tab" is not the default.
I really wonder why "Most recently opened tab" is not the default.
I like parameterised tests but find #junit 's EnumSource/MethodSource etc dissatisfying.
Here's how you can parameterize tests with #java records
gist.github.com/benjiman/e9f...
Here's how you can parameterize tests with #java records
gist.github.com/benjiman/e9f...
December 6, 2025 at 8:08 AM
I like parameterised tests but find #junit 's EnumSource/MethodSource etc dissatisfying.
Here's how you can parameterize tests with #java records
gist.github.com/benjiman/e9f...
Here's how you can parameterize tests with #java records
gist.github.com/benjiman/e9f...
Today I'm grumpy at Chrome putting "split view" where open in new window has been in every browser, building muscle memory for decades…for a feature that everyone's window manager already has.
December 6, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Today I'm grumpy at Chrome putting "split view" where open in new window has been in every browser, building muscle memory for decades…for a feature that everyone's window manager already has.
Reposted by Benji Weber
And here’s an excellent post on how to apply them (most of this is not Ruby-specific):
obie.medium.com/ruby-was-rea...
obie.medium.com/ruby-was-rea...
Ruby Was Ready From The Start
Notes and expanded thoughts on eXtreme Programming, AI agents, and the soul of Ruby from my SF Ruby Conference Keynote 2025 talk
obie.medium.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM
And here’s an excellent post on how to apply them (most of this is not Ruby-specific):
obie.medium.com/ruby-was-rea...
obie.medium.com/ruby-was-rea...
Reposted by Benji Weber
Hilarious and terrifying: jailbreak LLMs using poetry
"These findings demonstrate that stylistic variation alone can circumvent contemporary safety mechanisms, suggesting fundamental limitations in current alignment methods and evaluation protocols."
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
"These findings demonstrate that stylistic variation alone can circumvent contemporary safety mechanisms, suggesting fundamental limitations in current alignment methods and evaluation protocols."
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
1 Introduction
arxiv.org
November 22, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Hilarious and terrifying: jailbreak LLMs using poetry
"These findings demonstrate that stylistic variation alone can circumvent contemporary safety mechanisms, suggesting fundamental limitations in current alignment methods and evaluation protocols."
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
"These findings demonstrate that stylistic variation alone can circumvent contemporary safety mechanisms, suggesting fundamental limitations in current alignment methods and evaluation protocols."
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
SUVs in London are really getting out of hand.
November 20, 2025 at 8:46 PM
SUVs in London are really getting out of hand.
Reposted by Benji Weber
The most common things engineering leaders think will make dev teams go faster actually have the opposite effect.
codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/t...
codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/t...
The Seven Deadly Sins of “Go Faster”
Things that will make your dev team take longer to deliver worse software:1. Adding more people to the team2. Making them work longer hours3. Cutting down on work that “slows them down”…
codemanship.wordpress.com
November 13, 2025 at 6:42 AM
The most common things engineering leaders think will make dev teams go faster actually have the opposite effect.
codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/t...
codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/13/t...
Microsoft: Operation failed, X is unlicensed, good luck figuring out what licence you need, (won't be called X).
Google: Operation failed, you've hit a hard quota, good luck contacting a human to fix.
Amazon: Everything worked, but good luck figuring out why you're paying 10x what you expected.
Google: Operation failed, you've hit a hard quota, good luck contacting a human to fix.
Amazon: Everything worked, but good luck figuring out why you're paying 10x what you expected.
October 31, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Microsoft: Operation failed, X is unlicensed, good luck figuring out what licence you need, (won't be called X).
Google: Operation failed, you've hit a hard quota, good luck contacting a human to fix.
Amazon: Everything worked, but good luck figuring out why you're paying 10x what you expected.
Google: Operation failed, you've hit a hard quota, good luck contacting a human to fix.
Amazon: Everything worked, but good luck figuring out why you're paying 10x what you expected.
Wish people would stop trying to use their user-agent based guess as to which OS I want a download link for, to remove all other options from the page and/or show a "not supported" page.
It's tiresome having to keep changing user agent to get the right downloads.
It's tiresome having to keep changing user agent to get the right downloads.
October 25, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Wish people would stop trying to use their user-agent based guess as to which OS I want a download link for, to remove all other options from the page and/or show a "not supported" page.
It's tiresome having to keep changing user agent to get the right downloads.
It's tiresome having to keep changing user agent to get the right downloads.
"we didn't actually have a good idea, we had the freedom to actually spend time and go and work on it, and even more importantly, we didn't have any pressure that was coming down from management, No pressure to work on any particular project, publish a number of papers to push a certain metric up."
Llion Jones, co-author of the 2017 paper that launched the transformer era, says he’s ‘absolutely sick’ of transformers — and believes the field’s over-fixation on one architecture may be stifling the next breakthrough. venturebeat.com/ai/sakana-ai...
venturebeat.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:23 PM
"we didn't actually have a good idea, we had the freedom to actually spend time and go and work on it, and even more importantly, we didn't have any pressure that was coming down from management, No pressure to work on any particular project, publish a number of papers to push a certain metric up."
Reposted by Benji Weber
It turns out techniques used by top software engineering teams help accelerate coding agents as well:
Version control, documentation, careful planning, automated tests, linters, strong code review culture, really thorough QA
Sophisticated processes for professional engineers
Version control, documentation, careful planning, automated tests, linters, strong code review culture, really thorough QA
Sophisticated processes for professional engineers
October 7, 2025 at 2:36 PM
It turns out techniques used by top software engineering teams help accelerate coding agents as well:
Version control, documentation, careful planning, automated tests, linters, strong code review culture, really thorough QA
Sophisticated processes for professional engineers
Version control, documentation, careful planning, automated tests, linters, strong code review culture, really thorough QA
Sophisticated processes for professional engineers
The trouble with these electronic wing mirrors on buses now is one can't see if the bus driver is paying attention when #cycling. Why wouldn't the bus driver be paying attention you ask?
October 6, 2025 at 7:14 PM
The trouble with these electronic wing mirrors on buses now is one can't see if the bus driver is paying attention when #cycling. Why wouldn't the bus driver be paying attention you ask?
I'm not sure this email marketing was targeted at engineers.
October 4, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I'm not sure this email marketing was targeted at engineers.
Reposted by Benji Weber
Very cool and good to see that Discord have leaked a bunch of people’s IDs that they were forced to send in when automated age verification failed.
It’s a shame nobody predicted this extremely obvious outcome of the OSA.
ID fraudsters will have a field day!
It’s a shame nobody predicted this extremely obvious outcome of the OSA.
ID fraudsters will have a field day!
October 4, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Very cool and good to see that Discord have leaked a bunch of people’s IDs that they were forced to send in when automated age verification failed.
It’s a shame nobody predicted this extremely obvious outcome of the OSA.
ID fraudsters will have a field day!
It’s a shame nobody predicted this extremely obvious outcome of the OSA.
ID fraudsters will have a field day!
`if(true) throw new RuntimeException();`
Probably my most typed line of Java.
Probably my most typed line of Java.
October 4, 2025 at 7:31 AM
`if(true) throw new RuntimeException();`
Probably my most typed line of Java.
Probably my most typed line of Java.
Reposted by Benji Weber
Unit tests are one of the fastest and cheapest ways to not only validate your work, but to stop regressions (and hallucinations!)
If it doesn't compile or if the tests don't pass: it's *definitely* broken!
If it doesn't compile or if the tests don't pass: it's *definitely* broken!
September 30, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Unit tests are one of the fastest and cheapest ways to not only validate your work, but to stop regressions (and hallucinations!)
If it doesn't compile or if the tests don't pass: it's *definitely* broken!
If it doesn't compile or if the tests don't pass: it's *definitely* broken!
Oh good, It has infected the devtools now.
September 26, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Oh good, It has infected the devtools now.
Reposted by Benji Weber
New blog post on the trade-offs of fine-grained progressive rollouts
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/09/13/t...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/09/13/t...
The hidden trade-offs of fine-grained progressive rollouts
A progressive rollout refers to the act of rolling out some new functionality gradually rather than all at once. This means that, when you initially deploy it, the change only impacts a fraction of…
surfingcomplexity.blog
September 14, 2025 at 1:38 AM
New blog post on the trade-offs of fine-grained progressive rollouts
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/09/13/t...
surfingcomplexity.blog/2025/09/13/t...
oh: oh good, you're back, I don't need to ask Claude this
September 9, 2025 at 2:41 PM
oh: oh good, you're back, I don't need to ask Claude this