Thoughts from
the workbench.
On developer tools, agents, and making things—digital and physical.
From craft to mass production: Software as an industrial system
Faster code generation changes where software delivery gets stuck. Christian treats development as a production system spanning planning, implementation, verification, review, and release, arguing that teams should improve the flow of finished work across those stages. As execution becomes cheaper, human judgment increasingly centers on intent, constraints, quality, and deciding what deserves to be built.
Read article →In search for parallel flow
What should an interface feel like when several coding agents are working at once? Christian explains Ona’s approach through a stable task sidebar, progressively deeper views of agent activity and code, and quick ways to stop or recover work. The aim is to make parallel development understandable while keeping the cost of switching attention low.
Read article →Time between disengagements: the rise of the software conductor
Borrowing a measure from autonomous driving, Chris proposes evaluating coding agents by how long they can work before needing human intervention. He examines security, context, and interface design as constraints on that autonomy, then describes an engineering role focused on directing several agents while moving fluidly between high-level decisions and implementation details.
Read article →We’re leaving Kubernetes
After six years operating cloud development environments, Christian and Alejandro explain why Kubernetes became a difficult fit for their workload. They trace lessons in resource allocation, storage, startup performance, and isolation, including experiments with micro-VMs. The article introduces the architectural reasoning behind Gitpod Flex and distinguishes development environments from conventional production applications.
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