The Big Rename: From Agile to Pragmatic

After five years and 101 episodes, we're doing something we never thought we'd do: renaming the podcast. The Agile Embedded Podcast is now the Pragmatic Embedded Podcast: having the title reflect where we've been heading for quite a while.

Jeff and Luca discuss why the word "agile" has become cringe-worthy, how the podcast has naturally evolved beyond its original scope, and what this means for future episodes. We talk about the reality of AI adoption in embedded development (spoiler: it's not as widespread as you might think), the importance of engineering fundamentals in an AI-assisted world, and why we're excited to explore topics without feeling constrained by our old name. This is still the same podcast you know, just with a name that finally fits what we actually do: exploring pragmatic approaches to building embedded systems.

Key Topics

• [00:00] The big reveal: Agile Embedded becomes Pragmatic Embedded
• [02:30] Why "agile" has become cringe and why the podcast has outgrown its original name
• [04:15] How past episodes like the QP framework discussion already pointed beyond agile
• [06:00] The reality check: AI adoption in embedded development isn't as widespread as the hype suggests
• [09:45] Jeff's perspective: Every developer is becoming a lead developer managing AI-generated code
• [12:30] What's next: More freedom to explore what's actually useful for embedded developers

Notable Quotes

"I have literally been cringing internally for a long time saying Agile, Agile, Agile. And I'm just really looking forward to broadening the focus and not feeling bad about it." — Jeff

"My customers never buy the curly brackets, do they? There's a lot of good old-fashioned engineering craft that we can talk about and that we'll continue to talk about." — Luca

"Writing curly braces is going the way of being dead. But software engineering fundamentals, essentially, I see the trend... every developer is going to be essentially what is now a lead developer." — Jeff

Resources Mentioned

• Embedded AI Podcast - Luca's other podcast with Ryan Torvik, focused on AI tools in embedded development
• Luca Ingianni's website - Training and consulting on AI and embedded systems
• BaseRef - Jeff's requirements and test management tool for medical device startups
• Agile Embedded Podcast Slack - Community discussion channel where you can reach the hosts and connect with other listeners

Jeff runs BaseRef at https://getbaseref.com.
You can find Luca at https://luca.engineer.

Want to join the Pragmatic Embedded Slack? Click here

Are you looking for embedded-focused trainings? Head to https://agileembedded.academy/
Ryan Torvik and Luca have started the Embedded AI podcast, check it out at https://embeddedaipodcast.com/