RedMonk December 2024 Update
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Hi, Steve here. Not sure about any of you, but my 2024 travel season came to a merciful end last week when I touched down in Boston on a red eye from Las Vegas and I will not be on another plane until the new year. As the wind howls outside and we get pelted with snow and ice here in Maine, inside begins the desperate race to close out and tie off any last engagements and projects before RedMonk goes into its annual holiday break.
That’s made a little more complicated in my case by the fact that, per a brand new fancy test - this three-in-one rapid test, to be specific, I apparently have influenza B - which may or may not have been inflicted on me at reInvent (my colleagues, at least, appear to be fine so far so there’s that).
Regardless of where I got it, then, I’m not feeling my best. I’m drinking a scalding lemon ginger tea, in fact, in a vain effort to subdue a raw throat.
But as I sit here shivering and trying to recover, I’m also looking ahead and forward to RedMonk’s upcoming rest and recharge time when we all embrace a bit of downtime over the Christmas and New Year’s weeks because, among reasons, it’s almost impossible to schedule meetings. This downtime feels particularly important this year because we’re at a unique juncture in history. One in which literally no one has any real idea of what 2025 is going to bring, other than chaos. As my colleague quoted Lenin on Bluesky, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
Unfortunately, we’ve been having a lot of the latter lately.
There’s little that you or I, or RedMonk or your employer, can do about that directly, of course. History at scale is obdurate. What we can do, however, is work together - in ways small and large - to make the world around us a little brighter, and a little better, every day.
Which brings me to St Lucia’s day.
A couple of years ago, my family started celebrating St Lucia’s day on December 13th. While it’s nominally a nod to both mine and my daughter’s Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish heritage, our embrace of the holiday has nothing to do with either its pagan roots or more modern Christian trappings. Instead, we celebrate St Lucia’s day instead to remind ourselves and our neighbors, that as dark and cold as the winter can get around here, spring and light will inevitably, in time, follow.
On St Lucia’s day, then, my daughter dons a white dress and floral headband, and visits our neighbors bearing lit candles and various baked treats. It’s an effort on our part, then, to bring both light and hope to the people around us when the winter is darkest.
Wherever you are, then, and however you do it, here’s hoping each and every one of you is thinking about bringing light to the people in your lives, because when we all reconvene next year that’s going to be more important than ever.
All of us at RedMonk will be back with you in January, but until then be well and take care.
-Steve
Links Roundup
Keeping a watchful eye on new developments regarding electronic privacy is never a bad idea.
This clip from Ben Affleck on how AI is likely to affect the economics of creation has broader applications than the film industry. It’s an insightful take on areas that are and are not likely to be impacted by AI in the near and longer terms.
GitHub’s Kedasha Kerr has an excellent video/blog post series on GitHub for Beginners. Start with the first video: A brief introduction to Git for beginners.
Honeycomb’s Charity Majors argues There Is Only One Key Difference Between Observability 1.0 and 2.0.
Hazel Weakly with some moving and insightful commentary on the overlap between social and technical systems as they explore what makes a programming language legitimate.
This piece presents some reasoned, science-based critiques of the "9.5% of all engineers are ghost engineers' by asking questions about the methodologies used to arrive at that claim.
Notable piece from WSJ on how the banking and financial world is using proof of AI adoption as a recruiting strategy for tech recruits. The promise is that they get to learn and grow in a sector that is more stable than many other options in tech.
Recent RedMonk Research
Google recently released the 2024 Accelerate State of DevOps (DORA) report, and there were some holy shit moments in those 120 pages. Or–to phrase it more professionally–this year’s report has some very interesting and counterintuitive findings. DORA Report 2024 – A Look at Throughput and Stability. RM clients mentioned: Google and LaunchDarkly
Kate Holterhoff's researched what developers look for in their AI code assistants. A lot has changed since last year's list, including more competition and expanded model capabilities. Top 10 Things Developers Want from their AI Code Assistants in 2024. RM clients mentioned: AWS, GitHub, Microsoft, Google, and IBM
Client Profile- Cribl: As part of an ongoing series where we explore some of the awesome things our clients are up to, we take a look at Cribl and dig into how the company has expanded its portfolio from an initial observability pipeline offering (Stream) to also include Edge, Search, and Data Lake offerings, all with the aim of giving IT and security teams better control over their data. RM clients mentioned: Cribl, AWS, Chronosphere, Cisco (Splunk), Elastic, Google Cloud, Honeycomb, and Microsoft
The end of an Era(s Tour): Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour, grossing over $2 billion and transforming pop culture, rewarded her staff with $197 million in bonuses, fueled the global economy by $9 billion, and inspired tech innovations from friendship bracelets to Bluesky handle adoption. RM clients mentioned: GitHub and IBM
Kate Holterhoff published a piece today on the history & future of message queues; she asked some smart folks questions like, why did the idea of MQs emerge? Is Kafka a queue? Are databases & data platforms like Redis replacing MQs? Why Message Queues Endure: A History RM clients mentioned: IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle
Recent Videos and Media Appearances
Ivan Burazin, Co-Founder and CEO of Daytona, chatted with Kate Holterhoff about the challenges developers face in managing their environments and how Daytona aims to solve these issues: A RedMonk Conversation: How Daytona is Simplifying Development Environments (with Ivan Burazin)
Join Andrew Tunall, President and Chief Product Officer at Embrace and Kate Holterhoff in this conversation about the importance of mobile service level objectives (SLOs) in enhancing user experience and performance in mobile applications: A RedMonk Conversation: Why Engineering Orgs Should be Thinking About Mobile SLOs (with Andrew Tunall)
Enjoy highlights from the twelfth annual Monktoberfest – a RedMonk developer conference held in beautiful Portland, Maine. Monktoberfest looks at how technology influences the world around us, and how the world influences the way that technology is created – all while enjoying some of the best craft food and drink: Monktoberfest 2024
Also — you can watch all of the talks from Monktoberfest 2024 in this YouTube playlist!
In this RedMonk Conversation (filmed at Fastly Xcelerate in NYC), Kelly Fitzpatrick interviewed Pete Karytko, Director of Technical Operations at Yottaa, to explore how the company leverages its expertise–and Fastly technologies–to help Yottaa’s customers deliver performant and secure experiences in the e-commerce space. E-commerce at the Edge: How Yottaa uses Fastly for Compute, WAF and Analytics
Join Red Hat and Kelly Fitzpatrick for an insightful webinar about the latest trends in IT training and their transformative impact on talent development: Training Trends Shaping the Future
Exclusively on the MonkCast
A RedMonk Conversation: How LaunchDarkly’s Guarded Releases Mitigate Risk with Manish Gupta: In this RedMonk conversation, Manish Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer at LaunchDarkly, speaks with Kate Holterhoff about the complexities of software development and the challenges of releasing bug-free software. They discuss the recent launch of LaunchDarkly’s Guardian Edition, which aims to help companies manage risk by implementing guarded releases.
A RedMonk Conversation: LaunchDarkly’s Dan Rogers on AI’s Transformative Impact in Feature Management: Dan Rogers, CEO of LaunchDarkly, discusses the transformative impact of AI on software development, particularly in the context of feature management and DevOps, with Kate Holterhoff. They explore the evolving role of developers, the challenges and opportunities presented by AI adoption, and the importance of leadership in navigating these changes.
A RedMonk Conversation: Claire Vo on LaunchDarkly’s Culture of Experimentation: Claire Vo, Chief Product and Technology Officer at LaunchDarkly, discusses the significance of experimentation in feature management and software development with Kate Holterhoff. They address how LaunchDarkly stands out in the experimentation space, the impact of AI on experimentation, and the evolving role of software engineers in this process.
A RedMonk Conversation: Erin Schnabel on the Commonhaus Foundation: Erin Schnabel, distinguished engineer at Red Hat and council chairperson at the Commonhaus Foundation, discusses with Kate Holterhoff challenges faced by open source projects, the need for new foundations, and how Commonhaus aims to support developers.
Talks from Monktoberfest 2024
Even though The Monktoberfest has wrapped for another year, you can still watch the talks from the event in the comfort of your own home. Subscribe to the RedMonk Tech Events channel on YouTube and watch from the 2024 playlist.
A note from James
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