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Coding with AI

AI Coding Agents: Yes, Maybe, or No?

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

If you have been following anything tech or AI related the past couple of weeks your feeds have likely blown up with headlines about Claude Opus 4.6 and autonomous coding agents. The latest flagship model by AI Research company Anthropic is at the center of the frenzy: 16 Claude AI agents tasked to build a Rust-based C compiler is a milestone that feels straight out of science fiction. What’s the real story here, is this 2026’s version of vibe-coding? This week on our blog we dive into the excitement of coding with AI, the approach with caution areas and the disappointing parts of...

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Software Olympics

Software and the Olympics: What Business’ Can Learn from Innovation in Sport

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

Last Friday, the world came together to celebrate the opening ceremonies of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. A time when even the most non-athletic folks rally to celebrate human achievement, while behind the scenes, the ‘tech athletes’ of the world are quietly powering a technological revolution. Software, emerging technology, and digital systems have reshaped how athletes train, compete, are judged, and how audiences engage with the Games. For business leaders, these changes are more than sports trivia, they’re powerful case studies in how software can unlock performance,...

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Ducks to the Rescue

Ducks to the Rescue: Rubber Duck Debugging

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

Have you ever been working on a tough puzzle or working through a complex problem and no matter what you do you cannot seem to make progress? Then, on the precipice of giving up, you get up, verbalize it and ‘poof’ a solution is identified! Congrats, you just rubber ducked a solution. This phenomenon, in the software world, is known as rubber ducking. It’s wonderfully weird, a bit eccentric and powerfully effective; it’s a debugging technique beloved by programmers worldwide. At face value, rubber ducking sounds like something from an ‘Alice in Wonderland’s’ code review session. But...

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Writing Software SOWs

Writing Software SOWs Right: It’s all About the Details

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

Statements of Work (SOWs) exist in almost every industry, but software development SOWs are a different beast entirely. Unlike construction projects or professional services engagements where deliverables are often fixed and visible, software is intangible, evolving, and deeply tied to business assumptions which often change mid-project. Software’s inherent intangible nature is exactly why a well-written software SOW isn’t just paperwork. It’s risk management, budget protection, and expectation alignment rolled into one tidy, detailed, collaborative document. If you’re outsourcing...

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Do no harm

First, Do No Harm: What Software Can Learn from Medical Ethics

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

In medicine, the phrase ‘First, do no harm’ is often associated with the Hippocratic Oath and echoed in the Nightingale Pledge. Both remind healthcare providers that their interventions shouldn’t make a patient worse than their original condition. While that phrase isn’t in the ancient oath, verbatim, the principle underpins modern clinical practice: cure, fix, remedy, yes; but never at the cost of worsening health. Surprisingly, this principle has a lot to teach software developers, especially when we’re brought in to work on someone else’s codebase, apply surgical fixes, or help...

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A turtle riding a rocket

The Excitement Paradox: Why Boring Software Is (One of) the Most Exciting Things in Tech

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

In a world where AI demos dazzle, UX designers chase the latest UI trends, and startups promise ‘disruption,’ the idea of boring software can sound… well, ordinary. It’s kind of like saying your dream vacation is a 9-to-5 at a quiet lakeside library. Stick with us here for a moment … when it comes to software, boring isn’t dull. It’s a paradox, boring = brilliant. In fact, for tech teams and business leaders who care about reliability, cost-efficiency, and long-term success, boring software is exactly what you should be striving for. The Paradox of ‘Exciting’ Software Remember The...

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When, Meet Modernization

When, Meet Modernization: Timing Your Legacy Software Transformation in 2026

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

The “Something Different” Series Occasionally, a book arrives that doesn’t just inform, it reframes the way you think about projects, people, and progress. Over the holiday break I read (yes, our blogs are written by a real human being), Daniel H. Pink’s, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. With this book in mind it occurred to us that our readers may appreciate some of the other things we discuss at STEP, beyond software, hence ‘The ‘Something Different’ Series.’ In this book Pink explores how timing is a science, not just intuition, and how beginnings, midpoints, and...

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2026 IT Resolutions

🎯 2026: New Year, New IT Resolutions for

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

Happy New Year from all of us at STEP Software! If your 2026 resolutions include better coffee, less meetings that, ‘could have been an email’, and finally fixing that ‘older than your youngest exec’ legacy system, you’re in good company. As new year budgets are finalized and strategies are set, we’re seeing IT decision-makers and business leaders focus on several key priorities — and a few shared concerns. Our first blog of the year offers up a snapshot of what’s on the radar for tech leaders and business leaders alike. Backed by current industry insights and a sprinkling of incite...

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Holiday Gifta

🎁 Season’s Greetings & Holiday GIF(t)s from STEP 🎁

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

With version 2025 nearing EOL (end of life) and legacy calendars reminding us to upgrade to the new version, all of us at STEP Software want to take a moment to wish our clients, partners, and fellow technology enthusiasts a very happy holiday season and a smooth migration to the New Year. For us, this season is about gratitude, diversity and elegant lines of code — and we have plenty of all three. At STEP, diversity is part of our core architecture — it’s in the people we hire, the clients we serve, and the languages, frameworks and platforms we work with. Whether it’s a...

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The Bet of 2025

Reflecting on 2025: What We Learned (and Shared) About Legacy Software

Written by STEP Software on . Posted in Blog.

As we prepare to flip the final page on 2025’s calendar, we’ve been taking some time at STEP Software to reflect — not just on the year in technology, but on the conversations we were fortunate enough to be part of. This year, more than any other, our blogs focused on one topic that kept surfacing in nearly every client conversation: legacy software. That focus wasn’t accidental. Why Legacy Software Became the Heart of Our 2025 Content Throughout 2025, we saw a clear pattern across industries. While AI, cloud platforms, and automation tools were moving at breakneck speed, many...

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