Jordan Borean works as a senior software engineer at Red Hat in Brisbane, playing a key role in developing the Ansible core, where the Windows integration is largely his work. The somewhat ambiguous title term “agentless” not only describes a key feature of the Ansible software, but it also serves as a metaphor for my guest’s unique career.
Jordan grew up entirely inside the Microsoft ecosystem: Windows XP through 7, even a Windows phone. He studied IT, disliked programming, and became a sysadmin at an Australian bank running IIS, MS SQL Server and .NET. Ansible arrived only because the team wanted to stop hand-raising servers like pets.
As usual, we talk a lot about our personal history in IT. Our conversation turns from PowerShell to Bash, from curl and jq to awk and sed, from PowerShell’s object pipeline to the impact that AI tools have nowadays.
We cover Ansible’s relationship with Windows features such as DSC, idempotency, extension models, and the limits of using Ansible in Windows-heavy environments. Jordan also shares his current focus on improving developer experience, debugging support, Windows integrations, and performance. We close on .NET and C#, and his advice for anyone starting out: don’t follow the guide, find out why it works.
The interview was recorded on June 4th, 2026 in Wiesbaden (Germany).
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Show notes
- Jordan on his blog: bloggingforlogging.com
- Jordan on GitHub (jborean93)
- Jordan’s author page at Red Hat (redhat.com)
- Jordan: Writing your own Ansible PowerShell Module, PSConfEU 2024 (YT)
- Jordan on The PowerShell Podcast, Ep. 101: From Python to PowerShell (pdq.com)
- ansible.windows collection releases (GitHub)
- Windows 95 (WP)
- Brisbane (WP)
- Apache Groovy (WP)
- Test-driven development (WP)
- “Pets vs. Cattle” — coined by Bill Baker (Microsoft), popularised by Randy Bias (link to add)
- WS-Management / WinRM (WP)
- Python (WP)
- The PowerShell Discord (current invite link to add)
- PowerShell Conference EU (psconf.eu)
- Windows Phone (WP)
- Ubuntu (ubuntu.com), Arch Linux (archlinux.org), Fedora (fedoraproject.org), openSUSE (opensuse.org), RHEL (redhat.com), Debian (debian.org)
- How is SUSE pronounced?
“The name S.u.S.E. was an acronym for “Software- und System-Entwicklung” (Software and Systems Development)” (WP)
Suse originally comes from Nürnberg/Nuremberg, Germany. For this reason, German speakers typically base their pronunciation on the full German title. - GCC (gcc.gnu.org) and Bash (WP)
- Darwin, the BSD-derived core of macOS (WP)
- LibreOffice (libreoffice.org)
- GNOME (WP) and Miguel de Icaza (WP)
- KDE (WP) and SUSE (WP)
- Wayland (WP) vs. X11 (WP)
- Tiling window managers: i3 (i3wm.org), Sway (swaywm.org), Hyprland (hypr.land)
- RPM (WP), dpkg/APT (WP), WinGet (WP) — see also SLW18 with Keivan Beigi and SLW20 with Demitrius Nelon
- Flatpak (flatpak.org), Snap (snapcraft.io), AppImage (appimage.org)
- systemd vs. SysV init (WP)
- Editor war: vi/Vim vs. Emacs (WP)
- Atom, and how it became Visual Studio Code (WP)
- Zed, the Rust-based editor (zed.dev) — confirm this is the one you meant
- PSReadLine (GitHub) and the fish shell (fishshell.com)
- curl (curl.se) and jq (jqlang.org)
- FFmpeg (ffmpeg.org)
- Android is built on the Linux kernel (WP)
- Solaris (WP), AIX (WP) and Sun Microsystems (WP)
- Chaos Computer Club (ccc.de)
- Red Hat, headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina (WP) — IBM’s acquisition closed in July 2019
- Atlassian, founded in Sydney (WP)
- MIT License (WP) vs. GNU GPL (WP)
- FreeBSD (freebsd.org), OpenBSD (openbsd.org), NetBSD (netbsd.org)
- The USL v. BSDi lawsuit that slowed BSD down (WP)
- Netflix serves video from FreeBSD (WP)
- The name “Ansible”: coined by Ursula K. Le Guin (WP) in her 1966 novel Rocannon’s World for a device allowing instantaneous communication across interstellar distances; she said she derived it from “answerable” (WP). Orson Scott Card borrowed the word for Ender’s Game, where an ansible controls a fleet of distant ships — and that is the image Michael DeHaan took the name from (opensource.com)
- Michael DeHaan (WP), who before Ansible wrote Cobbler and co-wrote Func at Red Hat — the tools Jordan couldn’t name in the interview
- Ansible (ansible.com, WP) — first released February 2012, acquired by Red Hat in October 2015
- IRC (WP) and Matrix (matrix.org)
- YAML (WP)
- Puppet (WP), Chef (WP), SaltStack (WP), Terraform (WP)
- Group Policy (WP) and its client-side extensions
- Desired State Configuration (WP), MOF (WP), the Local Configuration Manager, and DSC 3 (GitHub) — see also SLW12 with Steve Lee and SLW15 with Gael Colas
- Idempotence (WP)
- WSL (WP)
- Debug Adapter Protocol (microsoft.github.io) and Language Server Protocol (microsoft.github.io)
- Jordan’s Ansible debugger proof of concept (GitHub)
- C# (WP), F# (WP), .NET (WP)
- Mono, de Icaza’s .NET for Linux (WP)
- Rust (rust-lang.org) and Go (go.dev)
- Mark-André Moreau, Devolutions (devolutions.net)
- “Developers, developers, developers” (WP)
Chapters
00:00:00.000 Intro
00:00:30.719 Roots in Computers
00:02:20.792 From Bank Sysadmin to Ansible
00:06:35.250 PowerShell Enters the Picture
00:08:59.934 Windows, Linux, and Mac
00:13:11.091 Fedora, Desktop, and Choice
00:17:44.075 Linux Fragmentation Debate
00:22:34.591 Editors, VS Code, and AI
00:25:42.487 PowerShell on Linux
00:28:50.808 Curl, JQ, and AI Help
00:31:38.829 Linux Dominates Infrastructure
00:35:47.403 Red Hat and Open Source
00:39:24.742 Open Source License Views
00:41:09.813 Linux Beats BSD?
00:43:01.950 How Ansible Began
00:47:26.332 What Ansible Actually Does
00:53:24.508 Ansible Versus Windows DSC
01:04:06.645 Future of Ansible
01:05:56.529 Developer Experience Matters
01:07:44.593 Idempotence in Practice
01:12:42.446 Why .NET Matters
01:16:52.681 Curiosity and Learning
Transcript
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