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Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast CoRecursive: Coding Stories

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TitreDateDurée
Behind the Mic: Adam Gordon Bell on Communication with Software Misadventures Podcast06 Aug 202401:03:40

Today the tables have turned and you're going to hear someone interview me.  Ronak and Guang from the Software Misadventures podcast are going to interview me  about podcasting. My history as a software developer and I guess this big idea. That I don't think I've shared too much about the importance of communication.

More details including a video version of the interview here:

https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/adam-gordon-bell-story-telling

Story: Jeffrey Snover and the Making of PowerShell04 Jul 202400:49:19

What if you had to fight against your company's culture to bring a revolutionary tool to life? Meet Jeffrey Snover, the Microsoft architect behind PowerShell, a command tool that transformed Windows system administration. Initially met with skepticism, Snover's idea faced resistance from a company that favored graphical interfaces. 

Snover's journey began with a simple mission: to make Windows as command-line managable as UNIX systems. Despite facing pushback and navigating through company restructures, his persistence paid off. 

This episode explores how Snover's relentless drive and clear vision overcame numerous obstacles, leading to a tool that is now fundamental in modern enterprise environments. Listen to how one person's determination can challenge the status quo.

 

Help Adam Find His Next Role

I'm on the hunt for a new developer relations role. 

If you know of any companies where they need someone who can speak engineer, who can communicate to developers, that's me. I'm your guy for explaining complex stuff in a way that's catchy and fun and makes sense to software developers. If you know of any roles like this, let me know. Who should I be talking to?

Reach out: Adam@CoRecursive.com, @adamgordonbell, Linkedin, My Calendar.

Links:

 

Story: Sloot Digital Coding System02 Oct 202300:51:50

Lost treasure. Conspiracy theories. Impossible tech demos. 

Jan Sloot claimed to have invented revolutionary data compression that could fit a full movie into a tiny smart card chip. Top executives and investors witnessed his demos and became true believers, ready to bankroll this company into the stratosphere. 

But was it all an elaborate illusion? 

Join me as I unravel the perplexing story of Jan Sloot, the eccentric Dutch TV repairman who dazzled the tech world with his compression claims. 

Discover the shady details and follow the bizarre twists and turns, as we try to separate fact from fiction in the puzzling case of the Sloot Digital Coding System. 

 

Story: Configuring Identity: Adam Jacob and the Search for Self in Software01 Sep 202300:42:53

Today, we go behind the scenes at Chef - the game changing infrastructure automation tool. Adam Jacob created Chef, and it became a massively popular DevOps tool. But despite Chef's success, Adam constantly battled self-doubt and finding his footing as a leader. 

In this raw episode, Adam shares how the pressure of going from sysadmin to startup CEO caused an identity crisis. He opens up about the motivational speech that left him in tears, realizing his self-worth was too tied to Chef's outcomes. 

 

The Science of Learning to Code02 Aug 202300:50:45

Learning to code can feel impossible. Like facing a sheer rock wall with no ropes or harnesses. But what if there was a path up the mountain? A trail blazed smooth by master coders who went before? 

In this episode, we'll follow that path. We'll hear the stories of legends like Seymour Papert, who championed active, project-based learning. Of Fred Brooks, who discovered that pairing accelerates learning. And more. 

The research shows that with the right methods, motivation, and support, anyone can master learning curves and summit. So join me as we uncover the science behind learning to code. You'll walk away fired up, equipped with proven techniques to unlock your potential and conquer new technical skills. 
 
 The climb is on!  

 

Story: A Dark Room03 Jul 202300:40:42

 Have you ever been frustrated with your job? Maybe not burnt out, but getting close to there? You used to love what you did, and it felt so creative and empowering, but then it starts to feel a bit more cookie cutter.

Have you ever been frustrated with your whole life? The daily grind has taken what you love and it just doesn't feel the same anymore. Some of the magic just has slowly faded away. You don't know when it started, but it did. 

Today's guest is Amir Rajan. He's hard to describe. 
  
Is he a developer? Yes. An artist who sold everything that he owned for indie game development. Yes. The subject of a New Yorker profile? Yes, all of that. And also, somebody who got frustrated with his life and left everything behind.

 

Story: Quitting (And Then Rejoining) Stack Overflow02 Jun 202300:53:28

Today, we meet Ben Dumke-von der Ehe, one of the early developers on the Stack Overflow team. 

He was on the front lines as the platform transformed how programmers worked. And he embodies the spirit of Stack Overflow:  Its transparency, playfulness, and even some of its struggles to be as welcoming and friendly as it should be. 
 
But you'll see what I mean. 
 
So stick around as Ben takes us on a journey through the building of Stack Overflow. Get ready for a candid inside look at the creation of a platform that would become an essential part of the developer community and the internet as we know it. 

 

Story: From Project Management to Data Compression Innovator02 May 202300:59:23

How do you accomplish something massive over time? I've had the chance to meet with a number of exceptional software developers and it's something I always wonder about. 

Today, I might have an answer with the incredible story of Yann Collet.

Yann was a project manager who went from being burnt out on corporate life to becoming one of the most sought-after developers in the world. What happens when you build something so impressive and valuable that it essentially becomes invisible?

And how do you do that when your day job is mainly organizing spreadsheets and keeping timelines on track?

Yann built LZ4 and ZStandard - two of the world's fastest compression algorithms that have transformed databases, operating systems, file systems, and much more. We'll go back in time to Yann's initial steps with programming, his game-changing discoveries along the way and how his devotion to data compression hobby led him to create something that saves billions of dollars worldwide.

Episode Links

 

Story: JSON vs XML03 Apr 202300:49:56

Today's guest is Douglas Crockford. He's sharing the story of JSON, his discovery of JavaScript's good parts, and his approach to finding a simple way to build software. Also, his battles against XML, against complexity, his battles to say that there's a better way to build software. 
 

This is foundational stuff for the web, and Doug is an iconoclast

 

Story: Sun's Mobile Blunders02 Mar 202300:51:45

Shai Almog worked at Sun on Mobile JVMs just as phones started to turn from phones into something else. 
  
Sun had deep expertise in mobile development, and amazing engineering driven culture and relationships with manufacturers and operators. And yet interal politics and the collapse of its server market made it hard to get things done.
  
At Sun, as the mobile market changed, Shai and his friend Chen Fishbein launched a popular UI toolkit. 
  
  Today Shai shares their struggles at Sun and after it to shape mobile UI development. 

Story: Shipping Graphing Calculator02 Feb 202300:46:47

I've been on many projects that get canceled. We're building cool stuff. We're going above and beyond, and we're excited. But the project encounters reality, shifting priorities, or budgeting constraints, and the work never goes anywhere. It always feels tragic, but then I move on.

  But what if I didn't let a project get canceled? What if I couldn't accept that? That is what Ron Avitzur's story is all about. He is the creator of "Graphing Calculator," and he would not let it be canceled.

Story: The Unfulfilled Engineer02 Jan 202300:42:04

Nothing good comes from being insecure about your worth, especially at your job. That's what today's episode is about. That's what today's guest is here to discuss. 
It's a slow burn, but if you listen to the end, I think you will value yourself more professionally. My Guest is Don Mckay. Someone longtime listeners will undoubtedly know.

Story: From Burnout to Breakthrough04 Jun 202400:52:26

Can you imagine risking your career to making coding easier to learn?

Meet Felienne Hermans, a professor who did just that by stepping beyond academia to redefine coding education. Disillusioned by her research's limited impact, Felienne discovered a new calling in teaching coding to underserved students. Her journey led to the creation of Hedy, a programming language designed to dismantle language and learning barriers in coding.

Confronting skepticism from her peers, Felienne's dedication to accessible coding challenged traditional academic priorities. Felienne's story is a powerful reminder of the impact one person can have by following their passion against the odds.

 

Story: DOOMed to Fail02 Dec 202200:45:03

Today Rebecca Burger Becky Heineman shares the tale of porting Doom to the 3DO console under extreme conditions. There is an engine to tweak, deadlines to hit, hardware acceleration to get working, and dramatic rock anthems to record.

We also learn about how game piracy led her to game development and what it was like to do game development in the mania of the mid-nineties. Finally, we close with Becky's advice on learning bare metal development skills. 

Story: Software World Tour02 Nov 202200:48:57

Today story is from Son Luong Ngoc who shares what's it was like for him to work and live in many different countries around the world, including working for AliBaba at the Xixi campus in Hangzhou, China.

It's a story of a software developer finding a place that fits them, a place that suits them.

Story: Android's Unlikely Success03 Oct 202201:00:07

What could you accomplish if your teammates were all excited and determined to hit some project timelines? What is it like for a group of people to give it all they have? That's what today is about. 

  
Chet Haase from the Android team is here to share the story of the early days of Android, the mobile operating system that powers the majority of phones worldwide. We'll cover the years from 2005 to around 2011. 
 
It's a wild story.

Story: From Prison To Programming02 Sep 202200:46:37

 I believe that getting underrepresented groups into software development is a good thing. This is not a controversial opinion until you start talking about felons. 

  Today's guest is Rick Wolter. He's an iOS developer who served 18 years in prison for second degree murder.  Rick killed somebody and for some that's all they need to know about Rick. But today's episode is about Rick's path to redemption him, teaching himself to code in prison, smuggling in a Python interpreter, and then getting out and trying to get a job as a dev when you're a felon.

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UnderDog Devs

CPAN - This Day In History01 Aug 202200:56:03

CPAN was the first open-source software module repository. And on this day, Aug 1st, in 1995, CPAN was first announced to a private group of PERL users.

If you are building things today by pulling in various packages from various open source places – and really, who isn't – then the history of how this world came to be is essential.

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Story: The History and Mystery Of Eliza05 Jul 202200:44:07

I recently got an email from Jeff Shrager, who said he'd been working hard to solve a mystery about some famous code.

Eliza, the chatbot, was built in 1964, and she didn't answer questions like Alexa or Siri. She asked questions. She was a therapist chatbot and quickly became famous after being described in a 1964 paper. 

But here is the mystery. We're not sure how the original version worked. Joseph Weizenbaum never released the code. But Jeff tracked it down, and some of the things we thought we knew about Eliza turned out to be wrong.  

Chat: Why still 80 columns?01 Jun 202200:39:23
On June 1st, 2014, the following question showed up on hacker news: 

"Why is 80 characters, the standard limit for code width."

You probably know what happens next. People started to post their opinions and the comments and other people started to disagree. The posts spread around the internet.

 So that is going to be today's show: Let's answer this question. 

 It's a question about traditions and teamwork, and how preexisting idioms shape us and help us, but sometimes restrict us. 

Story: LISP in Space02 May 202200:38:03

Have you ever had a unique approach to a problem and been excited to use it, but you're met with skepticism?

  Today's story: what happens if you take someone who's passionate about LISP and put them in an organization where that's just not how they write software.

  Today's story is about getting LISP into space.

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Chat: April Fools' Is Cancelled01 Apr 202200:38:50

On this day in 2014 "lame april fools' jokes" were banned from hacker news.  

 Today in our first This-Day-in-History segment, I want to share some of history not just of April Fools', but of tech pranks in general, all leading up to 2014.

 Why were pranks and April Fools' jokes traditionally celebrated in tech? Why are they now considered as dang said, "lame?"? And is there anything we can do to save them? Those are today's questions.

Story: The Story Graph with Nadia Odunayo02 Mar 202200:48:05

Whenever I work on a side project, I can't help but daydream of it taking off in a big way. For today's guests, something like that did happen. 

  When Nadia started building her side project, she didn't know that it would end up spreading virally. She didn't know that it would end up competing with an Amazon product. She didn't know that keeping it up would be something that would drive her close to tears.

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Story: Coding Machines03 May 202400:48:12

What if the tools you trust were actually betraying you? Join us for a riveting story where a team of software developers discovers that their compiler is compromised. What starts as suspicion of a simple bug quickly escalates into the alarming realization.

  In this 100th episode celebration past show regulars Don and Krystal join Adam lend their voice to this work of fiction about the limits of trust in computing from Lawrence Kesteloot.

  Join us in as we peel back the layers of trust in the software we rely on daily and celebrate our 100th episode.

 

Story: Serenity OS01 Feb 202200:41:29
How would you build an operating system? 
 
 My answer is I wouldn't. First off, I don't know how. And the second thing is it seems like to large of a task. It took thousands of developers to build Windows XP.  But actually, it is possible to build an operating system from scratch. My guest is doing it. Andreas Kling created SerenityOS starting from an empty Git repository. So today, I find out how he did it, how this is possible. But mainly today, I find out why. Why build an operating system from scratch? And it all started in the 2010s when Andreas worked at Apple. 

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Chat: The Internet Is Made of Duct Tape02 Jan 202200:42:23

Today, I have two of my favorite guests together: Krystal Maughan and Don McKay. We are going to be sharing strange and interesting facts about computing.

I'm super pumped about this because, sometimes, I learn something new, and I'm excited about it. And I want to tell people about it. And so today is a chance for Don and Krystal and I to share some of these "Oh, my God. Did you guys see this?" stories.

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Story: Cocoa Culture02 Dec 202100:44:22

The last episode, I said I wasn't sure there was such a thing as culture, but that's not the case. Every place I've worked has been a bit different, and often those differences had huge impacts on the software we built.

The team where people roll their eyes at UX feedback will not have as simple of a product as a team where the user experience is highly valued.

If software performance isn't valued, the end result won't be performant.

Today, I found an expert on observing developer cultures. Hansen Hsu worked on the AppKit team at Apple, and he's here to talk about this mushy concept called culture. How does it manifest? How does it affect what people build? And how can it lead to beautiful software?

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Story: Leaving Debian02 Nov 202100:40:27

Today's story is an insider view of Debian. One of the oldest Linux distributions and probably one of the longest-running volunteer-based open-source projects.

Joey Hess is my guest, and he dedicated significant parts of his adult life to working on Debian. He's going to share what that was like. The good and the bad, and it's almost all good.

It's a story about open source software, but it's also about community and teamwork

Links:

Story: The Original Remote Developer04 Oct 202100:41:27

Today's episode is about remote work. Well, sort of. I found someone with a different perspective on remote work and a fantastic story to share, Paul Lutus.

I think that he might be the original remote software developer.

He left California behind for a lower cost of living in Oregon. And from Oregon, he developed software for Apple. But the kind of surprising thing is he did this in the 1970s! And he did it so well he became rich and even briefly quite famous.

You can support the podcast and encourage me to keep making it on patreon.

Chat: Quines, Polygot Code, and Other Fun Computations02 Sep 202101:01:24

Today, previous guest and my neighbor Don Mckay and I will discuss items from the endless fascinating Cursed Computer Iceberg Meme. The Iceberg is a giant list of "the peculiarities and weirdness of computers."

We each a few items from the list and alternate explaining it to each other. Don's choices are varied, and mine focus on quines and esoteric coding problems. We also share some coding horror stories from our past.

You can support the podcast and encourage me to keep making it on patreon.

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Story: Full-Time Open Source02 Aug 202100:46:15

Today's show: How to Quit Your Job and Work on Open Source Full Time.

This story has it all, balancing open source work and full-time employment, building up enough supporters and enough savings to leave your job. The hardest part to me which is explaining leaving your job to your significant other and to your family and friends.

And also what do you do if your project succeeds, and then someone forks it and builds a commercial business around it? There's a lot more as well dealing: with hacker news feedback, how to improve upon the C programming language and how to be super ambitious without seeming arrogant.

Sponsor the podcast:

If you go to patreon.com/adamgordonbell, you can find the Patreon page for the podcast, and if you are enjoying these episodes and want me to keep putting more time into them, think about setting up a recurring donation.

Links:

Andrew's personal website

Zig

Story: The Untold Story of SQLite02 Jul 202100:38:35

On today's show, I'm talking to Richard Hipp about surviving becoming core infrastructure for the world. SQLite is everywhere. It's in your web browser, it's in your phone, it's probably in your car, and it's definitely in commercial planes. It's where your iMessages and WhatsApp messages are stored, and if you do a find on your computer for *.db, you'll be amazed at how many SQLite databases you find.

Today, Richard is going to share his story. It's the story of creating a small open source project and having it grow beyond your wildest ambitions. It's the story of following that success wherever it leads: From relationships with tech-giants to interesting testing procedures and more.

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Story: From Competitive Programming to APL02 Jun 202100:53:42

Today on the show, we have solving algorithmic programming problems. You know when you interview for a job to write CSS and they ask you to reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard using C and in constant memory space? It's that kind of thing. These problems have their roots in algorithmic programming contests. And our guest, Conor Hoekstra, is a former competitor.

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Story: Ethereum Rescue02 May 202100:34:58

Today I talk to Dan Robinson about trying to get someone their money back on Ethereum. He's going to be battling this murky world of blockchain high-frequency bots. Along the way, we'll learn how trades are executed on Ethereum and a bit of game theory and political philosophy.

It's an entertaining peek into a world that seems like pure science fiction to me, a world where nobody's in charge, where there's no regulation, and where these forces of greed and idealism are in direct conflict with each other

Episode Page / Transcript

Story: Code, Kickflips and Crunch Time - Mick West's Neversoft Journey02 Apr 202400:57:09

Meet Mick West, whose career began in an unusual office setup — sandwiched between a kebab shop and a phone sex hotline. From there he worked all over Manchester, making computer games for Tiertex and Ocean. 

  Career opportunies brought him to California and to his own game dev company, Neversoft. At Neversoft, navigating team growth and tight deadlines, Mick played a key role in creating "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater." This wasn't just another game; it was a huge hit and secured Mick's legacy in the gaming world.

  Join us as we explore Mick West's journey from a quirky start to the heights of video game innovation and beyond. Discover the resilience, adaptability, and teamwork that fueled his success and how he continues to explore new horizons. How did he tackle the technical challenges that came his way, and what can we learn from his relentless pursuit of the next big thing?

 

Story: Apple 200103 Apr 202100:48:08

David Shayer worked at Apple for 14 years, and he has a wild experience to share. Apple has a unique culture, and David will give us an insider view of what it was like for him at Apple during the 2000s, roughly between 2001 to 2015 when Apple transformed into the powerhouse that it is today.

David worked as a Software Engineer but for the hardware organization with Apple. He worked on a few special projects at Apple: at least one of them was top secret. But he is also going to share the struggles of building file systems and working on really short timelines and having development plans upended by Steve jobs.

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Story: Video Game Programming From Scratch01 Mar 202100:41:15

I'm not really a big gamer, but lately, I've fallen down this rabbit hole into the world of Casey Muratori, and this project that he started on Twitch in 2014. He is building a video game from scratch and explaining it all as he goes along.

Casey is a professional video game and game engine, creator. He has been doing it for over 30 years. His approach to development feels a little bit like it's from the 1970s. Yet, it resonates with many smart people who are learning how to truly build things and understand fundamentals from Casey.

Casey has a lesson about learning and teaching for us all.

 

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Story: Reinforcement Learning At Facebook with Jason Gauci01 Feb 202100:38:06

If you ever wanted to learn about machine learning you could do worse than have Jason Gauci teach you. Jason has worked on YouTube recommendations. He was an early contributor to TensorFlow the open-source machine learning platform. His thesis work was cited by DeepMind.


But what I find so fascinating with Jason is he recognized this problem that was being solved the wrong way and set out to find a solution to it.

So that's the show today. Jason is going to share his story.

Links:

ReAgent.ai

Programming Throwdown

Episode Bonus

Chat: 2020 Year End01 Jan 202100:34:27

Welcome to the year-end episode. Today is all the bonus questions. Often times I have questions that I want to ask guests, but they don't quite fit the overall theme of the episode. So today we're going to do a whole episode of those extra questions.

I have previously recorded questions for Brian Kernaghan, the creator of AWK among many other things. I have questions for Sean Allen, who works at Microsoft Research, and a couple of other people.

Episode Page:

http://corecursive.com/060-2020-year-end

Slack Channel:

https://rebrand.ly/corec_slack

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/adamgordonbell

 

Story: Frontiers of Performance with Daniel Lemire01 Dec 202000:47:09

Did you ever meet somebody who seemed a little bit different than the rest of the world? Maybe they question things that others wouldn't question or said things that others would never say.

Daniel is a world-renowned expert on software performance, and one of the most popular open source developers, if you measure by get up followers. Today, he's gonna share his story. It involves time at a research lab, teaching students in a new way. It will also involve upending people's assumptions about IO performance.  Elon Musk And Julia Roberts will come up a little bit more than you might expect.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Daniel's Blog

Daniel's Github

Parsing JSON Really Quickly: Lessons Learned

Story: The Birth of Unix with Brian Kernighan01 Nov 202000:51:10

As Brian Kernighan said "UNIX since the start has become a vehicle for creating and using programming languages." Brian initiated work on what would become the UNIX system. He helped develop it to run on a minicomputer and would eventually be ported to other computers.

In this episode, Brain will go in-depth on how the UNIX was built.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

"If you wanted, you could go sit in your office and think deep thoughts or program, or write on your own blackboard or whatever, but then come back to the common space when you wanted to." - Brian Kernighan

"I found it easier to program when I was trying to figure out the logic for myself rather than trying to figure out where in the infinite stack of documentation was the function I needed. So for me, programming is more like creating something rather than looking it up, and too much of today's programming is more like looking it up." - Brian Kernighan

"If what I find challenging or hard or whatever is also something that other people find hard or challenging or whatever, then if I do something that will improve my lot, I'm perhaps improving their lot at the same time." - Brian Kernighan

Links:

Brian's Homepage

Book: Unix: A History and a Memoir

Book: Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself in a World of Too Many Numbers

Book: Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security

Story: To The Assembly01 Oct 202000:41:20

How do CPUs work? How do compilers work? How does high-level code get translated into machine code? Today's guest is Matt Godbolt and he knows the answers to these questions.

How he became an expert in bare metal programming is an interesting story. Matt shares his origin story and the creation of compiler explorer in today's interview.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Compiler Explorer

Matt's Github

Matt's Blog

Matt's YouTube

Story: Memento Mori01 Sep 202000:40:33

Preparing our minds for the inevitable - death is pressing. After facing terminal cancer, Kate Gregory reminded herself that this event can still become inspiring by focusing on the positive.

In this episode, Kate is going to share her success and explain how you would apply her 5 pieces of advice to your career as a software developer to help you to build a remarkable career for yourself.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Gregory Consulting Limited

Kate's Classes in Pluralsight

Include CPP

Kate's Blog

 

Story: We are teaching Functional Programming Wrong03 Aug 202000:46:40

Today Richard Feldman shares his story of going from javascript developer to elm developer to functional programming teacher.  Along the way, Richard finds that people are teaching functional programming wrong.  We are teaching it in a way that misses how most industrial software developers learn best.

In this episode, Richard Feldman delves into Elm, his approach, and how to make teaching delightful.

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Book: Elm in Action

A Taze of ATS

Elm Language

Story: Software That Doesn't Suck With Jim Blandy01 Jul 202000:37:17
Building Subversion

Software is just the tool and it should get out of your way. In this episode, we will discuss Jim Blandy's insights on how to build and recognize improvements for a great developer tool and find out how he approached the question: "What's the worst software that you use every day?"

"Everybody likes imaginary code because imaginary code is always perfect." -Jim Blandy

"You don't want to maximize engagement with your version control system. You just want it to do its job and get out of the way. And so basically if somebody says, you know, this doesn't suck. That's actually pretty much exactly the right thing." - Jim Blandy

"If you're making a series of small incremental changes to a large data structure, then the way that the persistent data structures are trying really hard to share as much data as possible really works in your favor." -Jim Blandy

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Story: Leaving LinkedIn - Choosing Engineering Excellence Over Expediency04 Mar 202400:47:35

What if your dedication to doing things right clashed with your company's fast pace? Chris Krycho faced this very question at LinkedIn.

His journey was marked by challenges: from the nuances of remote work to the struggle of influencing company culture, and a critical incident that put his principles to the test against the company's push for speed.

Chris's story highlights the tension between the need for innovation and the importance of project health. This all led Chris to a pivotal decision: to stay and compromise his beliefs or to leave in pursuit of work that aligned with his principles.

He chose the latter. Join us as we dive into Chris's compelling story, exploring the challenges of advocating for principled engineering in a world that often prioritizes quick wins over long-term value.

 

Story: Unproven Tech Case Study with Sean Allen10 Jun 202000:39:03
Choosing The Right Tool For the Job

Choosing the right programming language or framework for a project can be key to the success of the project.

In today's episode, Sean Allen Sean shares a story of picking the right tool for a job. The tool he ends up picking will surprise you.

His problem: make a distributed stream processing framework, something that can take a fire hose of events and perform customer's specific calculations on them but the latency needs to be less than a millisecond and the calculations might be CPU intensive. Who would need something like this? The initial use case was risk systems for Wall Street banks. 

"Basically programming languages are tools. It's not about ergonomics, it's not about developer experience, it's not about all the things that we normally talk about, it's about getting the job right. For whatever that means it's a means to an end." - Sean Allen

Episode Page

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Links:

Story: Krystal's Story18 May 202000:40:20

Chasing Your Curiosity and Continuous Learning

Things are easier to learn when you are passionate about something. A lot of great careers are built on curiosity and obsession including Krystal Maughan our guest for today's episode.

Krystal will share her journey as she chased her curiosity in programming wherever it led her.

"Everybody has that moment when everything's shiny, you know when it's new and you walk on to campus like Google or whatever.
Like the first time, I went to Google IO and I just thought it was like, this is insane."

"If you like to learn things, I think that's a gift. I think that's not something that everybody has." 

"I think that seeing programming in different ways and seeing that it could be this kind of fun thing that you could break apart and find different ways of executing." 

Episode Page

Episode Transcript

Links:

Story: Learning a new language with Bruce Tate06 May 202000:35:38

There's joy that can be found in language learning and pain as well. Whether you're a beginner or an expert, there are still some things you can only discover by picking up a new language. 

Bruce Tate will tell us how learning new languages rekindled the spark of joy for him.

"I find that learning a new language mixes a lot of joy in that pain, and that's when I grow most rapidly as a developer."

"You can't break somebody else through their own pain. They have to learn their own lessons, and they have to, at some point in the model, they have to feel more and more pain to break through to the expert."

"When you visit other places, when you learn other languages, the world gets smaller."

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Story: Portal Abstractions with Sam Ritchie17 Apr 202000:35:11

Buckle up, on today's episode Adam interviews Sam about how the abstract algebra and probabilistic data structures helped solve fast versus big data issues that many are struggling with. Sam Ritchie is a machine learning researcher and a mechanical engineer by training.

Stop in to hear Adam and Sam's conversation about portal abstractions that let you leverage work from other fields. You cannot miss this episode!

"And that's really all we want to do. Like, we want things where you can pause and wait a while and then load it back out and keep going." - Sam Ritchie

"I'm aiming to implement these interfaces and pass these tests and then being able to immediately turn around and have like an approximate sliding window counter that would just work with stripes, like entire machine learning feature generation interface." - Sam Ritchie

"I'm really passionate about and the reason this stuff's important is. You want to go mine the literature of what other people have done. You know you want to go be able to plug these things into your work and really just benefit from this incredible community that's been cranking for, you know, again, maybe hundreds of years." - Sam Ritchie

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