The stories and people behind the code. Hear stories of software development from interesting people.
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Jimmy Koppel on Advanced Software Design
How do we create great software? What are the important skills need to properly review a PR? How do you identify assumptions of a code base and the stable contracts of a software module? Jimmy Koppel is working on his Ph.D. in the field of program synthesis at MIT. He was previously paid 100 thousand dollars to drop out of university by Peter Thiel, but yet still graduated with two degrees. The most interesting, however, about Jimmy is he is working hard to teach the world how to design better software. Due to his time working on program synthesis, he developed some unique insights into what makes software good, and what makes it bad, and he spends time teaching people his insights. Three Level of Software Peter Thiel 20 under 20 Benjamin Franklin Method You are a Program Synthesizer Jimmy's Coaching Program Episode Page: https://corecursive.com/036-jimmy-koppel-advanced-software-design/
Typescript
How do we make javascript easier to work with? Chris Krycho has been using typescript to add types to javascript since 2016. Chris is a software developer at LinkedIn who, at his previous gig, worked on converting one of the largest Ember apps in the world to TypeScript. I was shocked by the size. Chris also loves Rust and types and is a former C and FORTRAN programmers. He hosted a podcast called the New Rustacean, which he has retired from. Today we talk about TypeScript and when you should use it. We also talk about Language Server Protocols, Rust, working with large codebases, Structural types, row polymorphism and talking code over audio. Chris's Blog TypeScript New Rustacean Chris's Typescript Refinement types in TypeScript Winning Slowly Podcast https://corecursive.com/034-chris-krycho-typescript/
Rethinking Technological Positivism with Cory Doctorow
Self-driving cars or armed autonomous military robots may make use of the same technologies. In a certain sense, we as software developers are helping to build and shape the future. What does the future look like and are we helping build the right one? Is technology a force for liberty or oppression. Cory Doctorow is one of my favorite authors and also a public intellectual with a keen insight into the dangers we face a society. In this interview, I ask him how to avoid ending up in a techno-totalitarian society. We also talk about Turing, DRM, data mining and monopolies. The coming war on general computation Cory's Personal Site Radicalized (and other books) EFF Website for Page
Crafting Interpreters With Bob Nystrom
Bob Nystrom is the author of Crafting Interpreters. I speak with Nystrom about building a programming language and an interpreter implementation for it. We talk about parsing, the difference between compiler and interpreters and a lot more. If you are wondering why many languages have hand-rolled parser implementations yet much work on build language implementations focuses on parser and tokenizer generators then Bob's insights will be eye-opening. Also, if you've ever used regexes to pull strings apart into structured data, and I sure have, then Bob's perspective on the simplicity of hand-rolled parsers will certainly open up some new possibilities for you. Links: http://craftinginterpreters.com/ http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/
Rethinking databases and Noria with Jon Gjengset
Can we make databases faster and remove the need for caching reads in an external cache? Can we make a distributed SQL based relational database that outperforms memcached? Jon Gjengset and the PDOS team at MIT CSAIL have done just that with Noria. Today I talk to Jon about Noria, about building a database in rust and his efforts to teach people intermediate rust via live coding sessions. Jon was great to talk to. He really was able to explain to me how Noria is able to do what it does and where it is in terms of maturity. The key, besides Rust and evmaps, is that Noria uses materialized views to do query optimization ahead of time, on write. The devil is in the details though, of course. And the details, in this case, are turning declarative SQL into a dataflow program that handles cache updates on new writes. http://corecursive.com/030-rethinking-databases-with-jon-gjengset/ Show notes: Noria Project pdos group at MIT Noria Paper Noria Article Jon's Rust Streaming
Learning to Think with Andy Hunt - Pragmatic Programmers guide to being productive
Andy Hunt is a celebrity in the world of software development. Or at least he is one to me. The Pragmatic Programmer is a classic book on software development book. He is an author of the agile manifesto and started the book company that has published many great books, including several by recent guests. Today I talk to Andy about how software engineers can get better at thinking and learning. How can we develop this meta-skill and how can being aware of common mistakes our brain make us more productive? Show notes: The Pragmatic Programmer Pragmatic Thinking and Learning Conglommora Webpage for Episode
Data and Scale with Pat Helland - The long view on distributed databases
Pat Helland has a wealth of knowledge on building distributed data stores. He has been working on distributed data stores since 1978, when he worked on the tandem fault-tolerant database. Since then he has been involved in many distributed database projects. Here is the key thing, he is also a master at explaining the key ideas of distributed systems using simple language and practical everyday examples. Can you get married on the phone? How are messaging systems and idempotence like regional offices communicating via fax machine? These are the type of metaphor that Pat uses. Today, Pat sits down with me and teaches me about dealing with data in a distributed, fault tolerant, infinitely scaling world. Webpage : http://corecursive.com/028-data-pat-heland/ Links: Pat's articles ON ACM QUEUE Mind your state for your state of mine Consistency Eventually Standing on Distributed Shoulders of Giants The Singular Success of SQL Life Beyond Distributed Transactions
Abstraction and Learning with Runar Bjarnason
What is abstraction? Can we have a precise definition of abstraction that, once understood, makes writing software simpler? Runar has thought a lot about abstraction and how we can choose the proper level of abstraction for the software we write. In this interview, he explains these concepts using examples from the real world, from SQL, from effectful computing and many other areas. We also talk about how to learn and acquire the skills necessary to understand abstract concepts like very polymorphic code and category theory. Runar also explains his latest project unison computing and how it uses the correct level of abstraction to rethink several foundation ideas in software development. Links: Constraints Liberate Maximally Powerful, Minimally Useful Unison Computing Webpage for show
Modern Systems Programming And Scala Native With Richard Whaling
Richard Whaling has an interesting perspective on software development. If you write software for the JVM or if you are interested in low level system programming, or even doing data heavy or network heavy IO programming then you will find this interview interesting. We discuss how to build faster software in a modern fashion by using glibc and techniques from system programming. This means using raw pointers and manual memory management but from a modern language. Richard also shares some perspectives on better utilizing the underlying operating system and how we can build better software by depending on services rather than libraries. Links: Beej's Guide to C Beej's Guide to Unix Interprocess Communication Beej's Guide to Network Programming Gary Bernhardt's Destroy All Software Screencasts (Web Server from Scratch, Malloc from scratch, shell from scratch) Stevens & Rago Systems Programming books: Advanced Programming UNIX Environment Unix Network Programming - Sockets UNIX Network programming - Interprocess Communication
Burn out and recreational coding with Jamis Buck
A decade ago Jamis Buck was not loving his job. He was an important open source contributor. He worked for the hottest trendiest software company at the time, 37 signals, creator of ruby on rails. He was on top of the world but also he was burnt out. Today Jamis talks about how he overcame burn out. We discuss how his struggle lead him to write a book about generating mazes and another about building a ray tracer. His books are great fun, and all about recreational programming. You will learn to build things with a focus not on the latest trends in software development and not even a specific programming language. The focus instead is on fun.
Software as a Reflection of Values With Bryan Cantrill
Which operating system is the best? Which programming language is the best? What text editor? Bryan Cantrill, CTO of Joyent says that is the wrong question. Languages, operating systems and communities have to make trade offs and they do that based on their values. So the right language is the one who's values align with you and your projects goals. This simple idea carries a lot of weight and I think has the potential to lift up technical discussions to a higher level of discourse. You will find it to be a helpful frame next time you need to make a technical decision. Bryan is also pretty excited about how the values of the rust community align with his values for system software. Also we cover Oberon, Clean and Simula 4, none of which I've never heard of and how IBM System/370 's Global Trace Facility doesn't hold a candle to Dtrace. Webpage for this episode Show Links: Software Values Slides The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System Microsoft should buy github All Bryan's Talks Slack Channel for Site
The Little Typer With Daniel Friedman and David Thrane Christiansen
When it comes to type systems "I am, so far, only in the dependent types camp" - Daniel P. Friedman You can write more correct software and even rigorous mathematical proofs. Prepare for some mind stretching. Previous guests like Edwin Brady and Stephanie Weirich have discussed some of the exciting things a dependent type system can do Miles Sabin said dependent types are surely the future. This interview is to get us ready for the future. Daniel P. Friedman is famous for his "Little" series of books. Little Schemer, Little prover, Little MLer and so on. These books are held in high regard. Here is a quote from Doug Crockford: "Little Schemer teaches one thing, a thing that is very difficult to teach, a thing that every profession programmer should know, and it does it really well. These are lessons that stick with you." The latest one is the little typer and its about types. Specifically dependent types. Dan's coauthor is David Thrane Christiansen, Idris contributor, and host of a podcast about type theory that is way over my head. Together they are going to teach us how the programming skills we already have can be used to develop rigourus mathematical proofs. Stay tuned to the end for my guide to working thru the book. Originally published at CoRecursive here Join Our Slack Community
Big Ball Of Mud
Evolving software under constrained resources is a challenge, and I think we kid ourselves when we don't admit this. Software that is providing value often grows in scope until it is a mess. Today I talk to Wade Waldron about how avoid this situation or recover from it. Big ball of mud is the title of a paper presented at the 1997 Patterns Languages of Programs conference and I think it is super interesting. The researchers went out into the field to see what architectures software in industry were following. Big Ball of mud is what they found, along with other 6 other patterns with names like "sweep it under the rug" and reconstruction, which is the throw it away and start again pattern. Links: Big Ball Of Mud Paper Hexagonal Architecture Reactive Foundations Course Reactive Advanced Course Check out other episodes like this Philip Wadler: https://corecursive.com/021-gods-programming-language-with-philip-wadler/ This podcast originally published here : https://corecursive.com/22-big-ball-of-mud-architecture-and-services-with-wade-waldron/
God's Programming Language - Philip Wadler on Haskell
Today I talk to Professor Philip Wadler, a very accomplished programming language researcher. Phil walks us through a principle that has guided his career. That principle is that typed lambda calculus is not invented but a discovery of a deep truth. It is something connected to the mathematical underpinning of the universe itself. It follows from this that functional programming languages are therefore more correct or more deeply justified and fundamental than other languages. I am probably stating things in a stronger fashion than Phil is comfortable with, but I like fp, so I can be a little hyperbolic. While explaining this principle, that has guided his career, Phil takes us through the history of computer science. We start with Turing and Alonzo Church. Eventually we get to what the movie Independence Day got wrong and what language a theoretical creator deity would program in. Show notes: talk paper Web page for this episode CoRecursive On Twitter CoRecursive On Itunes
Test in Production and being On-Call with Charity Majors
"Metrics and Dashboards can die in a fire and every software engineer should be on-call" - Charity Majors Today's Interview is with Charity Majors. We talk about how to make it easier to debug production issues in today's world of complicated distributed systems. A warning, There is some explicit language in this interview. I originally saw a talk by Charity where she said something like fuck your metrics and dashboards, you should test in production more. It was a pretty hyperbolic statement, but backed up with a lot of great insights. I think you'll find this interview similarly insightful. Charity and her company are probably best known for popularizing the concept that observability in the key to being able to debug issues in production. Also if you are a talented developer with functional programming skills, I've got a job offer for you. My employer Tenable is hiring. Tenable is a pretty great place to work. Here is a job link. Show notes: Facebook Scuba Observability Talk the-engineer-manager-pendulum HoneyComb.io Show Link