Writing

Build a minimal IaC tool from scratch to demystify how Pulumi / Terraform / CDK actually work.

Building AI agents that take real actions, and the reliability patterns that keep them safe.

Ten more platform-engineering workflows you can hand to Pulumi Neo: deployments, tickets, incident triage, IAM, migration, and continuous ops.

I've been confusing Don with frontier-lab links late at night for months. Ilya Sutskever told a NeurIPS audience that pre-training as we know it would unquestionably end. There's only one internet, and the data isn't growing. The frontier labs call this the pre-training wall. A leaked Google memo from 2023 argued they had no moat. R1 is on GitHub. Llama is on Hugging Face. OpenAI's secondary-market valuation has climbed past $850 billion. Don kept asking what, exactly, that $850 billion was buying. So he came over and we made an episode about it.

In this hands-on workshop, learn how to use Pulumi to provision real AWS infrastructure with TypeScript. Adam walks through the building blocks — declarative resources, stacks, outputs — and ties them together by deploying a working multi-tier application: a database, a backend…

How does a small team ship custom code into customer cloud accounts in a day or two? Adam talks to Ewan Dawson, CTO of Compostable AI, about how they leaned into agentic AI for everything from product to infrastructure — and the rules they learned for building an "AI software…

A serverless AI running coach that remembers your training — Python + Lambda + EventBridge.

Kate Gregory has been writing C++ for over forty years. Books, keynotes, a consulting firm she built from the ground up. At sixty-three, she's one of the most experienced programmers alive. She surveyed hundreds of software engineers about getting older. What scares you? What's changed? What have you lost? The things people feared most — memory, stamina, keeping up — weren't the real threats. The stuff that was actually breaking down was mostly fixable. A bad knee wasn't aging, it was a torn cartilage. Wrist pain disappeared when she changed how she slept. But buried in the research was something harder to fix. The single factor that predicted whether you'd age well or badly had nothing to do with your body at all. The opponent isn't aging. The opponent is the story about aging.

A serverless AI architecture, built around a personal project — an AI coach that remembers your training.

Failure modes when AI agents touch real infrastructure — and the reliability patterns that keep them safe.

Corey told me about his AI cat reel problem. He found these AI-generated cat videos hilarious. Who makes these? He kept sending them to his wife. Then he tried to stop watching and he couldn’t. So I went down the rabbit hole of how social media algorithms actually work. It starts simple. Upvote, downvote, sort by time. But by 2017 Facebook has a metric that quietly reshapes what two billion people see. Then a leaked playbook lands, and a CEO takes the stand in Los Angeles. Today is an investigation into what happens when the algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

Multiple VS Code windows. "Agent stopping" in a robot voice. A laptop stand on the treadmill so Claude can keep working while I run. The Big Rich sitting unread by the fireplace while I check if the migration's done. Somewhere along the way, I started reorganizing my life around keeping the machine spinning. Claude Code had become my universal paperclip clicker. This is me trying to figure out the difference between real work and just feeding it tickets.

A re:Invent 2025 takeaways talk for the Houston AWS user group — what AWS's AI stack means for builders.

Ron Garret left JPL for a 100-person startup he’d just discovered on Usenet. Four a.m. alarms. Burbank to San Jose on Southwest. A rented room in Susan Wojcicki’s house. He expected the search engine engineering and instead he got asked to build ad serving. In Java and with JSPs and no syntax highlighting and no delimiter balancing. Launch week was a stampede and then a window on his screen fills with declines. Numbers he can’t explain. Some of them look… real. How do you even name what’s happening? This episode is about creating Google AdWords. Building the machine that prints money, while trying not to get crushed in the gears.

The deprecation of CDKTF has left many without a clear path forward. This post presents the alternatives and shows what it's like to move from CDKTF to Pulumi.

At re:Invent 2025, AWS revealed a vertically integrated AI training pipeline. Here's who it's actually for.

Imagine facing a problem you can’t name, something that feels bigger than any bug you’ve ever had to fix. How do you debug your own mind when you don’t even know what’s wrong? Burke Holland’s story starts with a college party and a bad trip that leaves a deeper mark than he expects. Sleep gets harder. Fear creeps in. His life starts shrinking. School falls apart, friends drift away, and he ends up back at home trying to understand what’s happening to him. He looks for structure in the Coast Guard. Later he discovers computers and realizes he might have found the thing he’s meant to do. But the shadow that followed him out of that party doesn’t care about career paths. It shows up during college, during work, during marriage, during parenthood. Sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it knocks him completely flat.

All life is suffering. Well, duh, Jolie would remember thinking, the one time Roshi Steve ever stooped to bullet-point the noble truths of Buddhism. Her phone, secure in its cubby, was more or less a snuff film of the world’s entangled miseries: bread lines, forever wars, the beehives gone silent, the coral reefs bleached white. Yet there at the zendo to which she’d been sneaking off each Thursday the spring of her seventh-grade year, wisdom wasn’t supposed to come in such pithy little nuggets. So it was only later, toward the end of April, that she would realize this First Noble Truth had been the through-line all along.

What do you do when your code breaks and the only fix is to dig into the runtime below? Matt Godbolt lives for that. Tile-based renderers, color-coded scanlines, zero-copy NICs—each story is a clue that leads past the abstraction to the real machine. He shares the rule that guides him: master your layer, learn the one below, and know the outline of the layer under that. Matt Godbolt's journey proves the real breakthroughs are hidden behind the abstractions where you are comfortable and familiar.

How MCP-style agents can safely extend into cloud environments using IaC as the bridge.

What if a software bug drained your savings, ruined your reputation, and nobody believed it wasn’t your fault? Scott Darlington took over a village post office, hoping to give his family a steady life. But the software system kept showing cash shortfalls he couldn’t explain. Each time, the Post Office told him the numbers were right and made him pay the difference out of his own pocket. Eventually it became too much and actions Scott took to protect himself lead to his arrest and public shaming. How do you build trust in systems when the people behind them refuse to admit they’re broken?

Implement deployment guardrails with Pulumi CrossGuard to create safe self-service infrastructure balancing developer autonomy and control.

Short walkthrough of using Earthly Lunar to roll out an SDLC compliance check across a fleet — turning a post-incident action item into an enforceable policy.

A quick update from Adam about the podcast's current state, consistency challenges, and what's coming next.

What do we risk when we let AI do the heavy lifting in our coding? Are we giving up the thinking that makes us good at what we do? And as expectations keep rising to match productivy gains, is all this speed really helping, or just making us busier? Today, let's look at the tradeoffs of coding with AI and why the hardest part might be deciding what to hold onto, and what to let go.

Learn about the importance of Developer Experience (DX) and how it can impact different roles within an organization. Discover how Alice, Bob, and ...

I’ve always found meaning, and a lot of strength, in building things. Now, with AI coding agents changing the way we work, it’s easy to feel threatened, like something essential might get taken away. But honestly, that creative urge can’t be replaced by any tool. In this episode, I talk about what it’s like when your identity is tied to making things, and the tools suddenly change.

Transform governance from manual bureaucracy into an automated enabler by embedding policy-as-code, RBAC, and automated controls directly into your platform.

Transform observability into a developer superpower with unified visibility, AI-powered insights, and actionable alerts embedded in your platform.

What if your search for connection took you somewhere you never meant to go—almost costing you everything? John Walker grew up building computers and exploring early internet forums, always looking for a place to fit in. As a teenager, he hacked his school network and spent hours on IRC, but loneliness crept in. Drugs became a fun exploration and a social experiment. But soon, addiction pulled him into homelessness and jail. Even at his lowest, John turned to online communities. He ran IRC bots to keep recovery chatrooms safe from trolls and built scrapers to solve tough data problems at work. These technical challenges gave him a reason to keep going, even when face-to-face life felt impossible. But the real turning point came when John stopped trying to hide his differences. How do you rebuild when you feel like an outsider?

Learn how to transform infrastructure management from configuration chaos to programming languages using effective change management strategies.

How SEITENBAU built a flexible platform serving 20+ independent projects with Pulumi's buffet approach, offering reusable components teams can mix and match.

Is platform engineering a genuine evolution of DevOps or just a rebrand? We explore both perspectives on this industry trend.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where learning felt like an uphill battle? Like no matter how hard you tried, the pieces just wouldn't fall into place? Steve Krouse's story shows the power of the right learning environment. As a child, Steve felt he wasn't good at math. But everything changed with an afterschool program called IMACS. Initially skeptical, he soon embraced its creative approach, which encouraged self-paced learning. At IMACS, Steve learned to think on paper, grasping math concepts through programming languages like Logo and Scheme. This confidence moved him from remedial to advanced math, sparking a love for programming and education. Frustrated with traditional schooling, Steve dropped out of college to create engaging learning experiences for kids. His efforts led to tools like woof.js and the founding of Val Town, making programming accessible and collaborative. Join us as we explore Steve's journey, revealing how innovative educational environments can unlock potential and transform identities.

Do you recognize this man? Well, he has some things to teach us about learning in the latest episode: https://corecursive.com/the-power-of-context/ Todays' podcast episode is about how to learn hard things. Guest Steve Krouse ( not pictured ) was a struggling student when he…

Learn how security can enable innovation by embedding guardrails directly into your platform.

Can a single line of code change the way we see science, policy, and trust? In this episode we explore the "Climategate" scandal that erupted from leaked emails and code snippets, fueling doubts about climate science. What starts as an investigation into accusations of fraud leads to an unexpected journey through the messy reality of data science, legacy code struggles, and the complex pressures scientists face every day. Along the way, we uncover stories of hidden errors and misunderstood phrases taken out of context, revealing a world where science, software engineering, and human complexity intertwine. This story doesn't just challenge assumptions—it shows the power and importance of transparency in science and technology. Join Adam as he digs deep into Climategate, uncovering what really happened when code got thrust into the spotlight, and what it means for trust, truth, and open science.

I have a new podcast episode out about this graph: I know that doesn't sound exciting, but it actually is! https://corecursive.com/briffa-sep98-e/ That is a famous climate change graph that caused a lot of controversy, with newspapers and news shows accusing scientists of fraud…

Learn how to boost developer experience, productivity, and velocity with an internal developer platform using service catalogs, templates, and CI/CD.

Unlock developer productivity with self-service infrastructure through modular abstraction and intent-based specifications for your internal developer platform.

What if a simple game became a gateway to computational breakthroughs? David Freiberg and Felipe set out on a journey to conquer Hatetris, a notoriously difficult JavaScript game. Their interest ignited when a new world record was set, showing that surpassing the game's high score was possible. Their journey was full of challenges, from building an emulator in different programming languages to tackling complex algorithms. They pushed the boundaries of what's possible but the story didn't end there. Collaborating with fellow enthusiasts, including a Japanese Tetris expert, led to further breakthroughs. By sharing insights and building on each other's work, they set a records after records. Their story highlights the power of curiosity, collaboration, and the joy of discovery.

Build a reliable infrastructure provisioning foundation with version control, automation, and golden-path templates for your internal developer platform.

Explore the essential pillars of Platform Engineering and learn how to transform infrastructure chaos into a streamlined development experience.

What if internet trolls could become your greatest collaborators? Nolen Royalty discovered this unexpected truth when his simple checkbox game went viral. It began with a school email prank that crashed servers but sparked a philosophy: creative constraints breed innovation. From "Flappy Dird" to "One Million Checkboxes," Nolen built games that turned limitations into playgrounds. But when his checkbox project became a battleground of organized chaos, Nolen faced a choice: suppress the chaos or lean into it. Discover how systematic constraints can channel creative anarchy - and why one developer now believes the best user experiences emerge when you code for controlled chaos of strangers meeting on the internet.

I have a new podcast episode is out: https://corecursive.com/one-million-checkboxes-with-nolen-royalty/ It's at the intersection of coding, game building, art and online trolls. That is to say it's a super fun episode about building something and having it become really really…

How cheap can you host a Python API in 2026? Package Flask as a container, deploy to AWS Lambda with Pulumi, and pay ~$1.12/month worst-case ($0 when idle).

From quick fixes to scalable enterprise solutions—explore 15 essential Python tools for automation, monitoring, and cloud deployment.

What if the only way to improve your life was leave your dream job behind? Jon de la Motte failed his first Stripe interview, but he didn't give up. It was his dream job, a company that connected his father's work in finance with his software ambitions. At Stripe, Jon faced challenges. He joined a risky JavaScript infrastructure team and struggled to find his footing. Eventually he found his way, built a great team and then it all started to fall apart. Discover how Jon's journey reshaped his life and what it means to balance personal and professional priorities.

Pulumi case study — how Statsig's one-person infra team scaled to 2 trillion events/day using self-service infrastructure.

Recorded Pulumi workshop covering IaC fundamentals.

Learn key engineering lessons from building Pulumi Copilot, including how to minimize LLM workload, validate outputs, and deal with hallucination.

Explore 105+ ways to run containers—from AWS to toasters to quantum computers. Discover unique OCI deployment options beyond Kubernetes and Docker.

What if you had to break life-changing news to your team—could you handle the weight of their futures? Allison's journey from software engineer to compassionate leader at Shopify is filled with challenges and growth. It all started when her mentor was suddenly laid off, leaving her with uncertainty and guilt. This turning point taught her the importance of adaptability in the tech industry's ups and downs. When Allison faced her own layoff, she found the strength to move on to new roles, including a position at Shopify. There, she had to announce layoffs to her team, learning to lead with empathy and prioritize their well-being. Her story highlights the power of empathy and resilience in leadership. She shares how to end employment on good terms and create a supportive environment for those affected. While layoffs are tough, they can also be a place to show strength.

Learn how to use uv, an ultra-fast Python package manager, now fully integrated with Pulumi

Explore the differences between AWS EKS Fargate and EC2-backed clusters for your Kubernetes EKS workloads.

Discover when to use Cosmos DB and how it compares with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, and DynamoDB. Learn about scalability, performance, cost & use cases.

Key topics covered: - Common misconceptions about Docker Secrets - Why secrets shouldn't be stored in Docker images - Runtime vs. build-time secrets management - Secure alternatives for managing secrets - Best practices for container security

Have you ever known someone whose technical brilliance was overshadowed by personal failings? This is the story of Hans Reiser, a software developer driven to create a superior Linux filesystem, but whose difficult personality got in the way. Then came the disappearance of his wife, Nina, in 2006. The investigation pointed to Reiser, ending with a murder conviction that shocked the tech world. Reiser's story is a reminder of how technical skills and personal integrity need to go hand in hand. From prison, he reflects on his mistakes, realizing the need for empathy and collaboration. His legacy, once about innovation, now serves as a cautionary tale.

How do you know what matters? What goals are worth pursing? What if training to climb Everest left you certain you were on the wrong career path? . Yoshio's journey starts with disappointment in his academic path. Unsatisfied and aimless, he decides to climb Mount Everest, inspired by a childhood experience. This marks the beginning of a life-changing adventure. Join us to hear Yoshio's story of transformation, from Everest to personal loss, and how he found his true calling in coding, communication and 'being one of the wizards who can create things with their mind'.

It's October, and new podcast episode is out: https://corecursive.com/from-everest-to-startups-with-yoshio-goto/ This episode is about your life. It's about accepting that life is short and using that to structure how you live. Yoshio Goto shares his story of finding what…

What if your corporate job left you feeling empty, and you decided to leap into venture capital? Tim Chen, a software engineer, was disillusioned with corporate life at Microsoft. The 2008 market crash and layoffs deepened his dissatisfaction. Seeking more impactful work, Tim joined startups and contributed to open-source projects, like Kafka and Docker. Then after his own start-up, Tim found a niche bridging the gap between technical founders and venture capital. But could get into Venture Capital himself? Join me and Tim to hear his journey from a disillusioned software engineer to a successful venture capitalist, exploring the highs and lows of his unusual career move.

I was interviewed for the Software Misadventures Podcast.

Below is a machine generated transcription.

It's July, and happy July 4th to my American readers. A new podcast episode is out: https://corecursive.com/building-powershell-with-jeffrey-snover/ It's a detailed peek into the internals of Microsoft and the development of Powershell. My guest is Jeffrey Snover and he has a…

In this video, Adam dives into the evolution of programming languages and the balance between expressiveness and readability. He explores how modern features like lambdas in Java and constexpr in C++ reduce boilerplate but add complexity. Using examples from Java, Scala, Go,…

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.

It's June now, and I have a new episode out here: Hedy https://corecursive.com/hedy-with-felienne-hermans/ I've been telling friends and colleagues about this episode for several weeks. Whenever someone asks me how the podcast is going, I jump into it: Ok, Imagine this: A…

I was interviewed by Sarah for a podcast.

Below is a machine generated transcription.

Sarah interviews Adam Gordon Bell about his successful content creation strategies during his time at Earthly Technologies.

Sarah: Adam, your articles consistently made it to the front page of Hacker News during your time at Earthly, with pieces like “We built the fastest CI and it failed” and “Don’t Feed the Thought Leaders” generating hundreds of points. What was your approach to selecting topics that would resonate with the developer community?

For years, this blog has said at the top, in the header, “This is my blog. It’s somewhat abandoned.” It’s more than just abandoned, though. Here is the story.

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.

It’s May now, and I have a new episode out. But it’s just not just any episode 100, and it’s something special. : 100! https://corecursive.com/coding-machines-with-don-and-krystal/ It's a story about debugging code, and I don't want to spoil it, but it blew my mind. It's about…

Welcome to another episode of Earthly Show and Tell. Today, Josh Gilman, the SRE lead at IOHK (Input Output), will take us on a deep dive into how his team has utilized Earthly to transform their CI process. In today's session, Josh will demonstrate how Earthly can simplify and…

Dive into the complexities of advancing from beginner to intermediate programming with our detailed discussion on overcoming the 'intermediate plateau.' This video addresses the challenges faced when transitioning to complex programming languages like Rust compared to simpler…

In this episode of Earthly Show and Tell, we sit down with Dan Miller, a software engineer at Replay, to explore their cloud-based development workflow powered by Earthly and Tilt.

Delve (dlv) is a CLI-based debugger for Go, tailored to the language’s concurrency model and runtime. It allows y...

This video explores the concept of implicit returns, if-expressions, match-expressions, and single-expression functions in programming languages like Rust, Ruby, Kotlin, and Scala, highlighting how they can enhance code readability and conciseness. The author demonstrates the…

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?

April and a new CoRecursive episode: Code, Kickflips and Crunch Time: Mick West's Neversoft Journey How do you build one of the most successful video games? The one that tops the charts, leads to a franchise and becomes a cultural phenomenon? Today, Mick West shares the story…

Here is a non-realistic scenario: You are choosing the programming language for what will eventually become something large. Picture a col...

In this episode of Earthly Show and Tell, Eric and Jordan discuss the development of Slipwise, a Ruby application designed for marina management. They outline their journey in creating an efficient system to handle marina operations, including the management of boats, contracts,…

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.

March and a new CoRecursive episode: Leaving LinkedIn - Choosing Engineering Excellence Over Expediency Can sustainable software development and tech giant fast-paced cultures truly coexist? Imagine having to choose between your career at a tech giant and your deepest values.…

Dr Alexander Mikhalev: Alex has 20+ years of engineering, academic, and leadership experience with deep knowledge and interests in AI/ML, data privacy, synthetic data, distributed data and natural language processing/search engines, sensors, and wired/wireless networks.

Ever looked at some code and thought, “Wow, that’s an ugly mess!”? Or maybe you picked up a new programming language and felt right at hom...

Have you ever felt like your code could be more than just functional, that it could be beautiful? Greg Wilson didn't just ponder this; he embarked on a quest to elevate software design to an art form. From a soldering iron burn that steered him away from electrical engineering to his crusade for a shared language in software architecture, Greg's journey is a testament to the transformative power of teaching and the relentless pursuit of design excellence. In this episode, we dive into Greg's world, where the lessons of building sawhorses in carpentry shed light on the elegance of code and where the stories of software's pioneers become a roadmap for mastering design. Greg's mission has been to share his knowledge generously, to develop a language for design that can transform how we build software, and to inspire a new generation of developers to see the beauty in their craft. Join us as we explore how Greg's practical approach has empowered countless scientists and developers, and how his books have started essential conversations in the software community. It's a story of passion, perseverance, and the unyielding belief that software design can and should be as revered as any other form of architecture.

February and a new CoRecursive episode: Beautiful Code - Inside Greg Wilson's Vision for Software Design Greg Wilson has been on a decades-long quest to transform how we teach and talk about software design. From getting rejections for using the term "beautiful code," to…

Following from Rust, Ruby, and the Art of Implicit Returns...

This article explores the concept of implicit returns, if-expressions, match-expressions, and single-expression functions in programming languages ...

What if your dreams were suddenly ripped away? What if your talents vanished, your passions erased? That's what happened to Jason McDonald when a traumatic brain injury at 16 ravaged his planned destiny of becoming a doctor. Jason painfully rebuilt his identity from scratch - relearning to read, write, even speak. A serendipitous discovery of coding ignited a new passion within Jason. He dove into the world of Python, even writing a popular programming book. His is a story of the incredible resilience of the human spirit when faced with life-altering challenges. One that calls us to embrace our own vulnerabilities as gateways to growth.

2024 and a new CoRecursive episode: Code As A Lifeline What if your dreams were suddenly ripped away? What if your talents vanished, your passions erased? That’s what happened to Jason McDonald when a traumatic brain injury at 16 ravaged his planned destiny of becoming a doctor.…

In this tutorial, we learn to use JQ to manipulate JSON documents! We explore the powerful features and functions of JQ, guiding you through constructing, sorting, filtering, and combining functions with pipes to enhance your JSON manipulation skills.

The article discusses the challenges of learning complex programming languages like Rust and how the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) can help b...

In this tutorial, we delve into the power of AWK at the command line, focusing on two key functionalities.

From the early days of exploring creative possibilities on a 486 computer in his childhood to developing one of today's most popular web frameworks, Evan You's journey is a tale of passion and innovation. Evan started Vue.js while working at Google, just wanting to scratch his own itch for a lightweight JavaScript framework. But soon Vue started to gain a huge following. Eventually Evan then faced a tough dilemma - should he take a leap of faith and devote himself fully to his fledgling open source project? Hear Evan's firsthand story of that key career transition. How the explosive user feedback at Vue conferences gave him confidence. But also the challenges he faced by putting himself directly in the line of fire from unhappy users. It's an inspiring journey - from a developer just trying to solve his own problems to the leader of one of today's most popular web frameworks. Hear the very human story behind Vue.js.

It's December now, and I have a new podcast episode out here: From 486 to Vue.js - Evan You's Full-Time Gamble on Open Source It's the unlikely origin story behind Vue.js and how Evan You's frustration with Angular sparked a side project that snowballed into one of today's most…

This tutorial series explains how to package and publish Python code on PyPI using setuptools and twine. It covers topics such as choosing a packag...

This tutorial explains how to use the Poetry dependency manager and build system to package and publish Python projects. It covers the process of b...

This tutorial series demonstrates how to package and distribute a Python C extension using setuptools and a setup.py file. It covers the process of...

In this video, we delve deep into the fascinating world of containers and their implementation on various operating systems. We begin by exploring the traditional definition of containers, which involves using Linux system calls and namespaces for isolation. However, we also…

How did Spotify scale from 10 engineers to 100s to 1000s ...without slowing down? Without becoming corporate? Facing an IPO deadline, Pia Nilsson worked with 300 teams to transform how Spotify built software. She spearheaded a movement that led them from working in silos to a unified developer platform. Hear the inside story of how Spotify's Platform teams embraced transparency and customer focus to create Backstage — now used by companies worldwide. It's an unbelievable tale of ingenuity and perseverance. Hear Spotify's secret to scaling engineering without losing speed and independence. Don't miss it!

It’s November now, and I have a new episode out here: The Inside Story of Spotify's Engineering Growth It’s about Spotify, back in 2016-2018. Facing an IPO deadline, Pia Nilsson worked with 300 teams to transform how Spotify built software. She spearheaded a movement that led…

Vlad appeared on devtools.FM and discussed the challenges of go-to-market strategies in startups, emphasizing that it is often harder than the tech...

Today, let's discuss Python dependency, virtual environments and the use of Poetry, an all-in-one tool for virtual environments, dependency management, packaging, and distribution in Python projects.

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.

It’s October now, and I have a new episode out here: Sloot Digital Coding System 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,…

In this video, we delve into Golang's unique approach to error handling. We highlight how Go's error handling differs from other programming languages and showcase its effectiveness when following the right idioms. We demonstrate the simplicity of implementing the error…

In this video, we demonstrate how to work with YAML in Python, covering key topics such as reading and writing YAML files, working with nested elements, making modifications to YAML documents, and converting YAML to JSON. We also provide practical examples and valuable insights…

This article provides a humorous and satirical glossary of terms related to DevOps, highlighting the realities and quirks of the field. It offers a...

Powerlevel10k is a powerful prompt customization tool for ZSH that offers speed, customization, and a helpful configuration wizard. It elevates the...

It’s September now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/configuring-identity-adam-jacob/ It's a look behind the scenes to the creation of Chef - the game-changing infrastructure automation tool. Adam Jacob created Chef, and it became a massively popular…

In this video, Adam shares expert strategies for harnessing GPT-4 and other generative AI models to tackle complex challenges. He dives into the nuances of prompt engineering and tuning, highlighting the significance of meticulously choosing the information you feed into…

It’s August now, and I have a new episode out here: The Science of Learning to Code It's about learning, and this is a topic very dear to my own heart. The episode shares some history of learning research and imparts some guidelines for embarking on a learning side project while…

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 coding's steep 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!

Learn why using YAML for control flow configuration can lead to complex and hard-to-understand code, and why it's better to use existing progra...

In this tutorial, Adam unveils his secret recipe for crafting personalized article excerpts and tailor-made call-to-action messages using the power of LLMs. Get ready to unleash your creativity and embark on an exciting writing adventure with Adam.

In this video, we learn to use JQ to manipulate JSON documents! We explore the powerful features and functions of JQ, guiding you through constructing, sorting, filtering, and combining functions with pipes to enhance your JSON manipulation skills. Learn the ins and outs of…

Learn strategies for working with LLMs, such managing context, framing the problem, thinking outloud and more in this newbs's guide to applying...

In this video, we show you how Earthly Satellites can be used with Github Actions to improve build performance and consistency while significantly reducing the complexity of creating and maintaining Github Actions workflows.

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.

It's July now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/a-dark-room-with-amir-rajan/ Amir is amazing. I identify with his early struggles – his struggles working with people who didn't care – so much. He is a little worried that his earlier self – who got…

Earthly community office hours — open Q&A on Earthfiles, build caching, and CI patterns.

Hey there! Ready to demystify containerization? Join us in this video where we dive into creating a container runtime from scratch using the Linux chroot syscall. We'll build our own basic container runtime using chroot to provide isolation.

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.

Waiting for Marv Quiting Stack Overflow It's June now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/stack-overflow/ The episode is the story of the longest-tenured employee at Stack Overflow, Ben Dumke-von der Ehe. He became an early employee of Stack Overflow by…

In this video, we delve into the powerful command line tool, awk, and showcase its exceptional capabilities for parsing and analyzing data. Whether you're a data enthusiast or a programming novice, awk can revolutionize the way you handle and process files, text, CSVs, and TSVs.…

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.

It's May now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/data-compression-yann--collet/ Yann Collet became interested in programming and discovered his passion for…

Discover the hidden pitfalls of dev tool businesses and how misaligned incentives can lead to bloated software and unsatisfied users. Learn how Ear...

This article explores the history of the build system Pants, from its early days at Google to its current version, Pants V2. It delves into the cha...

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.

April is here! March has been a challenging month for me. My dad is in the hospital, and I'm heading out on a road trip to visit him shortly. Some months are tougher than others. Doug Crockford But Episode 087 of the podcast is out, and it's an interview with Doug Crockford —…

Walking through how Linux namespaces and cgroups enable containerization, by building a runtime from scratch.

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 unique engineering-driven culture, and relationships with manufacturers and operators. And yet internal 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.

It's March now, and I have a new episode out here: Sun's Mobile Blunders 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 unique engineering-driven culture and relationships…

In this video, Adam talks to Benjy Weinberger, cocreator of Pants about Builds, MonoRepos, the history of Bazel and pants and why building software can be done better.

Staff vs line engineers — how the business-literature distinction maps to engineering careers and org dynamics.

Python's Timsort merge logic — and where it can be beaten.

In this video I'm going to show you how variables work in make files. It might seem like a simple topic, but actually, its a bit complex. Make files can get a little bit wild, and follow along with me today, and you'll be the expert at make files in no time.

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.

It’s February now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/shipping-graphing-calculator/ It’s the story of sneaking onto the Apple Campus to finish working on a project that got canceled. Each episode is only as good as the story, and it would be hard to find…

Learn how to store your VS Code settings in Git to easily manage and share your customizations. Keep all your settings in one place and avoid break...

Let’s talk about a tech career, but not about salary or how to pass the interview process at FANG. Instead, let’s talk about how your relationship with your employer influences what your job is like.

In this tutorial, we delve into the powerful world of build automation with Makefiles in Go (Golang) programming. Discover the essentials of using task runners for efficient software development, including how to streamline the process of compiling, running, testing, and…

In this video, I will show you how – and why – to use makefiles with Python. How to set up virtual environments and develop faster using this old-fashioned tool. And if you stay to the end, I'll share why makefiles are still an excellent choice for a modern developer.

Unlock the power of makefiles within Visual Studio Code (VS Code) with our latest tutorial video. Dive into the seamless integration of makefiles with VS Code, your one-stop solution for a streamlined coding experience. We’ll guide you through the essentials—compiling your code,…

In this Python Data Analysis tutorial, we explore the versatile techniques for reading and processing CSV files using Python's powerful libraries. We begin by leveraging the csv package to parse CSV files using both the standard reader and DictReader for optimized column access.…

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.

Newsletter, readers! The first episode of the year is a very special one to me. It’s an interview with long-time podcast guest and sort of neighbor Don McKay. Often times when I have Don on the podcast it’s a zany light episode where we explore a tech topic in a light-hearted…

Postmortem on building a fast CI product that didn't find its market.

Learn about the different monorepo build tools available, including Bazel, Pants, Nx, and Earthly. Discover their features, programming language su...

In this detailed tutorial, learn the essentials of containerizing a Python application using Docker, including comprehensive steps for crafting a Dockerfile, building an image, and deploying it as a container. Discover best practices for exposing ports and managing dependencies…

In this Python tutorial, delve into the efficient manipulation of list data structures, where you'll master the techniques of list concatenation, merging, and combination. Whether you're working with small lists or facing the challenge of uniting large datasets with extensive…

Python audience version of the Timsort talk — beating Timsort's merge logic.

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.

It's December now, and I have a new episode: https://corecursive.com/doomed-to-fail-with-burger-becky/ My Guest, Becky Heineman, shares the story of porting DOOM to the 3DO console. I grew up in this era and remember playing Wolfenstein on my home computer for hours and hours. I…

Tim Peters created TimSort for Python, and it's so fast in the real world most programming languages have now copied it. But here is how I beat it for at least one case, and what Tim thinks of my improvement.

In this Python Programming Tutorial, you'll learn how to read CSV files. You'll will learn how to read CSV files three ways, twice using the csv package, normal reader and dictreader, and finally using pandas. I'll also show you how to change the delimiter type and read…

Discover the frustrations and challenges faced by software developers in the world of "bullshit work." From pointless projects to busy wo...

In this article, the author explores the concept of containers and how they are essentially chrooted processes. They walk through the process of bu...

Today's story is from Son Luong Ngoc, who shares what 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 ([Son's photos of the Alibaba campus](#bonus-content-from-son)). It's a story of a software developer finding a place that fits them, a place that suits them.

It's November now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/software-world-tour-with-son-luong-ngoc/ The episode follows Son Luong Ngoc through his early career, starting with a desire to build video games in Vietnam and shadowing him through his travels around…

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.

It's October now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ It's about the early days of Android and it's a story I wouldn't usually be able to share because it's the story of the many people who worked on Android in the early days.…

In Adam's experience build scripts are often an ugly mix of make files, bash scripts, groovy code, and who knows what else. Adam will share his personal experience of moving to use the open-source earthfile format to improve this mess and walk through migrating an example…

Delve into the captivating process of container creation with "Compiling Containers," where Adam Gordon Bell illuminates the journey from Dockerfile statements like RUN, FROM, and COPY to a fully-fledged container image. This exploration reveals the transformative steps that…

Learn how to set up a Linux virtual machine on your macOS with Lima, a simple and efficient tool powered by QEMU. With Lima, you can have a Linux e...

Learn about the benefits and challenges of using Bazel, Google's open-source monorepo build system, from experts who have experience with it. D...

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.

It's September now, and I have a new episode out here. https://corecursive.com/prison-programming-with-rick-wolter/ It's an interview with Rick Wolter, and it's an interview I won't forget. In a lot of ways, Rick is a perfect guest for me. He is raw and transparent and not…

In this article, the concept of the "10x developer" is dissected and examined. The author explores whether such developers truly exist an...

Learn how to fix DNS issues and import DNS records from AWS's Route53 into Terraform in this informative article by Adam. Discover the steps he...

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. And why does this matter? Who is still using PERL anyhow? CPAN inspired everything that would follow: npm, maven, cargo, nuget, hackage, ruby gems, python pypi and so on. 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 important.

CoRecursive subscriber, It's August now, and I have a new episode out: This Day In History: CPAN CPAN CPAN, The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, changed software development for the better, and the story behind its creation is fascinating. The episode also touches on my…

Jeffrey Snover on building PowerShell and transforming Windows system administration.

Learn how to store your Terraform state in an S3 bucket to avoid leaking sensitive information and manage changes made by multiple people.

Learn how to import existing infrastructure into Terraform and manage it as code. Follow along as the author imports resources such as AWS Lambda, ...

Discover how programming language tooling has evolved over time and why newer languages like Go and Rust have gained popularity due to their compre...

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.

The Mystery of the Eliza Chatbot It’s July now, and I have a new episode out here. This episode is the story of Jeff Shrager, his connection with the famous chatbot Eliza, and his efforts to track down the original code. Jeff is an enjoyable person to chat with, and I could tell…

Build automation tools automate the process of building code, including steps such as compiling, packaging binary code, and running automated tests. Because of this, build automation tools are considered a key part of a continuous delivery pipeline. Build automation tools read build scripts to define how they should perform a build. Common build scripts include

Learn how to set up multi-factor authentication and generate time-based one-time passwords programmatically using MFA secret keys. Discover differe...

Learn how to use Cuelang, an extension of YAML, to validate your YAML configurations and prevent runtime errors. Discover how to define types, add ...

Learn how to run a full REST HTTP API in a single AWS Lambda using Golang. Discover the advantages of this approach and how to handle routing and r...

On June 1st, 2014, the following question showed up on hacker news: > Why is 80 characters, the standard limit for code width. Why 80? > > Why not? 79 or 81 or even a hundred. So 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.

New Episode It's June now, and I have a new This-Day-in-History episode out here: Why 80 columns? This episode is a peek into the world of mainframes and how idioms shape what we do as programmers. It was fun for me to make, and it all started on Twitter. Let me know what you…

Companion piece to the ConFoo talk — where Python's Timsort merge logic can be beaten.

Learn how to combine GRPC, AWS Lambdas, and GoLang to create a powerful serverless architecture. Discover different approaches to proxying GRPC req...

In this article, the author explores the differences between line and staff software engineers. They discuss the advantages and disadvantages of ea...

Learn how to build a Golang Lambda service in a container, hook it up to a REST API endpoint, and push and pull data from S3. This article covers t...

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. The year is 1988. The USSR still existed. Ronald Reagan was president of the United States. And Ron, under his thesis advisor, was working on a prototype for the first Mars Rover.

LISP in Space It's May now, and I have a new episode out here. It's the story of Ron Garret working on LISP at The Jet Propulsion Lab. He started there as part of his Comp Sci Ph.D. and worked on prototypes for the first Mars Rover: Sojourner. I'm not sure what I want to share…

Adam Jacob on creating Chef and the identity crisis of going from sysadmin to startup CTO.

Learn how to absorb tacit knowledge and improve your programming skills by watching experienced developers code in real-time. Discover a list of po...

Are you passionate about software development? Write for Earthly and reach a larger audience while getting paid. With tens of thousands of monthly ...

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 lame? And is there anything we can do to save them? Those are today's questions.

It’s April now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/april-fools-is-cancelled/ Today being April Fools, I brought back frequent guests Don and Krystal to discuss the banning of April Fools pranks from Hacker News in 2014, and from there, we explore the…

Learn how to convert webpages into plain text documents using the Text-Mode feature on Earthly. This article explores the benefits of reading the w...

Learn how to run containers on AWS Lambda and leverage the scalability and cost-saving benefits of serverless computing. This article explores the ...

Learn how to avoid common pitfalls when working with Protobuf using Buf, a suite of tools that simplifies dealing with protocol buffers. Discover h...

In this article, the author explores different ways to create a gRPC gateway that accepts HTTP requests and proxies them to a gRPC service. They co...

Learn why top-down standardization efforts can often lead to failure and how understanding specific problems through collaboration and embedding wi...

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.

It’s March now, and I have a new episode out here (and in your podcast player): The Story Graph with Nadia Odunayo Here is some of the backstory. As I mentioned in the episode, my wife first pointed me at The Story Graph. She is big into Bookstagram, which is the…

What makes programming languages popular — greenfield vs maintenance work.

Meet Josh Alletto, Earthly's new Senior Technical Content Engineer. In this article, he shares his journey from literature major to coding enth...

In this article, the author explores how to build a gRPC client and server in Golang. They explain the advantages of using gRPC over REST, demonstr...

Learn how to use Golang's `database/sql` package to work with SQLite databases. This tutorial covers topics such as installing SQLite, creating...

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.

It's February now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/serenity-os-with-andreas-kling/ It's a story about building an operating system, but so much more. My guest was Andreas Kling. Andreas struggled with addiction and was very willing to share his…

Learn how to build a command-line JSON client in Golang to interact with a REST service for storing workout activities. The article covers topics s...

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.

It's 2022 now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/internet-is-duct-tape/ It's a continuation of episode #68 "Quines". Don Mckay is back, and so is Krystal from episode 52. The three of us discuss how the world is messy, and often…

On non-contingent advice and why to ignore most of it.

Learn how to build a JSON HTTP server using Golang in this tutorial. Discover the basics of creating a Golang web service, handling HTTP requests, ...

Learn why many experienced software engineers prefer printf debugging over using debuggers, and how this approach can deepen your understanding of ...

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?

It's December now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/cocoa-culture-with-hansen-hsu/ This episode started with a question: Why are some groups so much better at some things than others? It's a big question with many possible answers, but one answer that…

Learn how to use property-based testing in Go to automatically generate unit tests and ensure the reliability of your code. Property-based testing ...

Learn the basics of bash variables and how they work in the UNIX shell. Discover how to define and access local shell variables, work with arrays, ...

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.

It's November now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/leaving-debian/ The episode is about Joey Hess and his time working on Debian. I've been a fan of Joey for some time, and when he commented on a recent episode on hacker news, I reached out to him to…

Learn how to manipulate strings in bash with this informative tutorial. From concatenating strings to replacing parts of a string, you'll disco...

Learn how to balance social confidence and epistemic confidence in order to succeed in your career. Find out why being confidently uncertain can be...

Live show interview about developer tools and Earthly.

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.

It’s October now, and I have a new episode out : https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/ It’s the story of Paul Lutus, the Oregon hermit, who built software for the Apple II from his log cabin in the woods by kerosene lantern and eventually became rich and famous.…

Join Earthly in celebrating Hacktoberfest 2021! Contribute to open-source projects, submit pull requests, and get a chance to win an Earthly sticke...

As developers hone their craft, becoming more productive often means learning utilities and tools at the command line.  The right combination of various parsing commands chained together through pipes can enable engineers to quickly and efficiently automate many adhoc data processing tasks. In this episode I speak with Adam Gordon Bell about some of his

Today, previous guest and my neighbor Don Mckay and I will discuss items from the endless fascinating *[Cursed Computer Iceberg Meme](https://suricrasia.online/iceberg/)*. The Iceberg is a giant list of "the peculiarities and weirdness of computers." We each a select 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.

It’s September now, and I have a new episode out here: https://corecursive.com/quines-polyglot-code/ It's a fun episode about various strange types of computation featuring my neighbour Don McKay. Don's explains varying computer errors and hacks and I cover quines and esoteric…

Viral piece arguing YAML-as-DSL is the new INTERCAL.

Learn how to convert JSON to CSV and vice versa at the command line using tools like `dasel`, `jq`, `jsonv`, and `csvtojson`. These handy command l...

Today’s show: How to quit your job and work on open source full time. This story has it all -- balancing side projects and full-time employment, building up enough supports to leave your job, and explaining quitting 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? And how do you deal with hacker news feedback? And how can we improve on the C programming language? This is a fun one!

The August episode is out and it's really good. It's an interview with Zig programming language creator Andrew Kelly: https://corecursive.com/067-zig-with-andrew-kelley/ Andrew is has been creating Zig, the programming language he always wanted for 5 years and the story behind…

Demystifying JSON processing at the command line.

In this article, the author explores the concept of "idiots and maniacs" in software development, drawing parallels to driving in the sno...

In this article, the author shares six command-line tools that can enhance productivity for programmers. These tools include `broot` for navigating...

Learn how to install `matplotlib` in a Docker container and quickly generate graphs and visualizations. Discover the differences between installing...

There are several ways to join lists in Python. In almost all situations using list1 + list2 is the way you want to concatenate lists.

Everyone, It's July now, and I have a new episode out with Richard Hipp about SQLite. You can find it here: https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/ SQLite is public domain and has a Christian blessing in place of a license agreement, so I went into the interview…

In this article, the author shares a personal experience of encountering a SQL error and how a non-verbal cue from a teammate helped them solve the...

Learn how to ensure the quality of your markdown files and documentation with linting tools. Discover various tools like markdownlint, mdspell, ale...

Learn about the evolution of git branching strategies and how they have changed over time. Follow the story of Ashley, a software developer, as she...

Learn about the essential metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for incident management in software development. Discover how Mean Time Bet...

This article explores different deployment strategies, including the recreate deployment strategy, rolling update deployment strategy, blue-green d...

How Dockerfiles get compiled into running containers — BuildKit's LLB and image layers.

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. Conor's story started in university when he was competing in programming contests. But it's interesting how if you follow a single idea long and hard enough, you end up in exciting places like writing software for GPUs. For Conor, that idea is finding the perfect way to express the solution to a programming problem. His journey will take him into LeetCode, into getting his dream job and all the way to APL, which is one of the more unusual and obscure programming languages.

Follow-up tutorial on processing CSV files with AWK.

A look at BuildKit and how Dockerfiles become container images.

In this article, the author explores why JRuby, an alternative Ruby interpreter that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), is slower than other R...

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.

Richard Hipp on how SQLite became core infrastructure for the world.

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.

Learn how containers are compiled using Dockerfiles, LLVM, and BuildKit in this tutorial. Explore the phases involved in creating a container image...

Learn about the pitfalls and discussions surrounding the use of YAML as a programming language, including the challenges of config traps, alternati...

A comprehensive guide to AWK that became a go-to reference.

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.

Learn how to use BuildKit, an open-source project that turns Dockerfiles into Docker images. Discover its history, how to install it, and how to bu...

Learn how to use mitmproxy, a command-line tool that acts as an HTTP and HTTPS proxy, to capture and modify network traffic. This tutorial provides...

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.

Looking for some interesting Scala blogs to celebrate Scala's birthday? Check out this list of active Scala blogs that cover a range of topics,...

Looking to learn GoLang? Check out this article for the top 3 resources recommended by an experienced developer. From interactive tours to in-depth...

Learn about the recent migration of open-source projects off of Travis CI and discover alternative options for hosting your builds, such as Circle ...

DevOps talk at the Brampton meetup during the Earthly era.

Conference talk at BluePrint LDN during the Earthly era.

Online talk at DevFest Live during the Earthly era.

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 Kernighan, the creator of AWK among many other things. I have questions for Sean Allen, who works at Microsoft research, and Krystal Maughan, PHD Candidate.

Quick Tutorial: Let's build a go application using Earthly

Learn the differences between unit testing and integration testing and when to use each approach. Discover how unit tests focus on small, isolated ...

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 Github followers. Today, he's gonna share his story. It involves time at a research lab and 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.

The case for builds that combine what Dockerfiles and Makefiles each do well.

When you work on your computer, there are so many things you take for granted: operating systems, programming languages, they all have to come from somewhere. In the late 1960s and 1970s, that somewhere was Bell Labs, and the operating system they were building was UNIX. They were building more than just an operating system though. They were building a way to work with computers that had never existed before. In today's episode I talk to Brian Kernighan about the history of Unix.

Trends in functional programming — Scala and Docker Compose as a worked example.

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.

Learn how to solve the problem of reproducible builds with Earthly, an open-source tool that encapsulates your build process in a Docker-like synta...

Preparing our minds for the inevitable is hard. But, after facing terminal cancer, Kate Gregory recalled that facing death has many lessons to teach us. In this episode, Kate will share the lessons she learned and explain how you can apply them to your career as a software developer and live a remarkable life.

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 engineers learn best. Richard also delves into Elm, his approach, and how to make teaching delightful.

Alex Petrov, author of Database Internals explains the ins and outs of database storage engines. What are they? How do they differ? What problems do they solve? Host Adam Gordon Bell spoke with Alex about these questions as well as how information is stored on disk, different strategies for building indexes and the difference between log structured merge trees and B Trees. Alex also touches on the topic of solid state drives and how their strengths are more suited towards certain storage engine implementations and how a storage engine affects important characteristics of a database, like its strengths and weaknesses in write heavy or read heavy workloads.

Software is just the tool and it should get out of your way. In this episode, Jim discusses how to build a great developer tool. It all started with: “What's the worst software that you use every day?” and led to the creation of Subversion.

Berkay Mollamustafaoglu, founder of Ops Genie, discusses the keys to an effective incident management process. Many aspects of incident management are counterintuitive. Why does increasing the rate of change increase uptime? Why is culture the most important thing to get right? Why is having zero incidents not a goal to aim for? SE Radio host Adam Gordon Bell spoke with Berkay about these questions, as well as who should be on call, how to get buy-in on an incident response process, how to detect when feature development should take a back seat to addressing underlying quality issues, and many other lessons Berkay has learned in working with customers to set up effective incident response processes.

Choosing the programming language or framework for a project can be to the success of the project. In today’s episode, Sean Allen 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.

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.

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.

Today the story of how twitter engineers came up with a unique solution to data engineering. Adam interviews Sam about how the abstract algebra and probabilistic data structures help solve fast versus big data issues that many are struggling with. Adam talks to Sam Ritchie, a machine learning researcher. Stop in to hear Adam and Sam's conversation about portal abstractions that let you leverage work from other fields.

Legacy code is everywhere. I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't have to deal with legacy code in the substantial portion of his work. Our guest, Jonathan Boccara is a French C++ developer and the author of The Legacy Code Programmer's Toolbox. In this episode, Jonathan will help us understand and build the correct mindset to effectively work with legacy code by using his approach and processes.

Adam talked to Jared Forsyth about his journey from untyped javascript to using flow and eventually reasonml.

Adam talks to Karl Hughes about his path to becoming a conference speaker and the work he has done to make it easier for others to follow in his footsteps.

Today we try a different format. Adam invites his neighbour, Don McKay, over to ask him questions. An interesting discussion on recursion, corecursion and the naming of the podcast unfolds.

David Heinemeier Hansson talks to Adam about avoiding a software monoculture. He explains why we should find a programming language that speaks to us, why ergonomics matter, and why single page apps and microservices are not for him.

Today Adam talks to Shadaj Laddad. What is React? Why do we need front end frameworks at all. Shadaj explains modern front end web development. He also explains why he likes to use react from scala.js and built a framework to make that easy for all.

Host on IEEE's Software Engineering Radio.

Dave and Woody interview Adam on organizational impediments to remote work.

How Docker images are actually structured — layers and metadata.

How do you build a business around tools for software engineers? Adam talks to Lee Edwards, a VC who spends a lot of time thinking about this question.

Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha discusses the wolfram language, which is behind both projects. Host Adam Gordon Bell spoke with Stephen Wolfram about computing, computational essays, building a language, notebook-based computing, and teaching children how to code. Stephen discusses the origin story behind Mathematica and why it is so unique and sometimes considered unusual. He explains why mixing prose, code, and data together in one integrated environment is the future of computing and communication, and how his ideas inspired Jupyter notebooks. #podcast #seradio #ieeecs @ComputerSociety @stephen_wolfram

Adam talks to Author and Clojure advocate Zach Tellman about how great software is built.

Generative Art involves using the tools of computation to creative ends. Adam talks to Allison Parrish about how she uses word vectors to create unique poetry. Word vectors represent a fundamentally new tool for working with text. Adam and Allison also talk about creative computer programming and building twitter bots and what makes something art.

What makes some pieces of technology take off? Why is java popular and not small talk or Haskell? Gabe is a popular blogger, a former Haskell cheerleader, and creator of the Dhall configuration language. Today we talk about marketing and tech evangelism.

Adam talks to Hal Abelson about the textbook he coauthored in 1985, The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and why it is still popular and influential today.

Heather Miller is an Assistant Professor at CMU. She is concerned that key open source projects are at risk of failure and no one is paying attention. Adam talks to her about open source, how it grows, the diversity problems it has and much more. Heather also shares some interesting stories about the early days of Scala and her ideas for increasing diversity in tech.