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Software Misadventures: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Ronak Nathani, Guang Yang
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- Oct 8, 202413 min
Podcast update and news!
Some reflections on running the podcast and Ronak has some eggciting news to share :) Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Sep 24, 20241h 26m
Uncrating the Oxide Rack | Bryan Cantrill, Steve Tuck (Oxide)
Oxide co-founders Bryan and Steve are back on the show to give an impromptu peek at the Oxide server rack and to chat about writing their own manufacturing software, overcoming false summits before shipping the first rack, the #1 reason startups fail and more. Don't miss the full-circle moment on their "meet cute" story from last time, shared at the end of the conversation :) Segments: The Oxide rack uncrating experience The office tour Challenges of shipping and unboxing hardware Hybrid hardware company? Custom designing a crate for the rack Optimizing for time to value Writing custom manufacturing software Taking ownership of the customer experience Buy vs build The false summits before shipping the first rack "Missing just enough context to be optimistic" The #1 reason startups fail Hiring the first sales role The dangers of "happy ears" The pitfalls of rushing to market The "third VP of sales" problem The value of a good sales leader Curiosity and empathy in sales Grooming sales skills as an engineer Learning from current customers Talk to prospective customers "that we have 0% chance of closing" Actionable bad news The role of GPUs in data centers Cloud repatriation Full circle to the "meet cute" Show Notes: Our previous convo: https://softwaremisadventures.com/p/oxide-ditching-the-rules Bryan on Twitter: https://x.com/bcantrill Steve on Twitter: https://x.com/sdtuck Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak's day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com
- Sep 10, 20241h 55m
LLMs are like your weird, over-confident intern | Simon Willison (Datasette)
Known for co-creating Django and Datasette, as well as his thoughtful writing on LLMs, Simon Willison joins the show to chat about blogging as an accountability mechanism, how to build intuition with LLMs, building a startup with his partner on their honeymoon, and more. Segments: The weird intern The early days of LLMs Blogging as an accountability mechanism The low-pressure approach to blogging GitHub issues as a system of records Temporal documentation and design docs GitHub issues for team collaboration Copy-paste as an API Observable notebooks pip install LLM The evolution of using LLMs daily Building intuition with LLMs Democratizing access to automation Alternative interfaces for language models Is prompt engineering really engineering? The frustrations of working with LLMs Structured data extraction with LLMs How Simon would go about building a LLM app LLMs making developers more ambitious Typical workflow with LLMs Vibes-based evaluation Staying up-to-date with LLMs The impact of LLMs on new programmers The rise of 'Goop' and the future of software development Being an independent developer Staying focused and accountable Building a startup with your partner on the honeymoon The responsibility of AI practitioners The hidden dangers of prompt injection "Artificial intelligence" is really "imitation intelligence" Show Notes: Simon's blog: https://simonwillison.net/ Natalie's post on them building a startup together: https://blog.natbat.net/post/61658401806/lanyrd-from-idea-to-exit Simon's talk from DjangoCon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLkRK2rJGB0 Simon on twitter: https://x.com/simonw Datasette: https://github.com/simonw/datasette Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak's day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Aug 27, 20241h 25m
From "AI mid-life crisis" to the "time of my life" | Steve Yegge (Sourcegraph)
A Silicon Valley veteran and known for his writings like "The Death of the Junior Developer", Steve Yegge joins the show to chat about his "AI Midlife Crisis", the unique writing process he employs, and building the future of coding assistants. Segments: The AI Midlife Crisis The power of rants "You gotta be able to make yourself laugh" Steve's writing process "I published them… and nothing happened for six months" Key to perseverance in writing? Get pissed. Writing in one sitting The AI Midlife Crisis Management to IC The acceleration and evolution of programming Picking up new skills in a new domain The power of prompt engineering Secondary hashing The importance of context in coding assistants "The future of coding assistants is chat" The importance of platforms in coding assistants The nefarious T-word in AI The death of the junior developer and its consequences The future of code understanding and semantic indexing The power of context in AI platforms Surprising capabilities of LLMs Transferable skills in AI product development Mental health and the innovator's dilemma Show Notes The Death of the Junior Developer: https://sourcegraph.com/blog/the-death-of-the-junior-developer Steve's blog rants: https://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ Steve's medium posts: https://steve-yegge.medium.com/ Sourcegraph's blog: https://sourcegraph.com/blog Steve on twitter: https://x.com/steve_yegge Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak's day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Aug 13, 20241h 8m
Early Twitter's fail-whale wars | Dmitriy Ryaboy
A veteran of early Twitter's fail whale wars, Dmitriy joins the show to chat about the time when 70% of the Hadoop cluster got accidentally deleted, the financial reality of writing a book, and how to navigate acquisitions. Segments: The Infamous Hadoop Outage War Stories from Twitter's Early Days The Fail Whale Era The Hadoop Cluster Shutdown "First Restore the Service Then Fix the Problem. Not the Other Way Around." War Rooms and Organic Decision-Making The Importance of Communication in Incident Management That Time When the Data Center Caught Fire The "Best Email Ever" at Twitter The Importance of Failing Distributed Systems and Error Handling The Missing README Agile and Scrum The Financial Reality of Writing a Book Collaborative Writing Is Like Open-Source Coding Finding a Publisher and the Role of Editors Defining the Tone and Voice of the Book Acquisitions from an Engineer's Perspective Integrating Acquired Teams Technical Due Diligence The Reality of System Implementation Integration Challenges and Gotchas Show Notes: - Dmitriy Ryaboy on Twitter: https://x.com/squarecog - The Missing README: https://www.amazon.com/Missing-README-Guide-Software-Engineer/dp/1718501838 - Chris Riccomini on how to write a technical book: https://cnr.sh/essays/how-to-write-a-technical-book Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Aug 6, 20241h 2m
Discovering the power of story-telling in engineering | Adam Gordon Bell (CoRecursive)
Known for hosting the CoRecursive podcast, which dives into the stories behind the code, Adam joins the show to chat about discovering that the great engineers he had looked up to are actually great communicators, his framework for building one of the best storytelling engineering podcasts, and the journey getting into DevRel. Chapters: Highlights The power of casual conversations Taking the leap into podcasting The hardest part of running a podcast Learning to follow up Storytelling in podcasting The evolution of CoRecursive What makes a good story? Finding the right guests Preparing for interviews Favorite part of making a podcast episode Learning from radio journalists Overcoming self-doubt Balancing passion projects with full-time work The power of vulnerability in storytelling Behind the scenes of developer relations The great engineers you know are actually great communicators Show Notes: Adam on Twitter: https://x.com/adamgordonbell CoRecursive Podcast: https://corecursive.com/ Automating follow-up emails: https://www.followupthen.com/ Stay in touch: 👋 - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
- Jul 30, 20242h 10m
Behind designing Kubernetes' APIs | Brian Grant (Google)
As the original architect and API design lead of Kubernetes, Brian joins the show to chat about why "APIs are forever", the keys to evangelizing impactful projects, and being an Uber Tech at Google, and more. Segments: Internship with Mark Ewing "Mark and Brian's Excellent Environment" manual Poker on VT100 terminals Grad school and research The value of studying computer science Intuition and learning Reflecting on career patterns Hypergrowth and learning at Transmeta Debugging at the atomic level Evangelizing multithreading at Google The humble beginnings of Borg and Kubernetes The concept of inertia in system design The genesis of Kubernetes The open-source proposal The Unified Compute Working Group Designing the Kubernetes API AIP.dev and API design conventions The vision for a declarative model in Kubernetes Kubernetes as a DIY platform The evolution of Kubernetes The complexity of building a platform Style guides? Gotchas in Kubernetes workload APIs Understanding your thinking style Reflections on Kubernetes design choices The importance of getting it right the first time Designing for flexibility Collaboration and leadership The role of an Uber tech lead at Google "Giving away the Legos" Picking the right person to hand off Overcoming writer's block Show Notes: API Design conventions: https://google.aip.dev/ Brian's blog: https://medium.com/@bgrant0607 Stay in touch: 👋 Make Ronak's day by leaving us a review and let us know who we should talk to next! hello@softwaremisadventures.com Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Jul 23, 20242h 6m
Ditching the rules to build a team that lasts | Bryan Cantrill, Steve Tuck (Oxide)
From building a new kind of server to building a new kind of company, co-founders Bryan and Steve join the show to chat about their "meet cute" and the origin story of Oxide, their unconventional recruiting process, transparent and uniform salaries, and their solution to the "N+1 shithead problem". Segments: Bryan and Steve's "meet cute" "the sun does not shine on me" the dagger that went into sun culture of exonerating yourself vs solving customer problems the shared "error in judgment" of joining joyent the origin story of joyent reporting to the (physical) chair the comically bad ceo candidate the enterprise software shift the importance of curiosity in sales filtering for curiosity in hiring oxide's unconventional hiring process bryan's worst hire the limitations of traditional hiring the value of written reflections "what were the happiest moments in your career?" misconceptions about sales and go-to-market trust and alignment in sales building connections across organizations how to do performance reviews when everyone's paid the same? the power of transparency in compensation validation through impact origins of on the metal transparency and open communication the importance of storytelling building a company differently Show Notes: - Bryan's blog post on the transparent and uniform compensation model at Oxide: https://oxide.computer/blog/compensat... - On the Metal's interview with Jeff Rothschild: https://share.transistor.fm/s/6fa1eaa4 Stay in touch: - Make Ronak's day by signing up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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About Software Misadventures
A show about not just the technologies, but the people and stories behind them. In every episode, Ronak and Guang sit down with engineers, founders, and investors to chat about their paths, lessons they've learned and of course, the misadventures along the way.
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