#software-development
140 episodes
#5469: Open Source's New Map: India, Croatia, Ethiopia
One in three new GitHub developers now comes from a country outside 2020's top ten. What that shift means for open source.
#5425: Preview Branches Without the Branch Dance
Daniel dreads the branch-switching dance. Turns out Vercel's promote-to-production makes most of those steps not exist.
#5276: Who Really Invented the Gantt Chart?
Karol Adamiecki built it in 1896 — in Polish. Henry Gantt got the name. And why critical path analysis still catches what humans miss.
#5256: Ruby Won the AI Benchmark. Is It Dying Anyway?
97% of public Ruby repos sat untouched for six months — yet Ruby beat Python in an AI coding benchmark. What's actually declining?
#5255: When AI Writes the Code, Who Checks It?
If agents write the code, the human job becomes knowing when it's wrong. What that means for languages, jobs, and CS degrees.
#5250: Building a Shortwave Monitoring Stack on Linux
What it actually takes to scan, capture, and crowdsource HF radio from a Linux box — and where automation hits a wall.
#5166: Why Your Baby Tracker Can't Log Oxygen Saturation
Baby apps have templates for everything — except the metrics you actually need. The custom tracking framework exists. It just never shipped.
#5025: What Does "Contract" Actually Mean in Code?
From TypeScript interfaces to database schemas — when is a software contract real, and when is it just a hope?
#5017: Reverse-Engineering a Backend from the Frontend
Building a backend when only the frontend exists—database first, then ORM, API, and the hidden traps.
#5013: Android Camera Fragmentation: Why Apps See Different Lenses
OnePlus hides fisheye lenses from third-party apps. Here's how Android's camera API actually works and what you can do about it.
#5001: The 15% Bug Catch: What Type Systems Actually Deliver
Type checkers catch ~15% of bugs. Here's how to build a gradual typing ladder that actually works.
#4991: Self-Healing Codebases: Can AI Fix Bugs Autonomously?
How far are we from AI systems that fix their own bugs without human intervention? The answer might surprise you.
#4980: Can You Learn to Code Backwards?
When AI writes your code, do you still learn? Aviation, atrophy, and building a mental model from scratch.
#4902: Backward Batching: Fixing Slow Uploads Without Blocking Users
How one developer used background threads and deferred AI processing to fix a cataloguing workflow.
#4826: Schema Design Is an Art Form
Why AI-generated schemas skip the thinking that makes databases survive contact with reality.
#4824: Build vs Pull: Docker Deploy Strategies for Solo Devs
Where to build your Docker image and how to trigger deploys — three patterns for small teams on a VPS.
#4787: The Motion Test: Which Weird Peripherals Actually Earn Their Port
Does that fancy peripheral actually remove a motion you make hundreds of times a day? We put steno keyboards, TourBox, Stream Deck, and more to the...
#4752: How AI Agents Map Websites to Build Stable Plugins
An AI agent explores DOM and network layers to build self-healing browser plugins.
#4725: Software Evaluation as a Career Path
The hidden career track for people who love evaluating SaaS tools, building matrices, and becoming the go-to software decision-maker.
#4712: Codex vs Claude Code: The Real Agentic Coding Showdown
Benchmarks, model variants, and MCP setups — which coding agent actually wins where it matters?
#4699: The Hidden Engine: What Makes Claude Code Tick
Is it the model or the harness? We break down the invisible scaffolding that turns LLMs into real agents.
#4690: Typst for Agents: Programmatic PDF Generation
How Typst's function-based design makes it the ideal document engine for AI agents generating professional PDFs.
#4686: How Claude Code's Patience Works: Fork, Wait, and the Transcript Stack
Claude Code's "waiting" is an illusion. We break down the Unix primitives behind its background task system and where the analogy cracks.
#4663: Python vs TypeScript for MCP Servers: The Real Decision Rule
Both are first-class for MCP, but the real choice depends on what your server talks to. Here's the framework.