Two's Complement

Ben's friend is locked out of their AWS account and Matt's AI has decided he's a hacker. The escape route runs through a cheap computer, a mesh network, and Neal Stephenson.

Matt records from the wrong continent and explains how he taught his computer to be a 1950s television. Ben guesses his way to the secret of the colo(u?)r burst and wins today's podcast.

Ben sets out to learn Rust by only reading it, while Matt wonders if you can learn to land a plane from a book. Also: is snark a portmanteau?

Ben asks what happens when you curl google.com, and Matt peels back HTTP until the rabbit turns out to have been in the hat all along. Then a USB hub stages a dramatic intervention.

Ben has stopped talking to Claude directly. Matt hasn't opened his editor in days. They try to work out whether this is fun, programming, or a very expensive slot machine.

Ben asks a simple question about performance and Matt talks for 46 minutes. The one true use case for linked lists is revealed, and a part three is threatened.

Ben interviews Matt with a deceptively simple question: make my program go fast. 44 minutes later, robot dogs are falling over, Grace Hopper's wire makes an appearance, and Matt still hasn't gotten the job.

Ben wipes his PC over Thanksgiving and installs Ubuntu for gaming. Matt recalls the dark days of himem.sys and IRQ conflicts. The universe was created last Thursday, and someone gets a hangover.

Ben's new TCP backpressure explanation: conveyor belts full. Matt zooms out and mistakes his factory for a Pentium 2. Ben plans to switch to Linux gaming; Matt's start bar keeps popping up and he's had it.

Ben worries replacing juniors with LLMs creates a future hiring crisis - who'll train the robot-wranglers? Matt blames COVID brain fog, then proves it by botching NP-completeness. Capitalism is bad at escaping local minima.

Matt returns from CppCon with a cold, three talks, and a keynote title Reddit hates. Ben immediately declares Reddit dumb. The hosts discuss C++ reflection, the unforgivable renaming of the Sears Tower, and why conference attendees should stand like Pac-Man.

Matt and Ben discuss running in production; from running processes in screen to battling systemd configuration files. Ben sketches out daemonization rituals while Matt channels Tolkien to explain process hierarchies. Our hosts discover that Ansible playbooks are just bash scripts with better PR, and everyone still Googles journalctl syntax.

Matt uses you as his therapist to vent about three days fighting systemd and boot time. Ben patiently listens while Matt explains why mounting things shouldn't consume 200% CPU. AWS sponsorship news provides a silver lining.

Matt and Ben explore how experience lets you run across water instead of drowning in options. Ben explains why he doesn't need a life preserver when building software. Matt retrofits good practices into Compiler Explorer while lamenting decisions from 10 years ago.

Ben recounts his 2007 startup building a database chatbot (before LLMs were cool). Matt tries their methods live with Claude. Ben foolishly uses his phone as a microphone stand.

Matt and Ben discuss programming language debates sparked by an old talk that went viral. They explore how Matt's C++ safety tips convinced someone to switch to Rust instead. Matt stays up all night trying four different implementations to prove a point, then loses. Ben introduces the concept of "carpet bubbles" in language design. Matt lists all the C++ features that begin with C, while Ben questions whether Chicago makes popes.

Matt and Ben explore the intersection of testing, metrics, and observability in performance-critical code. They debate push vs pull metric systems, share war stories from financial trading systems, and ponder what to do when your program can't tell anyone it's in trouble.

Matt and Ben explore the new world of AI-assisted coding: is it like pairing with junior developer? Matt gets the recording working the second time, Ben worries about what happens when your business depends on code you don't understand.

Ben and Matt wade into the deep waters of messaging systems, get utterly lost in time synchronization rabbit holes, and discover their new podcast tagline: "We make mistakes so you don't have to." Matt celebrates by getting his car stuck where cars shouldn't go.

Ben unveils his latest acronym-based software discussion framework while Matt patiently waits for the punchline. Our hosts explore alternatives to technical debt, debate the value of naming things, and Matt questions his ability to remember five letters for more than fourteen minutes. Ben has written a blog post going into more detail since the recording.