On last night's Oxide and Friend, @bcantrill and I were so grateful to be joined by Evan Ratliff to discuss his incredible, mesmerizing podcast "Shell Game" in which he starts a company, staffed entirely by agentic AIs. I hope you enjoy the conversation half as much as we did!
Adam Leventhal
Writing software at Oxide, mostly Rust, not too much
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Okay, listen up Oxide fam: on Monday, @ahl and I will be joined by Evan Ratliff and Maty Bohacek from the extraordinary Shell Game podcast -- which gives you the rest of the weekend to binge listen to it:
(Both seasons are terrific, but if you only have one to listen to between now, and then, check out Season 2.)
Join us for what promises to be a fun discussion: Monday, 5p Pacific!
On this week's Oxide and Friends, @gradybooch joined @bcantrill and me to talk about the past, present, and future of software engineering. From hand-made computers and the software crisis of the late '60s to LLMs (of course) we covered a lot... with--as always--many dated references! https://youtu.be/McAL6jkRUO4
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No Oxide and Friends today, BUT...
Next week @ahl and I will be joined by software engineering pioneer Grady Booch to talk about the past, present, and (especially!) future of software engineering. Join us, 5p Pacific next Monday, for what promises to be a lively and wide-ranging discussion!
On Monday @davidcrespo and @rain joined me and @bcantrill to talk about their uses of LLMs to build robust systems software.
LLMs are associated with vibecoding, they're a tool that can be harnessed for much more rigorous software engineering.. or as Rain put it
"Code that uses LLMs better be the best freakin' code on the planet. If you're doing this, all your code should be extremely tight. Slow down: don't just spit out as much code as possible." [1:17:55]
https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/engineering-rigor-in-the-llm-age
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LLMs are -- to put it euphemistically -- seeing increased use among software engineers. This has sparked much consternation about what this means for our engineering rigor, but we have found that prudent use of LLMs can, in fact, allow us to be much more rigorous in our engineering. Today, @ahl and I will be joined by Oxide engineers who have been at the forefront of using LLMs as tools to increase the rigor in their own work. Join us, 5p Pacific today!
Time for the annual predictions episode! @bcantrill and I were joined by frequent future-ologists Simon Willison, Steve Klabnik, and @iangrunert to review past predictions and peer into the future. If any of these predictions come to fruition, it's going to be an interest 1, 3, or 6 years!
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The first Monday of the new year means... predictions! Thrilled to announce that @simon will again be joining @ahl and me for 1- 3- and 6-year predictions. Bring your own predictions and join us today at a special time: 4p Pacific!
https://discord.gg/QrcKGTTPrF?event=1456066106002509947
@harish nope! YouTube always precedes the rss feed by a day. Up on the feed as of this morning.
Last OxF of the year! @bcantrill and I reflected on the year of Oxide and Friends. Big theme this year? Bugs and debugging. Or as ChatGPT put it inaccurately, "filled with painful specificity and earned insight". Sure, whatever!
And, Mastodon, you were mentioned around the 77 minute mark!
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It's our last episode of the year -- so @ahl and I will be engaging in our @changelog@changelog.social-inspired annual tradition of reviewing the year of episodes. Join us at 5p Pacific -- and bring your own favorite moments!
https://discord.gg/QrcKGTTPrF?event=1445156662125006970
A production rack–up for several months–suddenly had all service processors become unresponsive. Last week, @bcantrill and I were joined by the Oxide team that investigated the issue–and discovered its surprising root cause! https://youtu.be/JFtCJVxuug8
Hey hey! We recently tripped over a ZFS data corruption bug–introduced over 18 years ago! @bcantrill and I discuss with members of the Oxide team as well as Matt Ahrens, the co-inventor of ZFS.
On Monday, OxF hosted @oxidecomputer founders, @sdtuck and @bcantrill, Oxide investor Seth Winterroth, and the authors of Founder vs. Investor, Liz Zalman and @ganeumann. Delved into best and worst investor behavior. Check it out!
A bunch of folks at Oxide uncovered a tricky deadlock associated with async Rust (yes, another!), so--of course--@bcantrill and I got the crew together to discuss. If you're writing async Rust, you'll want to know how to avoid and diagnose "Futurelock"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqpLGvalyrI
Also:
- @ interviews to be the Blue Jays new manager
- a dramatized re-enactment of the critical moments diagnosing Futurelock
- async Rust doesn't make us mad, just disappointed
Listening? A small request: please let me know if you hear anything that doesn't sound right/good. Our bots had a maintenance window during the show so we needed to fall back to option 3.
On Monday, @bcantrill and I revisited an Oxide and Friends tradition: Books in the Box! We--and live listeners--share recommendations--worth a listen if you're looking for your next read! https://youtu.be/jBduzUVORnk
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All of our other plans have fallen through, so it must be time for our annual Books in the Box episode! Bring the books you have read (and would recommend!) from the past year, and join @ahl and me, today at 5p Pacific.
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🚨 OxF EUROPE-FRIENDLY TIME ALERT 🚨
AI is affecting many areas of life, but arguably none more so than higher education, where it is challenging the mechanics, the economics and even the purpose of post-secondary education. On Monday, @ahl and I will be joined by Michael Littman, professor of computer science at Brown University -- and AI Provost for the university. Join us at 9a Pacific for what promises to be a lively and wide-ranging discussion!
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