Episodes
205: Error 500: Our Lives
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk about whiskey on Mondays, parenting chaos, and Chuck’s hot-water disaster. They dive into open-source dependency drama, including the Stylus package getting flagged as malicious, and the TEA app’s massive data leak. They questi...
204: Modern Web Dev Meets 2000s Flip Phone: What Could Go Wrong?
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Tom Barrasso about building modern web apps for $15 flip phones, and the challenges of building for ultra-low-end devices. Tom shares his journey from building a podcast app during the pandemic to working in developer rela...
203: From the Rickhouse: Tech Talk, Social Media Use, and Netflix with The Primeagen
The Primeagen is known for embracing controversy. He returns to the podcast for a conversation on a range of topics like masculinity, social media, and pornography. He also opens up about his father’s passing and his journey growing up with a single mother. M...
202: From the Rickhouse: Why Svelte Might Just Outdo React w/ Rich Harris
In this special International Whiskey Day episode of Whiskey Web and Whatnot, hosts RobbieTheWagner, and Charles William Carpenter III are joined by special guest Rich Harris. They share a toast with Lagavulin Offerman Edition whiskey and dive into a discuss...
201: From FAANG to Fired: The Illusion of Stability in Big Tech w/ Adam Argyle
This week, Robbie and special guest co-host Adam Argyle talk about life after layoffs, the myth of job security at big tech companies, and what it really means to build meaningful things on the web. In this episode: * (00:00) - Intro * (01:23) - Whiskey: C...
200: The One Rye to Rule Them All w/ Kendall Miller & Rishi Malik
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Kendall Miller and Rishi Malik about their startup Friday Deployment Spirits, and creating whiskey for developers. They discuss the art of making good whiskey, bourbon vs rye, coding in the age of AI, and much more. In th...
199: Father's Day Drinking w/ Typecraft
This week, Robbie talks with Typecraft about the chaotic joys of fatherhood, the realities of raising twins, and various dad-related hot takes. They also discuss their tech carries and conference talks, including Typecraft's Vim nerdery and Robbie’s sarcastic ...
198: Will AI Kill the Joy of Coding?
This week, Robbie and Chuck review Barrell Craft Spirits' Cranky Kong, and talk about the AI boom, how senior devs are (or aren’t) using it, and what the future of software jobs might look like. They also discuss the rise of "celebrity developers", job market ...
197: Stop Fixing Things That Aren't Broken
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk about the unintended chaos of “move fast and break things” in both software and startups. From Riverside glitches to Tesla’s overengineered wipers, they explore how updates can derail otherwise stable experiences. They unpack t...
196: The Myth of Perfect Code w/ Marc Backes
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Marc Backes about Vue vs. React, work-life balance, and the realities of messy codebases. They also sip an Evan Williams Single Barrel, debate inbox zero, and discuss Marc’s adventures in coffee roasting and pilot training...
195: Should You Learn Tailwind Before CSS? w/ Bree Hall
This week, live from React Miami, Chuck, and special guest co-host Aaron Francis, talk with Bree Hall about React styling strategies, Tailwind CSS, and whether you should learn fundamentals before frameworks (spoiler: it depends). They explore the evolution of...
194: Static, Dynamic, Generative: What’s Next for the Web? w/ Guillermo Rauch
This week, Chuck and special guest co-host Aaron Francis talk with Guillermo Rauch live from React Miami. From early days at Zeit to founding Vercel and launching Next.js, Guillermo shares stories of scaling infrastructure, creating developer-centric products,...
193: Why You Can’t Skip the Fundamentals w/ Henri Helvetica
This week, Chuck and special guest co-host Aaron Francis talk with Henri Helvetica live from React Miami. They explore the evolving challenges of web performance, why genuine research skills still matter in an AI-driven world, and how developers can stay curio...
192: Are Frameworks Still Worth the Tradeoffs? w/ Adam Rackis
This week, Chuck talks with Adam Rackis live from React Miami. Along with special guest-host Aaron Francis, they dig into React Server Components, the quirks of modern JavaScript frameworks, and why TanStack might be the future. Sipping an Appleton Estate Rum,...
191: WTF is MCP? w/ David Cramer
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with David Cramer about MCP—microservices for language models—and why it might be the future of AI tooling. They dig into the state of AI agents, developer efficiency, and why Codegen isn’t killing jobs anytime soon. In this e...