207: Will Frameworks Survive? Web Development in an AI-Driven World w/ Typecraft and Robert Jackson

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Syntax. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Front End Happy Hour podcast. Welcome to this week’s JS Party. Live from Ship Shape Studios, this is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. With your hosts, Robbie the Wagner, and me, Charles William Carpenter III. That’s right Charles. We drink whiskey and talk about web development.

[00:00:27] Intro: I mean, it’s all in the name. It’s not that deep. This is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Do not adjust your set.

[00:00:36] Robbie Wagner: Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Whiskey Web and whatnot. Little bit earlier today, little bit different setting, all kinds of different things. We have a special guest with us today, former guest on the show, Robert Jackson. How’s it going, Robert?

[00:00:52] Robert Jackson: Doing great. Doing great. It’s been a while.

[00:00:54] Robbie Wagner: It has, I feel like a lot has changed since you were last on, , former prolific [00:01:00] ember contributor.

[00:01:01] Robbie Wagner: Now MCP Aficionado, do you want to give a little bit of intro into what you’re into these days?

[00:01:06] Robert Jackson: so, uh, these days I, I, I work at, uh, over, at Glean, , mostly working on, , providing and producing, , right now MCP server, set up for our customers and, digging into MCP, all, all things MCP, lots of AI related stuff is so far as how it intersects with MCP. , Right now my focus mostly is on, , MCP server side of things, less so on, , the client.

[00:01:30] Robert Jackson: And authoring a client, although that is a thing that is on our roadmap in general. I think there’s lots of other side quests from there. Things like, making the APIs make more sense, to lms, , which has a lovely side effect of also actually making sense to humans. , So it’s, it’s nice when those two things align.

[00:01:46] Robert Jackson: Uh, it always reminded me of accessibility stuff where it turns out making your, making your website navigable by keyboard just makes a better experience. It doesn’t matter if it has to do with accessibility or not, it’s just better.

[00:01:59] Robert Jackson: [00:02:00] same with, um, you know, theming and stuff. Anyway, sorry, uh, tangent there, but, uh, I guess that’s, that’s what I’m up to these days.

[00:02:05] Robbie Wagner: Cool. Cool. And I should also mention we have a guest host type craft. , Chuck is working on moving to Italy and uh, wants me to get a bunch of guest host ‘cause he doesn’t want deal with it. So, uh, we’re doing that. ,

[00:02:19] Robbie Wagner: But yeah, let’s, uh, let’s introduce the whiskey today.

[00:02:22] Typecraft: Let’s

[00:02:22] Robbie Wagner: We’ve got some, some, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[00:02:25] Robbie Wagner: Guess

[00:02:26] Robbie Wagner: it’s a surprise guest.

[00:02:30] Typecraft: Oh, look at this.

[00:02:33] Robbie Wagner: Okay. I can see you guys can’t handle this.

[00:02:36] Typecraft: Wow, this is amazing.

[00:02:38] Robbie Wagner: Hold on here. Uh, I don’t, I don’t know what you picked and what’s going on. Robert, you good to see you? Uh, are you responsible for this?

[00:02:46] Robert Jackson: I don’t know,

[00:02:47] Robbie Wagner: Yes. Indirectly. cause he said, I think you said you hadn’t had a Japanese

[00:02:51] Robert Jackson: Yeah. Correct,

[00:02:52] Robert Jackson: correct. Never have, never had it’s been on, been been on my list in general. Lots of scotches, lots of, uh, bourbons and all that jazz, but, uh, never a, never a Japanese.

[00:02:59] Robbie Wagner: Well, this is [00:03:00] the only thing I’m good at, so I, I need to, you know, help you guys out here at least a little bit. oishi whiskey, , with a indiscernible, , proof to it. I have no idea. Oh, wait, no, let’s see. Your 42.7. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, it said question mark. It’s Chucks first time. Oh, you’re right. I question mark.

[00:03:17] Robbie Wagner: I for, I meant to come fill that back in. Okay. Also, can you guys see us or are we super blurry?

[00:03:22] Typecraft: I see you just fine. You might be a little blurry, but

[00:03:25] Robbie Wagner: know. It seems like it’s not focused on this an appropriate amount of whatever blur you get what you got. Okay. It’s 42.7%. , Alcohol by volume. Can you do the math on that? Let me know real quick. So the mass bill is 30%. Is state grown rice called? Nope. Not pronouncing that. It’s go Yaku.

[00:03:42] Robbie Wagner: Manchi. Yeah, sure. 70% mochi, rice, , the grains are partially malted and then distilled on the traditional Japanese stills before being filled into x, sherry and brandy casks and h for a long time. , In high altitude warehouses. Yeah, that’s a very specific, that’s the most [00:04:00] Japanese shit I’ve ever seen. I know, right.

[00:04:01] Robbie Wagner: Which probably means it’s gonna be really cool. , Yeah. So let’s get to it.

[00:04:04] Robert Jackson: So the box looks beautiful.

[00:04:06] Robbie Wagner: The

[00:04:06] Typecraft: Yeah, it’s gorgeous.

[00:04:08] Robbie Wagner: I, yeah, we were supposed to get a better one that was 10 years old. This one is not, yeah, it’s not age dated. But, uh, they were like, this episode is not sponsored by Fruit Bat. Who cannot send you the right whiskey

[00:04:20] Typecraft: Oh no.

[00:04:21] Robbie Wagner: Fruit Twines, F-R-R-F-R-O-O-T bat. Yeah. I don’t know. Oh, I’m so

[00:04:26] Typecraft: All right guys. I have a question really quick before we get into it. I pre-filled my glass with ice. Are we upset about this or is that okay?

[00:04:34] Robbie Wagner: I mean, if you don’t ever get invited back to replace me while I don’t wanna do this, then you might know why.

[00:04:41] Robert Jackson: You will know what happened.

[00:04:42] Robbie Wagner: Yeah.

[00:04:42] Typecraft: I’m just one of these low class kind of mass asshole people, you know? I just don’t know. I

[00:04:48] Robert Jackson: so I did, I did bring a thermos with ice just in case I wanted

[00:04:51] Robert Jackson: ice.

[00:04:51] Typecraft: o fantastic.

[00:04:52] Robbie Wagner: So.

[00:04:53] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I think, well, Robert’s doing it right and it’s this way. Is that you, if you’re trying something the first time, I think [00:05:00] you should give it a chance in its raw form. Beyond that, you should have it your way essentially.

[00:05:06] Typecraft: Okay. I also prefilled my cup with, uh, diet Coke. Is that all right?

[00:05:10] Robbie Wagner: Should straddle the table?

[00:05:11] Robbie Wagner: Oh, I, you can get the microphone really in your face.

[00:05:13] Typecraft: Robert was listening. Robert’s the only one listening to me.

[00:05:16] Robert Jackson: I,

[00:05:16] Robbie Wagner: Oh, were you talking? I know he’s still doing production work here. Hey, we’re live buddy. We just gotta make it work. I know. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. What? I’m straddling That’s business. We also probably didn’t change the names of everything that we’re streaming ‘cause you just click the button.

[00:05:29] Robbie Wagner: So it’s saying we’re live with whatever the last thing was. Error. Oh yeah, that’s fine. Yeah. That’s appropriate. Error 500. Yes.

[00:05:37] Typecraft: Hell yeah.

[00:05:39] Robbie Wagner: , Yeah. So type craft you were saying.

[00:05:41] Typecraft: what was I saying? Oh yeah, it was a joke. The moments passed. I said I also prefilled my cup with Diet Coke, but I didn’t actually

[00:05:48] Robbie Wagner: okay. Which I learned

[00:05:49] Robert Jackson: that might be bad.

[00:05:51] Typecraft: Yeah.

[00:05:51] Robbie Wagner: Uh, I, I, uh, there’s a peer reviewed, , paper out that I actually came across today saying that, , replacing , [00:06:00] water intake with diet soda is not known to make your health either. Better or worse, it has not been proven in a controlled group to make your health better or worse.

[00:06:09] Robbie Wagner: Well, are we gonna be the first to prove or disprove? Yeah, we could be. Okay. I dunno. All right, now let’s, let’s give this a Yeah. A smell definitely has a little,

[00:06:18] Typecraft: I’m just gonna do this.

[00:06:20] Robbie Wagner: Just do whatever you want. I’m smelling it first.

[00:06:25] Typecraft: Oh,

[00:06:26] Robbie Wagner: It’s a little white grape juice for me. Yeah, I’m smelling that too. It smells like they only use 70% mochi.

[00:06:31] Robbie Wagner: Rice to me.

[00:06:32] Robbie Wagner: Boom.

[00:06:36] Typecraft: I’m getting about 65%. I don’t know. I think their math’s off.

[00:06:39] Robbie Wagner: I was one of those people for a little while that didn’t realize that mochi was a dessert offered without ice cream in the center. Mm-hmm. I’d only had it at nice restaurants where it was like an ice cream dessert. And then once I was at a Japanese grocery with some folks who were more familiar and they were like, Hey, do you wanna get some mochis [00:07:00] for dessert?

[00:07:00] Robbie Wagner: , Yeah, that sounds awesome. Get back to the office and get the mochis tossed into the table. And I’m like, Hmm, no red bean cur red bean paste. No, I’m not into that. Uh, what are the other flavors? Grab a different flavor. Not realizing that red bean paste isn’t all of them. They just had other flavors with that, or straight bean paste.

[00:07:20] Robbie Wagner: And I was like, what the hell was this? Where’s the ice cream? So anyway.

[00:07:26] Typecraft: If it makes you feel any better, I just learned that mochi was not as hard filled with ice cream, just this very moment.

[00:07:33] Robbie Wagner: Mm.

[00:07:35] Robert Jackson: But you didn’t have to eat it with, uh, you know, all the red chilies.

[00:07:39] Typecraft: Yeah,

[00:07:40] Robbie Wagner: No I did not. Okay. So,

[00:07:42] Typecraft: no beans.

[00:07:43] Robbie Wagner: I don’t know how we categorize this ‘cause Japanese No, I know, but it’s okay. It’s not very, like, it’s not scotch style like a lot of Japanese. One second would be One second. Okay. We’re talking about tasting notes and some things here, but, , yeah, I mean it was a blend or whatever else.

[00:07:59] Robbie Wagner: Hold on. [00:08:00] Type craft. Can you tell the people what our rating scale is?

[00:08:04] Typecraft: The rating scale is based on an octopus, which if you remember, has eight legs, but we start with zero. So this is a nine legged octopus starting from zero to eight, is that correct?

[00:08:15] Robbie Wagner: That is correct. Yeah. The logic checks. Yeah. PR approved.

[00:08:20] Typecraft: It’s a feature, not a bug.

[00:08:21] Robert Jackson: Okay.

[00:08:22] Robbie Wagner: , Anyway, sorry. I just

[00:08:23] Robert Jackson: So it’s possible to get a zero and, uh, have we decided if zero octopus legs is optimal or the worst?

[00:08:29] Robbie Wagner: , Yeah, that’s true. See, there’s a whole segment you missed. yes. Okay. So zero is the worst. , Eight is the best, four is middle of the road. , So like if you like it but you’re not super impressed with it, you know, four or five is reasonable. That’s not a bad rating. , Who should go first? We’ll, we’ll make Chuck go first.

[00:08:45] Robbie Wagner: Well, hold on a sec. I’m just throwing that out there as we were taking some taste and everything else. Are there any other flavor profiles anyone is picking up on?

[00:08:54] Typecraft: I am getting a hint of apricot.

[00:08:56] Robbie Wagner: Mm-hmm. Okay. Dried or fresh?

[00:08:58] Typecraft: Definitely dried. [00:09:00] Definitely dried apricot.

[00:09:00] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Robert, anything?

[00:09:02] Robert Jackson: I’m enjoying it.

[00:09:03] Robbie Wagner: Okay.

[00:09:04] Robert Jackson: no. Uh, so, it’s to me sweeter than like a, the scotch, , closer to a bourbon, , and sweetness to me, than like on the scotch side. But there’s no, it’s not overly sweet, I guess.

[00:09:16] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, it almost has like a little bit of sour or tartness at, at its finish. Very light for me. Definitely much sweeter than, than a normal Japanese whiskey. No, no. Like smoky flavors, maybe like slightly mossy. It’s very different in that it has flavor at all. Japanese whiskey tends to be just water, , which is like kind of an impressive feat because to have zero flavor profile, zero burn and be like 80 or 90 proof is like, you did some good work.

[00:09:45] Robbie Wagner: It’s very clean, you know? Yeah, yeah. yeah. I think I could rate this. This would be, it is the most unique Japanese whiskey that I’ve had because a lot of them I do. Feel tend to follow like [00:10:00] very scotch like profiles. And I know I, this is a rice whiskey, so that’s obviously a difference there rather than a malted uh, whiskey.

[00:10:09] Robbie Wagner: So it’s interesting, I, in, in a way, I almost kind of compare it to saki, but , higher proof, a little more burn around that. But I’m getting like similarities to different sakis with like fruit notes and tart notes and things like that, which maybe that’s indicative of rice whiskeys. And I’m not an expert there, so it’s completely unique.

[00:10:28] Robbie Wagner: It’s hard for me to baseline it against something else, but I am enjoying it. I do think it’s like, it’s kind of refreshing. It’s got a little burn. It’s unique and different. I don’t know. I’m gonna go 6.5 in its own unique category of rice whiskey, which I just don’t know enough about, , but it’s good.

[00:10:44] Robert Jackson: that seems great. Uh, just quick question, clarifying question on the rating scale. , Now when you get a half, do you cut the octopus leg in half is there’s no joints. So where do

[00:10:52] Robbie Wagner: This is true. Okay. Yeah, you can just proportion out as much as you want. You did. We didn’t say so. It’s zero is horrible. Spit [00:11:00] this outs dump, dump it down. the drain immediately. Four. Even though not technically the middle, middle of the road, , being like, not bad, not great, you know, it’s just, it, it’s fine.

[00:11:11] Robbie Wagner: It’s drinkable. And then eight is clear. The shelves I want, every time I see this, I want as many as possible. occupy, do regenerate. So nine legs are possible. I just wanna put

[00:11:21] Typecraft: Mm.

[00:11:21] Robbie Wagner: there. So, yep.

[00:11:23] Robbie Wagner: So anything can happen here. , Yeah. So I went, first I get to call on the next victim, and that is Christopher type craft.

[00:11:34] Typecraft: How dare.

[00:11:34] Robbie Wagner: I just doxed you.

[00:11:35] Typecraft: Yeah, I, I was thinking of, uh, the scene in, uh, 30 Rock, one of my favorite shows where, um, Alec Baldwin’s character, when Liz Lemon talks to him and calls him, Jack right in front of a bunch of executives, he turns around and goes, how dare you use my Christian name in front of these gentlemen? So in my mind I was gonna go like, how dare I use my Christian name? But I feel like I had to

[00:11:58] Robbie Wagner: Preface

[00:11:58] Robbie Wagner: it. Yeah. You don’t have to. [00:12:00] Yeah, just go into it. I appreciate the context. Yeah.

[00:12:01] Typecraft: Yeah. Don’t use my Christian name.

[00:12:02] Typecraft: So yeah, no, you can anyone can call me Chris. I don’t mind. It’s, you didn’t dox me or anything. I like being Chris, but, I like this a lot.

[00:12:09] Typecraft: It’s interesting. It tastes more, if this makes any sense whatsoever, it tastes like there’s less flavor in it than other whiskeys. Like it tastes almost more like bland in a way, but it is easy to drink and it like has a little bit of burn. Also smooth at the same time, so I, I like it a lot too.

[00:12:30] Typecraft: I’d, I’d give it six solid six.

[00:12:34] Robbie Wagner: All right. Which Robert should go. You wanna pick? Pick who goes

[00:12:39] Typecraft: Okay. I’ll pick, I will say Robert Jackson.

[00:12:42] Robert Jackson: right. Yeah,

[00:12:42] Robbie Wagner: right answer.

[00:12:43] Robert Jackson: Here’s the thing. I wanna use that half of octopus arm,

[00:12:47] Robert Jackson: , that was left on the floor here. , I’m gonna go with six and a half as well. I, I could go up to seven. I really like it actually. I glanced at the, uh, at the box again, and I realized that I think some of the, flavor that I was, I was picking up is [00:13:00] from that, that brandy cask as well.

[00:13:01] Robert Jackson: So I think, that some of that depth I think is coming, coming from there. And turns out I like it when you, uh, age it in brandy, so a brandy cask. So, , yeah, I, I quite like it. , I normally shy away from, I mentioned before like , the bourbon level sweetness. I, I find bourbon to be too sweet.

[00:13:17] Robert Jackson: I think this is like just a right balance. And, while I love drinking, , smoked burning tires, , most of the people that I’m around really hate it when that smell happens. so it has the nice head effect of, , being allowed in the home, I think at this point. I, I’m, I’m gonna go with six and a half to seven, I guess

[00:13:34] Robbie Wagner: All right. Commit. Commit. Pressure’s on.

[00:13:37] Robert Jackson: six, 6.75.

[00:13:40] Robbie Wagner: You. Oh, okay. There we go. Yeah, I think it’s pretty good too.

[00:13:44] Robbie Wagner: Definitely one that is approachable for, I think for everyone. , One of the better Japanese ones I’ve had, I think just because the others don’t really have much flavor. , Yeah. With rating it against other Japanese ones.

[00:13:54] Robbie Wagner: I’m gonna say seven.

[00:13:56] Typecraft: Nice.

[00:13:57] Robbie Wagner: All right. So I spent [00:14:00] minutes worth of time trying to come up with some hot takes for us, for us here. , But this, since you, uh, you’re into MCP and AI things, Robert,

[00:14:09] Robbie Wagner: , GPT five or Claude Sonnet four,

[00:14:12] Robert Jackson: for what task?

[00:14:13] Robbie Wagner: You, you decide.

[00:14:15] Typecraft: Who’s the host now?

[00:14:17] Robert Jackson: so, Good question. , I still mostly use , the various quads, so I know you specifically asked about sonnet. I tend to not just go with a single model. Most of the time I’ll use, , Opus for Opus four, one for like planning stages of stuff, and then, , go down to sonnet for like implementation stuff.

[00:14:38] Robert Jackson: And I think it does a pretty good job there. , But, uh, that, that’s work stuff. , When talking about home stuff and personal stuff, uh, G PT five is great. yeah, I, I think it’s, it’s pretty good. There are some rough edges, especially at launch, like early launch day and the day after, where.

[00:14:54] Robert Jackson: You’d get wild results, like stuff like, I was just bonkers, but I, that I was probably scaling stuff. It’s [00:15:00] probably resource constraints, stuff like that. , I’m just guessing. , But, uh, since then, you know, in the last couple of, uh, you know, four days, three days, whatever it’s been, it’s not been out that long.

[00:15:09] Robert Jackson: it’s been great. They also have an auto mode, which is great in the web UI where you don’t have to decide ahead of time whether you want thinking or non-thinking. , And I think that is also a nice UI touch. I don’t think it changes anything about the actual models or the result, but, , it makes the experience of, , decision fatigue, , a little bit better.

[00:15:26] Robert Jackson: , I also think that it made sense what they did. With regards to shaking out some of the older models. Like, uh, I was walking my wife, through getting set up. She’s, you know, how, how do you use it? How do you think about it? Should you trust it? That kind of stuff. And like, one of the things that constantly , trips her up in and, and other folks is, well, which model should I pick?

[00:15:45] Robert Jackson: good fricking luck. Like, you know, 4 1 4 0 0 3 0 3 mini, you know, like, oh my gosh, there was so many to choose from. And now they really simplified that in the, jet bt.com web ui. And I think that that makes, , a lot of sense for [00:16:00] like your average consumer on the code side and for work. I don’t think that is the right choice.

[00:16:05] Robert Jackson: ‘cause I think different models for different tasks is appropriate, , especially given that different ones to cost different amounts. , And sometimes one of the mini models is just fine. , You know, especially if you just have a really simple, mini prompt kind of, kind of situation. Anyways, I, that was a really long, yada yada for a simple question.

[00:16:21] Robert Jackson: I think the long and short is for code stuff. , Claude, uh, Opus for planning, , coding with sonnet. , Most of my personal stuff goes through GPT five now. , And um, I’m pretty happy with it.

[00:16:32] Robbie Wagner: I have a follow up? Have a follow up just around interface. Oh, it’s your show. I’m not, I’m not even supposed to be here. Yeah, this guest here. Um, yeah. So in terms of coding, how good have you found it at doing the things you actually needed to do? Does it, is it about tuning your prompts and your like.

[00:16:50] Robbie Wagner: giving it the right info to get to the right answer. Or is it like your mileage may vary because I’ve had a lot of trouble with it getting the actual result. Like [00:17:00] it’ll get close enough that I, you know, as a programmer know how to fix it. But like, but how have your results been?

[00:17:06] Robert Jackson: Yeah, no, uh, so this is, this is a good point. So, . I, uh, have been doing programming related activities for 27 years or something, so a long damn time. , basically, the point is I know when it goes wrong. I have made my career to some extent on a PR review and understand how to review a code that I didn’t necessarily, uh, write that kind of stuff.

[00:17:29] Robert Jackson: all the work that I did in the ember space, like you, uh, for a lot of that stuff, you can’t keep the entire mental model in your head the whole time. , You know, so you’re, you have to know how to bootstrap and understand how do, how do I read this? How do I validate this diff and whatever.

[00:17:42] Robert Jackson: my point is, uh, my, my position is almost certainly biased. I think that, there’s a lot of different techniques in getting the prompt, right, , forcing it through planning mode so that you can like, just iterate, iterate, iterate on the plan.

[00:17:56] Robert Jackson: And what I tend to do is do that, tell it to write the [00:18:00] plan to a mark on file, kill that context and bootstrap again from, uh, from the marked on file. Often I’ll plan with Opus and I’ll switch to, , implementation with Sonnet, but I’ll have all the breadcrumbs in a marked on file where, , and I’ll have it mark off the steps.

[00:18:13] Robert Jackson: Uh, I think Cursor actually does this. I, I don’t tend to use Cursor, but cursor tends to do this, , a little bit on its own without telling it a lot to do it. , But, uh, and, and Cloud Code does a pretty good job of like maintaining the list of, of steps and whatnot in the, um, UI guess not ui, I guess, uh, the terminal UI, I guess.

[00:18:30] Robert Jackson: And I think that works well. , I think the other thing is. Don’t be afraid to tell it, to go back and start over, or, , always every time you go a turn, , so I use juujitsu, uh, JJ as a, sort of a get front end, I guess, is the way to think about it. , And I have, I have a snapshot of the code every time.

[00:18:49] Robert Jackson: , I go back and forth with the prompt, so , if it goes off the rails. So what, like I can reset it really trivially. , It’s no different with gi you just have to manually commit every time. , Whereas, uh, [00:19:00] if you use, depending on your integration, you can, , you can get auto snapshotting with jj.

[00:19:04] Robert Jackson: uh, I think that that helps a lot with, uh, sort of CYA sort of stuff. , I still tend to push my changes up to GitHub, and look at the review in a draft or something as well. And like I review it, like I would review. Someone else’s prs, , in the same way. And then o oftentimes I’ll just give it the link to the PR review and say, go fix these things.

[00:19:24] Robert Jackson: , it does a pretty, pretty good job. So, so I think I, I basically, I think it’s a combination of initial prompt, making sure it has the right context, validating the plan that it comes up with. , Ideally in like a plan mode where it’s not even trying to make changes. I hate it when you’re fighting with it.

[00:19:38] Robert Jackson: No, no. Don’t make changes yet. Plan. , I hate that. That’s really annoys the dickens outta me. so, so get that plan to where you like it. , I personally like just emitting the plan and then, um, using that to bootstrap again. , Also because it helps if you, , end up coming back to a session, , and need, need to have context of what the point of the changes were.

[00:19:57] Robert Jackson: Uh, because you can look at a diff but it doesn’t know [00:20:00] the why. And if you explain the why in the, in the prompt, it actually helps a little bit.

[00:20:03] Typecraft: That’s really interesting. You write things down to a series of markdown files. , I feel like I, I found myself falling into the same pattern of coming up with a plan, being like, oh, this plan’s huge. Write this to a markdown file. And then I don’t know if you’ve, I don’t know if this happened to you before, but I say this while it’s in planning mode and then cloud code would be like, oh no, this is planning mode.

[00:20:22] Typecraft: I’m not writing anything for you. I’m like, oh my God. Okay.

[00:20:24] Robert Jackson: Yes, correct. It’s very frustrating.

[00:20:26] Typecraft: That made me laugh even earlier today. , But, you know, I, I always kind of wondered to myself like, Is there something that is, is there a pattern that’s been established yet that’s a little more efficient than just like writing things to markdown files and then when you open a new session and say, Hey, by the way, read this markdown file for, , reference?

[00:20:42] Typecraft: Or is that just like, sort of just the easiest thing to do? I mean, I like it. It’s pretty easy, but I wonder if there was something like a little bit more

[00:20:50] Robert Jackson: I mean, I, I, I don’t know. I mean that’s, that’s my go-to still. I did, I do have some, , Claude md in my home dur stuff that, that sets up a slash plan, to [00:21:00] run a plan like slash plan zero one will go find plan number zero one, that kind of stuff. Just like little, , little simple shortcuts because like. I know where the files are, but typing the path out is annoying. , And like, sure, I’m, I’m a programmer, I’m lazy. Right? you know, so just like plan zero one or, uh, load the plan or whatever, , or, . I’ll exit plan mode when I’ve planned. And then have it just, uh, you know, pla slash plan slash sa uh, space save or something like, I’ll just make those little mini uh, simple, prompt things.

[00:21:26] Robert Jackson: , The other thing is I am, my go-to is, is cloud code. I haven’t tried the cursor, CLI just yet, , but I am intrigued by it. I just, I gotta install, I gotta, I gotta put it through its paces a little bit, and I’ve been a bit under the gun with actually shipping. So, , playing around with random tools hasn’t been my bag in the last couple of weeks since it came out.

[00:21:43] Robert Jackson: but all that to say, I am a terminal guy. I run terminal, uh, neo, him, all the whole, the whole shtick.

[00:21:49] Robert Jackson: so having the cloud code pipeline, running in Neo Vim terminal inside a team OC session, , is my, my jam. , And what I do there is I have a little shortcut that launches [00:22:00] cloud code in a Neo vim tab in a terminal with, , like a 20% split of the marked on file that I’ve already told it where it’s, so I don’t have to do any of the work.

[00:22:08] Robert Jackson: Like I just have the markdown plan on the left, the Claude instance on the right and, makes it really easy. Also, I can edit that prompt as I’m doing the prompt, I can edit that in my preferred editor. It doesn’t matter if it’s Neo of him, like you could do this same thing with VS

[00:22:22] Robert Jackson: code or, or cursor or any of them. Just ask type craft.

[00:22:25] Typecraft: It does matter and almost got the entire Bingo card. Are you also running Arch? Because if so, then

[00:22:30] Robert Jackson: no, no, ma uh, Mac s yeah.

[00:22:34] Robbie Wagner: Oh, well you need to get a framework computer.

[00:22:37] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. And uh, what is it?

[00:22:39] Robert Jackson: Hold on. I’m on the waiting list for the, the desktop. the desktop framework is amazing looking.

[00:22:45] Robbie Wagner: Hmm. It does look cool.

[00:22:47] Typecraft: I just got one in the mail and I have not put it together yet, but I’m so excited.

[00:22:52] Robbie Wagner: Make sure you buy it with, code type craft.

[00:22:55] Typecraft: Yeah.

[00:22:55] Robbie Wagner: is, how is the desktop different than just a desktop though? Like, ‘cause the whole [00:23:00] thing with the framework laptop is like a laptop that you can move parts around or whatever,

[00:23:04] Robbie Wagner: but like, you

[00:23:04] Typecraft: the thing. It’s like a desktop. but modular.

[00:23:08] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. But you can already change all your parts on the desktop.

[00:23:11] Robert Jackson: Right?

[00:23:11] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. But it doesn’t look like a gaming computer. The problem with like, it looks that’s, it has, it looks, looks like a gaming computer. It does look cool. Okay. And it’s like more mini a TX isn’t it

[00:23:20] Robert Jackson: It’s very small.

[00:23:21] Typecraft: it’s tiny.

[00:23:22] Robbie Wagner: Sounds

[00:23:22] Robert Jackson: You, you could put it in a, in a backpack, like a, a regular, not a giant Mondo backpack, a regular

[00:23:27] Typecraft: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:28] Robbie Wagner: Be careful. Robbie’s used to hearing that all the time. It’s very small. Yes. I’m, I’m triggered by that.

[00:23:37] Typecraft: Small backpack, so I get it.

[00:23:40] Robert Jackson: Yeah, I, I don’t know. The, the reason I was excited about the desktop thing is,

[00:23:43] Robert Jackson: basically, , the AI capability stuff to the, uh, just looks outta this world super layman’s terms. I, I haven’t dug into, I, I looked into this whenever it came out and I was excited about it.

[00:23:54] Robert Jackson: , The processor essentially, as far as I can tell, uses something akin to the unified memory architecture that the. [00:24:00] Uh, max have, so you can get a crap ton of RAM that you can use, , with the GPU, and, and you can load much, much larger local models, which per personally, that’s what I want.

[00:24:10] Robert Jackson: I want to run. Very large, like 70 B or more local models. like, especially like I take notes, I’ll, I’ll record locally, not, not like through the internet, but like locally record meetings, and I just wanna run the transcriptions and use those for, uh, indexing and like reminding me of the tasks that I have to do.

[00:24:28] Robert Jackson: And I don’t want to rely on services for all that stuff. But, even on a, on an average MacBook Pro with, uh, I think mine has 48 gigs of ram, I can’t get, , the large enough model that I want. So having this, , having like a lama set up on the, the framework desktop, , running, I’m getting it from my son by the way, but he’s not here most of the time, so that means I get to run what I want to on it. you know, that’s, that’s the beauty of parenthood. So anyways, that’s, that’s, that’s what I want. That’s why I’m excited about it.

[00:24:54] Typecraft: Yeah, I’m excited too. I think it’s, I think it’s really, really interesting, , what they’re doing with the desktop and yeah. I’m excited to try it out. [00:25:00] It just, it literally just came in the mail yeah. I’m excited to put it together, put it through its paces, see what we get.

[00:25:04] Robbie Wagner: We are pivoting. This is an unboxing episode.

[00:25:07] Robbie Wagner: Yep. We’ll wait,

[00:25:10] Typecraft: I do have something I’ll show you guys. It’s very interesting. It’s cool. , I’ll be back though. Talk, speak amongst yourselves. Wait, here’s a topic. Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island. Discuss.

[00:25:19] Robert Jackson: And They also have very bad roads.

[00:25:21] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. And it’s spelled

[00:25:22] Robbie Wagner: r-H-O-D-E. Did you know that? That’s a

[00:25:26] Robert Jackson: I, did, yeah. I live here. Um, but, um, the,

[00:25:30] Robbie Wagner: I don’t think he knew that.

[00:25:31] Robert Jackson: Until very recently, it, it was the smallest state with the longest name. , But they, they changed the official name a couple years back, two or three years back, something like that. Not too long ago.

[00:25:41] Robbie Wagner: Do tell. What did

[00:25:43] Robert Jackson: It was, it was Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and they dropped all

[00:25:46] Robert Jackson: the

[00:25:46] Robbie Wagner: Oh Oh wow.

[00:25:48] Robert Jackson: now It’s just Rhode Island

[00:25:49] Robbie Wagner: the

[00:25:50] Robbie Wagner: plantations are gone now. Did you I was gonna say, what, , plantation has a negative connotation from what I’ve heard, uh, being well, being from Kentucky. Well, if weren’t the fields yourself, it’s fine.

[00:25:59] Typecraft: I [00:26:00] haven’t heard that.

[00:26:00] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. I mean, worst thing is when you drive south in Kentucky and you’ll see some old block wall, or not block, but rock wall set up, and they, uh, they’re colloquially known as slave walls.

[00:26:14] Robbie Wagner: Okay. I was, I was waiting for what you were gonna say there. Colloquial. Colloquially. That’s hard to say. Colloquial.

[00:26:20] Robert Jackson: one. Uh, you, uh, I think if you have another drink, it’ll be easier.

[00:26:23] Robbie Wagner: Yes. We should, I think it would be actually, thank you. The keeper of the bottle there. That’s the reason why I’m here. You, you

[00:26:27] Robbie Wagner: have the bottle. Oh, I’m not even supposed to be here.

[00:26:31] Robbie Wagner: Okay.

[00:26:32] Typecraft: that’s what it comes in.

[00:26:33] Robbie Wagner: oh wait, what is, oh, okay.

[00:26:35] Robbie Wagner: Are we unboxing? No,

[00:26:37] Typecraft: we’re not gonna unbox. I wanna show you

[00:26:39] Robbie Wagner: you’re still in hot takes. Are you kidding me?

[00:26:41] Typecraft: That thought was cool. This is a hot take.

[00:26:43] Robbie Wagner: Okay. Hot take.

[00:26:44] Robbie Wagner: Computers are cool.

[00:26:46] Typecraft: our framework. Desktop school.

[00:26:48] Robbie Wagner: Hot take, , type crafts on DHH payroll.

[00:26:52] Typecraft: Yeah. DJ is, he’s fun.

[00:26:57] Robbie Wagner: If you get to, , check out the race car. If you get to [00:27:00] go to like a, a race, then you’re on the payroll. Is there a passenger seat in the race car? There shouldn’t be F1. I know there shouldn’t be, but yeah, I don’t believe there are. F1 racers are in the middle and they’ve got the whole thing. Okay. Have you ever seen these things?

[00:27:12] Robbie Wagner: Yes. Did you see the movie? Uh, no. I didn’t,

[00:27:15] Typecraft: so framework, right, as we know, comes with,

[00:27:17] Typecraft: The desktop has these tiles, right? And you can customize them. And so for us, they made, oh, it’s not gonna zoom up on it. Shoot, this

[00:27:27] Robert Jackson: You need your face outta the way.

[00:27:28] Typecraft: This is a type craft logo. I don’t know if that’s even gonna work.

[00:27:31] Robbie Wagner: oh yeah. For us. So you’ve kind of moved away from type craft. Being you and type Craft is more of like your brand, your company.

[00:27:38] Typecraft: No, it’s always been, it’s always been the two of us, me and, uh, not, not one of the two Roberts in here, but me and Robert,

[00:27:46] Robbie Wagner: oh gosh.

[00:27:47] Typecraft: He was a friend and

[00:27:47] Robbie Wagner: Number one name since 1920.

[00:27:49] Typecraft: Yeah, no, we go way back. But yeah. Uh, but no, it’s always been us. It’s from the start. But yeah, this podcast isn’t about me. So,

[00:27:57] Robbie Wagner: It could be, but yeah, it can be.

[00:27:58] Typecraft: but I thought it was cool.

[00:27:59] Typecraft: This, um, [00:28:00] the framework, uh, people sent us this stuff with all these logos. This is an arch logo. Damn it. Oh yeah, this one looks pretty good. That’s

[00:28:05] Robert Jackson: so good.

[00:28:06] Typecraft: And this one is, uh, one of our little keyboard logos that we have. I can’t really see it, but it’s cool. They’re cool.

[00:28:13] Robbie Wagner: spent way

[00:28:13] Robert Jackson: you give them the assets?

[00:28:14] Typecraft: Did I give them what?

[00:28:15] Robert Jackson: yeah. The assets for the,

[00:28:17] Robert Jackson: the print or,

[00:28:18] Typecraft: Yeah, We just gave ‘em pgs.

[00:28:19] Typecraft: They just threw ‘em on there. It was nice.

[00:28:20] Robbie Wagner: Damnit guys, this is a serious podcast.

[00:28:23] Robert Jackson: I know, what

[00:28:24] Robbie Wagner: I leave for a few weeks and it really devolves. Yeah, I was just gonna say, we’ve spent way too long on, like, we’ve done the first hot take and, uh, the rest aren’t that hot, so fuck it. Let’s just go on to the next step.,

[00:28:35] CTA: This just in! Whiskey.fund is now open for all your merch needs. That’s right, Robbie. We’re hearing reports of hats, sweaters, and T-shirts, as well as a link to join our Discord server. What’s a Discord server? Just read the prompter, man. Hit subscribe. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and tell your friends about our broadcast. It really does [00:29:00] help us reach more people and keeps the show growing. All right, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[00:29:09] Robbie Wagner: All right, so I want to talk about open source.

[00:29:11] Robbie Wagner: So you had, I don’t remember what the final number was. I don’t know if you remember, Robert, what was your streak on GitHub before they got rid of streaks?

[00:29:19] Robert Jackson: It was a long time, thou, A thousand

[00:29:21] Robbie Wagner: I I thought it was like multiple thousands, but

[00:29:24] Typecraft: All of

[00:29:24] Robert Jackson: Yeah. It was, it was a long time. I, I don’t, I don’t know. And now they don’t display it anymore so you can back calculate it. ‘cause they still have the, the little tile things. , Now they show you many, like you can pick the years.

[00:29:35] Robert Jackson: Yeah, it was a very long time.

[00:29:37] Robbie Wagner: Yes. So, all right, so obviously you’re an expert at open source, so I wanna talk to you a little bit about. , The effect open source can have on your career? Do you think it directly influences anything with regards to like, getting hired places or, you know, getting promotions or, you know, just being thought of as, you know, a good developer, I guess

[00:29:58] Robert Jackson: okay, so [00:30:00] for me, yes, like sample size of one. , There is no way that I would be where I am now without having been in the right place at the right time, in the right random IRC channel meeting the right person, like e meeting the right person. , , like that just would never have happened. But also that is a very unusual combination of events, right?

[00:30:18] Robert Jackson: Like it’s, it’s a bit like, when my kids say they want to grow up and be YouTubers, sure you could do that. That’s great. It’s totally a career. It totally is. But the percentage of actual people that actually end up, , being able to make a living on that is, is, is not as large as you might think as it might seem, because that’s what your world is close to with lots of YouTubers, right?

[00:30:38] Robert Jackson: Or baseball players or football players. Just pick, pick a thing. Like it, it is not just about YouTube, but the point is, there’s some amount of luck, and some, some other factors involved. So I think there’s, that’s part of it. I think that regardless of the connection part, the knowledge that I gained from doing open source is.

[00:30:55] Robert Jackson: Probably even more powerful and more valuable than, than the [00:31:00] people part that I, although I think the people part was very, very important, very valuable. Those connections got me jobs. Those connections, tho those people are my friends. , And like that, that’s great. Like the really durable, true friendships over time.

[00:31:12] Robert Jackson: but learning how to think about problems is something I learned from open source. a long time at LinkedIn, you see a lot of people that start at LinkedIn only ever worked at LinkedIn. they look at problems a different way. not all of them, but it’s very easy to fall into that trap of, well, like learned helplessness I guess.

[00:31:29] Robert Jackson: Where, , well, I guess this is just the way it is. , Or I can just accept, , this experience or that experience or whatever because it’s owned by some other team. This is just a normal, big co sort of problem. and it, it’s, it’s not about LinkedIn, but it, it, it, it’s just a big co sort of thing where there’s so many different silos of all this stuff and, being exposed in doing open source for so long, , like you have to have a very low bar for rough edges, or sorry, a high bar, I don’t know, whichever one’s the good

[00:31:56] Robert Jackson: way. Um, and, you know, a rough [00:32:00] edge, any sort of roadmap or, or stumbling block or whatever, , on onboarding or ramping or using the thing you’re build, whether it’s a webpage or, or a CLI or whatever, , that impediment has to be fixed and you just have to have no zero tolerance for that kind of stuff. Anyways, that, that’s, that’s I guess my thought.

[00:32:15] Typecraft: No, I think that’s a really good point. Especially the, uh, the bar, wherever it may be low or high. , Having a high standard of the code you make in open source. Yeah. It, it, it makes sense because you’re not just building it, it’s not a pet project just for yourself or for like, just a couple people or whatever.

[00:32:31] Typecraft: It’s like, it’s for like the public, right. It’s open, so that bar does have to be high in order for it to be accepted by like the wide public of people who want to consume that thing.

[00:32:42] Robert Jackson: It also forces you to think about the edges of the system. Like, like, Libraries specifically, not so much public sites. ‘cause websites, obviously the interface is the ui, right? for libraries, uh, which is where a lot of open source is, you have to understand what’s the boundary conditions like, where, what’s the beginning, what’s the end?

[00:32:58] Robert Jackson: Where do you live? Like, , [00:33:00] are you just building everything on the kitchen sink? , Are you, , building a very niche specific thing? You have a specific mental model, and where, where your thing starts and where the other thing go stops. And that really helps when you’re architecting systems and.

[00:33:11] Robert Jackson: At any job, right? Understand, like, not that, not because you’re gonna say no to a feature request or something, but understanding how to build those interfaces means that now you know how to couple the pieces. Now you can, now you can test at the interface layers instead of mock the world or, which, uh, um, don’t get me started, but I hate that.

[00:33:28] Robert Jackson: Um, like I, I would much rather you provide me, I guess test mock for the entry point and the extra points and then, make it so that I can use your library, not have to worry about how it works or, you know, let’s say it’s some LLM thing or whatever, not have to worry about, well, how do I set up my CI to actually hit the LM and all that stuff because that, that doesn’t matter to how I’m using your library.

[00:33:46] Robert Jackson: I can like, I want to be able to trust that the library does what it says on the tin. If it doesn’t, I’ll five bugs, I’ll, I’ll fix it or whatever. , But like having an idea of how to think in terms of those. boundary conditions and, , when a thing should live in this layer versus that layer, that’s all stuff you get [00:34:00] by thinking in terms of, of these things and, and you can get that in, , just regular company, sort of environments.

[00:34:05] Robert Jackson: But the default sort of mental model, I don’t see being that I, I see that as, well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just throw it in here. We can fix it later. Which is also fine. Like there, there is, there is a point to intentionally choosing tech debt here. sometimes you have to make that choice and that’s okay.

[00:34:20] Robert Jackson: but making the choice by not realizing you made a choice, that’s what’s not okay.

[00:34:25] Robbie Wagner: I feel like you created three additional checkpoints here, but I wanted to regress back to one of the previous ones around like open source being like a good training model for other environments. And I would say that like probably an additional lucky point in your journey was that you are in a very well organized, open source community though too, because you can get involved in all kinds of open source projects that will give you good experience and, many of the other aspects of it.

[00:34:56] Robbie Wagner: But I think like dealing with a particular type of [00:35:00] open source organization in that also probably set you up with dealing with other organizations and kind of seeing, like, I have a bit of a panacea of like what. Has worked very successfully in like, in this, in that software engineering career paths require a certain amount of soft skills that aren’t easily developed.

[00:35:22] Robbie Wagner: And I think that the environment that you had in that sense also developed soft skills to make those things, at least get the answers you’re looking for,

[00:35:30] Robert Jackson: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, a, a decent amount of software engineering is sales. Right? Like, I, you may not think about it that way. You’ve gotta con, especially in, open source, you, you’ve gotta convince the maintainers that they want the thing you’re trying to give them. , And that you’re not just giving them an open source puppy, where they’ve gotta walk it and feed it and, clean it

[00:35:47] Robert Jackson: up,

[00:35:47] Robbie Wagner: or that you’re smarter than they are and that’s why they need to, yeah, your dummies I’ve got some Funyuns and take my stuff so I can go back in my hole. Like that is a different kind of mentality that I think people gloss [00:36:00] over a lot.

[00:36:01] Robert Jackson: Yep. A a hundred percent. And, it only helps, in your regular business life, to, you know, a be respectful and don’t assume you’re the smartest person in the room because honestly, you’re probably not. And, uh, at least that is my personal perspective all the time because it doesn’t do any good to think you’re the smartest.

[00:36:18] Robert Jackson: maybe you are, maybe you’re not. But it doesn’t do any good to think that. it also leaves your mind open to accepting ideas from other people. Anyways, I think that’s a great point.

[00:36:25] Robbie Wagner: Okay. Sorry, just trying to move us along. , So I do want to another AI related sort of thing here. Uh, do you think frameworks will still be relevant in 10 years or will AI generated code just make that kind of irrelevant? It’ll just generate all of the stuff you need to do whatever and you don’t like, need a framework.

[00:36:46] Robert Jackson: I think I know what I want the answer to be. , But I don’t know what it actually will be like. It’s too hard to see. I want the answer to be that the,, a thing I, I, I had mentioned, uh, before, which is I think the, the reason LMS can be so successful is because they can [00:37:00] leverage, , libraries and frameworks and things like that, and they aren’t the ones doing, , offering, at least not right now.

[00:37:06] Robert Jackson: , The very bespoke, , like dom manipulation stuff that you might have to do for a web framework or, the, the special, , bit twiddling you might have to do for different, different server side environments. , And they can rely on the fact that like the go standard library has, built-ins for all the things and, and just rely on the fact that that works, as an example.

[00:37:24] Robert Jackson: , But if they’re authoring all of that, I think that. It becomes way harder. Like, first of all, the amount of total code that you now like talk about open source puppies, like this is worse than that, right? Like LM has generated this giant pile of stuff that literally you are incapable of reasoning about, without some sort of framework.

[00:37:42] Robert Jackson: So I think even if we leave the realm of the sort of rails is, I guess, , which is to me a, you know, a pinnacle of frameworks. Uh, I guess that we’re talking about d hh here. But, I used that whatever a long time, 15, 20 years ago, I don’t know, a long time ago. and, um, ever since the blog in five minutes, video went, went [00:38:00] crazy.

[00:38:00] Robert Jackson: and I think. Being able to leverage those things makes, makes a huge difference. But even if those aren’t, , authored by humans, I think having the LM author shared use PA patterns like that, having internal frameworks is still a useful thing to guide it towards. , And it does not do it naturally.

[00:38:18] Robert Jackson: It doesn’t want to do that. Uh, well, sorry, I I I’m making it seem like it has a mental, uh, uh, mind of its own.

[00:38:23] Typecraft: It doesn’t feel like it most days.

[00:38:26] Robert Jackson: yeah. The, the, it wants to, it wants you to think that it thinks on its own, but it does not. The, the, the point that I’m making is like, it just wants to throw code, , at the wall and a lot of times it’ll get to the end, end zone.

[00:38:37] Robert Jackson: , That’s great. , Especially if you can describe the test conditions. You want it to ver validate, but the result might be an un unmaintainable mess and , without some sort of, of frameworks, whether it be, , human authored or or machine authored, that part doesn’t matter.

[00:38:51] Typecraft: it’s an interesting philosophical question around like how far can LLMs sort of build out their own sort of rule sets for things that [00:39:00] they can make and develop and like, keep things within certain expectations.

[00:39:03] Typecraft: But I think there’s another sort of point of this where, I don’t think LLMs in the long term. Can be creative in the way that humans are creative. Right. You mentioned, , DHHS blog post in 15 minutes with Ruby on Rails that actually jump started my whole like career. And I don’t think that that’s a fresh, that was like a fresh idea given certain tools that were available at the time.

[00:39:29] Typecraft: And I’m just, I feel like if LLMs take over or any kind of like ai, it takes over more and more and more of the actual code generation. It will reuse more and more and more of its previous code generation and everything will just kinda get a little bit flattened out. You know, there won’t be any creativity.

[00:39:45] Typecraft: There won’t be any of these sparks of like, oh, this is a new thing. This is really interesting. Maybe we should think about doing things in this way. It sort of just will will revert back to what it knows. And again, that’s kind of a funny term, like knows Right? But it will revert back to, The patterns [00:40:00] that it’s used before and will kind of just sort of, everything will sort of flatten out and sort of be the same.

[00:40:05] Typecraft: I feel that’s kinda like my, if I were to think of things like through the lens of like thinking long term, everything just gets kind of flattened out. You won’t have that sort of peak of like sort of creativity that opens up a new idea for something that’s a little bit different. Right. Also, I think you used the term, uh, bit twiddling and that was, that was one of my favorite things I’ve ever heard, so thank you.

[00:40:24] Robert Jackson: yeah, no, I, I, I agree. I think, I think that the, the power that can be wielded by someone that’s properly motivated and has the, idea or the, the imagination, the power of the lm to be wielded by that person can take you 10 x what, uh, d HH did with their rails in five minutes thing.

[00:40:41] Robert Jackson: But I think, uh, that requires the person to bring that to the, to the thing, that person to have the, light bulb moment or whatever. But here’s the thing. , How many times have you gone to the barber shop and you, well, so I don’t, I tell ‘em I sell life insurance now, but, , if, uh, you tell ‘em your software, they say, oh, I have this app idea. Well, [00:41:00] like. Cool story. That’s great. the thing is, I develop software for a living. The ideas are the hard part. the code is the easy part. To me. It’s the ideas of the hard part that, so having the idea is the hard part. So like, now those people are, are enabled to build incredible things, , that they never could have built before.

[00:41:16] Robert Jackson: The, the whole vibe coding thing. Now maybe it ends up being a giant pile pile, uh, you know, house of Cards that just collapses or something. , And like that sucks. But also, , enabling the imagination, , to then try to be fulfilled. I think those are, those are the things that I think are really empowering,

[00:41:31] Typecraft: my biggest worry is that, . With the rise of more and more AI assisted technologies, like I feel very powerful with Cloud Code, with, these tools, because I am an experienced software engineer. I’ve, I’ve done a bunch of different projects. I’ve worked at a lot of different companies.

[00:41:45] Typecraft: I have a lot of different ideas of how things should go. , I think in the future though, the people who maybe might be just starting out in software engineering who sort of learned through, , coding with LLMs might not have the kind of insight into [00:42:00] how these sort of systems work together in order to come up with like these ideas that might change something, right?

[00:42:05] Typecraft: They might just sort of take things as they are and sort of just, just accept like what an LLM might give them, as opposed to being like, well, hang on a second, what if we did it this way? again, like the way I kind of feel about it is like I, I feel. I can produce a lot more being a senior level engineer, but newer developers I feel like are kind of at a little bit of a disadvantage moving forward.

[00:42:29] Typecraft: , And so that kinda worries me a little bit. I feel like that that whole thing kind of is a little bit of a, a little bit of a worry in my mind.

[00:42:35] Robert Jackson: Yeah, I totally agree. I, I do think though that, so anytime there’s a paradigm shift, which I think this for sure is, there is a gap in time where, the way you learn hasn’t caught up. , I think that. It is totally true that new engineers today can do more than they could have done, , five years ago or six years ago because of ai.

[00:42:57] Robert Jackson: But that sets them, I totally agree with you. That sets ‘em up for [00:43:00] this, weird artificial plateau, , where they don’t have a way to bridge the gap from, , being a good basic engineer to becoming a senior engineer because they haven’t been forced to think about the, , the architectural problems or the things, the things that, like I was describing before, like, systems thinking and, and thinking about pieces, interfaces, and all that stuff.

[00:43:20] Robert Jackson: , But I do think that that is, that is teachable. , That is a thing that a, we can teach to people like we do. There are classes like college exists, uh.

[00:43:29] Typecraft: I was just gonna say

[00:43:30] Robert Jackson: Uh, yeah. Oh, uh, hot takes back to hot takes, huh. so I think, that can be taught. I think also we can get better at tailored LLM, either models or, or agentic workflows that force the LLM into a more architectural mental model as well.

[00:43:48] Robert Jackson: I, you don’t see it much right now. , , but I do think that it is, that is, it is possible. Uh, but, but I do, I totally agree that right now, , we have to do something to, , to remove that, [00:44:00] that future disadvantage. for new engineers. I, I clearly that needs to exist.

[00:44:04] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. I would say like the entry point isn’t removed. It’s just changed. I think that like the traditional way of getting the experience and knowledge is it’s gonna have to catch up to the new tools we have, and that’s moving quite quick. And so, mm-hmm. I wouldn’t say the goalpost has moved. It has just shifted dynamically.

[00:44:27] Robbie Wagner: You know,

[00:44:27] Robert Jackson: I also think that because it’s still in what seems like an acceleration phase, it’s gonna be a little while for for the the teaching and, and the, the way we educate to catch up to how, how it works. Like we’re still, we’re only recently seeing studies around how do people think when they are exposed to LLMs and, um, when they can rely on them.

[00:44:46] Robert Jackson: Like, there’s a lot more science that has to be done here. , Both science and also like education and, , education research and figuring that stuff out. And the problem is, , from my perspective, I don’t know who’s gonna do that research [00:45:00] because, , with all the money is, , is not terribly interested in, pointing out that their LMS are flawed.

[00:45:05] Robert Jackson: there, there’s a thing that has to be done there.

[00:45:07] Robbie Wagner: they’re not flawed. They’re perfect.

[00:45:10] Robert Jackson: Yes. Yes. And I’ll continue to tell them that. And flawed. yes. Uh, as, as Claude will tell me all the time, you’re absolutely right. Um, yeah, I can’t tell you how many Ugh. That’s a good point though. There’s, there’s, there’s a lot of money in hyping up LLMs, there’s no money in studying them and understanding like what are the best ways to use them moving forward, right?

[00:45:31] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, yeah. And they have to be like way too confident because if it was like, you know, I’m not sure about the answer. Let me think some more. Let me like give you a maybe answer. You could try. Then why would people throw money at that? Like it’s got to be really confident.

[00:45:47] Robert Jackson: I, I also like, like the literal technology, like, I mean, it is effectively auto complete. I mean, it’s not exactly that, but it basically, right. So, there, in the end there’s ways to layer on confidence scores and all that [00:46:00] jazz, which is great. , But it’s gonna say something every time you ask it anything, it’s going to answer somewhat 90 plus percent of the time it’s going to answer with confidence. Like, this is the thing I tell my kids who, who are like, they’re 16 to 17, they’re like interacting with ais now as, as part of like just daily data, like just Google search results and stuff like that. Like when do you trust it? When do you not?

[00:46:18] Robert Jackson: , Like how do you validate and, things like software is very different than things like, , English or , mechanics. , Because like with mechanics, someone could die. , Turns out, , most software that I work on at least isn’t going to kill someone. and hopefully,

[00:46:34] Robbie Wagner: Get off the dark web, Robert. Get off, stop doing dark web work.

[00:46:40] Robert Jackson: you can make tests. You can, Val, I, I know whether code is verifiably correct or not basically is the point. , If you haven’t write your English paper or something, it could just be making crap up. , If you, , have it give you some schematic for some machine, not just, it could, it will make

[00:46:53] Robbie Wagner: Yeah.

[00:46:53] Robbie Wagner: Do your high school age kids try to get like mechanics, like, uh, blueprints for

[00:46:59] Robbie Wagner: [00:47:00] mechanics.

[00:47:00] Robert Jackson: they do cad like in

[00:47:01] Robert Jackson: school,

[00:47:02] Robbie Wagner: Okay. Oh wow. Yeah. I’m like, I’m very interested on that. Like how much are they using it? Yeah, in their education. Rhode Island. Rhode Island school system. Like

[00:47:09] Robert Jackson: The school has different pa the, their, their local high school, public high school has, um, pathways for like engineering, biomed stuff. And they have tailored classes at the end of high school. They, they, depending on how well they do, could end up with like almost a full year credit hours in college stuff,

[00:47:25] Robbie Wagner: Wow. So that, that we were

[00:47:26] Typecraft: Sounds like an awesome.

[00:47:27] Robbie Wagner: My son is gonna be nine tomorrow. And like you mentioned, his career target right now is YouTuber. ‘cause that’s what he’s watching Minecraft and YouTubers

[00:47:38] Typecraft: Let’s go.

[00:47:40] Robbie Wagner: Lucky for me. He’s got a backup plan. He wants to work at the Buffalo Wild Wings near a SU in Tempe, Arizona.

[00:47:48] Robbie Wagner: That is his

[00:47:49] Robbie Wagner: backup dream. Oh, I love beat up though.

[00:47:51] Typecraft: Those Are the two best careers you could have. Server at Buffalo Wild Wings or YouTuber.

[00:47:57] Robbie Wagner: He doesn’t say server cook or whatever. He just wants to, [00:48:00] to work there. I don’t, he just wants to be around

[00:48:02] Robbie Wagner: wings. He likes wings. Yeah. His favorite food are, are buffalo wings. Oh. And he likes theirs because he can get normal buffalo wings and these salt and vinegar rub and that he likes those. That’s his second is a salt and vinegar rub.

[00:48:13] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. And it’s interest.

[00:48:14] Robert Jackson: not tried this.

[00:48:15] Robbie Wagner: It’s good. Hmm. Yeah. If you like salt and vinegar chips or whatever, fries. Oh yeah. It’s good. It hits. I don’t like rub wings. I want it to be saucy. Personally, I think it’s when it’s dry, I’m not, I think that says something about you as a person that it, it needs to be saucy. I like it wet.

[00:48:31] Robbie Wagner: I don’t need to dried apricots. He doesn’t like it. Wet apricot. He wants wet.

[00:48:35] Typecraft: a Wing kind of guy myself. I can’t

[00:48:38] Robert Jackson: I prefer dry rub, but mostly because I think there’s so much calories in the sauce that it just makes me, it put, like, puts me off the wings.

[00:48:45] Robbie Wagner: But that’s what’s the good part.

[00:48:47] Robert Jackson: I, I Hey, I understand. I understand. But, uh, you know, I, that’s a whole,

[00:48:52] Robert Jackson: that’s a whole thing. The, the other thing is you’ve gotta like, just so we can all make sure we’re on the same page, you gotta have one tentacle that is the wing hand [00:49:00] and the other hand might tie it behind your back.

[00:49:01] Robert Jackson: Don’t touch anything. It is the clean hand and don’t get shit

[00:49:04] Robert Jackson: on exactly. Don’t rub your eyes. I’ve watched hot ones. We know. Yeah. Like the number one rule on hot ones is don’t touch your eyes. Oh yeah. Don’t touch your eyes. So, So you mentioned the, the caloric, , count on things.

[00:49:16] Robbie Wagner: So I do want to, uh, circle back to a little bit of your fitness journey here is just not contributing to ember as much, , what I can do to get fit.

[00:49:25] Robert Jackson: no, I mean, so I mean, this is, this is part and parcel and related to the open source part too, right? Like, I think I let that consume me. and then I consumed everything under the sun. at my highest, I was almost 400 pounds. , And like, it was just not healthy. And, it was difficult to like, to see rationally why that was, why, why it was like that.

[00:49:48] Robert Jackson: , But, uh, you know, I think a big part of it was, you know, working a. 80 hours a week or more, , on, not always open source, but like, I had a four hour a week job and then I did all this open source and, and I, I [00:50:00] internalized like this guilt, , that wasn’t fair. No one put it on me. , But I internalized this guilt about like, oh, there’s someone, someone’s got a problem right now and I could help them.

[00:50:09] Robert Jackson: , And like, I’m not a doctor, like I’m not a nurse. Like that’s where you should, that’s an appropriate mental model in that world, I think. , But here it’s just like software on the internet with some fr people. but you, you build up friendships, you build up camaraderie

[00:50:21] Robert Jackson: and You’re, you’re, you’re a people pleaser, aren’t you?

[00:50:23] Robert Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s the default, uh, for me. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think I really had to pull back hard. I had had a, a bit of a healthcare, I, I had a thing in my neck and I lost feeling in my, my whole right arm and inside and stuff for like, like pinched nerve kind of deal.

[00:50:39] Robert Jackson: Right. but, uh, they couldn’t fit me in the MRI machine. , Right. So like, I couldn’t actually, anyways, it was like, wow, this is maybe outta control. you know, and, and so a combination of things, you know, not being able to feel your hand means it’s really hard to type. you know, so it’s, , it’s one of those things where I had, I sort of was forced to pull back a little bit and then when I did, I [00:51:00] realized how relieved I felt partially ‘cause I had an excuse to, Or I felt like I had an excuse for the people pleasing part and the, the guilt. , Well, I, I literally can’t, everyone understands that ev no one was, thought I was doing anything wrong or anything like that, and that, that felt good, , or, or made it feel okay, , to pull back and sort of focus on me a little bit more.

[00:51:19] Robert Jackson: but, uh, yeah, I, I think it’s tough. It’s a tough, it’s a tough balance. And if you’ve got one of those, I’m gonna say addictive personalities, where you get your mindset on a thing, and that’s the only thing you can think about, which I think is a lot of soft developers. It becomes very easy to fall into the trap.

[00:51:34] Robbie Wagner: Yes. So how do you reverse that and get addicted to being fit instead, because I’m looking for advice.

[00:51:41] Robert Jackson: I mean,

[00:51:42] Robert Jackson: I, I think I mean, I have a long way to go. I’m certainly in a pinnacle of, of any, I’m not, I’m not a Instagram, uh, model here or anything. the thing for me was, I still, this has been six years or something now I, I still count calories, , every day.

[00:51:56] Robert Jackson: , Weigh my food. I, I do all that stuff now that is for sure obsessive [00:52:00] impulses, and that is for sure, , some people would categorize that as an unhealthy relationship with food. but also, I’m not going back. My dad died at 50. My kids were only two years old then. Like, I wanna see my grandkids, right?

[00:52:10] Typecraft: Yeah, that’s

[00:52:11] Robert Jackson: I’m 45. So like, that deadline’s coming up. , If, if I’m gonna make it past there. So, so those are, those are the things I keep in my mind anyways. The, the things that I did, , physically was like I, when I started, I couldn’t exercise, like literally any exercise was just injuring me more, , because I weighed so much.

[00:52:27] Robert Jackson: Like even walking, was putting damage on my ankles and knees. and you know, so, so it was all diet, a hundred percent diet and the answer was at, at that size, just don’t eat so much. Like, it actually is that simple. Like when you’re that big, you, you certainly are not in that category. , But , it just straight up, Hey, maybe go, maybe go to McDonald’s and don’t get a 20 piece and two cheeseburgers and a large fry.

[00:52:50] Robert Jackson: Maybe don’t do

[00:52:50] Typecraft: Sounds so good though.

[00:52:52] Robert Jackson: I, I I know it is delicious. And don’t forget the honey for the nuggets. You know, you gotta have the honey, so I think that’s, that’s how I started a, after I [00:53:00] lost the first a hundred pounds, I started exercising quite a lot.

[00:53:03] Robert Jackson: but before, before that I, I, I was just too much on my ankles and knees and, and whatnot, to do even, you know, body weight squats or like, simple, simple things, , was very painful in the joints.

[00:53:14] Typecraft: you said that counting calories, some people might think of that as an unhealthy relationship with food, and I hope that does. I hope that thought doesn’t creep into your head too much because doing that in order to be healthy, like so that you can be there for your kids as they grow up and all of that is like the healthiest mindset you could possibly have.

[00:53:32] Typecraft: So I would not consider that unhealthy at all. I would consider that the healthiest thing you could possibly do.

[00:53:38] Robbie Wagner: I was gonna say, I think ignoring the amount of calories like I do now is, uh, also not healthy. You don’t, you don’t say you need to like have some sort of concept of what you’re eating.

[00:53:48] Robert Jackson: I am in the bucket. I’m, I’m happy with where I’m at. I don’t obsess about going over my budget every day. , I do care about like preferring not to, but like, you know, my, my birthday’s tomorrow, , me and your [00:54:00] son.

[00:54:00] Robert Jackson: And, like it’s, I’m gonna have cake. I’m not gonna worry too much about going out and have a big steak. Like, that’s fine. , That all comes out in the wash. The thing that I think might be really powerful though is, , use an app. I hate MyFitnessPal, but it’s free.

[00:54:13] Robert Jackson: , I prefer like, macro factor personally. , But it doesn’t matter what app you use, , or no app. , Just look at the labels on stuff and write it down for a day or two or, or a couple of weeks and get an idea of where you’re at. And, and also, uh, this is gonna bother other people, but like, weigh yourself and know whether over that span of time you went up or down or stayed level, , those two things tell you what you need to do.

[00:54:35] Robert Jackson: , That’s it. Like, full stop. That it, it is, it is science. I. People don’t like science, but it is science. , And , there’s a whole lot of factors that have to do with expenditure. It’s, it’s complicated. , The body’s like, it’s a bag of chemicals and weird biological crap, but, it is a, you know, taking a measurement and uh, comparing it over time is totally a thing, that will work.

[00:54:57] Robert Jackson: And, and anyways, I think logging for, getting a mental model [00:55:00] of, oh, I logged for a couple of weeks and turns out I was eating. 3000, 4,000 calories, whatever the number is, pick it doesn’t matter what the number is. And over that time, I gained half a pound, or I was flat or whatever. , Now you either know, you know, basically what your maintenance is.

[00:55:14] Robert Jackson: Like, you know what you need to eat to stay level, and if you wanna go down, go a little bit less than that. Also, you have an idea of, this is the thing that really is mind boggling. Like a thing that is, is marketed as health food oftentimes are crazy amounts of calories. Like, like little tiny, like nut snacks or something might be 300 calories for a bag of nuts.

[00:55:35] Robert Jackson: it’s just, you don’t think about the density of, of food. And it’s great. Having five, five almonds or something is, is an awesome little snack. Like, that’s great, but no one thinks of five almonds as a, as a snack. Five almonds is the precursor to the snack or the just the first bite of the

[00:55:49] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. I need 50 almonds. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. But you know, it’s, it’s a give and take ‘cause like almonds are healthy, you know, on paper. But like [00:56:00] Yeah, you can

[00:56:00] Robert Jackson: Oh, I’m not

[00:56:01] Robbie Wagner: of anything. Too much of anything. Yeah. Yeah. Too much. Yeah. Moderate. A calorie isn’t a calorie until it is to a degree, right?

[00:56:08] Robbie Wagner: Like, sure, I can have a snack of 300 calories of almonds or 300 calories of mayonnaise. My body’s gonna deal with those

[00:56:17] Robert Jackson: Yep,

[00:56:17] Robbie Wagner: differently. Just straight mayonnaise. But if you’re eating a mayonnaise snack, you probably have other problems anyway, right? Like, so both are true. You know, it’s a very interesting thing too,

[00:56:29] Robert Jackson: Yeah, I think, I think the only.

[00:56:30] Robbie Wagner: Dukes.

[00:56:31] Robert Jackson: The only caveat, oh, Duke’s is so good. The only, , the only caveat there is that I think that there are health conditions. You can have like, like diabetics and pre-diabetics and stuff like that where, not carbs are not the devil. , But that can be a problem for you if you’re not, if you’re not careful, if you know, uh, but it’s all in moderation.

[00:56:47] Robert Jackson: It’s understanding, , how to relate to things. But personally, like, the things that I find very helpful to deal with hunger and whatnot are like, just have half the plate be vegetables. , I love vegetables now, I didn’t [00:57:00] before. , And have the, you know, a quarter, a third of, of the plate be, , the protein source.

[00:57:05] Robert Jackson: , Preferably something lean, , but like, you know, steak’s fine. , But, you know, chicken, pork, that kinda stuff is, is great. , Fish is also good. you know, and then, you know, a starch if you want star, like, depends on what you want with the rest. But like, basically load up on veggies ‘cause they’re not free.

[00:57:19] Robert Jackson: Nothing’s free, but like.

[00:57:20] Robbie Wagner: They’re so low calorie. Yeah. You could eat your body weight in broccoli and be okay. now now don’t smother the broccoli with butter and cheese, because you’ve done ruined it for yourself. But, , that was the thing also for me. Like, uh, everything got smothered in a sauce and, uh, because that’s what you do.

[00:57:37] Robbie Wagner: yeah. But sauces aren’t free. And that’s the misnomer

[00:57:39] Robert Jackson: correct, correct.

[00:57:40] Robert Jackson: And that, that, that’s why with the wings, right?

[00:57:42] Typecraft: Yeah.

[00:57:42] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or the drink. Guess what? This is also not free.

[00:57:46] Robert Jackson: Yes. I have already logged, I already logged, four ounces of, uh, of

[00:57:50] Robert Jackson: whiskey.

[00:57:50] Robbie Wagner: What was the calories on? Four ounces. I’m just curious. More than you want to know. Probably.

[00:57:55] Robert Jackson: I’ll tell you,

[00:57:56] Robbie Wagner: Well, this episode is brought to you by My Fitness Pal because you [00:58:00] can, uh, create a clawed project and give it instructions and send it photos, and it’ll do caloric estimations. Does it really? Yeah. Ooh,

[00:58:09] Robert Jackson: Yeah, again,

[00:58:10] Robert Jackson: it

[00:58:10] Robbie Wagner: Accurate?

[00:58:11] Robbie Wagner: Well,

[00:58:11] Robert Jackson: good.

[00:58:12] Robbie Wagner: interesting.

[00:58:13] Robert Jackson: so I did, I did three jiggers, which is actually more than

[00:58:16] Robert Jackson: four. So

[00:58:17] Robbie Wagner: Jigga. What?

[00:58:19] Robert Jackson: uh, it’s like 1.5 fluid ounces each,

[00:58:21] Robbie Wagner: That’s, oh, I’m glad I got someone else to say jigga, because that is right in the line, brother riding in the line.

[00:58:28] Robert Jackson: so that’s, uh, that is, , 289 calories,

[00:58:31] Robbie Wagner: That’s not too bad. That’s not bad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, better. It’s not zero, but you should, you should consider it though. You know? It’s better than like the calories and eight beers, which is like the same amount of alcohol, so,

[00:58:43] Robert Jackson: Oh,

[00:58:43] Robert Jackson: yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, or, or any mixed drink, mixed drinks are like, I mean, I love myself and my time. Oh man. But, , it’s like a crazy amount of calories for one,

[00:58:52] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, because it’s like three ounces of rum mixed up in some fruit juices. Yeah. And a bunch of juice, but they’re so good. Probably high [00:59:00] ose corn syrup. Ironically, like highly encouraged in Hawaii where you should not take your shirt off if you’re, uh, drinking that a lot. Right. Yeah, that’s the funny part about it.

[00:59:11] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. But they’re amazing. Okay, so we’ve talked about a lot. , We are probably over time, is there anything you would like to plug or things we forgot to talk about that you’d like to mention before we end?

[00:59:22] Robbie Wagner: Linkedin.com. You put your real self out there.

[00:59:28] Robert Jackson: Nope. I, I, no, I, I, no, I, I think we’re good. I think we, we did a good range of, uh, good range of stuff.

[00:59:34] Robbie Wagner: All right, cool. Type craft, anything you wanna say? Sponsored by framework, laptops.

[00:59:39] Typecraft: Sponsored by DHH. Please let me race your car.

[00:59:42] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. All right. I quit. And no money. Just, just we get to drive your car. All right. Chuck’s done. He’s gonna go hit the stop button for us, I think.

[00:59:50] Typecraft: Hell yeah.

[00:59:52] Outro: You’ve been watching Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Recorded in front of a live studio audience. What the fuck are you talking [01:00:00] about, Chuck? Enjoyed the show? Subscribe. You know, people don’t pay attention to these, right? Head to whiskey.fund for merchant to join our Discord server. I’m serious, it’s like 2% of people who actually click these links. And don’t forget to leave us a five star review and tell your friends about the show. All right, dude, I’m outta here. Still got it.