Two’s Complement

Ben and Matt finish shaving the yak from the prior episode. While waiting for DNS certificate validation to complete, our hosts discuss the "branch based environment" approach to infrastructure, and consider how serverless services make that model a bit cheaper.

Matt and Ben hit the record button while shaving a yak and then attempt to pass it off as a podcast episode. Join our hosts as they troubleshoot DNS problems, fiddle with makefiles, and fail to remember the things that their prior selves did.

Ben and Matt borrow a title from J.B. Rainsberger and talk about how integration tests want to take all your money. Or time. Same thing.

How do you solve a problem like Compiler Explorer sponsors? Matt digs into a surprisingly interesting algorithm problem that is in no way related to compilers. Ben explains how he nearly bankrupted himself by starting a bank.

Ben and Matt descend like Orpheus into the horrifically awful world of tech interviews, to try and extract some sort of humanity from the process. They fail, of course, but discuss some interesting ideas along the way.

Matt and Ben explore their mutual tendency to favor build over buy. Instead of using open source software that may be free-as-in-puppy, our hosts have sometimes built their own solutions, occasionally with hilariously regrettable results.

Ben and Matt examine how fast computers are by comparing them to humans. Turns out they're mind-boggling-ly fast. Or maybe humans are just slow? I don't know, let's not make the humans feel bad. They're trying their best with those adorable squishy meat brains.

Matt and Ben discuss the Rust programming language, recall some hobby projects they've used it for, and speculate about where else it might be used, such as embedded rust. Ben tries to remember how Ethereum works, and fails. Matt makes a ray tracer and a Weird Al reference.

Ben and Matt chat about the Swift programming language with special guest (and Swift creator) Doug Gregor. Doug teaches us a thing or two about Swift's design, and how it could possibly be a C++ successor. Matt rambles; Ben asks intelligent questions.

Ben and Matt talk Carbon, the new language backed by Google, designed to be a successor to C++. Matt discusses his involvement with the project. Ben asks questions and cracks wise.

Matt and Ben discuss the idiosyncratic way that they learned to build web applications for trading. If latency and correctness were paramount, and you could tell all your users which browser they had to use, what would you do? Here's what we did.

Ben and Matt compare container technologies like Docker to virtual machines, and discuss the tradeoffs when deploying applications. Matt explains the scary things that can happen when you share a VM with strangers. A visitor enters through the couch.

Matt and Ben talk, about uh...golf? What? Is this right? Did you check this? Apparently, in this episode, Ben explains how technology and analytical advances in golf have dramatically changed the game. Matt gently prods him on.

Ben and Matt talk about various styles of asynchronous programming, ranging from Node.js, Ruby's EventMachine, C++ coroutines, and the new JVM Project Loom. Schedule yourself a listen, won't you?

Matt and Ben both recall their prior adventures founding companies that sold tools for software developers. What's the best approach to this business? Go play a nice video game instead.

Ben and Matt have a work conversation spill over into podcast. Join our hosts as they compare Java and C++ as two possible languages for a new project.

Ben and Matt are joined by Hana Dusíková and discuss panoramic photographs, Matt's career peak, and compile-time programming, including her ground-breaking regular expression library. Links from the show:

• Hana's Panoramic photos
• CTRE library
• Hana's slides

Our most efficient podcast ever. Ben and Matt talk performance testing and optimization in fewer than 30 minutes.

Matt and Ben talk about their experiences creating games, both digital and analog. Matt recalls building games for the XBox, Dreamcast, and PS2. Ben talks about what makes board games fun, and how to lose your friends through playtesting.

Matt and Ben talk about code linters, and meander into various topics. Matt describes the (approximately) 37 different ways to cast variables in C++. Ben argues that continuous integration was better in the 19th century.

Ben and Matt explore the world of programming languages. So many! Why are there so many? Wait, there's a Java Mobile Edition? Who would use such a thing? The hosts of the #1 top ranked programming podcast that my mom listens to, that's who.

Hey Ben, when are you going to release the second part of that podcast on pull requests and pair programming? I've really been looking forward to it. Oh, I don't know. I need to come up with a witty description first. Hopefully some time this week.

Matt and Ben compare different methods of collaboration, and how they work for different personalities. Ben is not a psychologist, but plays one on this podcast. Matt gets very close to explaining what makes for a good pull request, and then doesn't.

Matt and Ben discuss the kinds of things modern CPUs do behind the scenes. Branch prediction, caching, speculation, out-of-order processing, hyper-threading, register renaming... Lots of things most people don't need to know. Matt gets overly excited, and Ben channels Larry King to try and keep him on track.

Ben and Matt think boring things are good, and provide a few examples. Databases, for example, are boring...but even more boring options exist! Matt explains how boring tools make it easy to automate local development tasks on his funny side project. Ben reverts your commits because he wants you to be happy.

Matt and Ben discuss their favorite *nix command line tools, and make various movie references while doing so. Included in this episode are references to both Sergio Leone and gunzip, although the two are surprisingly unrelated. Matt recalls using System Tap to discover latency in a trading system. Ben explains a method for writing Wireshark plugins that sparks joy.

Matt and Ben compare monorepo vs multi-repo layouts, explain Conways Law, talk about what a 'team' is, and what Visual Source Safe isn't. Ben defines how big a service should be. Matt recalls a brief interlude with Clojure.

Join our hosts as they talk about hobby hardware projects, past and present. Matt explains how he's building a digital picture frame out of a Raspberry Pi Pico and E-Ink display. Ben talks about building a Halloween candy dispenser using devices both serial and cereal. Matt and Ben discover they both liked MP3s in the early 00's.

Ben and Matt talk about builds and build systems, mostly in C++. Matt talks about lots of different ways to speed up builds for C++, and is very helpful. Ben questions whether you want a build that never fails, which is moderately helpful.

Matt and Ben join an argument on the Internet, which is always a productive and rewarding use of one's time. They discuss the SOLID principles from two different perspectives, and judge them. Listen in for the verdict. Then, Ben ponders how programmers learn, and whether sailors are happy. Matt gets a new puppy.

Ben and Matt stop talking about testing, and everyone is relieved. Matt describes the process for reverse engineering microchips by stripping off layers of silicon to look at the transistors with a microscope. With this forbidden knowledge, he explains how to defeat the copy protection on a childhood video game. Ben pretends like he understands.

Ben and Matt trick another live human being into joining them on the podcast. Clare Macrae joins to talk about her work with approval testing, her experiences dealing with legacy Fortran and C++ code, and an upcoming Webinar she's doing on refactoring-to-testability using CLion.

Matt and Ben discuss whether the city of Portland exists, and decide they don't care. Ben argues that you should test your code manually. Matt talks about when government regulators made him build an observable system, and how great it was. Really, it was great!

Our first guest! We speak with James Grenning about his work (re)building embedded systems using Test Driven Development. Then we ask James about his involvement with the creation of the Agile Manifesto in Feburary of 2001, and find out how 'Agile' has changed over the last 20 years.

Matt and Ben talk about the eXtreme Programming engineering practices, such as Test Driven Development, and how to apply them in C++. Matt tests a widget and some grommets. Ben complains about slow build times.

Matt and Ben talk about how their careers were on the same path in the late 90's, but then diverged at a critical juncture. Then they talk about automated testing. Ben gets out his soapbox. Matt is a kind, patient soul.