Transcript
Speaker: Hey friends, it's Scott. This is an interesting episode. i got an invite a while back to come on a podcast called Compile After Class. It's a podcast done by an incoming sophomore at a high school in California named Sri Manakaraja, and he does it with his friend Cam. And I went on their little podcast and it was super fun. and We had a great time. And then about halfway through the podcast, I thought to myself,
Speaker: we should do a crossover. So this episode is me on Sri and Cam's podcast cross-posted here. So check them out. We'll put links in the show notes.
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Speaker: Prompt engineering is not a thing. Prompting is not programming people. You guys don't even know how to crap without your phones. AI doesn't take your job. Unchecked capitalism takes your job. it's going to be mid.
Speaker: Half of the internet is trash. I'm like on version seven or eight of myself. Scott Hanselman has spent almost two decades explaining code to people who thought they never understand it.
Speaker: He's the VP at Microsoft and also an engineer at GitHub. He's also a partner program manager at Microsoft. He's recorded over 1000 episodes of his own podcast, Hansel Minutes, for the past 20 plus years.
Speaker: And somewhere along the way, he became one of the most trusted voices in software. Not simply because he's the smartest person in the room, but because he's the best at making the room smarter. And today, we're two students trying to figure out the same thing he spent his whole career figuring out.
Speaker: How do you actually build something that matters? So we asked him. Belling rings, me don't stop. Code by day, ideas don't drop.
Speaker: Class is out, the code lives Compile after class till the break of dawn.
Speaker: right, Scott, do you want to start by introducing yourself to everyone? My name is Scott Hanselman, and I work at Microsoft from my home office in Portland, Oregon. I kind of work half for Microsoft and half for GitHub, so I'm focused primarily on developers and making developers, particularly young developers, successful. Okay.
Speaker: What's something that you thought you were like really sure about when you were like younger and starting to get into tech and all that, but now you want to, say if you wish you can go back and tell yourself that you were wrong?
Speaker: I thought that you had to be the smartest person in the room and that you had to like totally grind it out and be the one that has the answers. And I realized that life and as a general rule, adulting is a big group project.
Speaker: And just like, you know, group projects, because y'all are high school students, just like with group projects, there's always like one rando who just shows up for the group and gets the grade, but they didn't do any work. And he's like, dude, that guy didn't do anything.
Speaker: He got to do this is screwed up. You know what mean? That happens in life as well. But you have to be able to get along with human beings. So being pleasant and easy to get along with is way, way, way more useful of a skill than being the smartest person in the room.
Speaker: Does that make sense? Yeah. great but Yeah, that was great. And did you always plan to take this route down in Big Tech and stuff? Or did that moment click for you?
Speaker: Being the smartest person in the room is sometimes just you're born that way. And sometimes it's you grinded it out and you did the work, but you, you have to work with the gifts that you are given and being the, being given the gift of the smartest person not, it was not the gift that I was given.
Speaker: So I try to be the pleasant one who is moving us forward. And I like to use this term, yes, and if you've ever done like theater or improv, people want you to go, yes, and like if you're in a group project and someone comes up with an idea, oh no, Sri, that's never gonna work. That's stupid.
Speaker: Well, I don't want you in my group project. But instead you go, yes, and oh yeah, we can do that and we can build on this. That's the kind of positive interactions that you want. So I try to provide that in a room rather than just trying to be the smartest because it's never going to work.
Speaker: All right. um I had a question. Since we're talking about, you know, back before a lot of important stuff, um one thing that everybody goes through school. So how did school shape your journey into the tech world?
Speaker: School, when you start is primarily teaching you stuff. And it's kind of like this daily lecture from a bunch of old people. And then at some point, probably where you guys are, like 16, you start being like, I get it, dude. like I get it now. And then school becomes less, well, you think you get it. You don't. You have no idea what you're doing. You you get less about learning stuff and more about learning how to learn.
Speaker: So what I would tell you as you know people that are going to be juniors and seniors in high school is, yeah, absorb all the stuff they're teaching you, but focus on can you learn stuff on your own?
Speaker: And you know we see a lot of misinformation. You're growing up in a time where politics and health and influencers, any asshole, excuse my French for swearing on your podcast, but any asshole with a microphone can just say some stuff.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, look, look, he's got a fancy room and a bunch of LEDs. He's old, he must be smart. That is not authority. So you as people who are learning how to learn need to be able to say, i don't believe that guy.
Speaker: He doesn't know what he's, it's just a guy. It's just a guy with a podcast mic, right? A podcast mic does not make you the authority. So learning how to learn means you need to have a good BS detector.
Speaker: where someone says something on a podcast, whether it's about tech or about AI or about crypto or about you know politics, and you go, my critical thinking hat doesn't says this is nonsense.
Speaker: Don't go down the wrong side of the internet. Half of the internet is trash. So you need to be learning in the next two years and in college how to teach yourself and actually do your research because going on Reddit is not doing your own research.
Speaker: Oh, I did my own research. No, you didn't. That dude's Reddit posted on your research. You've obviously like you've had a ton of experience. You've gone through so much to like get to the point where you're at.
Speaker: How do you tell the difference between, because you've probably done a lot of pro lot different things, how do you tell the difference between I need to stop or I need to push through this to control your brain? That's a really good question.
Speaker: have two young sons. I have an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old. And getting them to listen to their bodies, What is going on in my head right now? Why do I feel this way? Why am I angry? Why am I frustrated? Why did I snap at mom? Why do I feel like crap?
Speaker: Oh, I got up at one in the afternoon. I haven't had any water in three days. I ate at Chick-fil-A yesterday and I feel like crap. It's probably your fault, dad. know what I mean?
Speaker: That's how you do that. But if you can listen to your body and you go man, I haven't drank any water in three days and I haven't had any good protein and I haven't seen the sun in a week. Listen to your body. That applies to if you're working on a problem.
Speaker: Literally yesterday, i was working with Copilot. I was getting a bunch of weird layout issues in a Windows app. The scroll was jittery. I was scrolling with the mouse wheel and it was jittering. And I was like, and i was grinding through it, but I was making it worse.
Speaker: And I listened to my body like, I'm done for the day. I need to stop. I need to go for a walk. So I would argue that And I know I'm kind of being like on right now, but like people need to listen to their bodies. And a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha are just not.
Speaker: Yeah. You're just not listening to your body. Like, oh, it's a monster and I'll just grind through this. No, that's not a thing. You need to go to sleep.
Speaker: And I know we've done. What? Sorry. and and i was going to say self-awareness. We call it metacognition. Thinking is one thing, but thinking about your thinking is another thing. That's fair.
Speaker: Yeah. That's great advice. You've done your podcast for so long. Is there like one question that guests still can't answer whenever you ask it? Something of that sort.
Speaker: think that they talk too soon. You'll notice right then I just thought. Yeah. You're allowed to think. All right. Don't just attach your brain to your mouth and start yapping.
Speaker: So I'd like to see more guests say, I don't know, or I need to think about that for a second, or they need to pause and look up to the left or look up to the right or whatever direction you're supposed to be looking when you're thinking hard.
Speaker: As opposed to starting talking and then hoping you figure out the answer before the end of the sentence. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was strategy bitty that too. I've gone through that too many times.
Speaker: Since we're on the topic of podcast, I also wanted to say what' something that no one warns you about for starting your own podcast and running it. The production part. like Like, we'll probably do this podcast and it's like, what is it today? It's the 22nd of July.
Speaker: Is this coming out next week or is it coming out ah after school? Like, dude, you're going to spend hours editing this. yeah So I would probably say maybe don't. I know that you're kids and you have no money, but like, could you hire someone on Fiverr?
Speaker: Could you like pay a local kid? Could you find a kid who works in the music department, right? Like Cam's got music interest. He's got guitars. Somebody out there needs to edit this. So when you start a podcast, don't just yap for 30 minutes. And then in six weeks, I'm go to like email Sri. I'm like, bro, where's the show?
Speaker: Oh, life got busy. Get it done. Do the thing. And you don't have to do it perfect. That doesn't have to be an A plus podcast where you talk for 30 minutes and then edit for six hours.
Speaker: Like just remove the arms, level the audio, make sure that we're all at the same level. Use the tools you have available because the the world is littered with podcasts that people have given up on. Oh, we did seven episodes and then and life happened.
Speaker: I've done 1053 episodes. They're not all good. Yeah. but I've got a good producer. Yeah. that' they Find someone to do your editing for you. That's my tip. I mean, watching your podcast a lot and like listening to it, not only it help me a lot, like that's kind of what got me into like podcasting. And reaching out to cameras, if you want to make a podcast with me.
Speaker: And I mean, like seeing that, Not like all of all the projects that I watch seeing that people didn't just like stop after a video just flunked They just kept pushing through and kept making little videos and just eventually got better and better with experience That's kind of what oh The first hundred episodes nobody listened to yeah And and everybody wants to be on streamer University and oh he guys and I could do it I could do it dude Grind.
Speaker: Did you see on Streamer University last week when, what's that guy's name? The guy with the German name. What's the dude who's doing the classes? yeah forgot his name. Anyway, one of these guys is doing a class.
Speaker: i forgot his name. Ludwig. Ludwig is doing a class and then 30 people were given homework. One girl did the homework. I think one girl did homework.
Speaker: Like, that's the other thing. Like, freaking show up. Like, you can tell that she's curious about being a streamer and the rest of them are just there for the for the clout. So, if more than 10 people listen to your show, that is a success.
Speaker: You do not need a thousand views. 10 people is 10 more that are in the room with us right now.
Speaker: All right. That and i was a great advice. pain Yeah, that is some great advice. Grinding and consistency, i agree. There's some like the most important things you can learn how to do, especially in high school.
Speaker: Is there any other advice like that you would give someone in our shoes right now while we're just starting? Because I know you had plenty of experience. You're on your past 1000th episode. Yeah, yeah. When you say you're going to, and I'm interested, by the way, i want to hear from you guys after your parents listen to this show.
Speaker: And if they disagree or agree, like, yeah, well, they're going to give you parent versions of what I say. But doing what you say you're going to do, like I trust that Shria is going to edit this or you're going this and it's going to get published.
Speaker: It's sad. I have had shows where I'll come on with a bunch of folks like you and we'll do a show and the show will never come out because they just, they didn't produce the show. Yeah. um I'm watching on my TikTok. There's two ladies right now that are going viral on TikTok because they lost their jobs.
Speaker: One lost their job because they got the job. And on day one and day two, they didn't show up on time. They were three minutes late and then five minutes late. And they're fighting for their lives in the comments.
Speaker: But the facts are they didn't show for work. So do the thing. Consistency. Consistency. Second lady was told that she had to get a notary and notaried document. She's like, couldn didn't know what that was. So I just sent it in.
Speaker: And she lost the job. It's moved to Florida. And now she's homeless. And ever again, fighting for her life in the comments. And everyone's like, paperwork, man, do the paperwork. So apply that to software, apply that to adulting.
Speaker: It doesn't mean grind. Grind means like suffer. I'm not saying suffer. I'm saying write stuff down, make a list, do the thing. It is so much easier to just empty the dishwasher than it is to fight with your mom about emptying the dishwasher.
Speaker: It is so much easier to just go to get a notary, fill out the form, send the thing in, just drop the mail. Sorry, go ahead, Tree. No, no, you're good. ah This is a huge thing, so ran a problem to my mind, but I just thought, since you're giving us so much advice, brother, I think I'd ask you about this, but I'm guessing if I've gone through this huge thing from release right now in high school is procrastinating a lot.
Speaker: like Whether it be schoolwork, whether it be producing this, I just keep saying, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do and I just never do it. How did you, what's your view on that, I guess?
Speaker: It is normal to procrastinate, but you also have to acknowledge that you are fighting with social media and the infinite doom scrolling that's telling you that you're not there yet.
Speaker: Honestly, I'm telling you guys, social media is destroying you. So like, I don't have the time. You were on, you were on TikTok for three hours today. yeah I don't have the time. I was on, you're like, oh, I was on, you know, like zoom scrolling. for three hours Like you guys don't even know how to crap without your phones.
Speaker: Like that's a crazy thing for me to stay on a podcast, but like, let's just be real. Does anyone under 25 know how to simply go to the bathroom and do their business without a freaking phone? Try it. Let me tell it'll make, it'll get you out of the can faster.
Speaker: But those kinds of things are, those kinds of things are affecting you and how you choose to do stuff. Because, you know, I can't, I'm going to wait in line here at DMV and get my license renewed because I can't do it unless I sit on my phone.
Speaker: If you simply do the thing now, there's actually this guy you should Google named David Allen. And he's got this great book called Getting Things Done. He talks about the four D's. Do it, drop it, delegate it.
Speaker: Delegate means have someone else do it or defer it, which means do it later. If something's going to take less than five minutes, do it. So take that.
Speaker: Can I do the thing in five minutes? Write a thank you note, empty the dishwasher, do my own laundry. i don't know if you guys do your own laundry or not, but like five minutes is how long it takes do your own laundry.
Speaker: And you will have complaints and arguments for 40 minutes about not doing a thing. You could have done it eight times if you just- This real. oh This isn't so real. yeah Do it, drop it, delegate it, defer it. So either doing it or just not doing it, but pick one.
Speaker: But when you're an adult and you're out there or you're a college student, it's 100% your fault. And watching these ladies, just in this one example, these people fighting and like for their lives in the comments, trying to get some amount of like, but it wasn't my fault. I was only three minutes late.
Speaker: You should have been five minutes early. Like being on time is late. Being five minutes early is on time. And that is literally going to be the difference between like success and failure.
Speaker: Nobody cares. you didn't Your car broke down, get an Uber. you don't have a car, get to take the bus. Get up earlier. like that's the do the thing you say you're going to do. so yeah i know I'm like going to full dad mode now.
Speaker: Some good advice. now I appreciate it Have you ever thought about like starting your own business or finding your own startup? Well, that'll get political.
Speaker: If I could get healthcare, yes. I'm actually a type one diabetic. So I have an insulin pump and I have a sensor. So these are like plugs into my body, right? So I need insulin or I will die.
Speaker: And I mean like I'll be dead in two weeks if I run out of insulin. So insurance is super important. But of all the countries that were in the World Cup, We are the only one that does not have that does not have health universal health.
Speaker: So yes, um I am at my company that I like very much, primarily because we have really great healthcare. If I could start a business and buy healthcare on some open market, I would 100% start a business tomorrow.
Speaker: And I think that lots of people would start businesses. You guys, you know you're going to be on your parents' healthcare until you're 26. But when you're 27, if you don't have a job, you're going to hating life. That's all trying to work on a startup right now.
Speaker: See what I can get done. But you get it for free though, because you guys, your mom's that. That's why I got to start. So yeah, I just think that if you are, if your political party says you are the party of business, then a business party would support paid time off, time for people to have babies and like parental leave and, and help.
Speaker: Yeah. Since we're on ah the topic of diabetes, I did a little bit of research and I saw that you already do have some experience with things like Glucopilot. like I saw that you made that like a long time ago, 1998. Yeah.
Speaker: ever Just crazy enough, before I was born. Shout out to doing research. Good job. Thank you. because you were a designing this thing, not only as a programmer, but as someone who was actively living it, what did you catch that someone who wasn't diabetic would have?
Speaker: That's a great point. So that that's a good topic where we talk about diverse teams. If 10 people get together to write a diabetes application and 10 people do not have diabetes,
Speaker: I would argue that that's probably not a diverse team because there's no one to work with, right? Like if I'm working on an app for veterans and no one on the team is a veteran, how can I truly understand what a veteran needs? So as a diabetic writing an app for myself, I fully and completely understood the topic.
Speaker: And then I later sold it and worked with a healthcare company to make it better. So if you're making an app for an audience, make sure that someone on your team is that audience so that they understand. I wouldn't make an app for teens if I wasn't a teen.
Speaker: I would get a teen as an advisor or a board member or a programmer. So I don't know what specifically I did, like specific features that were better, but there was a ton of stuff that is intuitive to me that would not be intuitive to you unless you were also diabetic.
Speaker: right So yeah, diverse teams is always a better better thing. Yeah, thank you. i be you day Go ahead, Ken. Thank you. I have one more question about Glucopilot really quick. And you mentioned that you sold it. So I was just curious, what was it like to sell something that came out of something so personal to you?
Speaker: That's funny that you mentioned that. So I think I sold it for like $25,000, which was not enough money. I was young. I totally got ripped off, but it helped me like you know move out of my parents' house.
Speaker: So it's one of those things where it was the exactly how much money I needed at the time. But I was sad because then they took it and they did a bunch of features and added a bunch of stuff. And I was like, no, that's not, don't do that.
Speaker: I think I have the CD over on my shelf. I can go get it with like, they have like a a package CD that you could buy with the thing. And they made like an instruction manual and just like, they went in a totally weird direction. You have to just let go.
Speaker: I was low-key sad that they did that. But at the same time, I'm like, well, they did give me money. So like, i will I will wipe my tears with my $100 bills.
Speaker: So relating to the role that you're at right now,
Speaker: Now it's more, it's like you have a lot of mentoring to do, right? So if you're mentoring, you're my early career engineers through this AI augmented like time, what was something that you would tell them now that's different than what you would tell them like 2023 or anything before the live coding started?
Speaker: Yeah. Well, do you guys have your licenses? No. Drive? Not yet. Not yet. Good on my permit, but I'm too lazy. Yeah, well, don't do that. You got to learn how to drive, man. So consider what driving stick shift would mean and whether or not your parents know how to drive stick shift. Do either of your parents drive stick?
Speaker: Yeah, my my dad does. Okay, your dad does? Because he the old cars. He has the older cars, right? So think about his relationship with the car.
Speaker: versus your relationship with the car, versus someone who only knows how to Uber. Knowing how to drive stick arguably means that your dad has a different relationship with the mechanics of the vehicle. He feels it.
Speaker: He knows when to shift. Apply that to software. Like if you if you're just like, oh, it's vibes, man, you don't really understand. You're just like sitting in this car and then you're in this Uber and then you need to change a tire or the oil goes out or the fan belt dies or any like or like whatever.
Speaker: What's the programming equivalent of, oh crap, I need to change my oil. And you hear all these Redditors that are like technical, but they're not coders and there's a difference.
Speaker: Like just because you're the one who knows how to go into Windows settings or run the regedit and like put on a Minecraft mod, That is not technical. That is like, oh, I can pop the hood and look for fire.
Speaker: You are not a mechanic. So really think about the basics. Learn how the machine works. that's right That's the thing. a lot of people just vibing code and making stuff, which is effectively they're Ubering their way to a solution.
Speaker: I would never do that because I want to know how I got there. How did I, you said you're making a startup. If, If you don't know how to make software, and I want to call out the difference between computer science and software engineering.
Speaker: Computer science is the science behind compilers and software and computers and multi-threading and all that stuff. It is not the science of shipping. That's what software engineering is.
Speaker: So learn the software development life cycle. Learn how to build servers. Learn about security reviews and all that kind of stuff. There's so much more involved in shipping than vibing.
Speaker: And this is, by the way, this is not just like old man shakes fist at cloud. Like I'm telling you, you will get in trouble. Like you're going to be like, when you don't understand your system, that's when you're in trouble.
Speaker: You've also recently, at least from what I saw, you recently talked about making the ambiguous specific is the actual thing behind programming. Would you say that, if that's true, would you say prompt engineering counts as programming or is it like a very different thing that's where a programmers close?
Speaker: Oh, that's a great question. Okay. So first, going to be a little spicy. Prompt engineering is not a thing. Okay, so you and Cam could both prompt the exact same prompt.
Speaker: You will not get the exact same code. So that by its definition means that the prompt was ambiguous. The prompt is not a programming language.
Speaker: But if you and Cam each wrote a for loop in C, and it compiled and it was the same for loop, it would run deterministically. That for loop is guaranteed every time until the end of time to work.
Speaker: So then let's say we had a million trees and cams all doing the exact same prompt. How many, so a million people all prompting the exact same prompt How many unique results are there?
Speaker: Are there a million? Are there a hundred thousand? Like what is the ratio of prompt to solution? How many potential solutions are there?
Speaker: There's an old programmer's joke. You may have heard me tell, but I'll tell you anyway, cause it's useful. I need you to go to the store. ah want you to get me bread. And if they have eggs, get 12.
Speaker: So I tell that to Cam, I tell that to Sri. Cam comes back with 12 loaves of bread. I go, Cam, what the heck? And he's like, they had eggs.
Speaker: Go to the store, get bread. They have eggs, get 12.
Speaker: It's ambiguous. Do you mean 12 eggs or do you mean 12 loaves of bread? You're like, i don't know. eggs, then 12, like you did the math and you figured it out. Arguably, if you give instructions like this, somebody, common sense will dictate get eggs and someone else is going to bring back bread and you could argue that they're both right.
Speaker: That is ambiguity.
Speaker: Okay, wait. That's a... That metaphor is like the first metaphor that actually made sense in that... Are you saying that like the last 20 minutes of my metaphors have been trash? No, no, no, no. I meant in that tested a bit like and that specific topic, out of all the metaphors I've heard from everyone, that's the one. Oh, really? Oh, rock on, dude. Yeah. yeah because because Is that a prompt? It is a prompt.
Speaker: It's not a programming language. like yeah Here's the deal. they have english yeah English is not a programming language. 90% of the arguments you have with your friends are about the definitions of words.
Speaker: right You want to talk about politics, you want to talk about this want to talk about that. and You'll be fighting and then you're in a second. That's not what that word means. and that What, it's not? and We've been arguing all this time because we're arguing about the definition of this word.
Speaker: That doesn't happen in programming. Programming is clear. Compilers are clear. The definition of a keyword and the definition of what a word is in pro is absolutely rock solid scientifically clear.
Speaker: But with prompting, it's not. So good luck. that's Oh, and another thing, if you try to one-shot something, what a one-shot is when you ask the prompt, like you ask that one prompt and see if he could write a whole program one-shot, this guy was like, this young person on my team was like, bro, I one-shotted Minecraft.
Speaker: Programming cooked. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. And I'm like, dude. Yeah, and he's like, make me a clone of Minecraft. But the word Minecraft did all the work. So, yeah, one-shot Minecraft, but you can't use the word Minecraft.
Speaker: And you're going to end slop. Because all the heavy lifting, exactly. ill bring me that I talked about that on YouTube. Yeah, yeah. I saw that. That also kind of clicked with me.
Speaker: Because the word has all the semantic stuff in it. That's what builds the entire project. yeah Yeah, I mean, seriously. Make me a game with Mario. It's going to look like Mario. Make me a game with a weird little red Italian plumber with a mustache. It's going to be nightmare fuel.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it is a little dangerous how it's more the average consumer, but some people don't understand that AI just works based on what we already found. It's sometimes so difficult to make new stuff.
Speaker: Well, another thing to think about is why ai websites all look the same. Let's think about that. So it's trained on everyone's website. And if you take...
Speaker: bunch of things and you blend it up like you know you they take like all these different fruits and stuff yeah and you blend it it's gonna end up being gray <unk>snna be It's going to be mid.
Speaker: It's going to be medium. It's going to be the most average looking website. So all of these, you know, opacy looking clawed websites, they all look the same because they are the statistical average website.
Speaker: So then your job as programmers is to push to the right, push it towards awesomeness and creativity and make it special. You know, push it away from mediocrity.
Speaker: and Because there's a gravity well that's pulling you towards medium. Would you say it's... I'm kind like connecting back to that prompting thing, but would you say it's not possible... Like, would you say... trying to think how to frame this. so good Would you say that is ah it's possible that a prompt could just be a compressed version of...
Speaker: ah codebase like you could take a codebase and compress it down to a prompt and then okay so I'm gonna somewhat recreate that same database that's a great example do you think I could take a bitmap that's perfect like a P&D like a 4k wallpaper save it as a JPEG I know it's never get that 4k wallpaper again though right because a JPEG is lossy yeah So ultimately, if i let's say that I have a gorgeous 4K wallpaper, save it as a JPEG.
Speaker: But then let's say in your world, because you just said, well, you could, let's say that you magically prompt it back into that 4K wallpaper and then save it as a JPEG again. and then prompt it again, and then save it to JPEG and prompt it again and go back and forth, are you always going to get back to where it is or are you going to start to warp towards something? that's amazing Yeah.
Speaker: Right? like This is an old an old example, but like if you know what mixtapes are, right? With cassettes and stuff. Yeah. You would copy cassettes and then you'd give it to your friend and they'd make a copy.
Speaker: you've seen memes and stuff where the memes are just destroyed. It's because people have been saving those JPEGs over and over and over and a copy of a copy of a copy keeps throwing away information. So you could take an app and compress it into a specification, but anything that's ambiguous,
Speaker: then becomes the statistical mean, which means that when you uncompress it or prompt it back into existence, it will be different. So you could take your podcast website, ask it to turn it into a spec, hand it to Cam, he could then feed it into a thing and try to get the website back, it will look different, guaranteed.
Speaker: But you clone the repo, he can build It's going to look amazing, it's to look exactly at the same. You see the difference? Prompting is not programming people.
Speaker: That is the title of the show. Looks like have to change now. Yeah, is there? Okay, I got the hook, guys. oh Is there? Like,
Speaker: This is kind of random, it's I really want to ask you because experience, but is there at any point, any era, any time, was there like a piece of tech that people thought was uncool and like maybe they still think it's uncool and it's weird to use, but it really did solve its problem?
Speaker: Dude, wired headphones. Wired headphones.
Speaker: Like literally I have a pair of lightning wired headphones. I saw LeBron go into a meeting recently with wired headphones on. Like AirPods, they look like you've got like Q-tips hanging out of your ears.
Speaker: Everybody loses one of them. but yeah You go from wired headphones, where it's like one thing, they always work, they have no battery, there's no pairing, they just work, to three things, the case and two AirPods.
Speaker: There's even a website dedicated to buying one AirPod. It's literally called the right pod, and they sell loose AirPods.
Speaker: think about that. Someone built an entire business around selling one-off AirPods because people lose them so much. That's dumb. And then their solution was, rather than going back to wired, was to make find my friends work with each AirPods. You can find the case and then find the left pod and find the right pod.
Speaker: If you simply attach them to each other, you will not lose them. So yeah, wired, man. Wired headphones. Wired everything. Because like right now, Sri, you're having a little bit of trouble with your connection and you're kind of coming and going a little bit.
Speaker: wired. If you can get a wire to your router, it will change your life. Yeah, Ethernet cable. Yeah, Ethernet directly into the router, man.
Speaker: second No worries. Sometimes, by the way, pro tip, I would say edit point, or I'd clap really hard, and then when you look at ah wait The waveform, you see the clap and then you're like, boom. Or you have one of you mark that there was an edit point at 33 minutes and five seconds.
Speaker: I'll take a note right now. That makes it easier to edit that part out. And then what you do, is you're doing what's called a pull-up. So you go cut and then split and then split and then pull up and then compress.
Speaker: If I'm lagging this bed, does it get fixed afterwards? So you're lagging, but it's okay because you're recording locally. So your local file will be fine. Okay.
Speaker: okays Also, you seem to have a microphone on your lav, and then you have this microphone. Which one are you using? Yeah, this one's off. It's just there. Oh, it's just there look good? Nice. It looks more professional that way. It's like you're seeing it. Oh, the guy with the microphone. Yeah, the guy with the microphone.
Speaker: And he gets bonus points because... Oh, yeah. how hundred percent
Speaker: We got about 14 minutes left.
Speaker: So you think, Cain, what you got? Yeah, you can go ahead. can go ahead.
Speaker: You know, kind of separating from what you were talking about before, but it was like like I said earlier, I did some research and I saw that you had an incredibly wide variety of experience from programming to teaching to ASL. Like what inspired this insane amount? Like it's just an crazy amount of.
Speaker: I'll get a little philosophical for you. Social media has called guys, and by you guys I mean young people, to feel like you have to pick a thing and then have one thing.
Speaker: So it's like, oh, I'm a dancer, I'm a programmer, I'm a fitness influencer. And like the reality is that human beings have a diverse series of interests. You know mean? Like, if if all you do is, like, code, eat snacks, and play COD, then you are not an interesting person.
Speaker: Like, it is okay to, I'm just making stuff up, do Taekwondo, do ballet, rock climb, play but you know play Zelda, play Animal Crossing, and play COD.
Speaker: But because social media has made it like, oh, men are supposed to be like this guy. You know what mean? Everyone's got to be like clavicular because he's so great. And everyone else got like, it's not that deep.
Speaker: If you think something's cool, then it's cool. But you're so afraid of being perceived, being seen as being cringed that then, oh, and someone's going post a video of me liking ballet and and they're going to make fun of me.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. So I came up in a time where I didn't have to think about that. So I have the confidence to have a diverse series of interests. So I would encourage you to not just do one thing.
Speaker: If something's exciting, if it's it's guitar today, if it's movies tomorrow, do it. There's something that I want to add to that is even though like with social media and stuff, at least for now, it's at the point, like you said, where people do it because they're not, they're scared to like be judged. But also, at least my experience, lot of these things, like when you do get judged, it blows over really fast. People don't realize that.
Speaker: So then they get scared to do it. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I think that people, there's ah there's a, what you call it, a news cycle that happens. Yeah. you know But at the same time, people are afraid that they're still figuring out who they are, right? And and they and they they also feel like you are going to figure out who you are and then know who you are and then be that same person the whole time.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm like on version seven or eight of myself. You know what i mean? Like i'm I'm figuring stuff out, man. Like it's just, like I told you, it's group projects. It's tall grade school. We're all just kind of learning how to do stuff.
Speaker: So it's okay to like, oh, I'm not interested in that thing anymore. I'm interested in another thing. So you want to have a friend group of people around you that acknowledge that you can change.
Speaker: Oh, dude, I thought you were all into COD. No, I'm not into COD anymore. I'm into this other thing. Yeah, yeah. Like, let your people grow. I mean, chaos friend groups are pretty good at that. Yeah. So, just something that... Okay, it's my turn to make a metaphor now.
Speaker: But... You've said before that It's significant that diabetics historically, at least like in the past, they don't really die of diabetes, but they die because of what it causes over decades.
Speaker: So is there like an equivalent of that in software? I'd say like a slow failure that we're not treating with the urgency it deserves because I guess the crash hasn't really happened. It doesn't happen immediately.
Speaker: Oh, wow. That's a really deep question. Yeah. Yeah. ah bus are not or tree That's a pretty crazy redid for dude. I've never heard that before. So diabetics die of tiny little things that eat away at them. Little bits of cellular destruction that happens over 50 years.
Speaker: So we have this phrase in software called bit rot. And bits don't actually rot, but like I have this video game that I wrote called Baby Smash.
Speaker: And Baby Smash let my, at the time, one-year-old smash the keyboard and it would make letters in circles and it was like a fun thing to teach him how to Now that baby is 20, he'll be 21 in November.
Speaker: does BabySmash still run? Does it still build? Can you still clone the repo and build it? There was a time when the bits rotted and you couldn't find the compiler, you couldn't find the libraries. you know This website was down or that website was down. You see this if you visit, like, you know you've Googled for stuff and then you find a website and some of the pictures are broken.
Speaker: And then some of the CSS is broken. And the next thing you know, the site doesn't, the certificate dies. And then it says, yeah, I can't visit the site at all. Bit rot, I think is a big challenge and maintaining software takes, it's like a garden.
Speaker: It's like weeds taking over a garden. So diabetes and health is the same thing. Like if you don't maintain your garden, you will eventually be overcome with weeds.
Speaker: Good analogy, Sri. Very nicely done, sir. Thank you. I want to actually ah learn from you and ask a follow-up question. Is AI one of these things that you mentioned? Do you think it's one these things that will end up sneaking it up behind society and stabbing it in the back later?
Speaker: It's not the AI. It's the slop that got made with it. Just like I've said before, like AI doesn't take your job. Unchecked capitalism takes your job. Right? Like, are we doing this for human beings?
Speaker: And why are we doing this? Right now, everyone's just out to make a buck. And everyone's just trying to make a buck with as least amount of work as possible because all the billionaires took all the money. Right? So everyone's like, well, forget you. I'll just vibe the next great product. You know, and then it's a thing. Everything's getting hyper optimized down to nothing.
Speaker: Like Timu and Sheen and Halls. Like what's ah a Hall? Like how is that a thing? This is all just people trying to get theirs. So it's not AI that concerns me. It's what's going to happen in five or 10 years when someone has to go and clean up all these crappy websites. Because to Sri's point, those bits are going to rot.
Speaker: and they'll be insecure. And every security problem that's out there is going to eventually be found buy another by another AI. you're blindly relying on it. That's it. Blindly sitting in an Uber, hoping everything's going to be fine yeah when they need to start learning how to drive stick shift. I know some people, it's like, they'll be going on a road trip and they're like, do ro shirt I'm going code something, dude. And they'll go in the front of one of the ah AI agent and they'll be like, make this for me. Like the end of the drive, they go check it on. I'm like, oh my God, it's done. Yeah. And it's not done. the Prototype is done. The basics are done. the beginning the The idea is fleshed out, but it ain't done.
Speaker: That's like saying your first draft paper is the paper that you should ship. Yeah. So do you think it's like dangerous that all these people, like an increasing percent of coders are now like vibe coders and people who have like absolutely no experience but are creating-ish products? um You know, here's a good analysis where this is the analogy show.
Speaker: i watched some young people your age on high-powered electric bicycles without helmets going 35 miles an hour through my neighborhood this morning. So let's think about that.
Speaker: They don't have a license. They don't have a helmet. And they're on a motorcycle that can go 40 miles an hour. What could go wrong? That is vibe coding.
Speaker: I think also... Another point that I would like to add, it's not only a question, camp question to rethink of it. I think another dangerous thing is not, I mean, it's obviously people who are vibe coding, but it's also people think it's okay to teach other people how to vibe code. Like a lot of these um place schools and colleges are starting to teach their students how to vibe code and without actually checking their code, they're shipping. And that can obviously not end very well.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely right. Hey, you know, I had a crazy idea. i have an idea at the end of this podcast. What if we do a dual release of this show?
Speaker: Like both of us do it. Dude, what if this is an episode of Hansel Minutes and an episode of, what is the name of your show? Oh, go Compile After Class. Compile After Class. And then we cross link to each other.
Speaker: Yeah, that would be great actually. That would be awesome. Huh? All right. So it'll give you a reason to to edit the show. Yeah. Well, then you link to me and I'll link to you. Like that's how we used to do it on the internet. You make like cross linking.
Speaker: for all the AI stuff. For sure. Sweet. and
Speaker: Relating to the companies who, at least, my personal find a use for, because I'm not blindly relying live coding, but for forums like Stack Overflow and stuff, what would you say the future is for them? And if you think it's non-existent, like some people do, what would you say to the people who made it?
Speaker: I actually, dude, I actually had the VP of product for Stack Overflow on my podcast last week. So she's going to be coming out. Her episode will come out like the next week or two.
Speaker: They're making Stack Overflow for agents. Where your agent, a are your your AI bot can go and ask Stack Overflow questions. And when it finds answers, it can post there.
Speaker: so So AI agent running for It's an AI agent run forum where they can actually, like they can do like today I learned. So there's like agents going up, TIL, dah, dah, dah, dah. And they can like put their memories so that everyone can learn them.
Speaker: That's actually really interesting. Isn't that cool? i don't know if it'll work, but that's pretty cool. i guess I guess the one good thing about, at least not a good thing, but the one innovative thing about live coding is that it's forcing people who don't rely on live coding to innovate with ways to stay ahead of the other people who do and do have the products live.
Speaker: Yeah. That's smart. Back to what you said about the TIL. That reminds me of something I heard. a Hypothesis that eventually the internet is just going to become AI agents, chatting with AI agents. and That really reminded me of that. Yeah, that's kind of gross. Yeah. Oh, yeah. i they own Give them their own internet. You know mean?
Speaker: I can probably play it on the overlay of this when we're editing, but I saw the screenshot the other day my dad forwarded it to me, but it was like, The company was testing something, think it was Google or something, and they had like a Slack channel and they had to put two AI agents into it, but they know the other person was an AI agent. They were talking back and forth. thought they were talking another human. They each knew that they were an AI agent, but they thought they were talking to another human.
Speaker: And it was so funny to see what was happening. The conversation never went anywhere. It's just dead end option. Oh, yeah. Have you seen, you know what Maltbook is, right? You heard of Maltbook? I think, yeah, I've heard of it. So Malt, Malti is the previous name of Open Claw before Open Claw became Open Claw. And someone made a Facebook for agents and they all just like talk to themselves. And some of it is like, it's only like fan fiction for, for bots.
Speaker: Like, yeah, my owner is really weird. He asked me to do all this weird stuff. And they all like yap at each other. And we don't know if it's real or an art project or whatever, but it's a feedback loop. Right. You've seen those TikToks where they have like two phones and then they have chat.tp talk to the other chat.tp. Yeah. that That's nothing good comes out of that. Yeah.
Speaker: They're teaching her the exact same thing that they already know. And have you, I mean, because you've personally lived through how the definition of AI has changed over the years. Would you say most people who have lived through that, or maybe not just personally from your experience, people you know, have become willing to adapt to that and have started supporting the livelihood generation? Or would you say they've been trying to fight back against it?
Speaker: I think that for us to just say vibe coding sucks is too simplistic. And I imagine this kind of slider bar from slop cannon, vibe coding, AI augmented software engineering.
Speaker: The problem is it's fun to say vibe coding. It's not fun to say ai augmented software engineering.
Speaker: So like like I vibed some stuff and it was fine. And then I applied focused software engineering lens and it became better. So vibe prototypes and then take the prototype to production by doing proper work.
Speaker: To that point, um I think, Because with social media, everything's become, we can end it in a few seconds, but with social and everything, everything's become, if it's not a trend, people aren't going to do it.
Speaker: Which is why with vibe killing, as it became more fun, the name became oliver came all over social media, people started by saying, if they're going it, I'm going to do it. And I'm not going stop until someone else stops.
Speaker: and that's like a blind chain. Everyone everyone just caught a game of telephone. Well, but see, again, advice is again, spend less time on social media. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because trends group think.
Speaker: Think for yourself, young men. Think for yourself. Be kind to people. Be thoughtful. Do your own research. Learn how to learn. And make sure that the thing that you're making is the right thing for the right people. And if it doesn't help someone, then it's the wrong thing.
Speaker: regardless of what the trend is this week on Instagram. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Scott. That was, yeah, that was incredible. Great. Was that cool?
