Pat Helland has a wealth of knowledge on building distributed data stores. He has been working on distributed data stores since 1978, when he worked on the tandem fault-tolerant database. Since then he has been involved in many distributed database projects.

Here is the key thing, he is also a master at explaining the key... more..

What is abstraction?  Can we have a precise definition of abstraction that, once understood, makes writing software simpler?

Runar has thought a lot about abstraction and how we can choose the proper level for the software we write.

In this interview, he explains these concepts using examples from the real world. Examples include SQL, effectful... more..

Richard Whaling has an interesting perspective on software development. If you write software for the JVM or if you are interested in low level system programming, or even doing data heavy or network heavy IO programming then you will find this interview interesting.

We discuss how to build faster software in a modern fashion by... more..

A decade ago Jamis Buck was not loving his job. He was an important open source contributor. He worked for the hottest trendiest software company at the time, 37 signals, creator of ruby on rails.

He was on top of the world but also he was burnt out.

Today Jamis talks about how he overcame... more..

Which operating system is the best? Which programming language is the best? What text editor?

Bryan Cantrill, CTO of Joyent says that is the wrong question. Languages, operating systems and communities have to make trade offs and they do that based on their values. So the right language is the one who’s values align with... more..

You can write more correct software and even rigorous mathematical proofs.  Prepare for some mind stretching.

Previous guests like Edwin Brady and Stephanie Weirich have discussed some of the exciting things a dependent type system can do Miles Sabin said dependent types are surely the future. This interview is to get us ready for the... more..

In 1997, researchers analyzed the actual architectures of software in the field. The horrifying results: a large portion were best described by colorful phrases like “big ball of mud” and “sweep it under the rug.”

Wade Waldron talks about designing reactive applications and systems and how to avoid these anti-patterns. We also cover when a... more..

Does god code in Haskell?

Professor and accomplished programming language researcher Philip Wadler believes that typed lambda calculus was discovered not invented – part of the underpinnings of the universe itself. As a result, functional programming languages are more fundamental and deeply justified than their alternatives.

We talk about this principle, which has guided... more..