Asynchronous & Unreliable - Tech & AI Podcast

Building Green Software: Insights from the Authors or How To Write an O'Reilly Book

This episode features Anne Currie and Sara Bergman discussing the journey of writing Building Green Software, the lessons learned, and the ongoing impact of eco-conscious software development in industry and academia. They share behind-the-scenes insights, the importance of collaboration, and practical advice for authors.

Key Topics:

• The origin story and motivation behind Building Green Software
• The collaborative process of co-authoring a technical book
• Navigating publishing logistics, contracts, and setting deadlines
• The significance of translating technical work into global accessibility
• Managing co-authorship across different languages and cultural backgrounds
• The impact of industry events like QCon in shaping publication timelines
• Post-publication reflections: successes, challenges, and future updates
• The role of projects like the Green Software Foundation in shaping the book’s content
• Lessons learned about contractual liability and company formation for authors
• The balance between technical rigor, storytelling, and engaging communication in technical writing

Shownotes and transcript

#sustainability #greensoftware #writing #distributedsystems #technology #softwareengineering #oreilly #buildinggreensoftware #publishing

What Is Platform Engineering and how will it work in an AI world? An In-Depth Conversation with Paula Kennedy

In this episode, Anne Currie chats with old friend and colleague Paula Kennedy, COO of platform engineering startup Syntasso about the fundamentals of platform engineering, its evolution, and its impact on organizations of all sizes. They explore how platform engineering helps manage the growing cognitive load in modern software development and operational practices.

This episode is a great companion to episode 3 - Niki Manoledaki's on platform engineering at Grafana Labs

Key Topics Covered:

• The origins and definition of platform engineering, tracing back to the earliest days of software development
• How platform engineering bridges the gap between code creation and deployment infrastructure
• The role of platform teams as enablers and marketplace providers within organizations
• Ownership, responsibility, and the importance of platform as a product mindset
• The impact of AI on platform engineering, automation, and operational efficiency
• Avoiding bottlenecks: scaling platform capabilities to meet rising code generation and operational demands
• Practical insights into managing complexity, security, and costs across organization-wide platforms

Timestamps:

• (0:00) – Introduction to platform engineering and tools for easy editing of recordings
• (3:00) – Defining platform engineering as the space between code and infrastructure
• (6:00) – The evolution from traditional IT to DevOps and modern platform teams
• (9:00) – How cognitive load and responsibility are distributed across teams
• (12:00) – Historical perspective: from separate dev and ops teams to integrated platforms
• (15:00) – The role of ownership and product mindset in platform success
• (20:00) – The marketplace model for platform services, enabling internal contribution
• (23:00) – The importance of clear boundaries and ownership akin to cloud provider models
• (28:00) – The influence of AI and agents on future platform strategies
• (36:00) – Recognizing system bottlenecks and scaling horizontally as a key challenge
• (37:00) – The timeless nature of operational principles and organizational constraints

For transcript

Jamie Dobson and Anne Currie

Join us in this enlightening episode as Anne Currie chats with Jamie Dobson, co-founder of Container Solutions and author of Rebels, Visionaries, and Machines. They dive into the history of technology, the evolution of the tech industry, and the challenges and opportunities in communicating complex ideas in tech today. This conversation offers valuable insights for tech enthusiasts, educators, and communicators alike.

Key Topics Covered:

• The history of cloud computing and its cultural impact since 1799
• How tech conferences like Software Circus aimed to reshape industry conversations
• The ethical and social implications of AI and automation in the workforce
• The importance of understanding problem context before choosing tools
• Strategies for explaining complex technical ideas without oversimplification
• Lessons from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein applied to tech ethics and responsibility
• The challenge of capturing audience attention in storytelling and education
• How to communicate the essence of microservices, patterns, and cloud-native concepts effectively
• Reflecting on the role of stories and analogies in making tech more accessible

#tech #AI #techconferences #cloudnative #techcommunications

Most companies are underestimating how quickly AI will transform software development. When AI can seemingly write mission-critical code, what does that mean for the future of engineering, quality, and human expertise? Anne Currie and Jon Berger discuss Martin Davidson’s groundbreaking insights in episode 7 on creating mission critical software using AI

Will AI-driven software eliminate the need for traditional coding teams alogether? Is all the system software going to get re-written in Rust? What about maintenance and operations?

Shownotes & transcript

#tech #podcast #softwareengineering #AI #sustainability #green #software #distributedsystems #rustlang

Join host Anne Currie in this episode of "Asynchronous and Unreliable," where she talks with veteran technologist Martin Davidson about his journey from telecommunications to AI-driven software development. Discover how AI looks set to reshape the software industry, including by building high-quality, production-ready code and redefining testing, design, and organizational structures.

- Martin Davidson’s career evolution from high-resilience telco software to AI and machine learning 

- The concept of oracle-driven development for AI-generated code quality 

- Practical experimentation with rewriting libraries and building emulators in Rust using AI

- The extension of traditional unit testing to fuzz testing, differential testing, and other AI-powered validation 

- The importance of defining success criteria ("what good looks like") upfront in AI projects 

- Parallelization strategies in AI and software architectures: from agents to cores and teams 

- Organizational implications of AI-driven productivity increases and automation 

- Future outlook for legacy software companies amid AI disruptions 

- The cultural and economic impacts of AI on software engineering careers and industry stability

#tech #podcast #softwareengineering #AI #sustainability #green #software #distributedsystems

shownotes and transcript: https://www.asynchronousunreliable.com/asynchronous-and-unreliable-e7

Discover how the rapid shift from fossil fuels to renewables, especially solar and wind, is shaping the tech industry and global economy. Hosted by Anne Currie and Sara Bergman, co author of O'Reilly's Building Green Software, this episode explores the exponential growth of renewable energy, the role of software in optimizing energy use, and the geopolitical and environmental implications of this transition.

Main insights:

• The exponential rise of solar energy generation and its implications
• The importance of grid management and energy storage solutions in a renewable-powered world
• How different countries are adopting strategies like East-West data centers in China and time-of-use tariffs in India to optimize renewable energy consumption
• The role of software in enabling carbon-aware computing and energy efficiency
• Challenges and opportunities of integrating variable renewable sources into the energy mix
• The historical context of fossil fuels as first gear in industrial development and the move towards more complex, resilient energy systems
• Innovations like balcony solar panels and plug-in solar devices, and their potential for widespread adoption
• The geopolitical considerations, including nuclear debates in Sweden and France's energy independence
• How increasing renewable infrastructure can accelerate economic development, especially in Africa

Shownotes and transcript

#tech #podcast #softwareengineering #AI #sustainability #green #software #distributedsystems

Anne & networking expert Jon Berger discuss the difficulties of understanding exponentials and how that leads to challenges  when it comes to setting targets for both resilience and efficiency.

If you wonder why people have no real clue about the nines resilience scale, this is why.

Guest: Charles Humble

In the fourth episode of Asynchronous and Unreliable, amongst many other subjects, Anne & writer, author, and editor Charles Humble discuss the past and future of tech communication.

Discover how communication methods in tech have evolved over decades, from early magazines and conferences to the challenges and opportunities presented by AI and large language models. This episode explores the importance of clear, honest, and varied communication for tech progress and societal impact.

In this episode:

• The historical shifts from magazine learning, to books, to conferences and open source, and finally even podcasts for tech education
• The role of conferences in motivating further reading and understanding complex topics
• How the reliability of spoken vs. written communication impacts knowledge sharing
• The significance of context, audience, and repetition in effective communication
• Challenges of AI-generated content: surface-level writing, fact-checking, and nuance
• The societal implications of transparency and responsible tech communication
• Strategies for engaging non-technical audiences in tech debates
• Personal stories and lessons from industry veterans about editing, clarity, humility and not giving up (all early drafts are rubbish)

#tech #AI #communcations #conferences #literacy #chatbots

In the third episode of Asynchronous and Unreliable, Anne Currie and Niki Manoledaki of the CNCF and Grafana Labs discuss the highest end of operational efficiency, GreenOps, and Finops using purely open source solutions including Kubernetes, Kepler and the Vertical Pod Autoscaler. What can you do with them and what is the vital technology you need in place before you attempt it? Real life stories!

Shownotes and transcript

#cloud #kubernetes #karpenter #kepler #VPA #CNCF #opensource #earthday #sustainability

The High Stakes of Code Efficiency in Networking and Beyond

In this episode of Asynchronous and Unreliable, host Anne Currie is joined by long-time tech veteran Jon Berger to explore the critical importance of code efficiency, especially in the networking software that underpins the internet’s performance and resilience. They delve into practical comparisons between operational and code efficiency, the impact of AI on high-performance software, and how scale influences software optimization strategies.

Key Topics:

• The necessity of ultra-efficient code in networking software managing billions of packets per second
• Differences between operational efficiency, systems design, and code efficiency
• The exponential scale of code efficiency impacts versus the linear scale of operational efficiency
• How high-frequency trading and networking code both push the limits of performance, often in assembler and machine language
• The influence of AI and automation on future high-performance software development
• Trade-offs between hardware reliance for speed versus software optimization
• The impact of scale: Large companies like Google vs small startups in operational and code efficiency
• Challenges of maintaining operational efficiency at scale in different sized businesses
• The role of human expertise versus AI in optimizing software for resilience, energy, and security
• The importance of aligning software performance strategies with business goals like growth or cost reduction

Shownotes and transcript