Nic Barker is a self-taught programmer who went from web development to building Clay, a fast UI layout library in C. We talk about how he got started, his journey into low-level programming, the challenges of building tools, and what makes great software. Join us!

Nic

Website: https://www.nicbarker.com/

Github: https://github.com/nicbarker

Clay: https://www.nicbarker.com/clay

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nicbarkeragain

X: https://x.com/nicbarkeragain

Wookash Podcast

Show links: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lukasz-sciga

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7tExkDJcI6vvmpCguX8Ygd

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wookash-podcast/id1683109481

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9J9u3apteD0EuFjzRpt71w

RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/dd7643a4/podcast/rss

X: https://x.com/wookash_podcast

Chapters:

Highlights

Programming Journey

Founding a Startup

Work Experience

Clay Inspiration

What is Clay?

Immediate vs Retained Mode

Browsers and Virtual DOM

Clay Backend Compatibility

Macros

Choosing C

Dislikes about C

Complexity in Clay

Performance Bottlenecks

Contributing to Clay

Finding Time

License

Marketing & Teaching

Code Editor

The Importance of Debugger