Picture Me Coding

This week we dip our toes into the river of theoretical computer science and immediately drown.  We discuss the amazing and surprising result of researcher Ryan Williams about how space is a more powerful resource in computing than time.

For Algorithms, Memory Is a Far More Powerful Resource Than Time | WIRED

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.17779

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JuWdXrCmWg

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This week we try to make sense of what were once called "NoSQL" databases, focusing on the early entries into the field like Bigtable, Dynamo and Cassandra.  We try to explain how they differ from prior database systems and what motivated their creation.

Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data

Dynamo: Amazon’s Highly Available Key-value Store

Cassandra - A Decentralized Structured Storage System

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This week we host our friends Bobak Farzin and Kevin Fahey to talk about their experiences building applications with AI tools.  Both Bob and Kevin are very tech savvy in different ways, but neither is a full-time software developer.  Yet both have had good experiences building functional applications with tools like Cursor and Claude Code.  We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these tools, and the challenges that Bob and Kevin found in building their own software.

• “Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again)”
• Vibe scraping and vibe coding a schedule app for Open Sauce 2025 entirely on my phone
• “Will the future of software development run on vibes?” Ars Technica

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We're talking about databases again.  Or database management systems, we're not totally sure.  In any case, they are relational databases (or database management systems).

The relational database has been the go-to system for storing structured data since the 1980s, and is still the most popular type of system to use for applications and business reporting.  We discuss their history, what makes them relational, and our experiences with some of the better known commercial and open-source relational systems.

A Relational Model of Shared Databanks - EF Codd

Dr. Michael Stonebraker - A Short History of Database Systems

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Jim Gray was a key innovator in the area of database technology and he won the Turing Prize in 1998.  He was particularly influential with respect to the definition and formalization of transactions, and he identified and named the A, C, and D of ACID.   Gray, an avid hiker and sailor, disappeared in 2007 while sailing out of San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, and no trace of him was ever found.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/behind-the-code-with-jim-gray/

https://www.wired.com/2007/07/ff-jimgray-2/

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This week Matt Teichman, host of the Elucidations podcast, dropped by the show to chat about functional programming and its surprising relationship to linguistics and philosophy. Matt teaches Linguistics, Philosophy, and Computer Science at the University of Chicago and he also works on open-source software for the University of Chicago library, including an interesting OCaml project used by archivists called Attachment Converter.

Thanks to our newest Patreon subscribers: Ralph Minderhoud and Tim Lavoie!

Stuff to Check Out

• Matt's podcast: Elucidations
• Matt's website: Matt Teichman - Philosophy - University of Chicago
• Attachment Converter, open-source library: Attachment Converter
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Montague Semantics

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In this episode we talk to Jonathan Whitmire who designed the Picture Me Coding swag, logos, artwork (and t-shirts and stickers and coffee mugs!).

He gives us a rundown on what it's like working alongside developers and what we talk about when we talk about UX.

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This week Mike and Erik talk about the local-first software movement. There's a pretty cool paper about it from 2019 called "Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud", and there's also a podcast, a company, and various projects. Come get inspired to build stuff!

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Mike and Erik analyze the tech news again.  The AIs are hallucinating, but gamers are too because of Game Transfer Phenomenon.  The Luddites are back for what's likely a futile effort to keep the robots from taking our jobs, but Mike things he can at least outrun them.

• Watching These Humanoid Robots Try to Run a Half Marathon Is Hilarious and Bizarre
• Protecting NATS and the integrity of open source: CNCF’s commitment to the community | CNCF
• Game Transfer Phenomenon
• How to Survive the AI Revolution?
• Yahoo wants to buy Chrome

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Today Mike and Erik are joined by John Benson, an attorney with a background in digital forensics who has been at the forefront of integrating LLMs into legal practice. The conversation ranges over the practice of law, digital security, and AI

Find out more about John Benson's work here: https://john-benson.com/

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