October 23, 2025

Rust Is Overrated w/ Naman Goel

1 hour 11 minutes

This week, Robbie and Adam talk with Naman Goel about the origins and evolution of StyleX, how it integrates with React and other frameworks, and the pros and cons of different programming languages like Rust, TypeScript, and Swift. They dive into the challenges of building performant, type-safe styling systems, the surprising complexity of theme APIs, designing for developer experience, and more.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(02:26) - Whiskey rating & review: Glenfiddich 12 Year Old single malt Scotch

(09:13) - South Park, spy thrillers & sleeper hits you missed

(11:20) - Flow vs TypeScript

(14:59) - How CSS shaped Naman’s perspective on type systems

(18:45) - How StyleX works—and why it’s different from Tailwind

(21:02) - Tailwind Merge vs StyleX props: performance smackdown

(22:16) - Real-world use case: when and why you’d want to merge styles

(25:45) - Inside the making of StyleX and its powerful theming system

(32:56) - Robbie and Adam wrangle Vue transitions in Astro

(36:09) - GIF or JIF? SPA or “spa”?

(40:36) - Building StarPod.dev: streaming audio across pages

(42:30) - Can you reduce client-side router noise?

(46:03) - Should you spec your idea or just blog it?

(47:18) - Naman’s journey into writing web specs

(48:44) - What is link delegation?

(52:39) - Hot Take: Is Rust overrated?

(01:02:17) - The dream language Naman wishes someone would build

(01:04:57) - Are AI-generated programming languages just around the corner?

(01:05:53) - A spicy take on CSS syntax and readability

(01:06:27) - Is CSS finally catching up to StyleX?

(01:07:43) - Plugs & where to follow Naman

Links

Glenfiddich 12 Year Old single malt Scotch: https://shop.us.glenfiddich.com/products/glenfiddich-12-year-old

South Park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park

Dungeons & Dragons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons

Alien Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien:_Earth

Ozark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_(TV_series)

Jason Bateman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Bateman

Black Rabbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rabbit

Slow Horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Horses

Typescript: https://www.typescriptlang.org/

StyleX: https://stylexjs.com/

React: https://react.dev/

Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/

SolidJS: https://www.solidjs.com/

Svelte: https://svelte.dev/

Vue: https://vuejs.org/

Astro: https://astro.build/

QuickJS: https://github.com/quickjs-ng/quickjs

Ember: https://emberjs.com/

Angular: https://angular.dev/

Vanilla Extract: https://vanilla-extract.style/

Chrome: https://www.google.com/chrome/

PHP: https://www.php.net/

Figma: https://www.figma.com/

Theme UI: https://theme-ui.com/

Stitches: https://stitches.dev/

Starpod.dev: https://starpod.dev/

Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/

Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/

Livewire: https://laravel-livewire.com/

Jason Miller - Application Holotypes: A Guide to Architecture Decisions: https://jasonformat.com/application-holotypes/

morphdom: https://github.com/patrick-steele-idem/morphdom

HTMX: https://htmx.org/

React Miami: https://www.reactmiami.com/

CSS-Tricks: https://css-tricks.com/

Swift: https://www.swift.org/

Python: https://www.python.org/

C++: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp

Go: https://go.dev/

esbuild: https://esbuild.github.io/

OCaml: https://ocaml.org/

Prettier: https://prettier.io/

Haskell: https://www.haskell.org/

Elm: https://elm-lang.org/

CoffeeScript: http://coffeescript.org/

LightningScript: https://lightningscript.dev/

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

Chris Coyier: https://x.com/chriscoyier

React Summit: https://reactsummit.com/

Solenoid: https://github.com/nmn/solenoid

Connect with Naman

Website: https://nmn.sh/

X / Twitter: https://x.com/naman34

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nmn.bsky.social

Connect with the hosts

Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner

Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd

Adam Argyle: https://x.com/argyleink

Subscribe and stay in touch

Website: https://whiskey.fm

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/id1552776603

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/19jiuHAqzeKnkleQUpZxDf

Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603

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

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