December 18, 2025

The Piano Man of State Machines w/ David K. Piano

1 hour

This week, Robbie and Adam talk with David K. Piano about state machines, the chaos of overusing React hooks, Tailwind controversies, AI agents, security risks in emerging AI tooling, and why determinism still matters. They also chat about pianos, creativity, and finding grounding outside of tech.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(01:40) - Whiskey rating & review: Nikka Miyagikyo Single Malt

(06:54) - Hot Take: Is useState still dead to David?

(08:34) - Hot Take: Was class-based React better?

(11:12) - Tailwind tip: Don’t sleep on child selectors

(14:47) - Hot Take: Are HTML & CSS programming languages?

(17:42) - Is Tailwind " the worst state management library"?

(22:24) - How a “simple boolean” exploded into a state tree

(24:13) - Debouncing, guarding, and timing transitions in state machines

(25:28) - Hot Take: Rails or Laravel

(26:19) - Why batteries-included frameworks struggle in JavaScript

(29:06) - Will AI push developers toward opinionated frameworks or away from them?

(34:44) - What Claude Skills are and why they matter

(36:47) - The newest AI hacks and whether you should be worried

(42:42) - Why David loves state machines (and how they keep AI on the rails)

(50:38) - David's love for the piano and having a non-tech hobby

(51:45) - What David would do if not in tech

(52:22) - Does playing an instrument make you a better programmer?

(57:39) - Plugs

Links

Nikka Miyagikyo Single Malt: https://www.nikka.com/

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

React Summit: https://reactsummit.com/

Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/

Angular: https://angular.dev/

Backbone: http://backbonejs.org/

Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/

Claude: https://claude.ai

CSS: https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

JavaScript: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript

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

Astro: https://astro.build/

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

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/

Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/

Laravel: https://laravel.com/

Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/

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

Phoenix: https://www.phoenixframework.org/

Elixir: https://elixir-lang.org/

Next.js: https://nextjs.org/

Tom Preston-Werner: https://x.com/mojombo

RedwoodJS: https://redwoodjs.com/

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

Remix: https://remix.run/

Rick Rubin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin

Claude Skills: https://claude.com/blog/skills

TypeScript: https://www.typescriptlang.org/

The "lethal trifecta" in AI browsers: https://bsky.app/profile/f3rmi.bsky.social/post/3m3oe4ky4us2c

OpenAI Atlas: https://chatgpt.com/atlas/

Dia: https://www.diabrowser.com/

Comet: https://www.perplexity.ai/comet

ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

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

Node: https://nodejs.org/

Deno: https://deno.com/

Tesla: https://www.tesla.com/

Opencode: https://opencode.ai/

Vite: https://vite.dev/

NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/

Ep 200: The One Rye to Rule Them All w/ Kendall Miller & Rishi Malik: https://whiskey.fm/the-one-rye-to-rule-them-all-w-kendall-miller-rishi-malik

Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/

VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com

Parasite Eve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(video_game)

Stately: https://state.new/

Connect with David

Website: https://stately.ai/

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

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

Whiskey Web and Whatnot Merch
Enjoying the podcast and want us to make more? Help support us by picking up some of our fresh merch at https://whiskey.fund.

...more

View all episodes

By RobbieTheWagner, Charles William Carpenter III, Adam Argyle, and The Radcast Network

4.8

5555 ratings