The Stack Overflow Podcast

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn. 

Shoutout to user1083266, who earned a Stellar Question badge with How to store image in SQLite database.

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ICYMI: A backdoor in XZ, a popular open-source compression utility, highlights the risks of relying on open-source software maintained by small teams. Read more about the cyberattack here.

Apple’s new LLM, Ferret, could help Siri understand the user interfaces of mobile displays, potentially expanding the capabilities of Apple’s digital assistant. 

Shoutout to Stack Overflow user cheese1756, who earned a Great Question badge by asking How do I ensure that whitespace is preserved in Markdown?.

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Learn more about the potential of AI inference with OpenVINO Notebooks.

Check out the previous podcast with Intel, where we talk with Raymond Lo about how hardware and software work together with AI.

Connect with Ria on LinkedIn or GitHub. 

Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner Kevin, who showed what they know about TypeError; Must use key word argument or key function in Python 3.x.

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A developer discovered a backdoor in XZ, a popular open-source compression utility. Read more about the cyberattack here.

A Microsoft technical report pinpoints 54 attributes of great software engineers.

A new report from The Economist lays out how AI is changing drug development.

Are you sick of hearing about AI? What topics or technologies would you rather hear us talk about? Email us at [email protected] or DM Ben here.

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You can find Jessica on LinkedIn.

We've published several posts, including this most recent one, about our attempt to shape an ethical approach to combining our community of knowledge and today's AI systems.

Check out this blog post that details some of the work we did to build our data platform. 

Congrats to macfij on your lifeboat badge for answering the question: How can I do a CTRL + A and a CTRL + C?

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DBRX, an open, general-purpose LLM created by Databricks, reportedly outperforms GPT-3.5 and is competitive with Gemini 1.0 Pro.

Recent research found that large, complex LLMs use a simple mechanism to retrieve stored knowledge in response to a user prompt. These mechanisms can help researchers reveal what the model knows and potentially even correct false information it has stored.

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, whose downfall began in late 2022, was sentenced last week to 25 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud. 

Find Michael on LinkedIn.

Find Cassidy on her website.

Stack Overflow user Bucket received a well-deserved Lifeboat badge for rescuing How to calculate decimal(x, y) max value in SQL Server from an ocean of ignorance.

Chapters (please note that these timestamps may not be exact): 

00:00 Introduction and White Paper Discussion

02:01 Long Context Windows and Retrieval Augmented Generation

05:56 Models' Ability to Recall Relevant Information

07:18 Models' Creativity and Thinking Outside the Box

09:41 Advantages and Limitations of Models' Knowledge

15:09 Databricks' Open Language Model

22:25 Sam Bankman-Fried’s Sentence and the Effects on Crypto/Blockchain

31:28 Closing Remarks and Lifeboat Badge

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Small nations like Anguilla (.ai) and Tuvalu (.tv) are benefiting from their coveted domain names.

The US government is suing Apple for violation of antitrust laws, which could have a huge impact on devs, end users, and the whole ecosystem. 

Reddit went public last week despite not being profitable since its launch in 2005.

How can you give feedback on a poorly reviewed PR? The Software Engineering Stack Exchange has ideas.

The four day work week is probably not the solution to our work-life balance problems.

AI-powered software development tools like Devon show promise, but their impact on code quality and maintainability remains an open question.

Shoutout to Robert, who earned a Lifeboat badge by explaining Square brackets in CSS.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:31 The Impact of Dot AI Domain Space

01:07 Antitrust Cases Against Apple

04:01 Vendor Lock-in and Apple's Ecosystem

05:08 Issues with Infotainment Systems and Apple Play

06:29 The Benefits and Challenges of a Four-Day Work Week

08:03 Providing Feedback on a Badly Reviewed PR

10:00 The Importance of Clear Expectations in Code Reviews

11:40 The Potential of AI Tools in Development

14:01 Reddit Going Public and the Future of Tech Companies

15:29 AI Tool Devon and the Challenges of Operationalizing AI Projects

21:22 Shoutout and Closing Remarks

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To learn more about the signs that indicate you may be paying more for your cloud computing that you should, check out DoIT’s seven red flags guide. 

We’ve spoken with DoiT on the podcast before about LLM hallucinations and the security threats that LLMs open.

DoiT’s sales pitch is simple: they provide technology and expertise to clients who want to use the cloud, free of charge, with the big cloud providers paying the bills.

Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner  Sravan K Ghantasala for their answer to How to sort file lines in Bash?

Find Joshua at joshuafox com.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Cloud Cost Control

01:08 Joshua Fox's Background

04:20 Understanding FinOps

06:17 The Importance of Good Architecture

08:18 Balancing Flexibility in Architecture

10:04 Surprise Costs and Dealing with Them

13:19 Bracing for Unexpected Cloud Costs

25:41 The Future of Cloud Cost Optimization

27:09 Closing Remarks

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Cribl is a data management platform. Check out their sandbox or explore their products.

Cribl Stream is their vendor-agnostic observability pipeline.

If you’re new to the term, the observability pipeline is a crucial component of the cloud-native world.

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

03:23 The Data Landscape and Generative AI

06:08 Incumbents vs. Startups in the Data Space

07:46 Challenges of Data Storage and Exfiltration

09:38 Securing Large Warehouses of Data

12:21 Data Quality and ETL Pipelines

16:05 Measures of Data Quality for Gen AI

22:04 Cribl’s Role in the Data and Observability Space

26:20 The Pros and Cons of Richer Observability Monitoring

28:11 Closing Remarks and Shoutout

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GitClear is a developer-friendly code review tool that aims to deliver higher developer satisfaction and faster releases. Check out their blog or find them on GitHub.

GitClear’s research focuses on how AI code-gen tools have impacted code quality (and not in a good way).

Find Bill on LinkedIn.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction 

00:30 Background of the Research

06:09 Business Model of GitClear

09:46 Copy Pasted Code

10:26 Churn Code

12:21 Code Readability

14:12 Code Suggestions and Auto-Completion

16:34 Drop in Moved Code

23:18 Larger Token Windows

26:31 Improving Gen AI

28:46 Conclusion

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