Dead Code

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Marco Roth about Herb, a new fault-tolerant parser for HTML and ERB designed to improve the developer experience in the Rails ecosystem. Unlike tools like Deface or Nokogiri, Herb doesn’t auto-correct or mask errors—it parses templates exactly as written, enabling better diagnostics, formatting, and linting for server-rendered views, especially in Hot...

In this episode of Dead Code , Jared talks with Alan Ridlehoover, Senior Engineering Manager at Cisco Meraki, about managing software complexity through clear abstractions and thoughtful design. Using a metaphor of a vending-style coffee machine, Alan explains how complexity often arises not from algorithms but from code that’s hard to understand due to excessive abstraction or poor structure. He...

In this episode of Dead Code , Jared chats with Scott Werner, CEO of Sublayer, about his experimental AI web framework, Monkey’s Paw—a Ruby-based tool that uses natural language prompts to generate web pages, embracing LLM “hallucinations” as a creative feature rather than a flaw. Designed to bring back the playful spirit of early Web 2.0, Monkey’s Paw allows developers to prototype ideas quickly...

Short-Form Summary: In this episode of Dead Code , host Jared chats with Noel Rappin, Staff Engineer at Chime and co-author of the updated Programming Ruby (“The Pickaxe Book”), about revitalizing Ruby’s most iconic reference. Rappin explains that despite claims Ruby is “dead,” it’s still widely used by startups and major companies like GitHub and Shopify. He took on the update to bridge the gap b...

In this episode of Dead Code , Jared is joined by Lucian and returning guest Joel to debate a classic Ruby dilemma: whether to access instance variables directly or use getter methods. Lucian advocates for getters, especially in large, fast-changing codebases, arguing they help catch subtle bugs and improve maintainability, as well as insights drawn from his time at Cookpad and the Short Ruby news...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Heydon Pickering about his satirical strategy to sabotage AI web crawlers by generating nonsense versions of his blog posts. Using Eleventy and JS DOM, Heydon replaces keywords in his content with absurd alternatives from a static lexicon, creating grammatically broken, jargon-filled text that wastes crawler resources without harming his SEO. Frustrat...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Stevan about building reliable distributed systems using Erlang-inspired design patterns. Stevan shares how his background in functional programming and formal verification led him to simulation testing—a deterministic approach to testing distributed systems that avoids the flakiness of traditional CI environments. He emphasizes that Erlang’s true inn...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Carson Gross, creator of HTMX, about the principle of Locality of Behavior (LoB) and its role in web development. Carson explains that HTMX enhances HTML rather than replacing it like modern JavaScript frameworks, offering a simpler, hypermedia-driven approach ideal for use cases like e-commerce. He critiques the traditional emphasis on Separation of...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared chats with Nora, a Rust contributor, about operator precedence and the trade-offs between code clarity and conciseness across programming languages. Nora, inspired by her blog post “ Don’t Play the Precedence Game,” explains how languages like C and Rust handle operator order differently, particularly around equality and bitwise operations, which can lead to sub...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared speaks with software engineer Nicole Tietz-Sokolskaya about the ethical complexities of large language models (LLMs). Nicole shares her mixed experiences with LLMs—finding brief personal value but little long-term usefulness in her work—and critiques their environmental impact, reliance on questionable training data, and potential to concentrate power among majo...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Kevlin Henney about the importance of immutability in software development, particularly as a strategy for reducing bugs related to state and concurrency. Kevlin explains that while many programming languages default to mutable state, treating state change as a privilege—not a right—can lead to more maintainable, less error-prone code. He discusses ho...

In this episode of Dead Code, journalist Joan Westenberg joins host Jared to explore the political and ethical consequences of our tech choices, advocating for decentralized, open-source platforms over corporate-controlled ecosystems like Google and Meta. Joan shares her path from tech journalism to founding The Index, a reader-supported publication free from ads and investor influence, driven by...

In this episode of Dead Code, host Jared Norman speaks with Jean Boussier, a key contributor to the Ruby community and Shopify engineer, about the challenges of concurrency in Ruby, particularly the Global VM Lock (GVL). Jean explains that while the GVL was originally implemented to simplify Ruby’s design, it now limits parallel execution, sparking debate on whether it should be removed. He argues...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews James Gayfer about data modeling and the challenges of structuring databases effectively. James, who prefers raw SQL over ORMs, explains how many database models merely mirror table structures, leading to inefficient APIs and excessive data fetching. He discusses the concept of complete versus incomplete data models, emphasizing that completeness depe...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared explores the world of roguelike game development with guests Mark R. Johnson and Darren Grey from Roguelike Radio, discussing the history, appeal, and technical challenges of the genre. They dive into the upcoming Seven-Day Roguelike Challenge, where developers create a game in a week, emphasizing the importance of procedural generation, permadeath, and strategi...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Tim Riley about Hanami, an alternative Ruby web framework that prioritizes separation of concerns, modular components, and maintainability over Rails’ monolithic approach. Tim explains how Hanami’s repository pattern for database interactions reduces unintended ripple effects, while its built-in dependency injection improves testability and scalabilit...

In this Dead Code podcast episode, Cyrus Omar and Andrew Blinn discuss Hazel, an innovative programming language and editor designed to handle incomplete programs by providing continuous feedback and partial code execution, similar to dynamic languages, while maintaining a robust type system. Hazel’s unique graphical editor allows domain-specific visual representations, such as sliders for integer...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Ingy döt Net, co-creator of YAML, about its origins, unexpected rise in popularity—especially within the Ruby community—and its evolution into a widely used configuration language. Ingy shares insights into YAMLScript, a new programming language he developed to address YAML’s limitations, enabling more powerful configuration and data transformation th...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews software engineer Joel Drapper about his open-source projects in the Ruby ecosystem. They discuss Phlex, a view framework that allows developers to build HTML components using pure Ruby, eliminating the need for templating languages like ERB. Joel also introduces Literal, a library for reducing boilerplate in object creation with built-in type validat...

In this Dead Code episode, host Jared interviews Karl Oscar Weber about revitalizing Camping, a minimalist Ruby web framework originally created by “Why the Lucky Stiff.” Karl shares his 14-year programming journey, his passion for Ruby, and the challenges of modernizing Camping while preserving its compact, esoteric design under five kilobytes. He introduces updates like plugins (“Camping Gear”)...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared Norman hosts Ruby developer and consultant Ismael Celis to discuss event sourcing—a data storage model that records historical events to derive the current state of an application, offering benefits like accurate audit trails and reduced complexity. Ismael explains how event sourcing contrasts with traditional CRUD systems by focusing on a flat sequence of event...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared Norman interviews Felienne Hermans, creator of the Hedy programming language and author of “A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design.” Felienne discusses her experiences of alienation in the programming language design community and critiques its prioritization of mathematical rigor and technical difficulty over accessibility and inclusivity. Highlight...

In this Dead Code episode, host Jared Norman interviews JP Camara, Principal Software Engineer at Wealthbox, about Ruby concurrency. JP explains that Ruby applications are inherently multithreaded, even when developers assume otherwise, highlighting how background threads from libraries like Sidekiq or monitoring tools can introduce concurrency issues. He discusses the Ruby community's progress in...

In this whimsical holiday-themed episode of the Dead Code podcast, Jared dives into the much-anticipated release of Ruby 3.4, framing the technical updates in a festive, poetic rendition of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Listeners are treated to a charming narrative where Ruby's creator, "Saint Matz," embodies a coding Santa Claus, delivering these updates to the community with flair. Dead Code...

In this episode of Dead Code, Jared speaks with Rebecca Murphey, Field CTO at Swarmia, about the critical importance of written communication in engineering organizations. Rebecca shares insights from her experiences at Indeed and Stripe, emphasizing how clear, concise, and audience-focused communication can drive alignment, mitigate risks, and advance careers. She discusses frameworks like SCQA (...