RobbieTheWagner 
Charles William Carpenter III 
Travis Wagner [00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Syntax. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Front End Happy Hour podcast. Welcome to this week’s JS Party. Live from Ship Shape Studios, this is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. With your hosts, Robbie the Wagner, and me, Charles William Carpenter III. That’s right Charles. We drink whiskey and talk about web development.
[00:00:27] Intro: I mean, it’s all in the name. It’s not that deep. This is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Do not adjust your set.
[00:00:36] Chuck Carpenter: Hey
[00:00:36] Chuck Carpenter: everyone, we’re streaming! Clinical Terms.
[00:00:40] Robbie Wagner: Live, live from the Wagner household with Mom’s favorite, RobbieTheWagner and Travis. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
[00:00:53] Chuck Carpenter: no, no, uh, Robbie’s older brother Travis moved out years ago and made something of himself instead of mama’s [00:01:00] boy.
[00:01:00] Travis Wagner: don’t know this man.
[00:01:02] Chuck Carpenter: Never met him. Not in person.
[00:01:05] Robbie Wagner: speaking of not knowing you, could you give a quick intro into who you are and what you do?
[00:01:09] Travis Wagner: Yeah, I’m Travis. Uh, I am a You know, developer, like I think a lot of people here. , I’m actually a software engineer now, but um, I’m a developer. I’ve been programming for about 20 years since I was, 21 years or something, since I was 14. and I did, uh, just recently left Universal Music. That’s actually, you’re the first ones to hear that, so.
[00:01:31] Travis Wagner: Yep.
[00:01:37] Robbie Wagner: year, new job, but then you didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t, I don’t know if you want to expound upon
[00:01:43] Robbie Wagner: that. Yeah, actually, um, I just, you know, exclusive here. , I just left UNiversal. I was there for a little over two years. , and I took a job at Crunchyroll on their video team.
[00:01:55] Robbie Wagner: Hmm, nice.
[00:01:57] Chuck Carpenter: nice.
[00:01:58] Travis Wagner: from a lot of, , [00:02:00] web development related stuff. There’s still some web, obviously Crunchyroll has web related things too, but, , in the video thing you’re doing a lot of back end.
[00:02:07] Travis Wagner: Which will be refreshing for me.
[00:02:09] Chuck Carpenter: Will you be
[00:02:10] Robbie Wagner: very
[00:02:10] Chuck Carpenter: that? In Krablang.
[00:02:12] Travis Wagner: been talked about. I feel like the seeds have been planted. So they know, they know that I, you know, I run this community and, , Yes, it was mentioned.
[00:02:22] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, they’re like, they didn’t come get you because they want your Java skills. You know, that’s what I’m saying. They were
[00:02:29] Robbie Wagner: Does anyone do that?
[00:02:31] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, yes, like banks and stuff do that. Like, uh, there’s a, yeah.
[00:02:36] Robbie Wagner: that’s true.
[00:02:37] Chuck Carpenter: there’s tons of old infrastructure, current, current infrastructure
[00:02:41] Travis Wagner: I
[00:02:41] Robbie Wagner: Speaking of old infrastructure.
[00:02:44] Chuck Carpenter: oh wow, look, fuzzy bottles.
[00:02:46] Travis Wagner: Good segway.
[00:02:48] Robbie Wagner: I Can’t ever figure out how to put this in screen now because I moved my camera to the other side and I’m
[00:02:52] Travis Wagner: cause your cameras are too
[00:02:53] Robbie Wagner: Hamstrung
[00:02:55] Chuck Carpenter: yeah, your camera’s too
[00:02:55] Travis Wagner: And it
[00:02:56] Chuck Carpenter: See, look at that, it’s like you can’t see anything. But if you put it right here, [00:03:00] next to a beautiful face, is what you get.
[00:03:03] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, hold on
[00:03:04] Chuck Carpenter: Um, I haven’t even been drinking yet. I just feel like I’m in a mode and a mood today, so.
[00:03:09] Robbie Wagner: I’m in a mood to drink a lot of this whiskey today
[00:03:12] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, so that’s a normal Wednesday.
[00:03:14] Travis Wagner: 91 proof, okay.
[00:03:16] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, yeah. oh wait, yeah this is a, this is not a family show, right? This isn’t for pussies, Travis. And I
[00:03:24] Robbie Wagner: Well, not 91 is not that high. It’s a little higher than normal I guess but
[00:03:27] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, I thought, okay, well let’s come back around to this.
[00:03:31] Robbie Wagner: sometimes and then I like melt my mouth
[00:03:33] Chuck Carpenter: That’s hazmat, so, uh,
[00:03:34] Travis Wagner: brother was, was, uh, distilling his own whiskey for a while and got some pretty, pretty high ones. After a
[00:03:41] Travis Wagner: certain
[00:03:41] Chuck Carpenter: called some moonshining.
[00:03:42] Travis Wagner: not fun anymore. Yeah, but he was like, he was doing the whole thing. He’s put it in like, they had these little cask barrels and like,
[00:03:48] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, yeah, that’s fun. Alright, we have an official part to cover here. I’m just turning up my volume again. alright.
[00:03:56] Robbie Wagner: Turning up your volume again. Did you turn yourself
[00:03:59] Chuck Carpenter: still, [00:04:00] no, I can’t. I just, Travis is a little low for me still.
[00:04:02] Robbie Wagner: Oh, you’re hearing volume. I was like, your microphone is plenty loud. Please do not turn yourself up.
[00:04:07] Chuck Carpenter: I know, and I’m doing a better job of eating it, as requested by my co host. Alright, uh, listen, this is serious business, and in this particular
[00:04:15] Robbie Wagner: you tell us about the whiskey? What are you doing?
[00:04:18] Chuck Carpenter: today we’re having the Finger Lakes Distilling McKenzie Rye Whiskey. It is aged a minimum of four years in 53 gallon new charred oak, and then finished in sherry barrels.
[00:04:31] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, it is 91 poot. Proof? Poops? 91 poops. That’s me later. and the mash bill is 80 percent rye and 20 percent malted barley. , so the Finger Lakes are in New York. that’s kind of all I know about it. I’ve been in the Catskills.
[00:04:47] Robbie Wagner: it smells like, this is a very specific, weird, combo I’m gonna give you. You know a box of latex gloves? When you open it? Like, that smell of the [00:05:00] latex gloves mixed with,
[00:05:01] Travis Wagner: the powder that comes out. yeah, I guess, I don’t know what makes the smell, but like, that with, cherry limeade. Hm.
[00:05:10] Robbie Wagner: Mm
[00:05:11] Travis Wagner: I dunno if I’d go y made. It’s very
[00:05:13] Travis Wagner: specific.
[00:05:14] Chuck Carpenter: a little musty, but like, the whole like, you know, latex, glove, powdery, kind of non scent scent. Like, I can get a little of that. Up front. I’m not
[00:05:24] Robbie Wagner: Well, the taste is not like that at all.
[00:05:27] Chuck Carpenter: ha! by
[00:05:29] Robbie Wagner: Just probably good.
[00:05:30] Travis Wagner: I,
[00:05:30] Chuck Carpenter: a brief pause. Just bear in mind, this episode is brought to you in part by Nordland glasses. I paid for mine, but Travis
[00:05:38] Travis Wagner: I did not
[00:05:39] Robbie Wagner: Yeah,
[00:05:40] Travis Wagner: I hear everybody gets them for free
[00:05:42] Chuck Carpenter: Well, we
[00:05:43] Robbie Wagner: Well, not everyone.
[00:05:44] Chuck Carpenter: not everyone. This is a new thing. This is a new sponsorship thing,
[00:05:48] Travis Wagner: Nice.
[00:05:49] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. So check out, uh, I should probably know their website, which I don’t, I just Norlin
[00:05:54] Chuck Carpenter: Google Norlin Glasses like a sane
[00:05:56] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, Norlandglass. com slash products slash [00:06:00] Norland dash whiskey dash glass, which you will all type in when you hear me say that, I’m sure.
[00:06:04] Chuck Carpenter: Mm hmm. You might get it later. DMVJS is definitely going to go get that now. All
[00:06:11] Travis Wagner: I love how, um, I do love how it’s, you know, completely separates my, like, hand from the glass, from
[00:06:17] Travis Wagner: the
[00:06:17] Chuck Carpenter: hmm.
[00:06:17] Travis Wagner: You know, I guess if you had, like, whiskey stones in there it’d be more important or something, but
[00:06:21] Chuck Carpenter: Ooh, a lot of cinnamon up front, I usually feel that more in the middle. Yeah, a lot of spice, a lot of, a little bit of cinnamon. Almost like that Big Red Gum kind of cinnamon.
[00:06:32] Robbie Wagner: Not the big red soda.
[00:06:33] Chuck Carpenter: yeah. Which is a thing. Do you have Big Red Soda in, uh, Michigan?
[00:06:37] Travis Wagner: Oh yeah, Big Red? For sure.
[00:06:39] Robbie Wagner: Oh, all
[00:06:40] Travis Wagner: Red Pop?
[00:06:41] Chuck Carpenter: see. No one believes me, but, you know, his own family, I guess. I’m trying to think here. So, cinnamony I’m trying to get a little more of this. It definitely had some kick to start out. Yeah, I get a
[00:06:55] Chuck Carpenter: little sweet
[00:06:57] Chuck Carpenter: in
[00:06:57] Robbie Wagner: I’m getting other descriptors that like, [00:07:00] aren’t good, but I’m enjoying it, but like, it tastes kind of like paint smells too, like uh,
[00:07:06] Travis Wagner: Mmm, get a nice thinner.
[00:07:08] Robbie Wagner: yeah, I don’t know,
[00:07:10] Chuck Carpenter: think it’s just, it’s got a little more burn than I expected for 91 proof. It’s
[00:07:15] Travis Wagner: Maybe I haven’t taken a big enough drink, but I was thinking,
[00:07:18] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah,
[00:07:18] Travis Wagner: I wouldn’t expect it to be 91 proof.
[00:07:20] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, Cinnamon Bomb in the front. In the back I’m getting a little bit of like, Grape Kool Aid. Lightly. And then a bit of that
[00:07:29] Robbie Wagner: oh,
[00:07:30] Robbie Wagner: power of suggestion. I taste it now.
[00:07:32] Travis Wagner: I was trying to when he said it. It was on my tongue as
[00:07:35] Travis Wagner: he
[00:07:35] Travis Wagner: said grape juice. I don’t get that at all.
[00:07:38] Chuck Carpenter: but I’m used to usually getting, like, some sweet first, and then, , the, the like, other, things in there, and it’s just
[00:07:47] Travis Wagner: I do get that, like, kind of, , red pop, but like, even like, kind of almost like Dr. Pepper
[00:07:52] Travis Wagner: kind of spices.
[00:07:53] Chuck Carpenter: definitely
[00:07:54] Travis Wagner: There’s, because there’s like, yeah, there’s sweetness and there’s like a, a cinnamon y kind of spicy thing going on.
[00:07:59] Chuck Carpenter: [00:08:00] Yeah, but no like not real sweet, you know, it’s not like oh I’m picking up some chocolates or some, you know, a non artificial It’s definitely like grape Kool Aid which is like its own invented flavor
[00:08:11] Robbie Wagner: Is this a distillery that’s, like, we’re supposed to know about or is this one of the, like, millions of, small ones that have, like, one thing?
[00:08:19] Chuck Carpenter: they do have a couple of different expressions that said you ordered this first and I had to go
[00:08:25] Robbie Wagner: Did I really?
[00:08:25] Chuck Carpenter: it down. Yeah. this was in a group of things that you, you were like, oh, I’m gonna get some mid level things, maybe some stuff we haven’t heard of from
[00:08:34] Robbie Wagner: literally just went, I want to spend less than 50 a bottle, let me give a, get a bunch of stuff. So I don’t, I don’t know anything about
[00:08:42] Travis Wagner: Glad to see, Glad to see, I’m worth it.
[00:08:45] Chuck Carpenter: No, I mean, it really is just like right around 50 bucks.
[00:08:48] Travis Wagner: That’s where I like, that’s where I like to spend like,
[00:08:50] Travis Wagner: uh,
[00:08:50] Travis Wagner: if I’m, you know, if it’s not like nice special occasion, like super special occasion whiskey, that’s a good price
[00:08:55] Travis Wagner: range for yeah, yeah. And like, 100 whiskey doesn’t always deliver. So that is [00:09:00] not like, Oh, our guest must have this. Yeah, I mean, I just, like, stuff that I hear about too, I go to pick up. But like, Robbie makes this order and was like, Oh, do you want to get this stuff? And then I try to look, because I’ve got a little more options and where I can go to like, Total Wine, stuff like that.
[00:09:14] Chuck Carpenter: He’s got ABC stores. So I looked there, I had, no, this is total wine, and then when I decided this is the one I, I thought we would do with you, then I went back to where he ordered, and they were out of it, of course, and then I went somewhere else and found it though, so. Yeah,
[00:09:30] Travis Wagner: where you were trying to get like sent to my place.
[00:09:33] Chuck Carpenter: I try to look at that too, because if it’s close enough, like, it’s really simple. It’s like, and it’s like ten bucks and they’ll deliver to your door. So, I’ll look at that also. I look at the option. Believe the logistics of this show are not as, , exciting as you might think. Um, there’s a lot of, like, triage through old social media or blogs you haven’t touched in a few years to see, like,
[00:09:57] Chuck Carpenter: what’s in your backlog and
[00:09:59] Travis Wagner: I [00:10:00] did a little bit of like, you know, whiskey trading and like, you know, trying to find bottles for a little while with my friend and, you know, trying to find certain Peppy Van Winkles and stuff.
[00:10:07] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, overrated.
[00:10:08] Travis Wagner: you know, people sending, the whole, whole fiasco with people sending whiskey and the scams and, and all that nonsense and people getting upset when their bottle leaks a little bit and, yeah.
[00:10:18] Chuck Carpenter: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, the trading groups can get a little, a little crazy. ,
[00:10:24] Robbie Wagner: You know what else is crazy? Rating this whiskey.
[00:10:27] Chuck Carpenter: Exactly. It’s strange, but I think we can do it. yeah. How does our rating system work?
[00:10:32] Robbie Wagner: I believe it is 0. 57 to 3. 2. Is that correct?
[00:10:40] Travis Wagner: love this.
[00:10:41] Robbie Wagner: Or is it 0 to 8?
[00:10:42] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, it used to be the other way, but we
[00:10:45] Chuck Carpenter: switched 0 to 8 because it was confusing to all of us, including us. So we
[00:10:50] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Okay. No, for real. It’s zero to eight tentacles. Zero being the worst. The octopus is dead and gone. You never want that. You’re trashing all of the whiskey. [00:11:00] Four middle of the road. You still kind of like it. Not your favorite. , eight being like best thing you’ve ever had. Throw everything else away. Chuck, go first.
[00:11:07] Chuck Carpenter: so this is interesting. I wanted to, uh, yeah, just, I can’t recall the tasting notes, but I read a little bit about it, and thought for a rye, , let’s try something from New York. , I think Hudson River is the only other one we’ve had, maybe, that is from, oh no, there was something out of Brooklyn.
[00:11:24] Chuck Carpenter: Anyway, matters not, kind of a different rye. , I do think we got that. I think the price point is right. , it’s, it’s not crazy, but it’s enjoyable. It is definitely a lot of spice. I think it might make some interesting cocktails. I’d probably give it like a five. Like, slightly above average, but doesn’t like, knock me out of the park.
[00:11:41] Chuck Carpenter: But enough to be like, yeah, I would have this. This is fine. , depends on what else is on the shelf. If I would buy it again or not. Like, I would maybe get this over some things, , and not over others. Probably not over, like, Sagamore Rye, like, the Baby Sag. Or not, yeah, definitely not Sagamore Rye. Not over, like, Sazerac, Baby [00:12:00] Saz.
[00:12:00] Chuck Carpenter: That’s what I meant to say. , some things like that, but, but definitely above average. You wanna give it a swing, Trav, now that I’ve shown you how the professionals do
[00:12:08] Travis Wagner: me just,
[00:12:09] Travis Wagner: before I wait,
[00:12:10] Chuck Carpenter: yeah, freshen your palate on this. It could even change throughout the episode, but,
[00:12:15] Travis Wagner: Yeah, it’s pretty good, um, I would say, for me it’s a little, it’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t taste like it’s really high proof. I know it’s not 100 proof, but, Yeah, for a rye, I don’t get as much of that like rye whiskey that I would expect, I don’t, I don’t think, but I do think there are a lot of cool notes there and I think it’s, like I said, it’s, it’s not as smooth as I want it to be, I guess, especially, especially just shooting the last bit there, um,
[00:12:43] Chuck Carpenter: Heh heh heh.
[00:12:45] Travis Wagner: there, and there is, there is that little bit of medicinal quality to it.
[00:12:50] Travis Wagner: astringent, but just a little, not, you know, it’s not terrible. I would give it, let’s give it a, out of eight, right? Uh, so I’d give, I would give it a [00:13:00] 6. 3 out of eight.
[00:13:01] Chuck Carpenter: Alright,
[00:13:02] Robbie Wagner: Not bad. Not bad.
[00:13:03] Chuck Carpenter: When you say medicinal, it makes me think of actually I think it’s a mix like what it leaves on my tongue, and this is gonna sound probably bad, is like a mix of like witch hazel and like grape cough syrup. Yeah.
[00:13:15] Travis Wagner: cherry, but, but still cough syrup. So maybe that’s where I was just leaning. Maybe it’s whatever cough syrup you’re used to.
[00:13:20] Chuck Carpenter: not
[00:13:21] Chuck Carpenter: experts. Hm.
[00:13:24] Robbie Wagner: y candy.
[00:13:25] Travis Wagner: Yeah. something
[00:13:26] Robbie Wagner: 1800s candy.
[00:13:27] Travis Wagner: Hmm.
[00:13:29] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.
[00:13:31] Robbie Wagner: me it’s not my favorite. Anytime we have a rye and it doesn’t just knock it out of the park, I’m like, Well, I could’ve had a sagamore. Like, I’m wasting my time. Cause sagamores are affordable and amazing. So, like, you know, it’s hard to beat.
[00:13:44] Robbie Wagner: that being said, there are some interesting notes to this. I’ve had more disappointing ryes. So, uh, I’m gonna split the difference between you guys and say five and a half.
[00:13:52] Chuck Carpenter: Alright, still above average I would say, right? Or is that, so to me it’s like, is the rating, you know, is it like a [00:14:00] grading system where 50 percent and below is failing? Or is that average?
[00:14:04] Robbie Wagner: No, four is, four is kinda average, if I don’t rate it three or below, I would still get it again and drink it. Like, three and below is starting to be like, there’s stuff going wrong here.
[00:14:13] Travis Wagner: Yeah. For 50 bucks I would get this,
[00:14:16] Chuck Carpenter: It’s either like, it comes out of a plastic bottle, or it’s like, another thing that can affect the rating for me, is like, wow, this is 100, and it’s really average, and that to me is a big knock. Their quality does not, , justify the price.
[00:14:33] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. I have to say, New York has a lot of really, like, young tasting, harsh stuff. We’ve had a
[00:14:40] Chuck Carpenter: that? Corn whiskey. We had like a corn whiskey from Brooklyn or something. Maybe that’s what it was. It was a
[00:14:44] Chuck Carpenter: little weird.
[00:14:45] Robbie Wagner: that the one we gave like a zero or a one? I don’t remember. there was one that was
[00:14:49] Travis Wagner: you know. It’s a moonshine.
[00:14:53] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.
[00:14:54] Chuck Carpenter: moon shannon. That’s different. That burns your mouth out. You don’t know if it’s good or not. Don’t [00:15:00] matter. Drug before you swallow.
[00:15:04] Robbie Wagner: right. Something that does matter. implicit or explicit types.
[00:15:09] Travis Wagner: Oh, come on.
[00:15:10] Chuck Carpenter: Come on. Um,
[00:15:12] Travis Wagner: I always say, you know, the more inference you can get, the better. but But there are exceptions to that. Like, for instance, I always think you should have explicit types on function returns. because what you’re doing can, affect something that might be compatible in a certain way and then later on be incompatible again.
[00:15:31] Travis Wagner: If you change something, you don’t even realize it. Whereas explicit types there, you know exactly what you have to, , accommodate there. But otherwise, you know, I think, I think being able to infer types, having implicit types is, you know, that’s the dream, right? Is to be able to just write, you know, otherwise type more or type less and get the same benefits.
[00:15:50] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. I infer everything that I possibly can, but I agree, like there’s a line and You know, what we’ve heard frequently from people is like, it matters if you’re building an [00:16:00] app or writing a library. Like, if you’re shipping a library, definitely want it to be more explicitly typed so that when people consume it, it like, just works.
[00:16:08] Travis Wagner: Well, and you’re probably exporting those types separately as well, and, you know, using those types, reusing those types around the library more. , you probably have some more base level types and advanced types that you’re doing as well, so it kind of makes more sense there. That said, uh, with explicit types, you know, so for instance, I made this, uh, this library called slothpipe.
[00:16:27] Travis Wagner: inferring the type, so all it does, it’s just a pipe operator, you can pipe values into other things, and it does a little more than that, , you know, but it’s kind of a recursive type, where you get the object and you can run methods on the object, but if you, you know, if you just infer it, it’s very easy, like, you get the autocomplete, you get all the benefits, uh, but trying to type that kind of thing, , you know, you can run into those issues with, like, depth, you know, recursion, and, Depth, limit, exceeded kind of things.
[00:16:52] Travis Wagner: , so sometimes like the thing you’re inferring is really hard to actually type explicitly.
[00:16:57] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, true.
[00:16:58] Chuck Carpenter: or [00:17:00] Vanilla CSS?
[00:17:01] Travis Wagner: man, I would say just in general, Like my feel, my feelings on it and what I actually do are different.
[00:17:08] Travis Wagner: Because
[00:17:08] Robbie Wagner: ha!
[00:17:09] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, yeah, your opinions and your
[00:17:11] Travis Wagner: that’s like saying, you know, it’s like saying, uh, you know, this thing or the thing that uses that thing
[00:17:18] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.
[00:17:18] Travis Wagner: the base. but you know, when I actually just spin up stuff, I think like a lot of people these days, you know, tailwind has the advantage of just that rapid prototyping and that, uh, compartmentalization in, in the components that you get, , just naturally.
[00:17:32] Travis Wagner: And also, you know, only using. Just what you use, it cleans up everything else. You know, you don’t have this huge style sheet. but that said, you know, like, I’m a real sucker for just using all the bare minimum technologies sometimes and, and, you know, I, I write a lot of vanilla CSS. , just because there are things in Tailwind, like when you get outside of practical app development, if you’re doing like, like look at the, the stuff that like, The, the crazy stuff, that like, uh, J, you know, from works [00:18:00] ever sells doing, that’s a lot more difficult to do in tailwind because you’ll, you’ll be doing the, uh, you know, but, but those attributes where you can, you can use those attributes.
[00:18:08] Travis Wagner: You can use all the properties and everything, but you might have to do the tailwinds going to look messy as hell. and at some point it just makes more sense to have it be in CSS. I think the, the control you get is, you know, something to be said about that.
[00:18:20] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, Yeah, that’s fair. Although, Tailwind 4, It’s just CSS. Not that it wasn’t just
[00:18:26] Travis Wagner: I was going to say, what was it before?
[00:18:28] Robbie Wagner: I mean, like the, there’s no like JavaScript config or like, any of that. It’s just like, like, I haven’t used it myself,
[00:18:36] Travis Wagner: I saw that. I, I actually, I’ll be honest. I don’t love it. I don’t love that. just because it’s more. you know, this is, this is non standard CSS. So, so, you know, it’s kind of people start out with these things. They get confused about what is and isn’t. You know, those lines become blurred between this like configuration and what they’re actually writing as CSS.
[00:18:57] Travis Wagner: don’t get me wrong. I think, you know, I think, uh, what was it, [00:19:00] Tiege or something did like a little experiment using, uh, CSS as config or, or something like that. but I think it’s a declarative language. It makes sense, a lot of sense for config. But, not when it’s also the language, like, like, I don’t want to have the config be in the same file as the styles I’m writing, if that makes sense.
[00:19:18] Travis Wagner: I like a little bit of, I like a little bit of separation there.
[00:19:21] Travis Wagner: I just want it to be
[00:19:22] Robbie Wagner: you like, you want some YAML? Yeah.
[00:19:24] Travis Wagner: no! no! Dammit, walked right into
[00:19:30] Chuck Carpenter: It’s way better than JSON.
[00:19:33] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, okay, come,
[00:19:35] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, Chuck likes YAML.
[00:19:37] Chuck Carpenter: I’d like some yaml.
[00:19:40] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah,
[00:19:40] Travis Wagner: I’ve never heard anybody said that.
[00:19:43] Robbie Wagner: I don’t like it because I’m not educated in it enough to use it well. Anytime I need to do, like, you know, remember when I’m doing a multi line thing, like, if you use, like, the greater than with the pipe and the, like, you know, different stuff, it’ll do different, like, line shit. And I’m like, I don’t know any of that.
[00:19:59] Robbie Wagner: Like,
[00:19:59] Travis Wagner: I’m just not a [00:20:00] big fan of anything. Like, it’s true that, correct me if I’m wrong, that valid JSON is valid YAML, right?
[00:20:06] Chuck Carpenter: Ooh,
[00:20:07] Robbie Wagner: it might be because the indentation is correct, I guess. Yeah.
[00:20:10] Travis Wagner: I’m pretty sure, but don’t hold me to that. I might just be
[00:20:13] Chuck Carpenter: Right,
[00:20:14] Chuck Carpenter: right.
[00:20:15] Travis Wagner: here. outside of that, anything that’s white space dependent, uh, significant white space. something. I hate it. I won’t use it. It’s just, that’s always a negative to me.
[00:20:24] Robbie Wagner: Okay. So let me, let me take that a step further. Two more questions. How do you feel about Python? And then do you like semicolons?
[00:20:31] Travis Wagner: Well, so, you know, I actually did a, I don’t know if you know, boot. dev, uh, shout out, I actually did a walkthrough video for functional programming for them. , it’s functional, learn functional programming in Python. Which is just wild, like, Python is not a functional programming language. it is impossible to do some of the core concepts of functional, well, I shouldn’t say impossible.
[00:20:54] Travis Wagner: It is impractical haha to do some of the core functional programming [00:21:00] concepts in Python. but at that point in the, uh, like pipeline of learning pipeline, the people know Python by that point, you know, so that makes, that makes the most sense to introduce them to, and it does have some functional programming concepts, like, like most languages do these days, as I got, as I was doing that, I was getting, you know, I always try to push these languages and do, I try to do the stuff you’re not supposed to do in them.
[00:21:21] Travis Wagner: Okay. you know, I was working on making like, , higher kind of types of Python, I failed at. Someone else succeeded, I saw. but it just gave me kind of a love for, of how much they are trying with the language. How much they’re at least pushing it forward.
[00:21:33] Travis Wagner: That I kind of lost before. Um, before that, it was like, my wife was doing some stuff with Django. She has, she has like a little agency business she runs. , and she built, was building Django sites and that’s a whole different experience, you know, working inside that kind of framework and I was like, yeah, yeah, but it’s, it’s all laid out for you and, uh, you know, and you kind of give up on types there because unless I’m mistaken, you know, it’s not very well typed, , to this day, but you just don’t worry about it.
[00:21:59] Travis Wagner: You have tons of [00:22:00] documentation, examples, all this stuff. It’s a really nice framework. But, uh, it was just a different appreciation I got for Python. just being able to kind of toy around with it and see what I could do functional programming wise in Python. Like, how far can I push this? but in general, it’s just not the language I, I reach for. I reach for TypeScript. If I, if I’m going to write scripts, I mean, bun, TypeScript.
[00:22:19] Chuck Carpenter: Bun, bun, bun. Bun
[00:22:20] Chuck Carpenter: bun.
[00:22:21] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. I personally think if I need to intentionally indent something a certain amount that the language has failed,
[00:22:29] Robbie Wagner: like
[00:22:29] Travis Wagner: that’s, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s,
[00:22:32] Chuck Carpenter: Your criteria is so
[00:22:33] Travis Wagner: Oh, and uh, on the second point, semicolons, love them, love them. you know, an obvious end to a statement, an obvious end to a statement as someone who likes programming language design and, uh, you know, it’s, it’s a lot easier to parse say that maybe it’d be better.
[00:22:50] Travis Wagner: Maybe the language would be better if it didn’t, if
[00:22:53] Chuck Carpenter: that’s the big missing component. I’m sure you could write something to make that happen until runtime [00:23:00] possibly.
[00:23:01] Travis Wagner: Yeah. Wait, there’s a, there’s a Python project that includes like a curly braces and a semis if I’m not mistaken,
[00:23:07] Robbie Wagner: probably but
[00:23:09] Travis Wagner: or maybe actually, I think it was an April fool’s joke they did where the kids can like import from futures. and I think it was like a April fool’s joke that you could import like semis or import braces from future.
[00:23:20] Travis Wagner: Yep.
[00:23:23] Robbie Wagner: Nice
[00:23:24] Chuck Carpenter: that’s when Robbie starts his Django career.
[00:23:28] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I mean I used python like a couple times just to play with it And I was just like I have to hit spacebar so many times I like I want to just only hit that if I know like if there’s something I actually need to separate and then I want to auto format
[00:23:42] Travis Wagner: hold on. You know that like, any, any editor could auto insert spaces for you when you hit tab, right?
[00:23:51] Robbie Wagner: Well, I’m not going to hit tab.
[00:23:53] Chuck Carpenter: That’s just it.
[00:23:55] Robbie Wagner: yeah. We settled the tabs versus spaces debate decade ago, as far as I’m concerned, and [00:24:00] I’m never going to hit tab. So,
[00:24:01] Chuck Carpenter: You know, but then, like, some rogue person comes through and starts, like, adding that stuff back. I mean, I’ve started to see, I know that, , the V0 stuff that gets generated does not have semicolons in
[00:24:14] Chuck Carpenter: it, for
[00:24:14] Robbie Wagner: so, I have an opinion. the tab thing, cause this happened to me recently, and I don’t know, somebody in the React community decided tabs are cool again, and whoever that was, fuck you. I was in a project where they had done that, and like, the prettier config was switched to tabs, and I was like, you know, whatever, I’m, in someone else’s project, like, I can play with it, whatever.
[00:24:34] Robbie Wagner: I’m not gonna, not gonna have a big deal. Except for, GitHub doesn’t know, like, when you say tab width is like two spaces, GitHub’s like, I don’t care.
[00:24:43] Travis Wagner: Eight. Eight.
[00:24:44] Robbie Wagner: yeah, you have this giant nested, like, diff, and I’m like, what the fuck is happening? So I was like, okay, this is objectively better to use spaces, so I’m gonna make an argument for this now.
[00:24:53] Robbie Wagner: Like, Spaces better is
[00:24:57] Travis Wagner: better I mean, it’s just the way it is. I mean, you can choose [00:25:00] whatever you want for it. But tabs, like one of those concepts that seems really nice. It’s like, oh, you can make the tabs. Anybody can choose their tab width. And you just have one, you know, symbol.
[00:25:12] Travis Wagner: But in, reality, it’s just not, that great.
[00:25:15] Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
[00:25:16] Travis Wagner: Because the, the reasons, like you said,
[00:25:18] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, it’s, it’s a mess.
[00:25:19] Robbie Wagner: Speaking of messes, get rebase or get merge.
[00:25:23] Travis Wagner: I mean, Git Merge, for sure. is a lie. It’s saying that
[00:25:30] Chuck Carpenter: Sounds like a skill issue.
[00:25:31] Travis Wagner: don’t care about reality. You just want it to be nice fit your
[00:25:37] Travis Wagner: narrative. that’s not the case. I think that anybody who works on a sufficiently large team at one point or another is forced to Align with their strategy
[00:25:49] Travis Wagner: and so it’s not like, uh, it’s, it’s not like I’ll die on that hill.
[00:25:53] Travis Wagner: I won’t die on any hill. I will sell out immediately.
[00:25:57] Chuck Carpenter: Right, exactly.
[00:25:58] Travis Wagner: As I’ve just shown, I just took a new job.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Chuck Carpenter: Uh, ha ha ha ha ha
[00:26:01] Travis Wagner: Um, you know, but it, but, , I also think that on those larger teams, it becomes more apparent how Git merge and explicit merge commits, , becomes important. you know, if you want to find out what really happened at the end of the day, when something, if something goes wrong,
[00:26:16] Chuck Carpenter: I’ve got a lot to hide.
[00:26:17] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I, I like rewriting history. I like it to be
[00:26:21] Travis Wagner: that’s, that said, man, it’s, it’s all a lie. You can set the backdate, all your commits, all you want. Like, you know, I just, uh, I left this job. So it’s, I don’t think it matters now, but, um, I, I backdated it. I thought that I could backdate the commits and I was like, yeah. I’m like, does it like show that I did that?
[00:26:38] Travis Wagner: Like on record? Like, cause you would think everything is on record. No, you can just set the date of the commit to that thing.
[00:26:44] Travis Wagner: I’m like, all right, well I
[00:26:45] Robbie Wagner: how’s that project
[00:26:46] Travis Wagner: I definitely
[00:26:47] Robbie Wagner: it four years ago, actually.
[00:26:50] Chuck Carpenter: exactly. Yeah, that’s been finished for weeks. Your boss is like, Did you even work the last week you go do that? And you’re like, look at all the commits I did.
[00:26:58] Travis Wagner: exactly. I
[00:26:59] Chuck Carpenter: I
[00:26:59] Chuck Carpenter: was, [00:27:00] I was totally there. I was not on the
[00:27:01] Travis Wagner: It’s the same reason that, uh, GitHub, like commit, you know, boxes, uh, the green boxes, it doesn’t matter.
[00:27:07] Travis Wagner: You can write it. You can ask Claude or whatever to write you a script, uh, to do that.
[00:27:12] Robbie Wagner: Or use GitHub gardener. Have you seen that?
[00:27:14] Travis Wagner: Gardener.
[00:27:15] Robbie Wagner: Mm hmm. It makes it all green. It’s just an automated thing.
[00:27:19] Chuck Carpenter: Oh my gosh. Oh, that thing for your
[00:27:21] Travis Wagner: They just circumvent, like, any, any nuance.
[00:27:24] Robbie Wagner: Yeah
[00:27:25] Chuck Carpenter: if anybody actually still looks at that for some sort of like signal to productivity or just stupid
[00:27:31] Travis Wagner: That’s definitely true, but I do think, you know, I’ve been controversial in the past about this, but, if you’re not on fuckin github, putting out something, doing something at all, you’re, first of all, even if you are at the big, cause people argue like, oh, if you’re big companies or you’ve got a lot, big workload, well, you’re just cheating your future self, you know, because you’re, you’re, if you’re not doing anything for yourself, then you’re, you know, hurting your advancement, you’re hurting your development and yes, it looks bad to [00:28:00] have something to show.
[00:28:00] Travis Wagner: It’s like being like, just trust me,
[00:28:03] Travis Wagner: artist. I’m a
[00:28:03] Chuck Carpenter: on my GitLab. Go
[00:28:04] Chuck Carpenter: on
[00:28:05] Travis Wagner: see. Yeah.
[00:28:07] Chuck Carpenter: SourceForge or Bitbucket or,
[00:28:10] Travis Wagner: Source
[00:28:10] Travis Wagner: Forge,
[00:28:10] Robbie Wagner: I yeah, I think somewhere somewhere that’s public with a history is fine It could be a different platform as long as you can point them to it.
[00:28:18] Travis Wagner: Yeah, but just link it from your github.
[00:28:20] Robbie Wagner: Well,
[00:28:21] Robbie Wagner: yeah,
[00:28:22] Robbie Wagner: yeah having
[00:28:23] Chuck Carpenter: shit to be seen here.
[00:28:24] Robbie Wagner: on
[00:28:24] Robbie Wagner: github is is a problem I think like I you can fake how many you have but having zero is a immediate red
[00:28:33] Travis Wagner: Well, , I know for this job that, uh, the hiring manager, hiring manager was, you know, made a point of commenting about, , being impressed by my GitHub and like the projects I had on there.
[00:28:42] Travis Wagner: and it’s funny because I, I kind of, uh, looked at that position that I wanted in video and I’m not the huge, I have some history in video, but I’m not the biggest on it.
[00:28:50] Travis Wagner: I don’t know how I got this job. you know, so I specifically made some like projects that relating to video and, you know, FFmpeg and, and, uh, AWS, like cloud [00:29:00] convert and stuff like that. and, you know, they’re public and he saw that and that was like, you know, a, a green flag for him.
[00:29:07] CTA: This just in! Whiskey.fund is now open for all your merch needs. That’s right, Robbie. We’re hearing reports of hats, sweaters, and T-shirts, as well as a link to join our Discord server. What’s a Discord server? Just read the prompter, man. Hit subscribe. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and tell your friends about our broadcast. It really does help us reach more people and keeps the show growing. All right, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
[00:29:40] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s true. I think that, Oh, this is what happened. I’m old and I forgot it. Oh, damn it. This is reality, folks. This is unedited.
[00:29:51] Travis Wagner: One day, one day it’s coming for, it comes for us all.
[00:29:56] Chuck Carpenter: Some sooner than others. Um,
[00:29:57] Robbie Wagner: This episode is sponsored by [00:30:00] Prevagen. , is your mind failing?
[00:30:02] Robbie Wagner: Try Prevagen. Prevagen’s a mind thing, right?
[00:30:05] Travis Wagner: Can’t remember shit?
[00:30:06] Robbie Wagner: know.
[00:30:07] Chuck Carpenter: I don’t, I’ve never seen that, so, I just
[00:30:09] Robbie Wagner: Maybe I got it wrong. One of those stupid supplements that old people are like, Oh, I couldn’t remember anything until I took this.
[00:30:15] Chuck Carpenter: Okay, okay, I,
[00:30:16] Robbie Wagner: Menomina.
[00:30:21] Chuck Carpenter: so, and that quickly, I just popped one, boom, there it was. Now, so, is it a requirement to have a GitHub history to do open source, to do any of those things? It’s not, but, Think of it this way. This is my agreeing with you slash advice to the masses, which is especially in the current marketplace.
[00:30:42] Chuck Carpenter: Anything you can do to differentiate yourself and present a reputation outside of the interview itself
[00:30:49] Chuck Carpenter: goes to behoove you. And if you want a more direct interview process where maybe you don’t have eight steps to prove yourself, maybe you only have six or whatever it is. [00:31:00] But if like reputation comes along with you in this process, I think it only helps you.
[00:31:05] Chuck Carpenter: I think it was that before, but I can see, like, a very strong case for, like, being in a deep pool of competition that you want to stand out.
[00:31:14] Travis Wagner: Yes. I’m in a very, a very specific mindset that it doesn’t matter what I agree with or want to change, or necessarily believe is the right way to do things. , it matters what the way it is right now and deal with that situation. Like, I don’t think that leet code should be, I love doing leet code problems, uh, but I don’t think it should be used for, as a metric for hiring at all.
[00:31:38] Travis Wagner: , especially a lot of, so many jobs, like for some jobs, maybe it’s a good little metric, but um, you know, the pressure and the nature of the problems don’t usually align with the jobs. but, again, if you want to work at one of these things, I, ma, ma,
[00:31:55] Chuck Carpenter: Menomina. ma, ma, manga, manama. [00:32:00] Uh oh. if you
[00:32:02] Chuck Carpenter: do do do do
[00:32:04] Travis Wagner: if
[00:32:04] Robbie Wagner: Manamana.
[00:32:05] Travis Wagner: God damn it. Uh, if you want to work in one of those companies, you’re going to have to just grind it up. Just do it. The point’s lost.
[00:32:18] Chuck Carpenter: That’s
[00:32:18] Robbie Wagner: Interviewing is totally separate from the real skills of the job. So yes, it’s, it’s a stupid
[00:32:23] Robbie Wagner: requirement.
[00:32:24] Travis Wagner: yeah, but, but, but then, you know, at the same time, you don’t, a lot of people act like by participating in that or by being, you know, part of the problem, uh, you’re perpetuating it.
[00:32:34] Travis Wagner: But, , to that, I would say, fuck you. I got to feed my family. Mm hmm.
[00:32:38] Travis Wagner: Like, it, it, my morality, my morals don’t feed my family.
[00:32:41] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, right.
[00:32:42] Robbie Wagner: It’s the same as anything like, you know, a college degree. Do you need that? Is it relevant to your job at all? Probably not. but it shows that you can, like, start a thing, finish a thing, you know, grind, like, I think the same with LeetCode. It’s like, you start that so that you can show that you can do that.
[00:32:59] Robbie Wagner: It’s not [00:33:00] about actually doing it.
[00:33:01] Travis Wagner: Yeah.
[00:33:01] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. I mean, in a way it is their way of, of, of saying, Hey, if we throw a hard problem at you, can you go and spend the time
[00:33:09] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Are you Well, and that’s, um, we’ll say about the interview process, uh, Crunchyroll. Yeah, they had a live, live coding. It was kind of a brittle process, especially for someone who’s, you know, feeling like I don’t know shit about video, what am I even doing here? the, the live coding part, you know, there was apparently three parts to it.
[00:33:27] Travis Wagner: , we got mostly the way to, through part two and they’re like, yeah, nobody finishes part two.
[00:33:32] Robbie Wagner: Ha
[00:33:32] Chuck Carpenter: That’s funny.
[00:33:33] Travis Wagner: but it was less about what you’re solving. And, uh, and how fast you’re solving it and more about me talking to that developer, being willing to ask, you know, uh, what do you think, you know, or, talk through the situation, uh, struggle and overcome kind of thing.
[00:33:49] Robbie Wagner: ha! Yeah. What’s your process?
[00:33:51] Travis Wagner: And, and when, like the first, first part of the solution, I just literally put plus instead of minus, Um, and he was like, I [00:34:00] think the issue is around here and like highlighted literally that, you know, I was
[00:34:04] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.
[00:34:05] Travis Wagner: all right, you know, but being able to, , ask questions and admit you’re wrong or admit that you don’t know, like, that, that’s a huge problem in the community, right, is like, There’s a such a thing with like intellect and being the smartest, , which I don’t subscribe to.
[00:34:21] Travis Wagner: but I think that if you ever think you’re like the smartest, you, you don’t learn and if, and you come off as, You, you don’t come off as hireable. You know, cause if you struggle, if you’re struggling, you’ll struggle alone and nobody will know and then it’ll be week three.
[00:34:35] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I think the smartest people are, you know, that, that level of people is, is less desirable than people who are willing to work hard. And that’s kind of what LeetCode does. I mean, it like picks people that will grind versus like, you know, the person who just knows everything already. So it’s like, it’s a learned skill to be able to just like, you know,
[00:34:55] Travis Wagner: Of, and of course there are like data structures, algorithms, you know, like [00:35:00] core principles that will help you with that. But the people, you know, people are like, you know, this rote memorization of, lead code problems specifically like inverting a binary tree or whatever, you know, that’s pointless.
[00:35:10] Travis Wagner: And I’m like, anything that gets you a job or helps you get a job, no matter how stupid it is, isn’t pointless.
[00:35:17] Chuck Carpenter: yeah. Especially if it’s a job you really want, I guess. Right? Well, definitely.
[00:35:21] Travis Wagner: Or a job that pays really, Yeah. Yeah. There you go. If I just want money. Then there’s that path of things. If I want a job at a specific company or handful of companies, there’s that criteria. And then if I want to, uh, put a flag down and say this is all I’m willing to do, then you have to accept whether or not
[00:35:41] Travis Wagner: guess that kind of goes to, like, um, so, question for both of you. would you be miserable? like really miserable. Like, maybe not even a programming job. Like, ditch digging two million dollars. But you work 80 hours a week at that terrible
[00:35:58] Travis Wagner: job.
[00:35:59] Chuck Carpenter: Only 80? [00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Travis Wagner: Of a hundred, I don’t know if that’s a lot.
[00:36:02] Chuck Carpenter: Because, like, lawyers Lawyers work on average like a hundred plus
[00:36:08] Travis Wagner: So let’s go a hundred plus, let’s go a hundred plus hours.
[00:36:10] Travis Wagner: But it’s one full, one
[00:36:12] Chuck Carpenter: obviously the compensation is good. For one full year?
[00:36:15] Travis Wagner: But it doesn’t have to be ditch digging because maybe you enjoy that. Something, it’s
[00:36:18] Travis Wagner: just
[00:36:18] Chuck Carpenter: I do like
[00:36:19] Robbie Wagner: so I was gonna say like, I would enjoy some manual labor. It would suck in the beginning because I wouldn’t be used to it. But, alright,
[00:36:26] Chuck Carpenter: for a bunch of
[00:36:27] Robbie Wagner: alright, The
[00:36:27] Travis Wagner: is something you hate.
[00:36:28] Robbie Wagner: yeah, the thing I wouldn’t do, I would
[00:36:30] Robbie Wagner: not,
[00:36:31] Chuck Carpenter: to Robbie for a year every day straight? I probably wouldn’t do
[00:36:34] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I would not, like, write assembly for a year
[00:36:39] Travis Wagner: Oh God, that’d be my dream. That’d be my dream
[00:36:42] Chuck Carpenter: That, yeah, I was gonna say, it sounds like
[00:36:44] Travis Wagner: So much to learn.
[00:36:45] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, so much to learn. So,
[00:36:47] Robbie Wagner: I just, I don’t know, and maybe that’s just because I haven’t used it enough, but it just, it seems like such a, like, slog of just tons of manual stuff.
[00:36:55] Travis Wagner: it’s a refreshing, it’s a refreshing, course in, like [00:37:00] how CPEs work and the problem is the learning resources we have available today for other languages and this applies to other things besides assembly. Like LLMs are not good with assembly. There’s just less training data. , and there’s so many brands of assembly, depending on the architecture you’re writing for and things like that.
[00:37:17] Travis Wagner: But it is refreshing. Like it’s the simplified, the most simplified kind of thing. I wouldn’t recommend writing binary machine code from hand by hand, but I would recommend like, just, it’s
[00:37:30] Chuck Carpenter: Just one level
[00:37:32] Travis Wagner: yes. Which is that,
[00:37:34] Robbie Wagner: It’s a good learning exercise, but I, I just don’t think I would want to do it every day. Like, I, I did that in school, and I don’t want to do that again.
[00:37:41] Travis Wagner: Would love it, but, but you probably did it for some unknown micro control. My, my wife’s a CS student and she’s, uh, in her senior year, she took an assembly course and I was loving it, you know, with it , and she was hating it, , but she’s learning on some, like, it’s not even a raspberry pie, it’s some other, like ti, you know.
[00:37:58] Chuck Carpenter: Oh,
[00:37:58] Chuck Carpenter: yeah, yeah.
[00:37:59] Travis Wagner: [00:38:00] micro, yeah, something that you’ll never use again in your life. And I’m like, why are they teaching you on like this brand of assembly that you’ll know? Because it’s a, it’s a risk, uh, architecture, you know, uh, reduced instruction set.
[00:38:12] Chuck Carpenter: Probably because the cost for them to, like, license out this thing and get the
[00:38:16] Travis Wagner: a hundred percent, but, but, but I feel like you’re not teaching them skills.
[00:38:19] Travis Wagner: Like even in assembly that will be applicable.
[00:38:22] Chuck Carpenter: Well, don’t you know? College is free. Nobody pays for that.
[00:38:26] Chuck Carpenter: Like, you should get money for
[00:38:27] Chuck Carpenter: value.
[00:38:29] Travis Wagner: I got a music, I got a music degree
[00:38:32] Robbie Wagner: yeah.
[00:38:34] Travis Wagner: it ain’t
[00:38:35] Travis Wagner: free.
[00:38:35] Chuck Carpenter: that.
[00:38:37] Travis Wagner: Yeah.
[00:38:38] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, you could have started, you could have been a band like Phish or something and instead you, uh, decided to program.
[00:38:44] Travis Wagner: Well, I mean, as a bonafide artist, I, I, uh, you know, I’m interested in so many things. I dive deep, no matter what it is. So you put it in front of me. You know, the, the lights are flickering on the screen. That’s what I’m gonna be into. So, you know, Before it was music, [00:39:00] now it’s programming.
[00:39:01] Travis Wagner: And, you know, programming is, is, I feel like I’ll do the rest of my life. Genuinely.
[00:39:07] Chuck Carpenter: I’m
[00:39:07] Robbie Wagner: Hold on Chuck. Hold
[00:39:08] Chuck Carpenter: don’t do it, don’t do it.
[00:39:10] Robbie Wagner: I just want to say what, what instruments do you play? Do you happen to play bass and or drums?
[00:39:16] Travis Wagner: Yeah,
[00:39:17] Robbie Wagner: Both?
[00:39:18] Travis Wagner: yes.
[00:39:19] Chuck Carpenter: Which one, if
[00:39:20] Robbie Wagner: come, we’ll come back to that. Cause I want to let, I want to let Chuck say what he wants to say. And then we’ll come back to that. What did, what did you want to say, Chuck?
[00:39:27] Chuck Carpenter: well now I want to play the drums, but, Well, I was gonna skip the rest. I just wanted to say no more hot takes. We’re like, you know,
[00:39:33] Chuck Carpenter: 45 minutes deep, still going at it, way out of that stuff. There’s some other things here.
[00:39:38] Travis Wagner: Have we said any hot takes? Really, though?
[00:39:42] Robbie Wagner: They’re, they’re
[00:39:42] Chuck Carpenter: I don’t know. I was
[00:39:43] Chuck Carpenter: gonna say like,
[00:39:44] Chuck Carpenter: Fork or Fix, you have this forking history.
[00:39:47] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, exactly. iTerm or Ghosty, that’s a hot take. , I keep coming
[00:39:52] Chuck Carpenter: back to
[00:39:52] Robbie Wagner: Do people like
[00:39:53] Robbie Wagner: iTerm?
[00:39:54] Travis Wagner: Ghosty. A hundred percent. All all I want from a term. Sorry. Let’s go.
[00:39:58] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, well, that’s a whole other [00:40:00] show now. what’s wrong
[00:40:01] Robbie Wagner: I think you mean warp.
[00:40:02] Chuck Carpenter: I’ve got two things. I didn’t like it. I don’t know, I was Well, I did until it upgraded to make me do an account, and then
[00:40:10] Travis Wagner: Yes. Well now they’ve done, they’ve
[00:40:11] Robbie Wagner: can use it without it now,
[00:40:13] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah,
[00:40:13] Chuck Carpenter: I’ve heard that, so I
[00:40:14] Travis Wagner: there’s a bunch of features you’re not getting, which hopefully it’s just,
[00:40:17] Chuck Carpenter: I’m gonna have
[00:40:17] Chuck Carpenter: to make money, so I
[00:40:18] Robbie Wagner: I
[00:40:18] Robbie Wagner: mean, it’s pretty neat that your terminal can be like, you get an error and it’s like, Hey, would you like me to fix that for you? And I’m like, uh, okay. And it’s like, I noticed in this file you’re a dumbass and you should have done this. And I’m like, dope. Cool. Thank you. Fix that for me.
[00:40:33]
[00:40:33] Chuck Carpenter: Debugging is faster. maybe I’ll try it again. I did like it at first, hit that point, and I was just like, everything’s a fucking subscription anymore. I’m like, so sick of this. Maybe if I paid you once for this software,
[00:40:43] Robbie Wagner: You, You, don’t have to pay for it though.
[00:40:45] Chuck Carpenter: I, okay.
[00:40:46] Robbie Wagner: It’s, you have to, you have to log in to get certain features, but if you want to, you don’t have to pay for it unless you’re sharing things with more than three users. So, it’s
[00:40:55] Travis Wagner: I imagine that a lot of the AI stuff,
[00:40:58] Travis Wagner: you know, but yeah.
[00:40:58] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, anyway. [00:41:00] We are all over the place.
[00:41:01] Chuck Carpenter: I got another question for Grandma’s boy. Because it says grandma’s favorite. So I’ve got another
[00:41:06] Travis Wagner: I, I outrank you.
[00:41:08] Robbie Wagner: Oh.
[00:41:08] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, that’s right.
[00:41:09] Chuck Carpenter: first of all, I want to know what’s wrong with using jQuery in 2025.
[00:41:13] Travis Wagner: you just don’t need it. half the things that was invented for have been replaced. More than half have been replaced directly by ES6 or further specification. okay. It’s a little more verbose, right? A little like, come on, little
[00:41:28] Robbie Wagner: think what you want to use is cache. Ken Wheeler’s creation.
[00:41:34] Travis Wagner: Yeah,
[00:41:34] Chuck Carpenter: dollar sign. I do like a dollar sign.
[00:41:36] Travis Wagner: And it’s, yeah, if you’d like a dollar sign, go for it, you know, and, I do have a problem with a lot of the, like, replacement jQueries, because they’re not really, right, and a big part of, jQuery is, like, the fluent kind of interface, interface there, and you don’t get that, and, and a lot of people use, like, a dollar sign for QuerySelector and two dollar signs for, like, QuerySelectorAll, but regardless, it takes, like, 20 lines of code to rewrite a lot of the QuerySelector [00:42:00] stuff that you’re
[00:42:00] Travis Wagner: concerned about.
[00:42:01] Chuck Carpenter: sugar
[00:42:02] Travis Wagner: But I guess going back to why not
[00:42:04] Travis Wagner: jQuery in general, it’s just like, What do you need it for?
[00:42:07] Travis Wagner: Just like, that’s the question. Like, okay, okay, jQuery is here. Is it because you don’t want to learn the specification that will be objec Especially now that you can’t share CDN libraries from, Because before, if you had a CDN and they had already cached it,
[00:42:20] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, you got that benefit. And many sites were doing the same thing so it was like, all over the Yes.
[00:42:26] Travis Wagner: But now that you don’t have that benefit, it’s a big hindrance. Because, that’s my question is, what do you need it for? What are you doing with jQuery?
[00:42:34] Chuck Carpenter: js because htmx is just intercooler without jquery maybe? I don’t know. So, thoughts there. Okay, but I would almost say, and I don’t think any of your arguments are wrong by any means, it’s, you know, takes all kinds of tools and abstractions and sugar and all that kind of stuff for some people, but not for others.
[00:42:55] Chuck Carpenter: I think that this whole, like, panacea of React for everything. Which [00:43:00] I know some people feel very strongly about, react across and bridges the divide between, yeah, you know, uh, uh, what is it? A floor, high ceiling kind of thing? I don’t know. Anyway,
[00:43:12] Chuck Carpenter: you know, you remember that talk.
[00:43:15] Travis Wagner: you were at the HTMX conference.
[00:43:16] Chuck Carpenter: yes I was,
[00:43:17] Travis Wagner: ha. Level 4 High Ceiling was, uh, talked there, right?
[00:43:20] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, yeah, and uh, so that was Sam’s talk that led into Ryan’s talk, and there was like a similar ideology, but I think that Ryan’s pushed it way further. I did enjoy his talk quite a lot. I’m not sure, like, I share the same fervor for making React like this ubiquitous, you know, write once, read everywhere, fix all the problems thing.
[00:43:42] Chuck Carpenter: There’s no handoff kind of ideology. I’ve just seen it over applied. I think that the tools of the web are constantly getting better. And like you said, jQuery, like, why do you need it? Because everything you know, there’s so much so many native browser APIs that fill those needs and possibly [00:44:00] so in a bunch of these other libraries that have been like flaster baiting websites for so long that we kind of forgot what the basis is of all this was and what it did.
[00:44:10] Chuck Carpenter: So, you know, I agree, I was just trying to like, see if you would, kind of what tangent you might
[00:44:16] Chuck Carpenter: go on that. And I think it could
[00:44:18] Travis Wagner: b b b Yeah, Re React is, is, great. I you know, a lot of people think I don’t like it. Because I advocate, advocate for, uh, using browser solutions, native solutions, advocate for using things like HTMX, much lighter, declarative kind of, you know, things, I think my biggest problem is that React is getting away and has been, has been getting away for some time from their strongest point, which is, know, single page applications.
[00:44:42] Travis Wagner: And I think that, what I usually talk about with using native or using, uh, SSR or using HTMX, they’re not replacing, , spas. They’re better solutions than what React currently has with less complexity for creating these, these multi page [00:45:00] applications and creating a lot of other solutions.
[00:45:02] Travis Wagner: That said, you know, I’ve recently been using like, uh, React and trying to do some of the, Server component things and trying to do it myself and implementing myself and it’s given me insight on what their goal is I just don’t think it is the solution for 70 percent of people and that that that takes away from react being the solution it was before where you knew what to use it for And you just had to apply it.
[00:45:30] Travis Wagner: that said, you know, I think we’re running into a problem too where if you ask Claude to make you a thing, it uses tailwind and react.
[00:45:38] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.
[00:45:38] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. that’s
[00:45:39] Travis Wagner: going to
[00:45:39] Chuck Carpenter: V0
[00:45:40] Chuck Carpenter: is, V0 is gonna do that. Like a bunch of these tools that the current, a lot of working developers will reach for at this point, because recency or whatever is kind of available to them. I think it’s two fold. I think that The solutions and suggestions are heavily influenced by those tools.[00:46:00]
[00:46:00] Chuck Carpenter: And then I think also that we have a lot of people who basically learned how to create websites using React. And React is their go to for, you know, their rendering. They’re not writing HTML. They don’t even Know what, really semantic HTML.
[00:46:18] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, JSX, right, exactly. It’s JSX over semantic HTML. You know, and react to do all the things and manipulation for them.
[00:46:27] Chuck Carpenter: And, you know, this idea of like event management or state management and other ways, like locally API is built into the browser. All of those are just foreign. They learned how to build a website and react. They’ve been doing that for four years now. Their next job is probably going to want it too. So they’re tailoring to the skill set.
[00:46:47] Travis Wagner: I mean, that’s true. But at the same time, I feel like there’s so much of the people getting into React or doing what you’re talking about are getting in so surface level that they’re not really understanding you know, [00:47:00] what’s going on with React these days.
[00:47:01] Robbie Wagner: What’s JavaScript though? They don’t know that either.
[00:47:04] Travis Wagner: Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, I’m on the end of that conversation that it doesn’t fucking matter.
[00:47:12] Travis Wagner: Do they pay you? No,
[00:47:14] Travis Wagner: want? Do you know what they want you to know? but that’s being said, I think that you don’t know what they want you to know because you, you’re not understanding like, , React even anymore. You’re understanding the output of an LLM is an interpretation of React.
[00:47:28] Travis Wagner: and it’s just, we’ve gotten so far from like principles where, you know, I think that a lot of these other, , kind of frameworks, you know, with their signals and things, And I think that HTMX is, you know, a big reason I advocate for it again is, I think it’s changing
[00:47:41] Chuck Carpenter: Carson pays you.
[00:47:42] Travis Wagner: He does pay out pretty well.
[00:47:45] Travis Wagner: Um, I, I think, I think that if you want web to move forward You have to embrace other things than React because accepting a solution no matter what it is Means that we don’t try to push the standard forward [00:48:00] and that’s all I want I want a god I want web components to be so good. They’re so good. They could be so good, but they’re not
[00:48:09] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. Yeah, they’ve been stagnant. I mean, it’s been a promise for a decade, right? Or something. Yeah.
[00:48:17] Robbie Wagner: kind of irrelevant. Like I feel like things like Astro mean I don’t need web components. I can write a couple of react components, a couple of view components, whatever the fuck I want, And
[00:48:26] Travis Wagner: And holy shit, I’m gonna get, I’m not, like, Astro is, like, and I’m biased because I’m recently been exploring Astro further and kind of been amazed by more things, you know, so whenever you’re in that, you’re in that, , kind of infantile, like, learning process, you’re, whoa, this is great, , so disclaimer there, but I’m like, holy shit, this is, this is great, they’re doing a lot of the things, there, there’s a little bit of that, You have to know the parts of Astro, like the front matter kind of things.
[00:48:54] Travis Wagner: But it’s a very short learning process, and you get fuckin typescript completion, and it’s a
[00:48:58] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. [00:49:00] You get like
[00:49:01] Travis Wagner: And it’s fast
[00:49:02] Chuck Carpenter: first class. Yeah, exactly. It’s like an excellent, generator of things. You get, like, first class representation of web APIs. And then you get to layer in all the nice stuff on
[00:49:15] Robbie Wagner: yeah, and it’s very explicit about like the javascript that you write in the front matter is server side And if you need something client side you have to use an actual script tag and like, you know Just basics of web development that people like don’t know because it’s like everything is Vite compiled.
[00:49:33] Robbie Wagner: Whatever like
[00:49:34] Travis Wagner: And that’s what, you know, I really do think there’s something important about it. Like if you’re, if you’re just going to be, it’s great. but
[00:49:46] Robbie Wagner: like Vite. I like Vite
[00:49:48] Travis Wagner: something important about just like making an HTML file. That has a style tag with all your styles, everything in it, and then writing at the bottom or putting in a script tag [00:50:00] that has async or defer, your scripts for that file, for that page, learning that process, like makes you appreciate the tools more
[00:50:10] Chuck Carpenter: What they’re
[00:50:11] Travis Wagner: you what they’re actually doing for you.
[00:50:13] Travis Wagner: Yes.
[00:50:13] Chuck Carpenter: And how, and, and understand the outputs, right? Because you get all this stuff compiled out, and like, it is creating script tags, and style tags, and all those things, and injecting. But, Yeah. And then I think there’s something to be said about one step further from that, like taking something like bun server or like a simple node server and like trying to do some of finding the problems you have when you start to create multiple pages, right? And you want to share information around and trying to solve those problems.
[00:50:42] Travis Wagner: You start to realize what problems they’re solving for you.
[00:50:45] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, yeah. I think you understand how good you have it.
[00:50:48] Travis Wagner: Yeah, that was with Rust. Like, I got into Rust after TypeScript and it took me three tries. but then the third try, after the third try, I had taken to C a little bit more. [00:51:00] And that really makes you understand what you’re getting with Rust. Versus, like, just you try Rust by itself and you’re like, this is great language, I like it, you know, and after TypeScript, I started to understand static types more, and to even a more degree with Rust, you know, that principle, but I didn’t realize what, like, it meant to be like, oh, why does it matter if it’s safe?
[00:51:21] Travis Wagner: What does that mean? Well, undefined behavior, you know, because if you
[00:51:26] Chuck Carpenter: Protect you from yourself.
[00:51:27] Travis Wagner: yeah, but if you start there, you don’t realize what you’re getting protected from or yeah.
[00:51:32] Travis Wagner: what, what it’s,
[00:51:33] Chuck Carpenter: is and why it’s worth, like, trudging through because, yeah.
[00:51:37] Travis Wagner: And these days I would say, you know, with the FFI, I would be like interact with your C code through the FFI.
[00:51:44] Travis Wagner: Do you have a goddamn other thing you can in a language like, not just for us. Or crabbling, if you’re inclined, but a language, you know, language that prioritizes, defined behavior. That’s just, that’s crazy to think that people could talk about it [00:52:00] like safety, but what we’re really talking about is defined behavior.
[00:52:04] Travis Wagner: Wouldn’t you want a language that encourages defined
[00:52:07] Travis Wagner: behavior? the wrong thing, yeah. Yeah.
[00:52:11] Chuck Carpenter: Right? Yeah,
[00:52:12] Robbie Wagner: Although, PHP is a lot of fun. Yeah.
[00:52:20] Travis Wagner: The PHP is how I made my first, you know, that’s how I supported myself.
[00:52:24] Chuck Carpenter: As I say, that’s how I made my first couple hundred bucks. WordPress plugins. Crap
[00:52:28] Travis Wagner: yep. Same, same, WordPress
[00:52:31] Robbie Wagner: like if you’re coming from things that actually care about what you do and you can go, alright, this thing is a number and now it’s a string. And it’s like, you’re like, okay, this is kind of, it’s, it’s weird, but it’s kind of fun to be able to live here.
[00:52:44] Travis Wagner: I like PHP because it’s wily and I can appreciate like I can appreciate it’s quirks. , whereas like usually quirks in Python I see as like a downside. Quirks in like PHP, like, like [00:53:00] the fact that every variable needs to start with a dollar sign for it. Just, just, just off the bat, you’re like,
[00:53:05] Robbie Wagner: That, that’s how you get a Lambo. There’s so many dollar signs.
[00:53:09] Chuck Carpenter: That’s it. If you write enough dollar signs, Classic. Classic. So, you know. Yeah, you know where it’s going there.
[00:53:17] Robbie Wagner: One thing we do always ask everyone, and I think I’m going to know the answer with the emphasis
[00:53:22] Chuck Carpenter: it’d be an easy one. but
[00:53:23] Chuck Carpenter: don’t, okay, no music.
[00:53:25] Robbie Wagner: if you weren’t in tech, what other career would you choose?
[00:53:28] Chuck Carpenter: You don’t have to have the skill,
[00:53:30] Robbie Wagner: Yeah, you
[00:53:30] Travis Wagner: Don’t have to have the skill. I would choose Okay, so don’t have to have the skill. I would choose would choose chemistry.
[00:53:37] Travis Wagner: there’s so much good to be done there and so much, , impact to be had there. And I failed it three times, so I don’t have the skills.
[00:53:47] Travis Wagner: Um,
[00:53:47] Chuck Carpenter: right. If it had
[00:53:48] Travis Wagner: but to be clear, I did pass, uh, once,
[00:53:50] Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
[00:53:51] Travis Wagner: but it mattered.
[00:53:52] Travis Wagner: you know, so without having a skill, cause you’re assuming you have all the skills, you just choose whatever you want. Let’s say chemistry would be big. Just [00:54:00] because there’s things we don’t know yet and discovering things is so rare today and doing a unique thing is so rare today that chemistry was just like, you know, I guess it’s probably also because I don’t know shit about it Um, and a lot of people would be like, hey, we’re not making new shit either man But in my mind not knowing it that much about it.
[00:54:18] Travis Wagner: I feel the possibility is there to like really impact everything
[00:54:23] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, that’s very noble. That’s good. I would pick a model. I would be like to be a male model because I would like to have a profession not, Chuck? to, I know it’s, I know looking at me looks like that’s how I got my start, but uh, ha. I would like, to be able to just be more naive in the world
[00:54:45] Chuck Carpenter: and, and
[00:54:47] Robbie Wagner: Like, not even know about anything. Yeah.
[00:54:49] Chuck Carpenter: Just be like, I can be dumb, and I’m not saying models are dumb by any chance, by any, you know, stretch of it, like obviously it can be anyone, but I could be dumb, and I could just [00:55:00] have a nice ass life.
[00:55:01] Travis Wagner: I would love to be ignorant. You know, nobody ever says that being smarter or being more informed ever makes you happier.
[00:55:08] Chuck Carpenter: You’re right, exactly.
[00:55:09] Chuck Carpenter: So, you know,
[00:55:11] Travis Wagner: Yeah,
[00:55:12] Chuck Carpenter: is real, bros.
[00:55:13] Robbie Wagner: Ah, yeah. Yep. Well, on that note, we’re at time here.
[00:55:20] Chuck Carpenter: Uh,
[00:55:20] Chuck Carpenter: Robbie’s gotta get dinner. He’s clearly
[00:55:22] Robbie Wagner: have to get dinner.
[00:55:23] Travis Wagner: I want both. I want both of you to take a little, little, uh, final, final, uh, poll with me here.
[00:55:30] Robbie Wagner: Okay.
[00:55:31] Robbie Wagner: Oh, I thought you said a final poll. I thought you were gonna ask us a question.
[00:55:35] Travis Wagner: Uh, you could pull from the bottle or it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, there, you, you get what
[00:55:39] Chuck Carpenter: you go. Yeah, I don’t know if you can see, but I have some in
[00:55:42] Travis Wagner: I believe you we’re not like that here. Right?
[00:55:47] Robbie Wagner: Chuck actually only
[00:55:48] Travis Wagner: Is there anything in that? Is there anything in that?
[00:55:51] Chuck Carpenter: No, I, uh,
[00:55:52] Travis Wagner: His cup’s black for a reason, I knew it.
[00:55:55] Chuck Carpenter: as, yeah. You, uh, Trav, you’ve sat next to me. I don’t have a [00:56:00] problem having a drink, okay?
[00:56:01] Travis Wagner: I know, that’s why I came on here. His name’s Wagner.
[00:56:04] Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
[00:56:05] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, his name’s Wagner. My name’s Drunky. No,
[00:56:09] Robbie Wagner: at the family reunion if you didn’t come on, but.
[00:56:12] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, that too. Your brother Lane
[00:56:14] Travis Wagner: clear.
[00:56:15] Chuck Carpenter: here too, so it’s
[00:56:16] Chuck Carpenter: like. Yeah, Cousin Lane, all the Wagners, I’m surrounded.
[00:56:20] Travis Wagner: This was a fantastic time. Thank you for
[00:56:23] Robbie Wagner: Yeah. You’re welcome. We’ll have to do it again when, Riverside inevitably has been recording my AirPods this whole time and it sounds like shit.
[00:56:30] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. Salute, is what I say. Thanks for
[00:56:36] Robbie Wagner: I did not finish mine.
[00:56:38] Chuck Carpenter: listen, and listen to the pre recorded outro. Yeah.
[00:56:43] Outro: You’ve been watching Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Recorded in front of a live studio audience. What the fuck are you talking about, Chuck? Enjoyed the show? Subscribe. You know, people don’t pay attention to these, right? Head to whiskey.fund for merchant to join [00:57:00] our Discord server. I’m serious, it’s like 2% of people who actually click these links. And don’t forget to leave us a five star review and tell your friends about the show. All right, dude, I’m outta here. Still got it.