Runtime Arguments

28: Don't let the language be the problem — let the problem be the problem

* Don't let the language be the problem — let the problem be the problem. * You're not picking a language; you're picking an ecosystem. * Boring is a feature. * Resume-driven development is real, it's expensive, and everyone has done it at least once. * Python is slow. But is your service slow? And is it slow because of Python? * If your team is debating the language, you may not be debating the right thing. * The language is not the product. The language is the tool. * A model change costs 2–3× what a syntax change costs. Budget accordingly. * COBOL processes $3 trillion a day. Nobody's talking about COBOL. Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Checkout our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm [http://runtimearguments.fm/] Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

27: SSH and how we got here

From rsh to certificates: The story of how we learned to log in safely. SSH has been around for a long time, over 30 years in fact. In this episode we talk about what came before and why SSH is such a huge improvement. We talk about choices you can make in using SSH, such as choosing the right key algorithm and how to securely store those private keys and how to distribute the public keys. Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Checkout our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm [http://runtimearguments.fm/] Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

26: Why You'll Never Switch Editors (And What You're Missing)

You already have an editor. You already love it. Nothing we say is going to change that — and we know it. But your editor shapes how you think about editing, which means there are problems it could solve for you that you've never even thought to have. We walk through the real differences between editors, IDEs, and the technologies underneath them — TreeSitter, LSPs, the Debug Adapter Protocol — and talk honestly about what actually matters: syntax awareness that doesn't break, language intelligence that works across editors, and where AI fits into all of it. No editor wars, no winner declared. Just two guys who've been doing this for decades explaining why the landscape looks the way it does. What we cover: * The spectrum from Notepad to full IDE — and where VS Code actually falls * Modal editing (Vim, NeoVim, Helix) vs. chord-based editing (Emacs) vs. point-and-click (the entire rest of the world) * TreeSitter: why regex-based syntax highlighting is broken and what replaced it * LSPs: the protocol that turned simple editors into language-aware tools * Editors as complete environments — Emacs, Smalltalk, and the "world" concept * AI integration: editor-first (Cursor, VS Code) vs. AI-first (Claude Code) * Muscle memory, sunk costs, and why switching editors is like moving to Australia * Can JetBrains (or any company that lives on editor/IDE sales) survive when free tools keep getting better? Links: * TreeSitter (https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/ [https://tree-sitter.github.io/tree-sitter/]) — incremental parsing library, originally built at GitHub for Atom * Language Server Protocol (https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/ [https://microsoft.github.io/language-server-protocol/]) — the protocol that decoupled language intelligence from editors * Helix (https://helix-editor.com/ [https://helix-editor.com/]) — modal editor with TreeSitter and LSP built in * Alabaster theme (https://github.com/tonsky/sublime-scheme-alabaster [https://github.com/tonsky/sublime-scheme-alabaster]) — Tonsky's minimalist syntax theme that highlights what matters * XKCD #927: Standards (https://xkcd.com/927/ [https://xkcd.com/927/]) — the comic about inventing yet another standard (re: IPv8) Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Checkout our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm [http://runtimearguments.fm/] Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

25: The X Window System and Wayland

If you've been using Linux on the desktop you almost certainly have been using the X Window System. In this episode we dive into what that is, where it came from and what kinds of choices you have. We get into the toolkits like GTK and Qt and talk about desktop environments like Gnome and KDE. Then we get into the future, namely Wayland. If you want to run an X client application on a remote server, you need to have an Xserver running local. If your desktop is MacOS, you can install Xquartz. If it's Windows, you can install Xming.  If your desktop is Linux, you already have an Xserver running (or maybe you have Wayland, in which case you can run Xwayland). The following command will log you into a remote system where you can run an X client application and have it display on your local desktop: ssh -X user@example.com If you echo your $DISPLAY environment variable, you should see something like: localhost:10.0 That's telling the X client app to send it's data using the X protocol to the your local desktop and proxy it over SSH. The next step is run on an X app. It's easy, just run it: xterm A terminal window should pop up on your local desktop. Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Checkout our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm [http://runtimearguments.fm/] Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

24: Bayes' Rule - The Formula For Learning Everything

If you've ever debugged a program, looked for lost socks or tried to figure out why red spots are developing on your skin, then Bayes' rule was almost certainly used to help you on your journey. Even if you don't know anything about it. Humans have evolved to solve problems but along the way, we as a species sometimes fall for traps or fail to consider all the evidence when figuring things out. In this episode, Wolf explains what Bayes' rule is, how we use it and how we could use it better to solve our mysteries. One sentence Bayes' Rule is the formula that tells you how to update what you believe when you get new evidence — it combines what was already true with what you just learned. The math The probability of A given B equals the probability of B given A, times the probability of A, divided by the probability of B P(A | B) = P(B | A) * P(A) / P(B) Key concepts * Bayes' Rule — the formula for updating what you believe when you get new evidence * Representativeness heuristic — substituting "how well does this match?" for "how likely is this?" (ignoring base rates) * Base rate neglect — the tendency to ignore population-level frequencies when evaluating specific cases * Prior / likelihood / posterior — what you believed before, how likely the evidence is, what you should believe now * System 1 / System 2 — Kahneman's framework for fast intuitive thinking vs. slow deliberate reasoning The Tom W problem From Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, Chapter 14. A personality description that tricks you into ignoring base rates. The Sin of Representativeness — Unearned Wisdom [https://unearnedwisdom.com/the-sin-of-representativeness/] The cab problem Also from Kahneman. A witness, a hit-and-run, and the surprising math of why 80% reliability doesn't mean 80% probability. Kahneman's Bayesian inference example [https://www.anesi.com/bayes.htm] Books: * Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) — the Tom W problem, the cab problem, System 1/System 2, representativeness * Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, The Theory That Wouldn't Die (2011) — the history of Bayes' theorem from its discovery through the frequentist wars to its modern resurgence * Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979) — a Pulitzer-winning exploration of how self-reference and formal systems connect mathematics, art, and music * Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman, Gödel's Proof (1958) — a concise, accessible walkthrough of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems for non-mathematicians Historical: * Thomas Bayes (1701–1761) — Presbyterian minister who first derived the theorem; never published it. Richard Price submitted it posthumously. * Pierre-Simon Laplace — independently derived and generalized Bayes' work; arguably did the heavier mathematical lifting Tools (if you want to go deeper): * PyMC [https://www.pymc.io/] — Python library for Bayesian statistical modeling * Bayes' theorem — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem] * Thinking, Fast and Slow — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow] Hosts: Jim McQuillan can be reached at jam@RuntimeArguments.fm Wolf can be reached at wolf@RuntimeArguments.fm Follow us on Mastodon: @RuntimeArguments@hachyderm.io If you have feedback for us, please send it to feedback@RuntimeArguments.fm Checkout our webpage at http://RuntimeArguments.fm [http://runtimearguments.fm/] Theme music: Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky