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In this special episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan take some time to debrief Georgia Tech's famously difficult Graduate Algorithms course, which Carter just passed! As alumni of the OMSCS program, Carter and Nathan discuss why they chose to pursue the degree, how the course has changed over time due to the improvements in LLMs, and how algorithmic thinking can benefit you as a software engineer! -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io

This week Carter and Nathan read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems. A foundational primer on systems thinking, the book explores how stocks, flows, feedback loops, and leverage points shape everything from ecosystems to organizations. Join them as they discuss how systems thinking applies to software engineering, the hidden structures behind burnout and tech debt, and how to make high-leverage changes in complex systems. -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows https://amzn.to/4cMB35k (paid link) Tidy First?: A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design by Kent Beck https://amzn.to/3RoB9pR (paid link) Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler https://amzn.to/43Wqk5Q (paid link) Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards and Neal Ford https://amzn.to/3Y7CNjk (paid link) One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein by Whitney Alyse Webb https://amzn.to/3RsMt4f (paid link) Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport https://amzn.to/3EH8MAe (paid link) The Software Engineer's Guidebook: Navigating Senior, Tech Lead, and Staff Engineer Positions at Tech Companies and Startups by Gergely Orosz https://amzn.to/3ExwPSa (paid link) What Is ChatGPT Doing ... and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram https://amzn.to/4iuSUim (paid link) ---------------- 00:00 Intro 01:41 About the Book 03:43 Thoughts on the Book 08:07 Covering the Foundations and Defining Terms 16:36 Feedback loops 22:31 Overconfidence and why models lead us astray. 35:56 Paradigms and Framing 49:30 Leverage Points 01:02:04 Final Thoughts ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io

This week Carter and Nathan read the Kent Beck's The Good News Factory. A sequel to Tidy First?, The Good News Factory explores the economics of software and instructs tech executives on how to produce teams that are constantly delivering good news. Join them as they discuss balancing feature development and systems improvment, the economic incentives of software, and more! -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- 00:00 Intro 12:23 About the Book 14:08 Thoughts on the Book 16:24 Features, Structure, Coupling, and Cohesion 33:13 Responding to Organizational Changes 42:12 3X: Explore, Expand, and Extract 56:54 Final Thoughts ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io

Following up on their recent discussion on software design (inspired by Book Overflow!), John Ousterhout and Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin join Carter and Nathan for their first ever joint interview! Join them as they discuss what it was like working together, how the discussion came to be, and what they both learned from the process! Ousterhout/Martin Discussion: https://github.com/johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhouthttps://amzn.to/3XCPliz (Paid Link)Clean Code by Robert Martinhttps://amzn.to/4iJ4Ttq (Paid Link) Clean Coder, The: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers by Robert C. Martin  https://amzn.to/3E9zf9l (Paid Link) We, Programmers: A Chronicle of Coders from Ada to AI by Robert Martin https://amzn.to/42aW194 (Paid Link) Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides https://amzn.to/4hRbYa3 (Paid Link) Structured Analysis and System Specification by Tom DeMarco, P. J. Plauger https://amzn.to/3E0Y7QD (Paid Link) Practical Guide to Structured Systems Design by Meilir Page-Jones https://amzn.to/4hNd8mV (Paid Link) Design by Contract: By Example First Edition by Richard Mitchell, Jim McKim, Bertrand Meyer https://amzn.to/4i4X6VW (Paid Link) Structured Programming by Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, C. A. R. Hoare, Ole-Johan Dahl https://amzn.to/42fXfzX (Paid Link) On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules by D.L. Parnas https://wstomv.win.tue.nl/edu/2ip30/references/criteria_for_modularization.pdf ---------------- 00:00 Intro 03:11 Origin of the debate 06:52 Motivation for the debate 11:35 How did you settle on the terms of the debate? 14:30 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Engaging with others 20:06 Influences in Developing Design Aesthetics 28:45 Taking time for Deep Thinking vs Shallow thinking 33:58 Writing Code and Reducing Cognative Load 39:05 Encouraging healthy debate 42:38 Coding Style, Retirement, and what’s next 49:40 Final Thoughts ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io

This week Carter and Nathan take a break from books and discuss the the seminal Worse is Better essays by Richard P. Gabriel. Join them as they how Unix and C were once perceived, tradeoffs in software design, and whether or not worse is truly better! -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- Worse is Better https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html Rise of Worse is Better https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html ---------------- 00:00 Intro 01:37 About the Essays 06:18 Thoughts on the Essays 15:48 "the right thing" vs "worse is better" or MIT vs New Jersey 39:59 Usefulness: Why worse beats better 49:41 when worse is worse 57:31 Final Thoughts ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io