zach.codes - AI & Software Engineering

From Subreddits to Speech: A Reddit Engineer's AI Side Project

In this episode of the podcast, Zach speaks with Marcus, a developer at Reddit, about the intersection of AI and voice technology. They discuss Marcus's side project, a voice agent designed for various applications, including customer feedback and gaming. The conversation explores the challenges and opportunities in voice technology, the importance of community engagement in game development, and the evolving landscape of AI tools that facilitate learning and productivity. Marcus shares insights on building in public, the role of Reddit's developer platform, and the future prospects of voice agents in business and everyday tasks. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to AI and Voice Agents 02:57 Building a Voice Agent for Customer Feedback 05:40 Exploring Use Cases for Voice Technology 08:28 Challenges in Voice Technology and AI 10:52 The Future of Voice Agents in Business 13:48 Voice Technology in Gaming and Community Engagement 16:32 AI Tools and Learning Opportunities 19:26 The Role of AI in Everyday Tasks 22:09 Reddit's Developer Platform and AI Integration 25:24 Feedback and Community in Game Development 28:02 The Evolution of AI and Voice Technology 30:53 Conclusion and Future Prospects This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zach.codes/subscribe [https://zach.codes/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

From Biology To Vibe Coding

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zach.codes [https://zach.codes?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] A friend working in biology recently approached me with an app idea. What caught my attention was that within two weeks, despite having zero coding experience, he had a working prototype. I was curious enough to sit down with him and dig into how he pulled it off, and what it revealed about how AI is transforming biological research. It appears they use …

Context Engineering & ToolFront

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zach.codes [https://zach.codes?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7] You can find toolfront on github [https://github.com/kruskal-labs/toolfront]. Today we meet with a cofounder of the project and discuss a lot of interesting things around database querying and how to efficiently build MCP tools for large language models. Summary In this conversation, Zach and Esteban discuss the integration of Docker and DuckDB in ToolFront, focusing on data discovery and querying …

Agentic Coding with Ryan Castner

Ryan and I plan to start doing a podcast more regularly starting next Friday. Enjoy our first one today as we dive into many AI coding tools and our thoughts on the different ways of using them. Summary In this conversation, Zach and Ryan discuss the RevenueCat hackathon, exploring app development ideas and investment strategies. They delve into the use o… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zach.codes/subscribe [https://zach.codes/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

AI Podcasters Review My Book 🤯

This week’s podcast is AI generated. I fed it 2 chapters of my MCP Servers with OAuth [https://leanpub.com/creatingmcpserverswithoauth]book. I was surprised just how good it turned out. They recapped the features of MCP that I had covered in the two chapters, specifically server side prompts, resources, and http streaming. This recap was so good I have to share it with you all on my podcast! It’s more professional than I currently sound 🤣 (I’m working on it, I promise) The magic is all thanks to NotebookLM [https://notebooklm.google/] from google. I am excited to use this tool for more things internally at work. Sharing code samples, new paradigms, and letting other devs ask specific questions and surfacing the answer immediately is very intuitive. I may have to do a deep dive into more Google tools because Gemini is just so good, especially with their ability to connect to the google apps suite of tools. Their upcoming agent mode inside Gemini will level up what’s already a pretty awesome scheduling system. Anyways, I’ll talk about that more in an upcoming post. If you find our AI overlords did a good job recapping this book, consider buying it for as little as $5 [https://leanpub.com/creatingmcpserverswithoauth] while it’s still in progress! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zach.codes/subscribe [https://zach.codes/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]