Buggin Out
This week our guest is Clive Thompson, journalist, programmer, and author of the book 'Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and Remaking of the World.' He shares the secret to getting any developer to open up during an interview: ask them about the worst bug they've ever had to deal with.
SHOW NOTES
Part 1 (0:00-9:58)
the crew discusses Google's declaration of Quantum Supremacy and tries to wrap their mind around qubits and superpositions. Ben mangles the pronunciation of ASP.net, Sara finds a name for her new pet snake, and Paul wonders how JFK would have pronounced quantum. Also, updates on the Stack Overflow helicopter.
From our Physics and Quantum Computing Stack Exchanges:
Is Quantum Computing just pie in the sky?
Why is Google Quantum Supremacy experiment impressive?
What does Google's claim of Quantum Supremacy mean?
Interview (9:59-26:05)
Clive Thompson. When it comes to bugs, Thompson says the best book on the subject is The Bug by Ellen Ulman. Got a different recommendation? Let us know in the comments below.
You can check out Clive's band, the Dolorean Sisters, here. He is currently writing software to help optimize the group's set lists. Clive, you own me a blog post on this.
Part 2 (26:52-fin)
We chat about the wonderful Ian Allen and his introduction to programming.
Paul declares CSS is a plate of scrambled eggs.
Sara hips us to a wonderful talk - Cascading S**t Show. As you might have guessed from the title, the language in the video is NSFW.
Later, Sara declares that CSS Grid is, in fact, just tables, mostly to troll her good friend Brenda Storer.
Paul protests, but then remembers an old tweet.