Zach Laine

And then yeah, and then she crossed herself again. I'm like, what is about to happen right now? And then as we're going down the side of this, you know, crater wall, I swear I'm not making this up. I looked over and there was an airplane fuselage just on the hill. Just, you know, they don't all make it. What do you? It's a numbers game. Some of them end up on the side, you know.

Conor

And welcome to ADSP the podcast, episode 121, recorded on February 16th, 2023. My name is Connor, and today with my co-host Bryce, we finish part five of our five-part interview with Zach Lane. Today we get some random stories from Zach and chat about a number of other random topics.

Bryce

Well, we we got we get we have to get at least about do you have to go anywhere, Zach? We have to get at least one Zach Army story because they're all hilarious.

Zach Laine

So there's a there's a brief one that that I like from this is when I was at uh C is now a few years ago. I think it was like right before the the pandemic. And at the time, um uh oh which was Jason Turner's uh podcast. I've forgotten the name of the case. CPP Cast. CPP Cast, yeah. So I was sitting there and hanging out with some folks. Ben Dean is one of them. Ben's a super nice guy. And I said, we somehow we got to talking about that podcast, and I and I said, um, yeah, I'm kind of bummed they never asked me to come on the podcast. Like I don't really actually want to go on the podcast that bad. I just I just want to be asked. Like, you were never guessed? No, no, I was never on there. And and so and so I said, I really I just want them to ask me so I can say, you know what, I got a lot going on right now. I can't really and then Ben turns around to Jason, who's right there, and he says, Jason, hey, how about having Zach on your podcast? He's like, Oh yeah, Zach, would you like to come come on the podcast? I was like, you know what, I got a lot going on right now. It's just perfect instant gratification of exactly what I want. I'm like, Ben, you need to just I need to just take you with me everywhere. Just instant wish fulfillment. Wow.

Conor

So wait, is this your first C? I mean, we're like C podcast. Is this your first C podcast? No, but you said you were on CPP chat.

Zach Laine

So I was on, yeah, I was on CPP chat, but that was with a whole bunch of people from SG16 and the Unicode uh folks. Uh Unicode is one of the things I work on, not because I wanted to know anything about Unicode, I kind of accidentally. Nobody really wants to know Unicode. I love Unicode. Yeah, exactly. How do you think we get those APL BQN symbols? You know? Let's make it happen. Unicode, baby. Yeah. Um yeah, so uh, but we're not like fun Unicode people. We're like the kind of Unicode people that say, like, we should have a rule for like what can be in an identifier, like a name of a function or something. And because we need a rule, we're gonna go and make the rules make sense, and that means you can't use the shit emoji anymore in your uh in your slideware. And that really that really upset some people. Some people like really felt the loss of the Pooh emoji going away. And um, yeah, sorry guys. So uh yeah, that group has done some really interesting stuff, but none of it's very fun.

Conor

I remember seeing a lightning talk, I think it was at Meeting C 2019, maybe, where someone did a gobble compiler explorer all in like emoji. Or maybe it was actually it was during the Meeting C quiz at 2019. Yes, it was it was because I one of the questions was what does this evaluate to?

Bryce

And it was like that was pre-pandemic. We like that was like we were like on the road for like four or six weeks.

Conor

Yes, you've told that story like six times on this podcast.

Zach Laine

All right, so I I do have an army story for you. We'll take it. Okay, so I was trying, I was trying to think of one. Okay, so there was this guy that I was uh he was in my platoon, he's in my squad. I knew him pretty well. This guy's name was Machado. Machado had this he had this habit of asking insane questions, just what if questions, just just like just to get the conversation going. It's so weird, right? So um, you know, I was a paratrooper, and so when you when you do a jump, like they, you know, you're in a plane, you jump out. The people at the beginning of the jump, at the end of the jump, they come out in very different places. So there's, you know, once you hit the ground, you pack up your shoot and everything, you go to this place everyone calls the assembly area, where you kind of form back up in your units and stuff. And so the assembly area, you know, is a thing we we refer to all the time. People call it the the the AA or the double A, right? Okay. So Machado says this. He says, all right, you jump, right? And your shit don't open, right? Okay, so then you pull the reserve, that don't open, right? Now what do you do? You sprout wings and now you can fly. Do you go to the assembly area or you just fly away? I was like, well, wait, what? I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like, what does the first part have to do with the second part? I don't understand this. You said, like, what if I sprouted wings, where would I go? And then somehow you tied this into jumping out of an airplane and going to the assembly. Like, I don't understand. Like, I have so many questions about this question. This is the most insane question anyone has ever asked. Oh, Machado, he's full of questions like that. Some that are really probably not podcast appropriate, but bizarre, bizarre scenarios. This guy would come up with, oh man, the guy was nuts.

Conor

Well, we well, it's the answer.

Zach Laine

What's the answer? I mean, I would probably fly to the assembly area and say, I got a lot going on right now. Fly away.

Conor

We gotta, we gotta, we gotta meet up at a conference. It's been too when was the last time we saw each other, Zach?

Zach Laine

Um, I think it was 2019, like four years ago. Well, I did wait, did you come to the CPP C Now in 2019? Might have been 2018.

Conor

No, the first conference I ever went to was the C Now 2019. Okay. And then there was a few for that year, and then I met you at a couple committee meetings as well. Yeah. But then yeah, since then Well, it's coming up in May.

Zach Laine

I'm I'm definitely gonna be there. If you want to come to Aspirin, it's it's a it's a great one.

Conor

I was invited, but uh I can't. I've got um two races that bookend that weekend. I basically I'm not sure unless if I skip those races uh in some at some point in the future. Are you did you submit Bryce? Are you going to C now?

Bryce

So I submitted. Um I don't know if I'm gonna go um because conference travel's not like work-sponsored conference travel is not gonna happen, so it's pay out of pocket, which I might do. But I also I may have a a work thing I have to do that weekend, that week, which is in Italy. And like I love I I love all the C people, but you know, if I have to pick between you, y'all, and hanging out in the Amalfi Coast, I'm gonna go with the Amalfi Coast. So um Do you do you have any other conferences lined up, Zach?

Zach Laine

Or no, I so since I go to committee meetings uh really faithfully these days, I basically have limited myself to just that one conference. I just go to C now. And and I gotta say, like, I mean, I I went to I went to CPPCon the first two years, and it wasn't, I think, as mature a conference as it is now. I think the the program is better now than it was the first two years, right? So there's that. But I really felt like when I went the first two years, like after having gone to C now, it's such a singular experience. Like everyone's in this uh small town with nowhere to go, nothing to do but like do the conference. That really makes a really tight uh group. But then also like the the caliber of the presentations, like they aren't all great, but the ones that you see there that are great are like wow, this like changes a lot of things for me, you know, they're really influential. Whereas I I didn't really feel like I I saw anything like that at the first two years of CPP CON. So again, I think it's a better conference now. I think I would have more um sort of like great experiences in terms of the the presentations themselves. Um but uh the fact that it's so like sort of distributed, um I shouldn't say distributed, so big is what I'm trying to do.

Conor

It's a completely different experience.

Zach Laine

Yeah, it's hard to run into people and just have a chance, a discussion with folks. So I really think like I've kind of been spoiled by this one conference I really like so much. And if I go to another one, I'm like always comparing it to that one. So I think I won't get as much out of other conferences, so that that's part of it.

Conor

Yeah, it's very hard to replicate the especially the venue that they have, and it's an asp in. Like it's I don't think I've ever gone to a conference anywhere else where the running has been so phenomenal. And like, and like you're technically like I don't treat it like that, but you're at alt altitude. And so like if you are going for runs for a week, then you go back down to sea level or wherever you're at, and you're like, holy smokes, I'm in feels great. What happened? And like I remember actually the first couple times where I went for runs up there, I was just like, why am I so tired? Am I not getting enough sleep? Or like because because they are long days, and like you know, you're you're basically you wake up watching talks, talking in between every single talk, dinner, lunches, like it's very, very, you know, and sometimes you'd you'd be up till 2 a.m., 3 a.m. in the morning, like, you know, chatting about technical stuff or whatever, just you know, meeting with folks. And uh, but I'm like, usually even if I'm tired, like I don't feel this bad. And then I realized, oh yeah, like there's less oxygen up here. Like uh it impacts your ability to feel feel good, and it's just so beautiful.

Zach Laine

Um yeah, it's a great spot, but yeah, the the altitude really gets to you. There was so early on in the in the conference, like I think right before I had my first kid or something, you know, I used to lift weights pretty, pretty um um faithfully, and and I did it like all the time. I didn't want to miss like a whole week, right? So I go into the weight room there, and you know, they didn't have free weights, so I was just on the little bench press machine. I I just put on like my warm-up weight and I went and just didn't move my hands. I'm like, um okay, let me let me take a plate off. And I still couldn't move it, and then finally I got down to like uh like a like the bar and like a little bit more, and then I could barely move it all the way up, and I got so tired, I was like, okay, maybe I'll skip this week.

Conor

Yeah.

Zach Laine

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this.

Bryce

Yeah, it's uh it definitely employed. We used to have this fellow, I think his name was Ed, who would come every year. Um, but then there was one year where the altitude just got to him, and uh and I I think he collapsed or something, and he was just like, I can't come back. It's just this is this is too the air's too thin here.

Zach Laine

Yeah, and that that's the thing. And I've been told that um altitude sickness uh is kind of funny. Like people will be fine for a while and then they'll get it. Like I'm I'm talking about repeated trips. If you're there and you acclimate, that's one thing. But like people who have have done things at altitude for a number of years, they'll feel like they're comfortable with it and they'll go back again and they'll have problems. And I think that's what happened to Ed. Because Ed was like a regular, he'd been to several of them, and then he couldn't go after that.

Bryce

It's always like hit or miss for me. Like some years, like I don't feel it at all, some you and I think it depends on whether you drive up from Denver or you fly right in. Like if I fly right into Aspen, like yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna feel it.

Conor

Yeah. This is why uh Tony Tony Van Eard, um, who's a local Ontarioan who lives out in uh Kitchener, I believe. Hope I got that right. He was saying that, you know, for we've got C North, which is held downtown Toronto, but we could try and replicate uh the C now kind of experience and call it like C Muskoka, which would be probably easier to get to because it would just be like a car ride plus a flight to Toronto, whereas most people well, I mean, I don't know if it's half and half. Some people fly into Aspen. I remember I remember landing in Aspen though and thinking like, you know, of the times, I know statistically speaking, fly flying is the safest.

Bryce

But just like you're flying through mountains and like finding this little thing, and I'm like so so so the the flights into Aspen, I always feel super safe on those flights because the pilots need a special right rating to fly into like a handful of mountain airports in the US, and that's one of them. And so like the pilots that you get on those on those flights are usually like like they're like hot shots, like four pilots. Um yeah, they they they tend to know their stuff.

Zach Laine

I I landed in uh Tugusagalpa airport, which is in an extinct volcano, you know, that's that's where the city is. So where do you put the airport on the edge of the city, right? You don't put it downtown, right? So then when you're landing, you don't want the takeoff to be up against the the crater wall. So when you land, you're coming like down the crater wall, and then you pull up at the last second and you land there. And I remember I was near the front of the plane, and I could see the woman uh who had been our flight attendant, our section, sitting facing us. So she's like, you know, by the by the aisle side, see the the other flight attendant, so I can't see her, but and she's sitting there and she's like mumbling to herself, and like her eyes are closed, and I'm like, what is happening? And then she crosses herself. And then yeah, and then she crossed herself again. I'm like, what is about to happen right now? And then as we're going down the side of this, you know, crater wall, I swear I'm not making this up. I looked over and there was an airplane fuselage just on the hill. Just, you know, they'd all make it. What do you? It's a numbers game. Some of them end up on the side, you know. And and when we landed, um, the she got on the PA and she said, let's all thank the pilot. Everyone applauded. I felt like it would have been a standing ovation if we weren't buckled in. Like it was insane. I was like, how dangerous was that? Like, they didn't tell me before I got on the plane, they just told me like as we're about to land, without and they didn't even tell me without crossing themselves. That was the communication.

Bryce

Yeah, my favorite flight into um Aspen, I think it was like C now 2013 or 2014, but there was a blizzard as as there often is in that area in May. And um I I was in Denver waiting for the flight to to um to go, and it was like unclear, like a lot of the flights after mine had been cancelled already. It was this was the last one that was gonna go if any of them were gonna go. And then um this guy in like a bombardier jacket, like not like typical airline pilot uniform, this guy was out of regulations. He uh he walks um uh up from the jet bridge into the um area and he he swipes the microphone from uh the gate agent and he's like, Well, hello folks, my name is Captain Whatever. Uh and he's like, Well, they've given us uh enough fuel that we could divert to Los Angeles if we needed to. So we're all gonna get on this plane and we're gonna uh fly on over to Aspen and we're I'm gonna see if I feel like uh we can land. And if we can, we'll do that. If not, we're gonna go somewhere else. And he just said it so confidently that I was like, you know, I'm gonna get on the plane with this man. Like he he seems to know what he's doing. And it was the smoothest landing I've ever had into the Aspen Airport. In the Aspen Airport landing, you there's sort of like one valley that they fly you through, and then you have to make a pretty sharp turn in that valley to come into the approach to the airport. Yeah, and um, as we're landing, there's like zero visibility, but it was the smoothest landing I've ever had in that airport, and as when everybody landed, we all we all gave that man a round of applause. Yeah, yeah.

Zach Laine

That randy could be that landing could be kind of rough there. Yeah.

Conor

I don't I don't know how what's happening, but yeah, when even even now when I'm just on regular flights, I I have a certain amount of anxiety, even though like it's like I I studied statistics in university and I know the statistics of flying, but there's just something like even in a car, I have anxiety. It's just like when you're in this, you know, metal box, there's just you're sort of you're at the whims of whatever happens, right? Like it's not like all right, if we go down, I'm gonna make sure I got my my you know, my my position I've practiced and I'll be okay and I'll get I'll get out the little floppy thing first. It's like, nah, you know, all the other things that they tell you about, like make sure you put the gas, it's like that's I'm pretty sure just a distraction. And like if the plane goes down into the side of a mountain, you know, like all these over the last what decade or however many flights have disappeared, like you don't hear about the one or two people that survived you know the the flight that went. It's it's it's kind of it.

Zach Laine

Um which anyways I think those those uh those tanks are full of nitrous oxide or something. Just something just they just come down, they just they just knock you out.

Conor

Unfortunately, in the in the crash landing that was successful, we did lose five people because there was too much too much nitrous oxide in the mix.

Bryce

So so piece of trivia, do you know why commercial airplanes don't have parachutes for all the passengers?

Zach Laine

Uh no, I assume because it's cost prohibitive, but I don't know.

Bryce

It's actually it's actually not cost. Um part of it is weight, but most planes are flying at between 30,000 and 40,000 feet. And so and you can't jump from that that height without like an oxygen. They'll pass out. Yeah, that's a good point. And so they so one, the plane would have to get a lot lower. Um, two, for most of the sorts of problems that you'd have on a plane, the amount of time that it would take to get 250 people like to jump off the plane, like it'd be crashed by then. And three, most people who are flying on a plane haven't been trained to use a parachute. Yeah, and so it wouldn't like even help you. And so I always just thought it was like a cost thing or a weight thing, but it turns out it's mostly just like, no, like no, it's it really wouldn't help you out that much.

Zach Laine

Well, also, you know, when when I used to jump in the army, we're usually jumping a C 130s, which is a prop plane, right? They aren't going that fast. And then when we did jump out of um the bigger planes with the jet engines, like they would slow down a lot, right? Because you you can't you can't jump out and then get slammed against the side of the door, you know. Uh that that's not gonna work, right? You need to not gonna end well. It's not gonna end well. And some of the ones that had um the big jet engines, they actually had this kind of flap with holes in it that would come out in front of the doorway that would break the wind. So you could actually, as you're going out, you keep a good body position until you actually hit the stream of air going past, right? So there's all kinds of technical things. Oh, this is actually really funny. Like I saw a video, they were they were they're trying to get there's these uh C5 Globemasters, these gigantic planes. They can I think they could put two Abrams tanks in them and and fly them all like halfway around the world. They're gigantic. The inside of it, you felt like you're an aircraft hanger. So you can't believe how big it is inside these planes. And they were trying to figure out how to jump paratroopers out of them. They had all kinds of problems with it. They so these wings, they have those canards, the big uh things that stick up on the end of the wing, the little um you know, canards, I don't know what it's called. Um so it turns out those make like a little vortex around the back of the wings, a little swirly um pattern. And I saw this video where they were like they were like they were flight testing, you know, because when you when you jump in the military, they had like a static line. So when you fall out, you you you could be a sack of bricks. You're still gonna the chute's still gonna open up, right? So they literally put like weights uh and and and put like uh uh like kind of weighted dummies and put chutes on them and then just threw them out, right? Just to see what would happen. And and I saw this video of this plane, and you see how these little would look like little people coming out, and then they're floating down nice and gentle like you would expect in a parachute, and then they hit that huge swirling vortex of air, and they went upside down, landed in the chute, and then just went straight and hit the ground. I was like, oh, oh no, I don't want to jump out of that. Uh no me gust. That's not for me. That's not for me.

Bryce

So uh so my my my girlfriend has actually been skydiving, which is a thing that I think I would uh I I would not do unless somebody pushed me out the plane. Like I might like sign up for it, but like I somebody would have to shove me out of the plane. But uh yeah, it's like that's uh how many times did you say you you jumped out of a plane?

Zach Laine

I did it, I did like 35 times.

Bryce

And um I you've not you've not done it since you've been in the army.

Zach Laine

No, no, I mean like there's a lot of things like you know, I used to love camping, and then when I got paid to camp outside for two months a year, I was like, I'd never want to camp again. You know, that there's certain things like it kind of ruins certain things for you. So it was when I first started jumping, it was so exciting. Oh my god, it was so much fun. And then I hit my head on the something. I don't even know what happened because I just woke up on the ground and didn't know how I got there. So I hit my head so hard that I lost a whole day. And after that, it was like, okay, this is really real now. This is not this is not super fun anymore. So um, you know, like my sort of like um the the honeymoon period was over at that point. I I'm not that interested anymore. Yeah.

Bryce

Yeah, yeah. That that that that seems to me like a wise question. Like I I bet it's thrilling, but like people human man was not meant to fly.

Zach Laine

Yeah, well, I mean we were the very first time I did it. I remember I was looking out the window, I happened to be sitting right in front of the door, and they open up the door, and I'm looking out, and I see all these little tiny trees that look like you know, like when someone makes a model of like a development, and those these little fake trees, that's what it looked like. I was like, it doesn't even look real. And you're jumping from about 1200 feet, you're not jumping jumping very high. And um uh, you know, you you you do one of these jumps and and it doesn't feel real. But I the first time I went, I was like, this is how I die. This is I'm definitely dying right now. This is like it's so terrifying. I was just like blind with panic, but somehow I made myself go out, and then when the chute opened and you went for this deafening noise of all the wind, and it was silent, and I was alive, and it was thrilling. I was like, I'm hooked. This I want to do this over and over again. It was so much fun, and then uh like I said, it got really real later.

Conor

Yeah. Oh man, I have absolutely zero desire. Like, I don't know if it makes me like an unfun person, but like skydiving, bungee jump, like bungee jumping just seems like that's just how you like cause yourself like the rest of your life neck problems, and like you know, oh whipped your neck, and like I guess it was a cool Instagram reel, but uh I just oh man, like that's right.

Zach Laine

Who's next in the whiplash machine? It just seems like asking for trouble.

Conor

Yeah. I mean yeah, Instagram's good enough for that. I'll just I'll just watch people doing the reels and um Yeah.

Zach Laine

All you gotta do is get really good at photoshopping your face on someone else's head. Yeah.

Conor

You don't even need to get good at it now, like all the all the drama with deepfakes and stuff going on. It's um This is by far, I think, our longest recording. I can't remember how long we recorded with uh Chandler. Um this has been great though. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Just glad to be on. At this point, we stopped our local recordings because we were done recording the episode. However, we continued to record on Zoom unintentionally as the Zoom meeting was continuing, and we actually ended up chatting for about 30 or 40 minutes after the end of the recording, some of which might be interesting for the listeners. So if you are interested, the rest of the podcast is an unedited behind the scenes, uh just chatting between Bryce, Zach, and myself. Every once in a while we skip ahead, which will be indicated by a record scratch because that's the boring stuff. But hopefully you enjoy this behind the scenes with Zach and Bryce.

Zach Laine

So I gotta say the the only thing what? Oh, it's exporting. Uh yeah, the only thing, the only tip to improve your podcast that I could possibly give you is that at the end of every podcast, it's just Connor's voice saying, like, all right, bye, click. It is so abrupt. I'm like, whoa, that was it. Oh shit, it's over.

Bryce

You gotta have an outro, bro. So abrupt.

Conor

Well, the thing is that like I designed my podcast because I listened to like 60 podcasts or something. Like just today, I've already listened to I don't know, probably three hours uh of content because I listen at 2.3 times speed. And there's like certain things that just are really big pet peeves, and like I never listen to the outros. As soon as there's outros, although I will say mine is aggressively like a brother. It's like a three-second recording of thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed. Have a great day. Bye.

Bryce

Okay.

Zach Laine

All right. One one fun fact before I before I let you guys go. Uh you know who else is a paratrooper? Former paratrooper? Andre Alexandrescu.

Bryce

Yes, I did know this because I know this because a couple weeks after um Andre, or maybe like a month or two after Andre starts working at NVIDIA, um, we uh we get on uh like our regular one-on-one and we're chatting, and then at the end he's like, hey, like before you before you go, um, you know, there's a chance I may have to like, I may get called up to like go back to the Romanian army for a few months. You think NVIDIA will be cool with that? And I'm like, wait, what? He's like, yeah, I'm kind of an officer in the in the reserves, and they may need me to go teach the kids things. And I could get out of it, but I want to go do it.

Zach Laine

That's really interesting. Yeah, I the only reason I know that is because it actually says that in his little um, you know, the the like uh bio blurb thingy that you put in your book. Sorry, and it said that in his um uh at the end of his uh uh advanced or m modern C design.

Bryce

Yeah.

Zach Laine

Yeah. When I saw that, I was like, oh, that's crazy.

Bryce

I think it's amazing that he's still on like the reserve list there. Yeah, yeah.

Zach Laine

I mean, I think he's even older than me. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, you know, my stress dreams are not like I'm in class with no pants on, it's that I have to run again. My stress dreams are I'm back in the army for some reason, like there's been a war and I've been called up and I have to run. And I'm like, oh, this sucks. So do you have enough time to edit this?

Bryce

Like, how exactly is this gonna work?

Conor

Oh, that's the thing, is you think that like, and I I I I can't remember, I think I did mention this when um CVP cast had shut down last May, like almost a year ago. Is that uh like I was saying how much I was gonna miss the podcast and love, and like they put way more work into um, I mean, like literally, you zach, you know how you got on this. Like Bryce just sent you an email, and then like two days later, you know, and then you hit like I uh I remember uh they had all these settings, we don't have settings. I don't I don't switch things, like I think Bryce records on two speakers and I record on mono, like I don't really care. And um, my goal is to like have the whole thing show notes, website updates, uh edits, and like outro intro all done in like an hour. Um wow, and that's why that's why I try and keep it to like 30 uh minutes because like every 30 minutes you add is gonna double the amount of time. Yeah, um, and I uh like I get comments all the time about Bryce's audio is too low, and um, you know, if we got a blah blah blah, but that's the thing is Bryce talks like this and he goes like this and he goes like this and he talks like this.

Bryce

You know, they don't they don't make a normalization algorithm for what I do.

Conor

No, and there are times where like you can do this stuff where like you amp everything down to a certain level and then re-amplify it, but like even still, you know, uh so most of the times I just listened to yourself.

Bryce

I had a I had a fascinating conversation with Richard Powell, who works at Apple and does audio stuff there, like talking about like like this quest, like normalization and like the vault, like the loudness of things. It was really I was fascinated.

Zach Laine

I so I had a I had a long conversation with Richard Powell, Richard Powell about their smart speaker, and everything he was describing was stuff I did in Navy sonar. Like it's all the same like approaches and algorithms, and like worrying about which which bounce paths of this taking to get back to you. It's really fascinating.

Bryce

Yeah, somewhere somewhere at Apple, I'm sure there's some engineer who like used to be like a navy like sonar guy, and like now his job is like to make sure that the home pod can like listen to you.

Zach Laine

Yeah. So um, yeah, we didn't we also didn't talk about Unicode stuff. I mean, you know, there's another one. Yeah, we didn't talk really about any of your libraries.

Conor

I wanted to bring up the uh I'll be the first uh person to come on 18 times. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was thinking too, I meant to mention this at the end, is that Sean's probably listening, being like, Why the hell haven't these guys because it was half of the idea was that like I was always telling Sean, it's like, man, like you know how popular, like if you did a podcast, like imparting your wisdom to the world, and he's like, No, no, no, I don't have time for that. And I was like, No, man, like your stories are so amazing.

Zach Laine

Like, so honestly, this is the problem with C instruction, really. It is like that all the cool kids are like, I don't want to do that. I have I'm so busy, right? And then, like, like, you know, people used to write books and stuff because there was money in it, but now there's no money in it, so people don't write books anymore. Yeah, and so like now it's like you have to have like, you know, there's a few labors of love, like CPP reference is a great example of that. Like the people who do that do a great job with it. But also you have people like you know, Richard Smith will come in and like edit the stuff about the language. So you have some some heavy hitters like uh editing their stuff, but usually if it if it's in terms of like tutorial level uh documentation, there's no such thing for C. And the reason it doesn't exist is because no one's gonna make a name for themselves doing that. Well, just like no one's gonna make a name for themselves figuring out package management, no one's gonna be known as the package management guru.

Bryce

That's just not what one of the problems is that there's not enough money, like most languages have a foundation that's better funded, and then the foundation has some people on staff and then they do stuff like that.

Zach Laine

And we just trust foundation is a great example, and so with like the the C foundation has paid people, but it as far as I know, that that list is one person long. They paid Eric Niebler for a while to finish the range of stuff, and I don't think they've ever done it with anyone else. But yeah, look at what came out of that, right? Yeah, what came out of that was incredible.

Conor

Like we should do more of that, but you know what's interesting is I heard um I heard a podcast with JT, uh Jason's cousin. Um not just interpolate, kind of yeah, and and I was I was hearing this too, because this sort of the rhetoric is why why Rust became so popular, where where it has a lot of the same things that Haskell has, but Haskell didn't. And what JT did, like they had this um committee, like they have a bunch of committees, language, API, blah, blah, blah. But they had one for like um community or like, you know, I can't remember what it was, but it was like community outreach or something. And they did this survey where they realized that like the number one thing people struggled with was like uh like fighting with the compiler. And so they created this whole initiative to basically do like compiler-driven development, yeah, focus so much attention on not just the errors, but like the errors that beginners run into that like might not actually be things that like experienced developers are running into, but it's like these low-level, like or very like the first things you're gonna learn and like put that those tips in the compiler so that basically like you don't even need to go to Stack Overflow. You hit some wall, and then the compilers immediately and like hearing them talk about that was like maybe that's what Rust, like people talk about the evangelism strike force and how their propaganda, blah blah blah. But like I think Rust really figured something out in designing the experience that new people have with the language to be incredibly like um a soft landing, even when you're struggling. Like five years ago, you used to hear that Rust is such a hard language to learn and blah blah blah, and you know, move by default and all these things and coming from Python. And now, like you don't hear that as much anymore. Like it's it's this language that some people like learning as a first language. And I just like I think there's so much to learn from like not just what Rust has done as a language, but what they've done as a community.

Zach Laine

Yeah, that's really what's most appealing to me. So I, you know, whenever I write parsers, I try to make a parser that when there's an error, it tells you which production rule it thought it was gonna have, and that's plain English, and it puts a carrot under it, just like the the clang diagnostics, and it it quotes the line and all that kind of stuff. And I find that when you use most people's parsers, they don't do anything like that, and it makes it so unergonomic. And and I really feel like you know, I I've spent my entire career being good at writing libraries, getting better and better at writing libraries. And one of the things I've discovered, and this is part of this is due to to Eric Niebler, in fact, who I remember writing him writing on the boost list one point like the story for error recovery is part of your library, that's part of the quality metrics for your library. Like if you if you report errors and the errors are like this much template instantiation stack page after page after page, and then it's like you know, it gives you something you don't even understand how it relates to your code, then that's a problem. So you should basically be like static asserting those things ahead of time, or like Svenay should kick in or something like this. And I feel like the committee has it committee gives zero about that. Like there's just no buy-in for that approach, and I think it's so damn important. But we have at this point uh a very expert-friendly language, and so that's the orientation.

Conor

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are the exact example. I mean, I hope Jessica Kerr brings it up. She's keynoting it, CPP North, but she has this amazing slide and talk or slide from a talk that's like commute, like different communities across programming languages, and like some programming languages are a single step function. Like down here is the beginners, then there's a huge wall, and then there's like the people at the top. And like getting up there is extremely hard. And then she shows this other slide of other communities referring to like Elixir and Ruby, where it's like a step function, and it's like not only is it one step function, there's like another step function on the other side that like there's multiple paths. The people that are one step above you are always happy to teach and writing blogs. You don't get shamed for like not being an expert. Like, I remember when I was talking to Andre, and and he actually put this out in a lightning talk, which I he said that you shouldn't be giving a talk unless if like you're giving you're talking about 10% of what you know. So, like you should be an expert, and like what you're presenting on is a fraction of your knowledge, so that like you have all your extra knowledge to answer the questions.

Andrei Alexandrescu (Clip)

Make sure you have the competence, no competence, no talk. I'm not I'm very I'm not kidding. Very serious. Study related work, be able to defend in a claim in a court of law everything, every single word you say. Be able to talk to someone whose life is that topic, all right, who sleeps, eats, and showers, and you know, everything is that one topic that you touch in in passing, okay? So you should be able to have a conversation with them. What you teach should be only a small fraction of what you know. Never teach everything you know, you can't teach everything you know. You teach a little what you know, and then the questions are gonna take you to the other 80% of things that you know.

Conor

I could I vehemently disagree with that so much because when I started giving my talks, I was talking about like 120% of what I knew, like 20% of the stuff I was talking about, I wasn't even an expert on. And like the people in the room would be pointing things out, and like I would give answers, but like looking back on it, like I hadn't even fully crystallized my actual thoughts about like what I was answering. And I just think I think it's it's such such a terrible thing to like tell your community, make sure that you go learn 10 times as much knowledge as you're gonna present so that like you can represent yourself well. Where I'm just like, no, like everyone at every level should be making content because there's someone that is like a poor version at like level five of like 20 levels is gonna be what the person at level four needs. And the person at level 20 isn't gonna be able to speak to the person at level four. And sure, maybe the person at level five messes up a couple things, but like anyways, I just like I have very strong feelings about like you know, it's it's kind of like gatekeeping. Like, you know, if if I had heard that early on, if it hadn't been for Bryce, basic basically Bryce like twisted my arm because my goal was to give my talk at a meetup and then get it accepted at CPPCon. He saw the talk, which was my goal. I was like, I need either John Cobb or Bryce to see my talk, and then like that'll help me get accepted. And then Bryce was like, you have to present this at C now. And I had been listening to the podcast and I was like, uh, I know what C now is, it's a conference for experts. Like, I'm not even I don't even think I would be like I would fit in as an attendee, let alone a speaker. Like, this is a a fluffy talk that, like, sure touches on some stuff that I think is important, but like compared to Louis Dion's like template metaprogramming parts one and two, I'm like, I don't fit in. And um and like that was the feedback as well. Like at C now, all my feedback was like, no. And then I think it's basically because like Bryce was on the committee that like he kind of pushed my talk through, anyways. The point being is like that is true, yeah. Um, I'm sure there's like a handful of people that like would fit in a circle that includes the three of us, like like very well, and they'd fit right in, but they're just like terrified of getting up on stage because of the reputation that C has.

Zach Laine

That it's just like well, one of the things I'm I'm always I always want us to do at the conference, and honestly, it's just because I I cannot get up early in the morning. I just it it kills me. And me and Tony Vanier are always in the bar until four in the morning talking about something, right? And so, like, what I want to do the first day of that conference, and I think every conference should do this, I think your conference should do this. The first day, one of the things you should say to the orientation crowd, right? Hey, if it's the first time you're at the conference, here's some ground rules. Ground rule number one if you see a group of people that's going to lunch, you're part of the group of people. Just go get into the group and just go with them to lunch. Don't ask, don't make it awkward, just go with them to lunch. If it turns out that they're doing something specific and you're not welcome, it will come up, right? But just make the going in default that I'm just part of the crowd. And just doing that, you become part of the crowd. And and the thing is that like people aren't going to invite you to come with them, but they also aren't going to be bummed that you're there, right? If you're brand new and they don't know you. You know what I mean? Like people, people can be like more immediately part of the part of the crowd, a part of the the the uh the community, um, if they just sort of like do a lot of things that only work at at conferences, like just insinuating yourself into lunch plans, right? Um, and and and they don't they don't realize that that's not an insinuation, um, that that's not a you know, yeah.

Conor

That's hard, that's hard advice to for like new people. Because I remember at C now, it was so easy because I had lit I had seen like 200 talks at that point, and it was like you run into Marshall, and I'm like, Oh my god, I've seen every single one of your talks. My favorite one was this one where you were talking about the algorithms and the blah blah blah. And then he's like, Oh, really? And then you find out that his wife's from Canada or something, and anyway, it's so easy. But like when I was at PLDI, um, I still was fine going around there. Like I ran into Doug Greger and stuff, but there's definitely like circles where people are talking about stuff that's just like way over my head, you know, about like dependently typed, you know, Egda, you know, or or the new extensions to some textbook or paper. And I'm just like, I can sort of walk into that circle and like nod my head, but it is like it is very intimidating, even for someone that's like I'm pretty comfortable around people, like to go and like self-imm, it's yeah, it's it's very uh so this is the thing.

Zach Laine

Like, I I that same thing happened to me when I was at um uh at uh C now the very first year. Like I was at a table with like Doug Greger, Dave Abraham, Sean Parent, Howard Hennett, and a couple of other like heavy hitters, and it was me who had been writing code for like 24 months, right? And I'm just like I'm just like you know, I'm just eating and watching, and I'm like, this is amazing. I don't have anything to contribute, but this is amazing, right? And so I think that you can, even if you're even if that's your situation, that you can learn a lot from just being a fly on the wall in those conversations, and lots of times you will have things to add and and you won't realize it until you get there. So um I think that's fine. But I remember like the first couple of years I was in C now, I was a little bit lonely because I didn't really know anybody, and I was like a little too bashful to go insinuate myself into someone else's lunch plans or whatever. So uh, but but I think that there's there's nothing wrong with doing that, and I think that people embrace it when you do it, and the fact that people don't know that when they first attend, that's that's the thing I'm trying to overcome. Yeah, I think that'd be nice. Yeah, anyways, it is true.

Bryce

I I I uh I really got around, unfortunately.

Conor

Okay, we are at the three-hour mark.

Bryce

Uh yeah, uh it's been great though. Thank you so much for coming on, Zach.

Conor

Yeah, thanks for coming on, Zach. We'll and we will have well, we'll have to have you back because I feel like we didn't even talk about like half of the stuff, like we didn't talk about cadence, which I meant to bring that up as well because came up in Chip Wars, Cadence Synopsis, and one other company, anyways. But we got we got boost libraries, we got Austin to talk about barbecue. Yeah, we got Cadence to talk about. But until next time. And uh sounds good. All right, see you guys later. Thanks. Have a good one. Bye. As always, you can find links for any of the stuff that we talked about in today's episode in the show notes, as well as a link to a GitHub discussion for any comments and questions you might have. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed and have a great day.