Bryce

How do you pronounce that name right there? Taplitzki. One more time. Taplitzki. Okay.

Richard Feldman

That is uh Okay. Thank you, Ramona. Well, it's official. Well thank you, dude. I'll I'll let Evan know he needs to he needs to uh he needs to update it to that.

Conor

Uh welcome to ADSP the podcast, episode 156, recorded on November 13th, 2023. My name is Connor, and today with my co-host Bryce, we interview Richard Feldman, creator of the brand new rock programming language and host of the Software Unscripted Podcast. In today's episode, we chat with him about the last edition of the Strange Loop Conference, virtual versus in-person conferences, and more.

Bryce

Richard, can I ask, are have you been like, you seem to be in a closet? Is is everything okay? Yeah.

Richard Feldman

Are you safe? This is this is my recording studio. Doesn't everybody's look like this? I used to record from a closet, so you know. Yeah. Oh, so what happened was uh I was on a podcast once and uh the the room I'm normally in has like an air conditioner unit next to it and it turned on and someone's like, what is that horrible loud noise? And I was like, Oh, sorry. And they're like, Well, do you have any place you could go that's like just you know, small space, nothing, and this is like the the place. And they're like, Oh, the audio quality is great in here. You should you should always record from here. So I was like, ah, cool. So now I always record from here. Makes sense. Bryce doesn't know much about audio quality, so uh No.

Bryce

But I I do know that air conditioned are bad from the one time that I recorded half of a talk, um, and not like the first half of the last half, like, you know, some slides with the AC on, some slides with the AC off, and then later realized my mistake and had to go through and re-record all of the AC slides.

Conor

Yeah. Alright, well, as per ush, we've we've dove we've dove. I don't know if that's the right tense of that word, but we're gonna we're gonna stay stick with it. So I will give a brief introduction. We've mentioned him several times on the podcast before in the context on the context of typically bringing up rock, um, which is obviously Richards, for those that are in the know, uh, Richards programming language. Uh, but actually, do you still work for No Red Inc.?

Richard Feldman

Uh, not as of uh April. So now I work at vendor V-E-N-D-R.

Conor

Okay, I think I recall that because I recall in a talk you mentioned that you were, I think, switching companies, and part of that was basically you were going to be working, if not full-time on rock, you were gonna be spending a large percentage of your time working on rock there. Yes. So works at Vendor now, and there was a yes there that I may or may not have just cut off. But uh, I mean, before working at Vendor, you worked at NoRed Inc., which is probably because of the sort of evangelism that you do, giving talks about functional programming, one of the most well-known uh Elm shops. And you have a podcast now that's been going on for I think 60 or 70 episodes, software unscripted, and you've given, as I just mentioned, a bunch of very highly regarded and highly viewed talks. My personal favorite, I think because we were chatting about this a week ago, uh, my favorite is why functional programming isn't the norm, and it's got about like a million and a half views on YouTube. So link will be in the show notes if you want to go and check that out. Yeah, I mean, uh I mean, lots of stuff we can talk about today. I think we're gonna spend a little bit of time chatting about the last edition of Strange Loop because I happen to know that you were at that installation, and I think you've been at a number of those installations.

Richard Feldman

Yeah, almost all of them.

Conor

Almost all of them. Yeah. Well, let's let's just and we'll and and don't worry, listener, we will get to rock that's ROC, cutting edge, nascent programming language. We love programming languages on this podcast. And we even love more the you know, the nascent in there, you know, adolescence. I don't know if you would say it's in its adolescence, but carbon, hilo. We love all the languages that aren't even languages yet. I think carb I think uh rock is a lot further. But before we get to rock, uh if you want to add anything to that off-the-cuff introduction, and then maybe we can chat a bit about all the times you've been to Strange Loop and how the last one was, I'll throw it over to you and we can go from there.

Richard Feldman

Yeah, well, thanks. That was uh that was a lovely introduction. Um Yeah, we can talk about Strange Loop. So I uh I used to live in St. Louis when the first Strange Loop happened. So I've been to the well, almost all of them. I think I went to 10 of them out of the 12 that there were. I missed two. Like the first one I missed because I just moved out of St. Louis and it seemed silly to fly back after I'd just left. And the second one, my son was gonna be born like right around there, so that was that was not gonna work. Wife wouldn't let you wife wife wouldn't let you go. Uh well that wasn't even a conversation. I wasn't like, hey, do you think it'd be all right? Like, no, it's just like that's not I mean because it was like you know, the due date was around then, so you know it might have worked out, but might have extremely not worked out, so I didn't feel like rolling the dice on that one.

Conor

Having a conversation with Rich Hickey. Ooh, my wife just uh hang on, I gotta I gotta go because I am a dad now. Understandable.

Richard Feldman

Um yeah, Strange Loop's really great. I'm gonna miss it. Uh I don't know what what what do you want to chat about, Strange Loop-wise?

Conor

I mean, so I was thinking about going to the last one. It was just at the tail. So it is, you know, middle of November right now. This took place, I think it was the second last week, or maybe the last week of uh September, so just like roughly two months ago. And I think it was because I had a wedding at the beginning of the month and I was gonna be uh on the other side of the world for a couple weeks that I decided not to go. But I've just seen so many good talks over the years. I mean, I think back in the day, Strange Loop used to have a track called the Emerging Programming Languages track, which I don't think they had, you know, the last couple years, but like you can go and find some talks of like languages that are actually kind of, you know, I wouldn't say mainstream, but like pretty popular and have like big user bases that back then were a lot smaller. So, anyways, I'm I'm just curious, like, how was how was you know this last version? I've seen a bunch of the talks. Uh, we'll link some of my favorites. I mean, uh Evan, I can never pronounce his last name.

Richard Feldman

It's uh so he pronounces it Chaplicky. I okay, I I have a funny story about that though. So the the first time I met Evan, so so Evan created Elm. Uh, and so I was living in San Francisco, so was he. I had just started trying out this language based on a blog post, and I really, really liked it, and I found out that he also lived in San Francisco, and I was like, oh, let me just like DM him on Twitter and just see if like, hey, you know, I'd like love to just like grab lunch with you, and I really like your language. So I I met him in person. I asked him that same question. I was like, so how how are you supposed to pronounce your last name? And he's like, I'm not sure. I was like, what? Of all the answers I could have gotten, I was not expecting that one. And so he said, Well, apparently, like if you're Polish, which is where the name comes from, they would say like Cziplitski. And he just recently discovered this, and he's like, But I always grew up, my parents always said Cziplicki, so I'm not sure like what's correct, like what's more correct, but uh after some, you know, he's like, I'm just gonna stick with it.

Bryce

How is this how is this name spelled?

Richard Feldman

C-Z-A-P-L-I-C.

Bryce

C-Z-A-P. C-P? Yeah. I C. C-Z A-P-I-C.

Conor

Uh there's an I at the end there. Oh, so here's what Bryce is doing. His girlfriend is Polish.

Bryce

Let me put it in the chat.

Richard Feldman

Okay.

Bryce

Put it in the chat.

Conor

This is a first. This is a first. I don't know if Ramona has actually her voice has ever been on the podcast. A lot of the times Bryce will refer to Ramona. Um, but I think um Evan Chaplicki. So that's that's from what Evan has said, but now we're gonna get sweetie.

Bryce

We uh we need your skills. How do you pronounce that name right there?

Richard Feldman

Okay.

Bryce

One more time. Chaplitzki. Okay. That is uh that is the answer.

Richard Feldman

Okay. Thank you, Ramona. Well, it's official. Well thank you, dear. I'll I'll let Evan know he needs to he needs to uh he needs to update it to that.

Conor

Well, I mean you did say that his he discovered that the Polish pronunciation that's it sounds very similar to what that was right there. So um I mean technically I think that's very common though, is that the Anglo, you know, pronunciation of a lot of last names is not you know accurate to whatever you know it actually like I think technically my last name we pronounce it hookstra, but in Dutch it's much different. Not even an attempt to try and say it. But um so I you know, whenever someone said like I think my principal he called me hoxtra, and I was like, well, I know that's wrong, but like I'm also probably saying it wrong, so it's like it's not a big deal.

Richard Feldman

Right. It's it's a I think it's a very American thing to insist that other people mispronounce things the way we mispronounce them. It's like this is not the official pronunciation, but you know what? Now you need to pronounce it our way.

Conor

Yes, that is uh very, very uh a Western kind of thing. Anyways, lots of great talks. One was given by Evan, and I don't think he had given one in a while. So I mean I saw some comments on it that said, oh, you know, finally Evan has come out of the woodworks, and uh another great talk from him because he's given a lot of uh good ones in the past. So, anyways, just like overall thoughts, how was the last one? Any, you know, of your talks that you've or talk talks that you saw that you thought were great, or you know, and and just sort of, you know, I because I listened to a ton of podcasts, and I don't think any of them really did like a strange loop recap. So we don't need to do like a full-blown recap, but I was expecting some of the functional podcasts to like mention that, oh, it was the last one, and here's some good talks you should go watch. So that's that's my attempt here. Uh to get, you know, a review from someone was there.

Richard Feldman

Well, so I mean, functional-wise, I mean the the two main presenters, at least that I remember offhand, that gave uh talks who are sort of in the functional community would be Evan, of course, and then also David Nolan, who's uh been like the lead for Closure Script for a long time. Um, but his talk, like neither of their talks were about functional programming. I mean, Evan's was about uh the like funding models for open source programming languages, and David's was about Go. So like the sorry, not the language. Uh yeah, yeah, the board game. Um and uh there may have been some others that I'm not remembering, but I guess the reason that those stuck out at me is um kind of my plan because it was the last Strange Loop was I mainly just wanted to see a lot of people that I'm I know I'm not gonna get to see in person, you know, uh for maybe a long time because we won't have Strange Loop every year, which is like normally when I would catch up with them. So I I hardway track hallway tracked very hard at that conference. Um I and that wasn't hard to do because I mean basically actually, even before I got to the venue, like when I was in the hotel lobby about to walk over, I just started recognizing people and like saying, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and just like talking to people and catching up, and then like we walked over and they ran into more people and started catching up with them. And it was pretty much non-stop like talking to people and catching up and you know, seeing what people are up to for most of the first day. Uh, and then I I guess I went to a couple of talks. Um but I mean for me that was the sort of the main experience of the conference. So I guess if you're looking for um there was a really cool art installation uh also by a friend of mine, uh or he he made it with one other person, uh Charles Comstock. Shout out to Charles. Uh he made um it's like the Strange Loop Infinity logo, and he basically set it up so that it had all of these LEDs inside that you could programmatically control. They had like a little laptop and also a little MIDI keyboard so you could like play things and see in real time the like the LEDs change and try putting in little algorithms and make it animate so that um you could make like color patterns or uh or or try to get like some design to go around the loops. It's really cool. But overall, I mean uh I I I hate to disappoint, but I you know, if I was going to talk about a talk that really blew my mind, it was um, I mean, Evan's talk was my favorite one, but I I didn't watch very many of the talks because I was so busy talking to people.

Conor

I mean, that checks out. There's there's many conferences that I've been to where there's, you know, I have a talk schedule, and then you find yourself talking to insert person that you do not live in the same city with, and you are not going to have the opportunity to continue whatever conversation that you're having. And so, I mean, half half the times you end up just being like, Do you want to go grab a bite to eat somewhere? And then your you know, 15-minute hallway conversation turns into a three-hour, you know, lunch or dinner, which then extends into like other people joining you. I mean, Bryce Bryce and I were at a conference in the UK in June, and that's what happened like half the time. Uh, where like literally I was just like, Well, and that's the thing, is you know the talks are gonna be online, right? So if you are worried of missing something, like it's not actually gonna be the talk, it's gonna be still for the people, not the talk. Yeah.

Richard Feldman

Um yeah, well, uh there's definitely certain reasons that I'll go to a talk. Like one is if I if I'm friends with the speaker, I'll always go just to sort of you know show support. Um but also um if I want to ask the speaker a question, um, I'll go. Like if I or or I maybe anticipate that I might want to ask a question based on you know the the content of the talk, um, then I'll go because of course you can't do that online, it's like too late. But uh like that is if you're watching it later. And then maybe if I'm thinking that this is going to be uh a talk that a lot of people are gonna be talking about at the conference, then I want to go just kind of to have the context. So, you know, that's there's an element of watching a talk that's kind of reminds me of watching a movie in a movie theater with a group of friends, which is that partly it's to go and get the experience of seeing it in person, you know, in the theater, which is kind of different than watching it at home. And I would say it's even more true of seeing like a you know concert in person or seeing a talk in person. Um, but even beyond that, it's like you walk out of the theater together and you're all talking about what you just saw together at the same time, and there's some element to that too. For that's like another reason that I would potentially watch a talk. Yeah, but other than that, like I'm definitely of the same mind. Like the thing that's irreplaceable is the person-to-person face-to-face contact. And I think that's kind of why for me, I've tried to do some online conferences, but I just really have not gotten into them. Like, in-person is is really kind of uh the main selling point to me of a conference, is that seeing people in person and talking to them and the conversations that happen seem to be just on a totally different level in terms of quality.

Conor

Yeah, I I I'm pretty sure Bryce, and I have like conflicted feelings because I I watched Alex Miller's talk, who, for those that are not once again in the know, Alex is the individual that has been organizing Strange Loop since the beginning, and it's his basically uh baby. And he gave a talk on kind of the reasons on why he was ending it, and one like there was many, uh, but one of them was like the um carbon footprint of like there's obviously a huge cost on the environment when you're getting a bunch of people that live around the globe uh to fly in somewhere. And I also like, you know, whenever I can, like if if I have the ability to not fly somewhere, uh I will I will not fly. Um but a lot of times if you're going to, you know, the UK or you're going somewhere, you're not, you know, the the flying is the only option. And I like I wish that virtual conferences, you know, even if they have like 50% of that, like the like you said, like the level of conversation that you have, it's just on an entirely and it's I don't even think it's just the conversation. It is the chance encounters and like the ability to walk up to like, you know, the Pac-Man circles and join conversations or and the, you know, if whether it's out having dinner or there's some social afterwards, whether, you know, there's drinks involved. Like I was at a conference back in October um at this uh like conference retreat center at Syracuse University in the middle of nowhere in the Adirondacks, and you had to drive like you know, three hours from the closest city to get there. And it was just like unbelievable the like because you're basically it's a single track conference over two or three days, and everyone's together eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner because the whole thing's catered, because you're in the middle of nowhere, and just like the conversation that you end up happening, it's just like I have not gotten anywhere close in like a virtual conference or in like a Zoom Teams meeting, and it's like this di or juxtaposition or dichotomy of like, on one hand, I wish we could, you know, harm the environment less by flying around, but on at the same time, like I've never been to a virtual conference where like those kinds of chance encounters and experiences have even come close to like being replicated. And I I don't have a solution, I don't know what to do. I just uh I completely agree with you that like those kinds of conversations that like, and it's not even just like a 50-minute thing. It's like it happens over the conference. You'll start chatting about something on Monday, and then on Wednesday, you'll have some idea and then you'll circle back to it. And anyways, uh I'm not sure if you have grand thoughts or solutions if there's gonna be a rock conference in the future. I mean, oh, you gotta think about what you're gonna call that.

Richard Feldman

Uh you're talking about talking about uh Rock and Hall uh Hall of Fame or Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Uh I mean I I certainly hope that there will be a rock conference in the future, but I also I don't think I would be the one to organize it. That seems like A, something that's it's better if it's community organized anyway. Um but B, I I don't think I would do well as a conference organizer. I'll give a talk.

Bryce

It's uh it's a thankless, a thankless profession.

Richard Feldman

And and really hard. And yeah, that has a requires a skill set that uh I I don't think overlaps with my skill set a whole lot. Yeah.

Bryce

I I mean I I I would say I'm I'm torn on the the in-person versus remote because um uh certain there have been certain groups that I've worked with who were very uh resistant to remote work during the pandemic. Um C committee, of course, being one of them, but there are a few others. Um I'd love to just be able to declare like that's nonsense, like we can we can you know we can we can do the same work uh virtually that we can do in person. Um I think that's probably gonna be true. Um at the very least, you can do the work part remotely, but you can't do the social and political part of the job remotely. And um a reality that I think very few people um recognize exactly in tech is that every job every in every career, every profession, um there are like interpersonal interactions matter, um community matters, and there's gonna be politics, and that's gonna matter too. And so because of all those aspects, the the obvious social benefit of uh being face-to-face with people, um I think is important. And but I mean I think in in today's age, that means really that if we're meeting face to face, probably one of the primary reasons to meet face to face is to build those connections and to socialize for people to get to know each other um uh to collaborate, not necessarily to um to actually do work. There are certain types of work that I think work better in a synchronous face-to-face environment, but there's other things that just or are naturally a better fit for something asynchronous. Like if you just need need one person's like opinion or review of something, um like send them an email and let them reply to that email.

Conor

Yeah, I agree. Um I'm lost. Are you it sounds like you're half advocating for committee meetings? And I thought we were both like we they just had the committee meeting in Hawaii, seems necessary.

Bryce

Yeah. Hey, I'm I'm I'm the bad I'm the bad guy who wrote who like like actually protested us having a meeting in Hawaii.

Conor

I mean, you're the bad guy for the folks that want to keep going to Hawaii, but you're the good guy if you think it should be unnecessary to convene in Hawaii in order to evolve the language and library. I'll actually I'll and and I'll um uh if I can find it.

Richard Feldman

Uh I'm guessing Hawaii wasn't the midpoint of everyone's location.

Bryce

No.

Conor

Yeah, and it's just like it it lat it while you're looking for that, Bryce, it seems comical that like all the other languages, you know, Rock, Swift, Rust, etc., they're doing GitHub, asynchronous, you know, they seem to be doing just fine. And C is struggling, I'd say. And then they go to Hawaii, and then out of Hawaii, there's all these reports, wow, we're making progress on reflection, we're making progress on contracts, and it's like, oh, that's what was missing, a Hawaii meeting. You just people need to be motivated. Um, and it's just like, of all the places, Hawaii, like that's inconvenient for like Americans to get to, let alone like people around the world. Like, why and it just I don't want to say that there's, you know, whatever, some evil conspiracy or whatever, but it just seems like of all the places that you could convene to do committee work, even if you're trying to rotate it from like Europe to America, etc., like Hawaii's doesn't make the short list of places that's like good for the environment, easy for people to get to, you know, time zone makes sense for people that want to tune in virtually for some sort of meeting. Um, but you know, hey, you know, I haven't been to Hawaii, so maybe if I had been there, then I'd feel differently and I'd be like, you know what? It's that uh that summer breeze and perfect weather. I'd never I'd never had such clear thoughts and mental acuity in my life.

Bryce

I I will I will read the uh the email that I sent uh to the C Post Post Committee. Um the email reads. Nvidia believes it is inappropriate to hold professional events like C committee meetings and vacation destinations such as Kona, which is why we voted now on the Insights C motion to host the 2023 November meeting in Kona. We have the following specific objections to Kono. Number one, meeting vacation destinations makes it harder for attendees to justify travel to their management and convince them that C community meetings are a professional environment where we focus on doing work, not having fun. Number two, it is a remote destination that is difficult and expensive to travel to. Number three, lodging and dining options are expensive and limited in diversity. Number four, it is in an inopportune time zone, UTC minus 10, that is punishing for remote attendees, as it is a few time zones away from any major population centers. That's my basic objective. I mean, all ultimately what it fundamentally comes down to to me is that um I don't think that uh there's certain aspects of a tourist destination that I think make it bad fit for a professional um uh event, even if it's like socializing. Um, even if the main purpose of the event is to socialize. Like I'm thinking places like Las Vegas, um uh Orlando, um, or you know, Hawaii too. Um, one, it's gonna be a lot more expensive because there's a ton of other, you know, uh uh tours.

Conor

Uh they got a lot of conference centers.

Bryce

And there are a bunch of conferences that are that are held there. But um but also it's like you know, you you pick a hotel for your you pick a venue space, and in these tourist destinations, those hotels and venue spaces, their primary market is not you know, people traveling for work. Um it's people traveling for fun. Um, you know, we that that Kona committee meeting, um, for many years we stayed at this one hotel, the Royal Kona Hotel. And um uh the reason that we switched hotels was that one year uh NVIDIA, which at the time chaired to had uh people who chaired two different subgroups, we basically told the committee, hey, um this hotel is so bad that our we're we NVIDIA will pay to have rooms at another hotel and we're gonna host, we're gonna hold our study groups there, and the rest of you can stay at the this hotel, but we're leaving. Like, we understand you have a contract and you have to stay at the bad hotel, but we're not gonna be there. And the committee uh eventually decided to break their contract with the other hotel. And like, what was wrong with the other hotel? Well, um one of the meeting rooms that we was given, we were given was literally outside um with such bad noise pollution from everything around that you had to use like a loudspeaker to be able to be heard. And then there was there was at one point there were two different groups that had to meet next to each other in an outdoor room, and so you would hear everything that the people next to you would be saying. Um then there there were like some some normal hotel problems like mold in some other rooms, stuff like that. But then also every time we would be there, there would be at least one, maybe two weddings. Um, and so you'd have people who spent 10, 12 hours working or socializing and interacting and want to go to bed at a normal hour, and there would be some crazy, you know, wedding party or other thing going on. Um I would much rather, if we're gonna have these sorts of gatherings, I'd much rather have them in um places that are more uh where where their market is more you know professional events or professional retreats. Um, you know, that if you if you want to have your conference in uh you know a nice, beautiful destination, there's a ton of good places for that that I think are less objectionable than than Hawaii. Um I would even argue, you know, Connor and I go to a conference in Aspen every year. I would even argue that that Aspen's better.

Conor

It's not I I haven't been to Aspen. I only went there once back in 2019. I've been back since.

Bryce

But um, you know, even Aspen's a little bit harder to to access, but it is near a major airport. It is in a major time zone. Um it's nice and quiet when we're there. Um good professional venues. Um it's like a good place for a retreat when you want to get away from people. Like the environment where you're gonna hold an event, I think, really does um matter a lot. Um and uh uh when you when you hold your event in Hawaii, that that sends a pretty strong signal.

Conor

Alright, so before we transition uh to chatting about rock here, because we're coming in at the 30-minute mark, which is we usually dice these up into 30-minute episodes. In 60 seconds or less, why is this meeting still happening? Like you you wrote the committee, protested.

Bryce

Well, uh okay, so I'm sorry, I didn't read you the last sentence of the email that I sent. Uh we which is that I basically said we recognize that it is impractical to move the 2023 uh November meeting because contracts have already been signed, people have already booked travel, etc. This objection we made like six months, a year before the meeting, and then six months before the meeting. But uh we we voted no just to express our objection and to discourage future future meetings in vacation destinations. All right, so basically we'll see in two years if they uh stay tuned. The TLDR of uh of NVIDIA's position is that uh the C committee should be no fun. Um uh sorry, like uh, but uh no fun.

Conor

I mean, think I think your enumeration of points had nothing to do with fun. It had to do with inconvenience cost and uh appropriate locations for you know being able to be productive. And I'm sure if you asked all the people that get to go to Hawaii once every two years, they'd say, you know, I'm at my maximum productivity. It's a great place to, you know, relax after a long day of work. But uh I'm sure, you know, that's just because people like going, like having uh company paid trips to Hawaii is probably what it is. Anyway, so if you do end up having, I mean, I don't think uh rock is gonna go the way of committee meetings, but if you do, Richard, uh, you know, I'd steer clear of Hawaii. Otherwise, ADSP the podcast will come after you just as hard as the C committee. Um speaking of which, and of oh yeah, also too, this is I think technically gonna be episode 156 that just wrapped, which is our three-year anniversary. So, I mean, once a year, we usually ask folks, you know, you don't actually have to go give us a rating. I was just on Spotify the other day and I saw we had a 4.6 out of five stars, which off of 86 ratings, which I think is pretty good, you know. We'd love to be 4.7 though. Um, but also if you don't like us and you listen, feel free to go whatever, you know. I hate podcasts that say, go leave us five stars. It's like, well, what if what if you don't think it's a five star podcast, you know? So you leave whatever you think. And if you don't want to rate, uh, that's fine too. So thanks for listening. We will do some three-year anniversary special, probably with Sean Parent, because he has some thoughts about our last couple episodes. Be sure to check these show notes either in your podcast app or at adspthepodcast.com for links to any of the things that we mentioned in today's episode, as well as a link to a GitHub discussion where you can leave thoughts, comments, and questions. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed and have a great day.

Bryce

Low quality, high quality. That is the tagline of our podcast.

Conor

That's not the tagline. Our tagline is chaos with sprinkles of information.