Programming Throwdown

Patrick Wheeler and Jason Gauci
  • 4.6 (552)
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  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Programming Throwdown educates Computer Scientists and Software Engineers on a cavalcade of programming and tech topics. Every show will cover a new programming language, so listeners will be able to speak intelligently about any programming language.

  1. 182: AI Assisted Coding

    JUN 30

    182: AI Assisted Coding

    Intro topic: Getting an entry-level job News/Links: Mario Kart 64 Fully Decompiledhttps://gbatemp.net/threads/mario-kart-64-decompilation-project-reaches-100-completion.671104/Q-Learning is not yet scalablehttps://seohong.me/blog/q-learning-is-not-yet-scalable/Grover’s Algorithmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQWpF2Gb-gU&vl=enOrangePi has a RISC-V SBChttps://linuxgizmos.com/orangepi-rv2-a-cost-effective-risc-v-board-with-m-2-2280-slot-and-dual-gigabit-ethernet/Book of the Show PatrickThe Will of the Many (James Islington)https://amzn.to/44DznszJasonThe Intelligence Traphttps://amzn.to/3TqoKCB Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick Pokemon Odysseyhttps://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/comments/1l9zdta/pok%C3%A9mon_odyssey_final_release/JasonNetflix Gameshttps://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6891422865930303475&hl=en_US Topic:  WhySpeed up developmentCatch errors faster than type checking/compilingWriting tedious boilerplate codeAsk questions and learn local informationLook good for hiring managersHowExtensions for VSCode & other IDEs for inline suggestionsChat with a selection/fileCommand-line Tools run at the root directoryLocal vs CloudExamplesCopilot (VSCode extension)Use the experimental modeCursor (Custom IDE)Jumps to suggest changes in other placesSimilar to copilot experimental modeRooCode (VSCode extension) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 38m
  2. 181: Memory Management

    MAY 12

    181: Memory Management

    Intro topic: Video Game Prices News/Links: Step one: Jump in the Lava - Abyssofthttps://youtu.be/WdadpHLAfdA?si=oXYnhB0EdkR_RaPEScalable world models for continuous controlhttps://www.tdmpc2.com/Clever code is probably the worst code you could write - Engineer’s Codexhttps://read.engineerscodex.com/p/clever-code-is-probably-the-worstA new, open source text-to-speech model called Dia has arrived to challenge ElevenLabs, OpenAI and morehttps://venturebeat.com/ai/a-new-open-source-text-to-speech-model-called-dia-has-arrived-to-challenge-elevenlabs-openai-and-more/ Book of the Show PatrickThe Muscle Ladder - Jeff Nippardhttps://amzn.to/44DznszJasonMetaphysics of Warhttps://amzn.to/4jMjvZ5 Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show PatrickPokemon Trading Card Game PocketJasonPhi-4https://huggingface.co/spaces/microsoft/phi-4-multimodal Topic: Memory Management MotivationAvoid thrashing / crashesAllocate resources efficientlyKeep high uptimeWhereOS LevelHeap managementVirtual MemoryLanguage/Compiler LevelCppGarbage collectionOwnershipToolsInstrumentationExport to Datadog / GrafanaPython: psutil & tracemallocValgrindWhat to do when your program uses too much memory?Reduce data sizesCompressionReferencesLazy initializerGenerators & Back PressureRing buffersArena allocatorsDisk based caching ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 46m
  3. 180: Reinforcement Learning

    MAR 17

    180: Reinforcement Learning

    Intro topic: Grills News/Links: You can’t call yourself a senior until you’ve worked on a legacy projecthttps://www.infobip.com/developers/blog/seniors-working-on-a-legacy-projectRecraft might be the most powerful AI image platform I’ve ever used — here’s whyhttps://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/recraft-might-be-the-most-powerful-ai-image-platform-ive-ever-used-heres-whyNASA has a list of 10 rules for software developmenthttps://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/cosc345/resources/nasa-10-rules.htmAMD Radeon RX 9070 XT performance estimates leaked: 42% to 66% faster than Radeon RX 7900 GREhttps://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/amd-estimates-of-radeon-rx-9070-xt-performance-leaked-42-percent-66-percent-faster-than-radeon-rx-7900-gre  Book of the Show Patrick: The Player of Games (Ian M Banks)https://a.co/d/1ZpUhGl (non-affiliate)Jason: Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Enginehttps://amzn.to/3ES4p5i Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Pokemon Sword and ShieldJason: Features and Labels ( https://fal.ai ) Topic: Reinforcement Learning Three types of AISupervised LearningUnsupervised LearningReinforcement LearningOnline vs Offline RLOptimization algorithmsValue optimizationSARSAQ-LearningPolicy optimizationPolicy GradientsActor-CriticProximal Policy OptimizationValue vs Policy OptimizationValue optimization is more intuitive (Value loss)Policy optimization is less intuitive at first (policy gradients)Converting values to policies in deep learning is difficultImitation LearningSupervised policy learningOften used to bootstrap reinforcement learningPolicy EvaluationPropensity scoring versus model-basedChallenges to training RL modelTwo optimization loopsCollecting feedback vs updating the modelDifficult optimization targetPolicy evaluationRLHF &  GRPO ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 52m
  4. 179: Project Planning

    FEB 3

    179: Project Planning

    Intro topic: Lego event space & retail store: https://www.instagram.com/bambeecave  News/Links: StackOverflow Question Count Going Down https://gist.github.com/hopeseekr/f522e380e35745bd5bdc3269a9f0b132DeepSeek claims its ‘reasoning’ model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarkshttps://techcrunch.com/2025/01/20/deepseek-claims-its-reasoning-model-beats-openais-o1-on-certain-benchmarks/ Computer Science Papers Every Developer Should Readhttps://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/p/computer-science-papers-every-developerNvidia Cosmos - an AI platform to change the future of robots and cars - wins Best of CES 2025https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-signs-largest-car-maker-toyota-to-use-its-self-driving-tech/  Book of the Show Patrick: Alice’s Adventures in a differentiable wonderlandhttps://www.sscardapane.it/alice-book/Jason: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Hulu/Netflix/etc) Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Digseumhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3361470/Digseum/Jason: Sqlitedict - Python dictionaries saved to disk Topic: Project Planning and Management Why?Gathering feedbackIdentifying risksDeciding future headcountDocumenting / discovering dependenciesCritical pathScheduleReduce the bullwhip effectHow it worksSMART goalsspecific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-boundMT is most importantGantt ChartsScrumAgileKanbanToolsWhiteboard (the generic IRL one)Post it notesJIRAAsanaOpenProjectDealing with uncertaintyBufferingIssues with recursive paddingProject planning Post-Mortems ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 43m

  5. 12/03/2024

    178: Working from Home

    Intro topic: Smart homes News/Links: SpaceX Starship Flight Test Five / Sixhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIKI7y3DTXkShareDBhttps://github.com/share/sharedbOrion AR Glasseshttps://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/introducing-orion-our-first-true-augmented-reality-glasses/Blade and Sorcery 1.0 is outhttps://www.meta.com/experiences/blade-sorcery-nomad/2031826350263349/Book of the Show Patrick: The Book that Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrencehttps://amzn.to/4fry2XWJason: Masters of Doomhttps://amzn.to/3YxuD3c Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Balatrohttps://www.playbalatro.com/Jason: Cursor IDEhttps://www.cursor.com/Topic: Working from Home IntroBackground & WFH experiencesIs it Panacea?Realizing it works better for some than othersInternally MotivatedSchedulingCommunicationsHome SetupDedicated spaceHandling Non-work DistractionsKeyboards, Monitors, Music, … Desk related thingsThe specter of RTO ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 45m
  6. 177: Vector Databases

    11/04/2024

    177: Vector Databases

    Intro topic:  Buying a Car News/Links: Cognitive Load is what Mattershttps://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-loadDiffusion models are Real-Time Game Engineshttps://gamengen.github.io/Your Company Needs Junior Devshttps://softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/09/07/your-team-needs-juniorsSeamless Streaming / Fish Speech / LLaMA OmniSeamless: https://huggingface.co/facebook/seamless-streamingFish: https://github.com/fishaudio/fish-speech LLaMA Omni: https://github.com/ictnlp/LLaMA-Omni  Book of the Show Patrick: Thought Emporium Youtubehttps://youtu.be/8X1_HEJk2Hw?si=T8EaHul-QMahyUvQJason: Novel Mindshttps://www.novelminds.ai/ Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Escape Simulatorhttps://pinestudio.com/games/escape-simulator/Jason: Cursor IDEhttps://www.cursor.com/Topic: Vector Databases (~54 min) How computers represent data traditionallyASCII valuesRGB valuesHow traditional compression worksHuffman encoding (tree structure)Lossy example: Fourier Transform & store coefficientsHow embeddings are computedPairwise (contrastive) methodsForward models (self-supervised)Similarity metricsApproximate Nearest Neighbors (ANN)Sub-Linear ANNClusteringSpace Partitioning (e.g. K-D Trees)What a vector database doesPerform nearest-neighbors with many different similarity metricsStore the vectors and the data structures to support sub-linear ANNHandle updates, deletes, rebalancing/reclustering, backups/restoresExamplespgvector: a vector-database plugin for postgresWeaviate, Pinecone Milvus ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 28m
  7. 176: MLOps at SwampUp

    09/24/2024

    176: MLOps at SwampUp

    James Morse: Software Engineer at CiscoSystem Administrator to DevOpsDifference between DevOps and MLOpsGetting Started with DevOpsLuke Marsden: CEO of Helix MLHow to start a business at 15 years oldBTRFS vs ZFSMLOps: the intersection of software, DevOps and AIFine-tuning AI on the CloudSome advice for folks interested in ML OpsYuval Fernbach: CTO MLOps & JFrogStarting QwakGoing from a jupyter notebook to productionML Supply ChainGetting started in Machine LearningStephen Chin: VP of DevRel at Neo4JDeveloper Relations: The JobWhat is a Large Language Model?Knowledge graphs and the Linkage ModelHow to Use Graph databases in EnterpriseHow to get into ML Ops ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 59m
  8. 175: Resume Writing

    08/16/2024

    175: Resume Writing

    175: Resume Writing Intro topic:  DSLR Photography vs Camera Phone News/Links: Free Internet while flying by abusing edits to your profile namehttps://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/Making Animated Characters with AI Arthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSN76gb_Z28On 10x Engineershttps://stackoverflow.blog/2024/06/19/the-real-10x-developer-makes-their-whole-team-better/The Beauty and Challenges of AI-Generated Artistic Gymnasticshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwJIYj3hPAUBook of the Show Patrick: The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liuhttps://amzn.to/3xNEoRBJason: The Checklist Manifestohttps://amzn.to/3W2JjpM Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo Switch)https://amzn.to/3S9VJLfJason: Amazon Qhttps://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AmazonWebServices.amazon-q-vscode Topic: Resume Writing (Courtesy of Matthew C.) Why have a resume?Many jobs require it to get into the considerationToday many are screened for keywords automaticallyLog for future youWhat is a resume?One-page descriptionKey accomplishments & experiencesComparison to CVReferencesHow to write a good resume?Do’sInclude your github if it has good contributionsBe specific (dates, locations, skills)Isolate your specific contributionsBe accurate/honestBe conciseBe ready to discuss any point you have on the resumeList hobbies/activities/extracurricularsDon’tsHave mistakes (especially dates)Use images (most companies use text extraction)Use it as a design portfolioPut social qualities (e.gs. hard-working, motivated, friendly)Use fancy templates/toolsResourcesManager Tools: How to scan resumes https://www.manager-tools.com/2016/05/how-scan-resume-part-1 Google docsLatex/Lyx for CVsHow to think about your career and how it impacts your future resume writing (career planning)Technologies and architectures more than specifics of project detailsHow various choices may age over time ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

    1h 41m
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4.6
out of 5
552 Ratings

About

Programming Throwdown educates Computer Scientists and Software Engineers on a cavalcade of programming and tech topics. Every show will cover a new programming language, so listeners will be able to speak intelligently about any programming language.

Information

  • Creator
    Patrick Wheeler and Jason Gauci
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2025
  • Episodes
    183
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ℗ & © 2011 Programming Throwdown
  • Show Website
    Programming Throwdown

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