The Stack Overflow Podcast

Why can’t configuration be made simple? Apple is making it easier for users to repair their iPhones with used parts.Texas is swapping human graders for AI.Automattic (owner of WordPress) is acquiring Beeper for $125M.Silicon Valley or not, San Francisco’s train system still uses floppy disks. But don’t worry, an upgrade is coming—in 2030.Shoutout to Bite code, who earned a Stellar Question badge with How do I change the URI (URL) for a remote Git repository?.

Get started with MongoDB Atlas on Google Cloud today. Read more from the MongoDB DevRel team at the MongoDB Developer Center.Learn more about Google’s Gemini models. Shout out to thitemple for their Lifeboat-worthy answer to In TypeScript, how do I declare a function that returns a string type array?.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn. Shoutout to user1083266, who earned a Stellar Question badge with How to store image in SQLite database.

ICYMI: A backdoor in XZ, a popular open-source compression utility, highlights the risks of relying on open-source software maintained by small teams. Read more about the cyberattack here.Apple’s new LLM, Ferret, could help Siri understand the user interfaces of mobile displays, potentially expanding the capabilities of Apple’s digital assistant. Shoutout to Stack Overflow user cheese1756, who earned a Great Question badge by asking How do I ensure that whitespace is preserved in Markdown?.

Learn more about the potential of AI inference with OpenVINO Notebooks.Check out the previous podcast with Intel, where we talk with Raymond Lo about how hardware and software work together with AI.Connect with Ria on LinkedIn or GitHub. Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner Kevin, who showed what they know about TypeError; Must use key word argument or key function in Python 3.x.

A developer discovered a backdoor in XZ, a popular open-source compression utility. Read more about the cyberattack here.A Microsoft technical report pinpoints 54 attributes of great software engineers.A new report from The Economist lays out how AI is changing drug development.Are you sick of hearing about AI? What topics or technologies would you rather hear us talk about? Email us at podcast@stackoverflow.com or DM Ben here.

You can find Jessica on LinkedIn.We've published several posts, including this most recent one, about our attempt to shape an ethical approach to combining our community of knowledge and today's AI systems.Check out this blog post that details some of the work we did to build our data platform. Congrats to macfij on your lifeboat badge for answering the question: How can I do a CTRL + A and a CTRL + C?

DBRX, an open, general-purpose LLM created by Databricks, reportedly outperforms GPT-3.5 and is competitive with Gemini 1.0 Pro.Recent research found that large, complex LLMs use a simple mechanism to retrieve stored knowledge in response to a user prompt. These mechanisms can help researchers reveal what the model knows and potentially even correct false information it has stored.FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, whose downfall began in late 2022, was sentenced last week to 25 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud. Find Michael on LinkedIn.Find Cassidy on her website.Stack Overflow user Bucket received a well-deserved Lifeboat badge for rescuing How to calculate decimal(x, y) max value in SQL Server from an ocean of ignorance.Chapters (please note that these timestamps may not be exact): 00:00 Introduction and White Paper Discussion02:01 Long Context Windows and Retrieval Augmented Generation05:56 Models' Ability to Recall Relevant Information07:18 Models' Creativity and Thinking Outside the Box09:41 Advantages and Limitations of Models' Knowledge15:09 Databricks' Open Language Model22:25 Sam Bankman-Fried’s Sentence and the Effects on Crypto/Blockchain31:28 Closing Remarks and Lifeboat Badge

Small nations like Anguilla (.ai) and Tuvalu (.tv) are benefiting from their coveted domain names.The US government is suing Apple for violation of antitrust laws, which could have a huge impact on devs, end users, and the whole ecosystem. Reddit went public last week despite not being profitable since its launch in 2005.How can you give feedback on a poorly reviewed PR? The Software Engineering Stack Exchange has ideas.The four day work week is probably not the solution to our work-life balance problems.AI-powered software development tools like Devon show promise, but their impact on code quality and maintainability remains an open question.Shoutout to Robert, who earned a Lifeboat badge by explaining Square brackets in CSS.Chapters00:00 Introduction00:31 The Impact of Dot AI Domain Space01:07 Antitrust Cases Against Apple04:01 Vendor Lock-in and Apple's Ecosystem05:08 Issues with Infotainment Systems and Apple Play06:29 The Benefits and Challenges of a Four-Day Work Week08:03 Providing Feedback on a Badly Reviewed PR10:00 The Importance of Clear Expectations in Code Reviews11:40 The Potential of AI Tools in Development14:01 Reddit Going Public and the Future of Tech Companies15:29 AI Tool Devon and the Challenges of Operationalizing AI Projects21:22 Shoutout and Closing Remarks

To learn more about the signs that indicate you may be paying more for your cloud computing that you should, check out DoIT’s seven red flags guide. We’ve spoken with DoiT on the podcast before about LLM hallucinations and the security threats that LLMs open.DoiT’s sales pitch is simple: they provide technology and expertise to clients who want to use the cloud, free of charge, with the big cloud providers paying the bills.Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner  Sravan K Ghantasala for their answer to How to sort file lines in Bash?Find Joshua at joshuafox com.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Cloud Cost Control01:08 Joshua Fox's Background04:20 Understanding FinOps06:17 The Importance of Good Architecture08:18 Balancing Flexibility in Architecture10:04 Surprise Costs and Dealing with Them13:19 Bracing for Unexpected Cloud Costs25:41 The Future of Cloud Cost Optimization27:09 Closing Remarks

Cribl is a data management platform. Check out their sandbox or explore their products.Cribl Stream is their vendor-agnostic observability pipeline.If you’re new to the term, the observability pipeline is a crucial component of the cloud-native world.Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.Chapters00:00 Introduction and Background03:23 The Data Landscape and Generative AI06:08 Incumbents vs. Startups in the Data Space07:46 Challenges of Data Storage and Exfiltration09:38 Securing Large Warehouses of Data12:21 Data Quality and ETL Pipelines16:05 Measures of Data Quality for Gen AI22:04 Cribl’s Role in the Data and Observability Space26:20 The Pros and Cons of Richer Observability Monitoring28:11 Closing Remarks and Shoutout

GitClear is a developer-friendly code review tool that aims to deliver higher developer satisfaction and faster releases. Check out their blog or find them on GitHub.GitClear’s research focuses on how AI code-gen tools have impacted code quality (and not in a good way).Find Bill on LinkedIn.Chapters00:00 Introduction 00:30 Background of the Research06:09 Business Model of GitClear09:46 Copy Pasted Code10:26 Churn Code12:21 Code Readability14:12 Code Suggestions and Auto-Completion16:34 Drop in Moved Code23:18 Larger Token Windows26:31 Improving Gen AI28:46 Conclusion

Node.js® is an open-source JavaScript runtime environment.Deno is an open-source JavaScript, TypeScript, and WebAssembly runtime. Explore the quick start or check out Deno by example, a collection of annotated examples of how to use Deno.JSR is an open-source package registry for JavaScript and TypeScript.Keep up to date with Ryan on GitHub or his blog.Shoutout to Stack Overflow user Squadrons, who earned a Great Question badge by asking for a Pure javascript method to wrap content in a div.Chapters:00:00: Introduction and Background01:08: Creating Node.js05:00: JavaScript on the Server Side07:23: Impact of Node.js09:18: Edge Function System12:13: Protecting Against Malicious Use16:02: JSR: Alternative to NPM31:01: JSR and its Stage34:20: Future of JavaScript36:19: Closing and Shoutouts

AI shops are now releasing LLMs optimized for RAG. Turn a repo into a prompt for a long-context LLM.Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search and discovery tool.Good news for developers: Apple will not remove progressive web app support on iOS in the EU.Basil Bourque earned a Lifeboat badge by explaining How to get full name of month from date in Java 8 while formatting.

Stack Overflow has teamed up with Google Cloud to develop an API—Overflow API—to give Gemini, Google’s AI model, access to Stack Overflow knowledge communities. Learn how Ryan’s team is working toward socially responsible AI.Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.Stack Overflow user verygoodsoftwarenotvirus earned a Great Question badge by asking something at least 87,000 people have also wondered: How can I get all keys from a JSON column in Postgres?.

Check out Maxime’s three-part LLM course. Part 1 “covers essential knowledge about mathematics, Python, and neural networks.Part 2 “focuses on building the best possible LLMs using the latest techniques."Part 3 “focuses on creating LLM-based applications and deploying them.” Read Maxime’s blog.Follow Maxime on GitHub or LinkedIn.Nikhil Wagh earned a Lifeboat badge by explaining how to Efficiently compare two sets in Python.

Intuit shares more about their generative AI operating system (GenOS) in this Medium blog. If you want to try out generative AI in MailChimp, sign up here. Learn more about Intuit technology here.Many thanks (and a Lifeboat badge) to Dherik for dropping an answer on cURL: how can I return 0 if status is 200?Connect with Shivang on LinkedIn.

Build GenAI applications faster and cheaper with a vector database like Pinecone.New to retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and other GenAI topics? Our guide is a good place to start.Learn more about RAG and Pinecone.Connect with Roie on GitHub or LinkedIn.

Pinecone is a vector database that lets companies build GenAI applications faster for less cost.Read our primer on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) or explore RAG and Pinecone.Follow Roie on GitHub or LinkedIn.If you need a handy guide to what’s what in the AI space, check out Stack Overflow’s Industry Guide to AI.

SPONSORED BY INTEL Ryan and Ben chat with Raymond Lo, AI software evangelist at Intel, about the AI PC, the software that powers AI breakthroughs, and optimizing hardware and software in unison to improve generative AI performance. Bonus: what’s the difference between a GPU optimized for graphics and a VPU or NPU optimized for AI? Episode notes If you’re interested in trying any of the demos that Raymond talked about, check out Intel’s OpenVINO notebooks. Learn more about Intel’s Edge AI resources here. Raymond previously wrote about enhancing image and video resolution using OpenVINO. You can reach out to Raymond Lo on LinkedIn. Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner, Andrey Korneyev, for saving the question, How can I delete specific nodes from an XElement?