WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.039 Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Alexa Mix. 2 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:12.199 We are joined by, as ever, our fabulous panel of posts. 3 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:16.760 We have Alex Kutman, Hey Alex. We've got Bruce t Hi. Everybody, 4 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:17.519 Hello Bruce. 5 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:18.960 We've got Steven Nunyez. 6 00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:19.480 Hello. 7 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:22.359 I am SOPHIEA Benedetto and we are joined today. 8 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:26.519 By Randall Thomas, who has many potential introductions that I 9 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:27.280 may choose from. 10 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:29.000 So I'm going to go with my favorite two, which 11 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:31.239 is the first. One's a little more informative. 12 00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:34.799 CTO at a tech incubator called Geometer, as well as 13 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:37.240 a thanks for Hacker and vonn Dufon, and I'm sure 14 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:39.840 we'll be excited to dig into any of those topics. 15 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:40.520 Welcome Randall. 16 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:41.960 Oh, thank you so much for having me. 17 00:00:42.119 --> 00:00:44.359 Yeah, we're so thrilled you could be here. We've got 18 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:46.719 so many great things to dig into today. But one 19 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:48.399 of the things that we often ask us when they 20 00:00:48.399 --> 00:00:50.039 first come on is tell us a little bit about 21 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:52.240 how you got into the Elixir community in the first place. 22 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:54.960 Strangely enough, the short version is I've been around the 23 00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:57.560 Rube community for a long time, and one day I 24 00:00:57.560 --> 00:00:59.399 looked around and all the people that I knew from 25 00:00:59.399 --> 00:01:01.920 the old Rube Kee Comunity weren't there anymore, and I 26 00:01:02.039 --> 00:01:04.400 figured out where they went, and it turns out that 27 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:06.519 they all showed up in Elixir. In fact, it was 28 00:01:06.599 --> 00:01:09.959 kind of accidental. I went to I think the first 29 00:01:09.959 --> 00:01:11.680 Elixir comp I had gone to, I think was in 30 00:01:11.760 --> 00:01:14.640 twenty eighteen or twenty seventeen, and I showed up there 31 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.239 and I literally just walked around. I'm like, wait, so 32 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:20.200 that's why you weren't at Ruby komf Oh wait, so 33 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:23.120 you're here. What are you doing here? So I thought 34 00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:24.760 I would know no one, and it turned out that 35 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:26.719 I knew everybody. So all the smart people that I 36 00:01:26.879 --> 00:01:29.200 sort of coattailed on and Ruby ended up in a Elixir. 37 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:31.400 So I figured they're way smarter than me. I should 38 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.680 go follow them see what they're doing. So it's kind 39 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:33.959 of it. 40 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:36.439 That's really as good a reason as any, and kind 41 00:01:36.439 --> 00:01:39.200 of similar to how I started learning Alixir. It's like, 42 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:41.879 I don't know, maybe four or five years ago, one day, 43 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:44.280 maybe five five thirty, and Steven says, hey, you want 44 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.359 to see something cool, And that was kind of like 45 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:49.040 theyentre into the wide world of Alixir. 46 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:51.079 So following the smart people is the way to go. 47 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.799 There was a funny thing. I'm pretty sure this is 48 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.840 actually true, right, but like all apocryphal stories, because it 49 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:01.159 happened in Barcelona. There was baruk oh Barcelona Ruby konf 50 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:03.319 and at the time we were giving this talk on 51 00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:06.319 Ruby motion. If you remember, there was this big kerfuffle 52 00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:08.199 about hey man, you're gonna be able to write iOS 53 00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:10.560 apps in Ruby, and it was actually a really really 54 00:02:10.599 --> 00:02:12.199 great idea, I kind of think a little ahead of 55 00:02:12.199 --> 00:02:17.080 its time. And I think actually at that conference somebody 56 00:02:17.199 --> 00:02:19.680 was talking about, oh, yeah, you heard that somebody's trying 57 00:02:19.719 --> 00:02:23.120 to build a Ruby for Elixir or for Erlang, and 58 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:26.800 I'm just like, yeah, good luck with that. I literally 59 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:28.840 thought it was like because I was thinking about, like 60 00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:32.159 I tried learning Arlang once when the prag Prague released 61 00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:35.039 that first book from Joe on Arlang, and I remember 62 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:37.360 getting into it and I remember thinking I'm like, okay, 63 00:02:37.599 --> 00:02:39.919 I'll put this somewhere right above pearl. I recant that 64 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:42.680 statement now, but at the time I was thinking to myself, like, 65 00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:44.599 there's no way you're ever going to get Rubis to 66 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:47.439 learn the syntax, because you know, the obsession with beauty 67 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:49.639 and elegance and expressiveness and everything else. 68 00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:52.240 Yeah, and it's really funny that Jose kind of put 69 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:55.479 it onto the Ruby syntax, not as this great statement 70 00:02:55.639 --> 00:02:59.719 of let's bring all the Ruby community over right, is 71 00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:03.639 more like okay, one last thing, right, nobody yet, and 72 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:06.360 then then he kind of layers on these these beautiful abstractions. 73 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:08.479 But yeah, it seems like we were kind of circling 74 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:10.960 to each other for a long time randal before for 75 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:14.120 the Elexer community that you know, the idea that that 76 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.080 you were engine yard and you know, us to point 77 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:19.039 some stuff there, and you were kind of kind of 78 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:22.479 involved from from the very beginning, and kind of we 79 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:25.439 were we were just just outside of each other's or 80 00:03:25.479 --> 00:03:28.280 but it didn't really meet until the Groxio course. 81 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.120 Yeah, which is That's actually what I like to say, is, 82 00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:35.159 you know, I do a lot to to Bruce for 83 00:03:35.159 --> 00:03:37.800 for really getting involved in the electric community. I don't 84 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:40.360 actually did you just advertise that course online? Was that 85 00:03:40.439 --> 00:03:40.879 what it was? 86 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:41.319 Yeah? 87 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.319 I mean we literally just threw a couple of tweets 88 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.319 up just to see if there was a test market, 89 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:50.520 to test the market, and we said we would need 90 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:52.759 more people to start the class, and then you were 91 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:54.919 two signed up, but one was you, right, and the 92 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:57.639 other one was Patrick Thompson who's already writing you know, 93 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:02.120 articles and pull requests or Phoenix or Phoenix Live you. 94 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:04.199 But that was kind of a cool moment because we 95 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:06.520 had to decide whether to do the class or not, 96 00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:10.120 and at that point we decided to go against the 97 00:04:10.159 --> 00:04:14.719 grain of traditional courses to kind a you know, like 98 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:18.360 a smaller midge to school right where everybody could And 99 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:20.800 then that's that's where we kind of decided to flip 100 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:21.920 the keyboard, and. 101 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:22.759 You know, the rest is history. 102 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:24.920 Yeah, I was a pretty New York or program before 103 00:04:24.959 --> 00:04:26.600 I got to spend a week in pairing with Bruce, 104 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:29.079 at least for Alixir, which is I think that's something 105 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:31.600 that we take for granted. You know, if you come 106 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.800 from procedural languages, it's really easy. If you know C, 107 00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:36.120 you can kind of learn C plus plus even though 108 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.079 it might not be the right idioms, but it's the bridges. 109 00:04:38.120 --> 00:04:39.720 If you know Joba, you can kind of get into 110 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:43.120 go and like. But learning how to actually think in 111 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:45.720 Elixir and break down the problem differently or thing functionally 112 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:47.839 is actually one of the big barrier sentry I think 113 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:51.279 people have and seeing it and doing it with other 114 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:53.879 people and going through that evolution was really helped me 115 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:55.519 but actually really leveled up my elixir. 116 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:59.439 Yeah, so I don't I don't take any credit at 117 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:02.319 all for you think you're doing an elixir by the way, 118 00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:05.519 but I do think that there's a moment where your 119 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:07.360 revolution is like a lot of a lot of other 120 00:05:07.399 --> 00:05:09.639 people's like mine as well. Right, it's why are the 121 00:05:09.639 --> 00:05:10.920 cool kids leaving the room? 122 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:11.519 What do they. 123 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:15.399 See and how do I how do I make the 124 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:20.040 minute that mental shift to do the things that that 125 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:23.079 good programmers do. And you know that's what we were 126 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.120 all able to go through together in that class, you 127 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:26.879 and Patrick and I. 128 00:05:27.079 --> 00:05:28.879 Yeah, well I still I still think it's one of 129 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:30.759 the greatest things that where I recommend it. In fact, actually, 130 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:32.480 if you remember, one of the first things I did 131 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.240 at CTO was I got a subscription. I think I 132 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:37.120 neede you write a feature so I could get my 133 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:40.439 team on Groxia. So shameless plug for Bruce's like learning 134 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:43.439 platform Groxio. It's great to learn alixer in a browser. 135 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:45.480 And I've actually used it for other people and they're like, well, 136 00:05:45.519 --> 00:05:47.040 what do you think about Elixir? I'm like, I don't know. 137 00:05:47.079 --> 00:05:49.480 Go try it out in a browser, like most people 138 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:51.439 are just blown away. That'll run in a browser anyway. 139 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:53.639 So it really doesn't runt in a browser. 140 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:58.399 It doesn't. But like those types of abstractions, it's not important. 141 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:01.000 It's like it's like everybody else. You first one's free, 142 00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:02.800 ay man, first one's free. 143 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:03.399 Yeah. 144 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:07.800 But so as your Elixer genrety journey has kind of 145 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:11.120 started off, you didn't kind of peck around the edges 146 00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:12.480 like most people did. 147 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:12.759 Right. 148 00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.639 It's you know, you went from kind of zero to sixty, right, 149 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:18.639 So you went from Okay, now I'm in the community 150 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:22.319 taking a class to now I've got this incubator. Can 151 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:24.079 you tell us a little bit about what you're doing 152 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:24.800 at geomat. 153 00:06:25.319 --> 00:06:29.000 Yeah, So some people I used to work with they 154 00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:32.000 started a tech incubator, like all good things, and then 155 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.079 COVID hit. The most interesting part of actually what we 156 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:36.319 were doing was we ended up pivoting towards doing COVID 157 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:38.839 response work, and a lot of the work we ended 158 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:42.639 up deploying for several states was actually built on Elixer internline. 159 00:06:42.680 --> 00:06:46.839 So we actually have data transformation platforms and pipelines. A fact, 160 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.680 we used Broadway for one of them. Two that are 161 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:52.879 currently supporting contact tracing in two states on the East coast, 162 00:06:53.319 --> 00:06:56.920 So we learned a lot about both the scalability and functionality. 163 00:06:56.959 --> 00:06:59.279 So just to give you an idea, they were caught 164 00:06:59.319 --> 00:07:02.639 in batch world. Their best turnaround time started off at 165 00:07:02.639 --> 00:07:04.959 twenty four hours, and then when they were really trying 166 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:06.959 to get up to speed, they could do it maybe 167 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:08.920 in six but there were a lot of errors and bugs. 168 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:12.279 We were actually able to in a week spike and 169 00:07:12.279 --> 00:07:15.439 prototype something and then in about another week actually get 170 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:19.279 into deployment a solution that using Broadway and the inherent 171 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:23.240 sort of scalability of OTP, that turned the Literally we 172 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:25.759 were able to process the data faster than they could 173 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:27.959 get it to us. So we went from processing and 174 00:07:27.959 --> 00:07:31.040 turning around all the COVID cases in about every couple 175 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:34.240 hours to one minute and thirty seconds was our first test, 176 00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:36.360 and we got it down to sub one minute, and 177 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:38.439 they were doing it incrementally. We were actually able to 178 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:42.519 reprocess every single test, every single run, every single time, 179 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:44.800 which allowed us to do a different type of quality control, 180 00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:47.319 which really matters for deduplication because a lot of the 181 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:49.879 issues that you run into with COVID testing are that 182 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:52.079 the lag between when people get tests and the test 183 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:55.199 results are reported. I mean that duplicates and false positives 184 00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:58.639 are a real problem. So that was all done on 185 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.399 Elixir and Earlin, right, And that was one of those things. 186 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:04.680 By the way, we also wrote a telyphony shim that 187 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:08.040 actually did calliphony control, that did call control for connecting 188 00:08:08.079 --> 00:08:11.800 calls to contact tracers, also done in arline, and both 189 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.040 of them, if I remember correctly, I might be making 190 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:15.639 this up a little bit, but both of them required 191 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:18.759 so few resources that they ran in like a container 192 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:21.680 inside of like an easy two medium, right. It was 193 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:24.639 just so ridiculously efficient that it was kind of kind 194 00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:28.279 of sad, and we replaced a bunch of custom made 195 00:08:28.279 --> 00:08:30.399 over this. Lambda functions that were doing this that had 196 00:08:30.399 --> 00:08:32.759 to do were somewhere aer prone. I think the Lamba 197 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:35.960 function loads were a couple hours, like fourteen or fifteen 198 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:38.600 hours to reload the entire universe of data, just because 199 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:41.200 of some architectural decision. But the short version is alexur 200 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:42.919 was a big win because three people were able to 201 00:08:42.919 --> 00:08:46.480 rebuild that system in like a week. So long week, 202 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:48.440 mind you, but it was really kind of impressive. That 203 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:50.600 was one of those really aha moments when you can 204 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.320 think about Elixir and Erling and being are very different 205 00:08:54.360 --> 00:08:56.639 and they provide almost like what people or devs think 206 00:08:56.639 --> 00:08:57.519 of as superpowers. 207 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.320 So I feel like I've lived the same exects story 208 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:04.720 of Lamb does being painful and terribly slow and then 209 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:07.080 replacing it with an Elixir app and then it was, 210 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:09.200 you know, like a whole different world entirely. 211 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:09.840 Yeah. 212 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:12.000 Actually, do you ever see that T shirt that says 213 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.159 go away, I'll replace you with a small shell script. 214 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:17.200 You know, there was like this comic I think it 215 00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:18.919 was floating around for a while, but it's I almost 216 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:21.679 feel like the exact same thing. It's like almost any 217 00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:23.519 use case where you're using the Lamb to function, you 218 00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:26.840 can use Elixir and it just kind of works. 219 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:29.240 It's kind of funny. I mean, a Lamb is effected 220 00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:31.159 with like one gen server and we can spawn like, 221 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:33.399 you know, thousands of thousands of them, no problem. 222 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:36.360 So are you guys saying this? And the question I 223 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:39.200 have is why isn't everyone doing this? Why is the 224 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:42.519 Elixir not like the language that everyone builds all the things? 225 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:46.600 I mean, yeah, obviously it's the right soul for every 226 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.559 job there. That's a great question. It has nothing to 227 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:50.320 do technology. 228 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:51.799 I'd love to hear what you guys think, and then 229 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:55.799 I'll opine with my own slightly derisive, sarcastic view on. 230 00:09:55.759 --> 00:10:00.919 This and and the darkness behind then right language to 231 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:01.960 rule them all. 232 00:10:02.039 --> 00:10:04.159 Right, It's it's interesting. 233 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:06.840 I'm starting to play with with a lot of different 234 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:09.279 languages that that have different takes in the world. 235 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:10.440 And so the. 236 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.679 One that really opened my eyes was Pony because it 237 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:16.320 does so there are a lot of things that Elixer 238 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.840 does really well that that Pony just really really sucks at, right, 239 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:22.960 But one of the things that Pony does well is 240 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:30.159 it enforces compiler constraints that enforce concurrency constraints, right, so 241 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:32.879 incorrect programs won't compile. 242 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:36.039 And so you know that that pointed. 243 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:39.159 Me to to the to the idea that if you 244 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:42.559 have to move a lot of data around, you know, 245 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:45.879 if you have a lot of mutability, then then Elixor 246 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.240 isn't it. And so I've been spending a little bit 247 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:50.639 of time in Julia this year just kind of to 248 00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:52.919 flux the old math muscles. 249 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:53.159 Right. 250 00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:57.480 So I was a math major in college or computer 251 00:10:57.519 --> 00:10:59.840 science and math, and so one of the things that 252 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:04.720 we were focused on was linear algebra, I'm sorry, like 253 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.360 matrix matrix algebra. And that's kind of what machine learning 254 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:12.919 and machine modeling have have turned into, right. It's it's 255 00:11:13.039 --> 00:11:16.600 you have these these massive systems of equations and and 256 00:11:16.759 --> 00:11:20.840 algorithms to kind of slowly crank and provide more and 257 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:24.320 more precision. And we're starting to get into the places 258 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:28.039 where where you could take these these massive tables and 259 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:32.759 apply these differential equations to them. And Elixer is just 260 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:34.799 not good at that, and it is never going to 261 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:38.120 be good at that. It's good at kind of the control. 262 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:40.759 But yet, Yeah, I mean I think that that there 263 00:11:40.759 --> 00:11:43.000 are a lot of good things that Elixer is great at. 264 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:46.919 It's funny, Randall, It's Elixur is great at almost all 265 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:48.639 the things that we were doing. 266 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:53.039 Where you're at these early Ruby communities, right the deployment, 267 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.639 the you know, the the babysit a big fat relational 268 00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:59.759 database with a web UI, you know, on and on. 269 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:02.960 Yeah. No, So I don't know, what do you guys, 270 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:04.639 Why do you guys think it's not winning? I mean, 271 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:07.039 I guess the other question is what's the definition of winning. 272 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:11.600 I don't think universal adoption of everything is the definition 273 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:14.039 of winning. I don't think it's for everyone. Not all 274 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:15.200 languages are for everyone. 275 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:17.759 I have a question, how do we know it's not winning? 276 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:18.080 Right? 277 00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:21.120 The language popularity? And they make mistakes? 278 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.360 Right, Oh yeah, didn't they? Actually what was it? There's 279 00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:28.519 something that they included, like crystal, that's what it was, right, 280 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:29.919 And they ended up playing. 281 00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:34.639 Like agechygramming crystals, which is either a programming model or 282 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:38.600 a great way to have your new Age crystals learn 283 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:42.200 as you get more enlightened every day. 284 00:12:42.519 --> 00:12:45.639 I have to look into that. So no, So I 285 00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:48.240 think there are lots of things. It's really funny. So 286 00:12:48.279 --> 00:12:50.360 one of the things I learned from being a rubyist 287 00:12:50.399 --> 00:12:52.600 early on, and at the time I got into Ruby, 288 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:55.240 I was actually an independent consultant. I was all in 289 00:12:55.399 --> 00:12:58.799 dot net, like I had actually started a long time ago, 290 00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:01.960 System five Release three, that's how old I am. But 291 00:13:02.440 --> 00:13:03.919 I had gotten into that net because that's where all 292 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:06.399 the consulting money was. So that was c plus plus 293 00:13:06.519 --> 00:13:09.639 MICROSUF Foundation classes, all that crap, and the learning Aha 294 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:11.320 moment for me is I had to take some visual 295 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:13.440 basic programmers and try and teach them see sharp and 296 00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.080 they failed miserably, like there was no way to teach 297 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:18.759 them the basics of classes, and they just hadn't learned 298 00:13:18.759 --> 00:13:20.840 any of that stuff, and we had to deliver an 299 00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:25.000 ETL system. And Blake Miserini at the time he's like, hey, man, 300 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:26.919 I know you like Pearl, but I've got something way 301 00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:29.480 better than Pearl. And I apologize for all the Pearl 302 00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:31.159 I ever wrote. I think we all need to do that. 303 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:33.480 But he said I got something way better than Pearl. 304 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:36.000 It's this Ruby thing and like whatever. So I played 305 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:37.399 around with it for a week and I'm like, huh, 306 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:40.159 this is pretty neat, and I'm pretty sure at the 307 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:43.120 time I actually had to go to like a bookstore 308 00:13:43.159 --> 00:13:45.840 and find the Ruby book, like an actual print version 309 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:49.360 of the book. This was, you know, so like he 310 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:52.039 had to like run around to borders and whatever and 311 00:13:52.200 --> 00:13:55.639 try and find a copy of Dave Thomas's book. And 312 00:13:55.960 --> 00:13:57.960 I did over the weekend, and then I tried it 313 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:00.840 with these guys on one day and I had them 314 00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:03.559 doing advanced string processing and classes. They just got it 315 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.320 and rocked it. And that was the moment I knew that, like, 316 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:09.759 oh yeah, that's where we need to go, and so 317 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:12.320 I literally just stopped doing Dutton had stuff and started 318 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:16.440 doing all in on Ruby and Erlin and Elixir, and 319 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:19.240 I actually, when I say that Earleg, Elixir, Beam, I 320 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:22.120 actually really like to separate those things because I think 321 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:24.639 it's important that you don't mix them or blend them 322 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:26.639 like they are there are different things, and that you're 323 00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:28.799 getting a lot there. I think it has that same 324 00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:32.200 feeling as early adoption for Ruby. Like literally when we 325 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:35.080 started doing Ruby work, we had this other company called 326 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:37.559 Quality Humans where we were all doing rails apps and 327 00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:39.919 everybody thought that we were crazy. You're like, I don't 328 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:42.759 know this rails thing. I don't know. It seems pretty risky, 329 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.519 Like only do guys in Chicago are doing it? Yeah. 330 00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:46.240 I mean I think that. 331 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:50.480 Very often we as a programming community have to take 332 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:53.320 a step back to take a step forward, right, And 333 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:55.360 I think that that's one of the things that would 334 00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:58.080 be provided, right. So it was a huge step forward 335 00:14:58.080 --> 00:14:59.960 in a lot of ways, right, first in the idea 336 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:03.919 that a programming language should be intuitive and fun. Second 337 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:08.879 in that that you didn't have to specify, it wasn't 338 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:13.799 kind of this this really tedious artificial typing model. And 339 00:15:13.919 --> 00:15:18.519 third we didn't have these really tedious and artificial configurations 340 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:22.039 that were you know, XML that was explicit for everything, 341 00:15:22.559 --> 00:15:25.919 with no defaults. All those things were really important for Ruby, 342 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:30.799 and it seems like by taking that step back to 343 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:35.440 reset the kind of the bar on for application developers 344 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:39.799 on the productivity of application developers. You know, we got 345 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:43.559 a lot of the you know, the deployments, you know, mutability, 346 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:46.639 a lot of a lot of things wrong, but there 347 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.600 was a whole lot that was right about Ruby that 348 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:50.799 Lizor learned from. 349 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:52.039 Yeah, good stuff. 350 00:15:52.559 --> 00:15:54.679 I like that you mentioned productivity, Bruce, because it's something 351 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:57.559 that I absolutely feel is true of Alexa and Phoenix. 352 00:15:57.600 --> 00:15:59.159 And then kind of back to what you were saying, Randall, 353 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:02.679 when you were trying to, you know, move some folks 354 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:04.960 into kind of this realm of like object oriented and 355 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:07.080 when you found Ruby and kind of brought that to them, 356 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:09.240 that people were able to grack it and learn it 357 00:16:09.279 --> 00:16:09.559 and be. 358 00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:12.799 Productive in it relatively quickly. And that's absolutely true of Alixir. 359 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.000 It's absolutely true of Phoenix, and not just because of 360 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:17.919 you know, Alixir's language features, in the fact that, similarly 361 00:16:18.039 --> 00:16:20.600 to Rubyo, it is eloquent and easy to reason about. 362 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:24.159 But I think there's so many sort of Alixir ecosystem 363 00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:27.360 features that allow developers and whole teams to be really 364 00:16:27.440 --> 00:16:30.120 highly productive. And I think that's why I'm not at 365 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:33.120 all surprise to hear how Alexir and Erlang has allowed 366 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:35.559 you guys to solve these really big scale problems for 367 00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:38.320 like COVID contact tracing. It reminds me a bit of 368 00:16:38.320 --> 00:16:40.480 a talk that was one of the keynotes at Alexa 369 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:42.759 kronk EEO this year, which will hopefully be out soon, 370 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:45.600 about some folks in Kenya who are using Elixir to. 371 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:48.320 Develop a new like nine to one one emergency contact 372 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:49.639 system around the country. 373 00:16:50.279 --> 00:16:52.799 And it's just it's kind of the perfect combination of 374 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:56.080 like scale and concurrency and fault tolerance, but also productivity 375 00:16:56.159 --> 00:16:57.440 for actual humans. 376 00:16:57.799 --> 00:16:59.679 And so I definitely be curious to hear, you know, 377 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:01.960 from you Randal with your experiences lately with some of 378 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:03.799 these COVID projects, Like sounds like you. 379 00:17:03.799 --> 00:17:06.480 Guys spun this up really fast, like a week later 380 00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:08.880 you had these working prototypes. So like, what is it 381 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:12.720 about Alixer specifically or this ecosystem specifically that let you 382 00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:14.000 guys do that so quickly? 383 00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:16.200 So I'm going to give you the first one in 384 00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:17.960 no particular order, but the first one that pops to 385 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:20.720 mind is people. So it's a really bizarre thing that 386 00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:23.599 I found is that people who are looking for those 387 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:26.880 exact things that you mentioned, like people for whom tools matter, 388 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:30.680 like productivity matters. Like this is not to popoo or 389 00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:32.480 denigrate people who don't choose that, but there are some 390 00:17:32.519 --> 00:17:34.279 people who are like approach things that it's kind of 391 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:36.039 like a craftsman, and some people approach it it's just 392 00:17:36.079 --> 00:17:37.960 like this is my job. But there are literally people 393 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:39.720 who go out and try and learn more because they 394 00:17:39.720 --> 00:17:43.160 want better tools, they want a better experience, Like all 395 00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:45.920 those things holistically matter to them. And I find people 396 00:17:45.960 --> 00:17:49.799 who gravitate to the elixir ecosystem generally speaking, care about 397 00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:51.839 those things and as a result it ironically it makes 398 00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:54.799 them much better problem solvers, Like they literally care about 399 00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:57.880 the solution and the elegance solution on I think Buckminster 400 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:00.559 Fuller had that statement. I might be mische doing the quote, 401 00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:02.880