That's Go Time!

Hello and welcome to Go Time, the final episode. I’m Mat Ryer, and for the last time, please welcome my co-hosts. Johnny Boursiquot is here, Kris Brandow, Ian Lopshire is here, Angelica Hill, and from Changelog, Jerod Santo. Hello, everybody.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello! How’s it going? How are you doing, Johnny?

How do you think it’s going? How do you think it’s going? [laughter] It’s great. It’s great, Mat. It’s great.

Oh, this is great. This is like a – oh, I love this. This is like a bar. It’s like we’ve met up at a bar, isn’t it?

Yeah. Drinks in hand… Yeah.

Me too, but I am five hours ahead. Well, look, can we just reflect on what an amazing journey we’ve all been on here? It’s kind of amazing to see and think about. Like, we’ve met up weekly, live, talked about computers… This back catalogue will remain available for everybody. And Jerod, is it three hundred and forty episodes then?

That’s correct. This is episode three hundred and forty. Which is not an insignificant number, I don’t think.

No. It’s two weeks of continuous content.

That makes it sound kind of insignificant, actually… [laughter]

If we just went 24 hours a day, nonstop, listening to – yeah, okay.

Which I highly recommend.

Yeah. Well, no, but if something happens and you’ve got two weeks left, and you think “What can I do?”, just get into Go Time.

That’s one of the things you could do. You could do the entire Go Time.

Yeah, binge the lot.

Yeah, the meteor is coming. You’ve gotta binge it before it’s over.

I mean, if you have done that and you’ve reached this point - you know, best of luck to you. Best of luck. And remembering back as well, Brian, Erik, Carlisia, the original hosts of Go Time. 79 episodes they did. And there was some great ones… Their version of Go Time was very personal, wasn’t it? So it was about personalities, meeting people, digging into their lives… And I remember hearing and meeting a lot of people that way.

Yeah, theirs was really cool. I feel like the unfortunate thing was having three people on a show is – especially three busy people who all have jobs, is that we couldn’t keep it going regularly. And so we had to stop, put it on hiatus, and come up with a better plan. And that better plan has helped sustain it for the next - how many years? That was 2019, so six years almost… Which was to get more people to hang out. And if you get six, seven, eight regular co-hosts, you can scratch together two or three every week. And that proved to be a winning formula, and that’s why y’all are here, right?

Yeah.

Six years is a real long time for a podcast.

Yeah, six years. That’s just the reboot.

Yeah.

What do you think, Angelica?

I mean, I joined late to the party. I learned what Go was, and then six months later I was like “Yeah, I’ll be on Go Time…”

It’s phenomenal.

I have been able to see kind of the growth a little bit, from like 2020 onwards… Because although we’ve had like a lovely band of co-hosts, I think it has evolved, even in the last few years, in terms of the kind of content we do. We started leaning into like series… I think we as hosts got more into a groove, and like what kind of episodes we like doing… We’ve got an amazing array of different guests… So although I didn’t have the pleasure of listening to the older episodes when they came out, I have gone back since and listened to them, and they’re brilliant… But I kind of like that Go Time throughout its life has gone through different phases of kind of tones, hosts, focuses, formats… I think it’s what has enabled us to remain so relevant and interesting for so long. And I think that is honestly a big part of why having so many different hosts I think has been great, as we all bring our own little flavors, our little styles, what we like to think about. I think it’s been brilliant. But obviously, I’m biased, because we’re all sitting here now because we all think it’s brilliant and great…

[00:08:31.11] So maybe a little context for our listeners, if you’re just getting caught up and you’re like “What the – what?! This is the last episode of Go Time?” Yes, it is. You are now caught up. This will be the finale of Go Time. 340 episodes. And this is not a cancellation or a failure of Go Time. Go Time has been very strong, I think, ever since we put it on reboot, and we’ve been putting out episodes pretty much every week for a long time, and we have a lot of listeners, a lot of loyal listeners, a lot of friends that we’ve made along the way, and a lot of people who are undoubtedly not happy about Go Time going away, because it’s something that they love… And myself, and Adam, my partner in crime at Changelog, are well aware of that. I’m a podcast junkie. I’ve had my favorite show disappear. I know what that feels like. But this is not just a Go Time thing, this is actually a Changelog-wide decision that we made, to refocus on the main thing, which is the Changelog podcast. And we’re actually stopping production of not just Go Time, but JS Party, and Ship It, and Practical AI… Everything that’s not the Changelog. And the reasons for that - they are varied. But in brief, we’ve built out this portfolio of shows to a point where we’re putting out seven episodes every single week. And we did that, to the best of our ability, for years now. And I think we did an alright job, but we got to the point where we couldn’t really do anything else, because we had seven episodes to put out every single week… And the fact is that Adam and I want to spend time doing other things, experimenting, exploring… I want to write more code than I currently was writing… And so this was a decision that he and I made in order to help that become a reality.

So unfortunately, Go Time, along with our other pods, which we love, which is why we haven’t done this - we finally did it - is going to be retired because of that. However, it’s not all bad news, y’all, because the Go Time crew are not retiring from podcasting. Of course, Mat, Johnny, Angelica, Ian, Kris and Natalie are all welcome on Changelog & Friends. Mat might even be on the very first Changelog & Friends episode of the new year. And there’s a brand new Go podcast in the works called Fallthrough, which I hear gophers love fallthroughs in their code… And so we’re here to talk about that as well. But that’s just a little bit of the why, and the context around what’s happening. Mat, back to you.

Well, thank you very much, Jerod. I really appreciate that. I think it’s worth saying, Go Time wouldn’t exist without Changelog, and Go Time has been a big part of the Go community, and helping shape that community. I think we were able to put voices out that you wouldn’t perhaps otherwise hear from sometimes… We got loads of technical content together… There’s some really actionable knowledge episodes… This is a big resource, and it’s still relevant, thanks to Go’s backward compatibility promise. There’s a lot of the content. And a lot of it also isn’t specifically about language syntax, which may change over time. It’s all still relevant. So it’s like this big corpus now of knowledge that we’ve put together.

So I’m very grateful to you and everyone on the team, and all the co-hosts. The whole podcast, I think, was just something to be really proud of. So I’m very grateful for it, I’m really pleased it happened. And yeah, it’s a bit sad that it’s coming to an end, but it makes sense. And I’m excited to see what’s next.

[00:12:06.15] Yeah. Hear, hear. For me personally, GoTime was definitely a way for me to dive deeper into the world of Go. It gave me an opportunity to share my passion for the language, for the community, and it was always amazing whenever I’d go to a Go conference, and people would come up and say “Hey, you’re Johnny from Go Time, right?” I’m like “Yeah…” Or somebody would hear my voice… They would be having a conversation somewhere, they’d hear my voice, they’d turn around and be like “I know that voice. Where do I know your voice from?” I’m like “Do you happen to listen to a podcast on Go?” “Yeah, that’s you!” It would be amazing to get those sort of interesting situations, where people would put a face and a name and everything else, and to kind of see the impact. You don’t think about it. We get on these podcasts and do these recordings every week… And oftentimes we do them and we enjoy each other’s company while we record, but we don’t often think about sort of the downward impact of the people who then download it, and then listen to it… We don’t think of how far that sort of reaches, that domino effect. And sort of seeing that and hearing about the impact of the show over the years… It’s been an incredible journey, an amazing journey. And I personally thank the Changelog team for reaching out to me all those years ago and saying “Hey, we’re putting together this podcast. Here’s a capacity in which you can contribute.”

And yeah, it’s been one of those great things that I’m very proud of to have been able to be a part of. I’m definitely going to miss it… But everything comes to an end. So perhaps this particular door closes, but other things will open up. We already know that Fallthrough is spinning out of that; that’s going to be fun and interesting, I’m sure, and new things are going to emerge out of that. So this ending, so to speak, is not happening on a sad note; I’m definitely happy about that. This is not because this show and others in the Changelog catalog were failures. I think Changelog has done such an amazing job of creating these communities around these shows, and by proxy, just furthering those communities and helping them sort of grow. So definitely lots of gratitude there to the Changelog. And Jerod, he was doing that production work even before he brought on Jason to help with that… Week after week, scheduling, and all the things that have happen behind the scenes, that people have no idea about. All that work, and all that labor… And I definitely think you and the rest of the Changelog team do deserve a bit of a break, and to try and find time to sort of explore and see what’s next and what’s new. But yeah, overall, I’m quite happy with what we accomplished together, for sure.

Oh, that’s lovely, Johnny. I wasn’t being sarcastic.

Yeah, I was about to say, almost as nice as your sweater, Mat.

Yeah, ignore, Mat. Go ahead, Ian. Ignore Mat. That’s what we all do. [laughter]

No, because I realized it sounded sarcastic when it came out. But I didn’t mean it to be.

Mat just cannot not sound sarcastic. It’s a double negative.

I was going to say though, you’re right, Johnny - yeah, we’re ending on nice terms, and I think that is important. It’s not because of a fight like we’re at a conference, Johnny, and then we’re playing around and you went too far, and then you’ve got me in a headlock for ages, and wouldn’t let go.

That’s true.

Right, right.

Something like that.

Yeah, that would be awkward.

Yeah, that would be awkward.

That never happened. Yeah.

That did not happen. No. That’s what I’m saying.

Let Ian talk. Let Ian talk.

Yeah, I want to hear from Ian.

No, I was just kind of piggybacking off something Johnny said… I remember early in my career finding Go Time back when Brian, Erik and Carlisia were still hosting it, and learning about GopherCon, and making it to GopherCon, and meeting them… Yeah, so without Changelog and Go Time, I’m not sure I would be sitting here today. It matters.

Yeah. I can echo that. Genuinely, I don’t think you can really measure the impact it’s had on your career, genuinely. I know for a fact it’s impactful. I mean, I get it, too. I got recognized in an airport once in San Francisco, just because of my voice… It’s a bit creepy.

Yeah, I was going to say. It’s weird, right?

Yeah, but still… Nice. They were Go programmers, so… You’ve got to have a certain level of intelligence.

[00:16:16.14] Well, you also get to go out there at the GopherCon stage, and sing unpopular opinions with the crowd, didn’t you? I mean, that had to be a moment for you, Mat…

Oh, yeah. That’s true. The live shows.

Tell us that.

Yeah, those live shows… We do the Gophers Say, and we have a lot of fun messing around… They’re very fun to do.

They’re like a complete little subcategory of their own. I realized we did six of those; six of those episodes. Yeah, so this is the live, the game show thing where we usually get some of the speakers up from the conference, and then we play a game. The atmosphere in the room is a lot better than we were ever able to capture on audio, which is a shame… And I think we did crack it in the end, but – I think we know how to do it now, but… So maybe we keep doing that.

For the next one. We know how to do it for the next one.

Yeah, yeah. They can still happen at the conferences.

[unintelligible 00:16:58.07] out of retirement for that.

Yeah, that’d be fun.

I love those. Those are really funny. A little bit of the behind the scenes of that… So this is mostly happening at GopherCon Europe, where Mat and Natalie oftentimes are on stage. Sometimes it’s just Mat, but… I’m literally here, halfway around the world, in Nebraska, running the Gophers Say game board, with multiple inputs to Mat. I have a cell phone call in his ear, I’m giving him like information, and then we also have the sound coming out of the soundboard, traveling around the world and then playing live there… There was one time where it was like – it played twice, and we just couldn’t do anything about it… So it was like double inside in the auditorium.

But the shining moment for me was the time where Mat got the entire crowd - and to our listener, maybe you were there for that one. I wasn’t. I was here in Omaha, hearing them sing Unpopular Opinions together in unison. It was like a chorus.

It was amazing. And unfortunately, we couldn’t capture the audio that did it any justice to play it on the episode that ensued… But man, that had to be just such a fun moment. This silly little jingle that Mat wrote on a whim for Unpopular Opinions becoming such a staple was just a really cool thing, that you can’t really plan that kind of stuff.

Yeah, those moments are so fun. And it’s fun for me hosting those game shows, because I feel like a proper TV person at that point. Because I’ve got literally like – Jerod’s in my ear, and he can hear me through the other stuff. Honestly, it’s the coolest I’ve ever felt, basically.

[laughs] It’s probably the coolest you’ve ever been, actually.

Yeah, it probably is. Looking back, I think it probably is. One time I screwed up some paper and kicked it, and it hit a wall, and rolled along a shelf, and then went in the bin. And that’s a high contender.

That’s the second coolest.

Maybe. [laughter] So it’s so fun. Yeah. Well, I love that. I love that we got to kind of – and sometimes we were silly. We did get to be silly on Go Time. And I heard – people told me that that did put them at ease a lot sometimes as well, and made it easier for them to relax, and then kind of chat. So I like that about it. Obviously, I like being silly. But I also like that we have other hosts with different flavors as well, so that you get this nice variety in style, too.

I taste like chocolate.

I bet you do. I bet you do, Johnny. [laughter]

And Johnny, one of the things that I remember from you - one of your most impactful moments was when you taught me how to eat Cheetos while you’re coding… Right? Was that you?

Yeah. With chopsticks.

With chopsticks, exactly. That’s the kind of stuff you can only learn on Go Time.

You can’t put greasy fingers on your keyboards, bro. C’mon.

I know. I didn’t realize that.

Yeah. The only issue was this came moments after Johnny chastised somebody for using chopsticks to eat salad. Johnny’s like “What are you talking about? That’s mad!” And then reached over and got a Cheeto, a big Cheeto with chopsticks.

Yeah. It’s a double standard. Yes.

Oh, he just admits it. When someone can just admit it as a double standard, where do you go from there? They win, don’t they?

Yeah. You just accept it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay… Cool.

Break: [00:20:09.16]

Well, we’ve been talking about our unpopular opinions category, but we haven’t heard much from our unpopular opinion maestro… That’s Kris, the king of unpop, with the longest of rants, and the most extemporaneous thoughts shared. Kris, say some words.

I love my rants. My rants are fun.

Yeah, if you go listen to that two weeks, one fifth of it will be Kris’s rants.

That’s true.

Probably… [laughs] Yeah, I don’t know, I’m sad that Go Time is ending. I’m glad that it’s ending on such a good note, such a high note. I feel like we’ve done some really incredible stuff over the past few years… But I’m excited for Fallthrough. I’m excited for the spinoff. I’m excited to see what we can do with it, and the way that we can kind of carry the spirit of Go Time forward into that show. And I can carry my long rants and monologues, and unpopular opinions. Both those things. They’ve got to say; we can’t get rid of them.

So yeah, I’m excited that we’re not just like ending, and saying bye, and leaving. I’m excited that we’re moving on and doing something else, so there’ll still be something for the community.

That certainly has made it an easier pill for us to swallow. Obviously, we love all of our creations here at Changelog, and we didn’t want to have to retire anything. But it’s so much easier to know that Fallthrough.fm - oh, go like and subscribe, of course - is going to be a thing. JS Party has a spinoff, Ship It has a spinoff etc. It’s just like, if you like these shows, the spirit of the shows will live on, because the people that were on the shows want to continue podcasting. And so that makes me happy. And I think it obviously has been a lot easier to all the people who’ve heard about Go Time being finalized, is to say “You know what - it’s over, but it’s not really over. There’s other things that are happening.” And so they’re like “Oh, okay. I can put up with that.” So I’m excited about that, too, Kris.

Yeah. And I think Fallthrough is a great name. Where did the name come from?

So… Interestingly, it was actually a name I’d come up with a conference that I wanted to start, and maybe we’ll start one day… And the idea was of it is like - you know, Fallthrough, the keyword in Go, it kind of puts you in this non-normative space. A place where you usually couldn’t get, given where you’ve been. And I was like “Oh, I really like that name for that kind of vibe.”

And then when we were talking about Go Time, and spinning off, I was like “Okay, well, usually when a podcast ends, it just kind of goes away. But we don’t want it to go away. We want it to do something different, something non normative”, which felt like Fallthrough was like the right name for that thing. It’s like “Yeah, we hit the end of what GoTime is, but we’re still going to kind of keep going, with slightly different parameters, in a slightly different way.” It still feels the same. At least that’s the goal of it, at the end of the day.

Well, I think they’re in safe hands with a writer’s mind like that at work.

I agree. I heard the name and I was lik “Oh–” Once he described it, I’m like “Yeah, excellent.”

That’s great. Yeah.

So you birth a new show?

Yeah. We fall through to a new show. Exactly.

[laughs] Johnny, could you possibly be referencing anything?

Hey, hey, hey, hey… You know, you get out of it, you get out of it what you heard out of it. [laughter]

Okay, so we’re going to leave it right there. Fair enough.

But we should mention Natalie also couldn’t be here… She did plan to be here. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. I think she’s busy, would you say…?

That’s right.

And you can still also hang out with Natalie if you head over to GopherCon EU. So check that out. And I usually go to those as well. And everyone should. Have you been to GopherCon EU yet?

I’ve been. Yeah. I was on the stage with you.

No, don’t say it like that, Johnny. It was an open question.

You don’t remember? [laughter]

Yeah. Johnny, it was an open question. Don’t say it like “I forgot.”

Angelica, have you been? Because you’re big on GopherCon US.

I mean, ironically, I think it’s the only Go conference I’ve not gone to. Not purposefully… I think it’s just the way that the chips have fallen.

Weren’t you formerly from the EU?

Formerly, yes.

It sounds like an indictment. [laughter]

I am formerly –

What, you forgot your people? [laughs]

I am formerly from the EU, yes.

You left and then you just turn your back?

That might have been more accusatory than I meant it to be, but…

Well, I mean, it’s not like she left… It’s like the UK left.

That’s right. Angelica didn’t go anywhere. Well, I guess she went to New York City, but…

No, I ironically have not been to GopherCon EU. But I hope to go at some point. Not yet, but I hope to. No, but I go to GopherCon, and all the other ones, the US-based ones. But I’ve heard great things…

[00:28:09.02] Yeah, they’re fun.

They are fun. And that’s the other thing, is that a lot of the people – these lovely hosts that you don’t see before you attend a lot of these conferences. So if you’re missing us, you can just go to conferences, and probably one or at least two of us might be there. So there’s other ways to engage if you’re missing us, or if you just want to hear our voices. Not that you would, but maybe you do.

Ian, I heard you say earlier that you owe a lot of your career to Go Time. Is that true?

I mean, I would say so… I mean, the Go community –

No, no, no, stop right there. I just want to – so basically, what you’re saying is you owe a portion of your earnings…

20%. 20% is fine, because…

To me. [laughs]

Golang Johnny is trying to get a check here, okay? [laughter]

Johnny is trying to steal all the credit.

I thought that was going to be such a beautiful moment.

That was going to be nice.

And then I ruined it. [laughs]

I mean, I think on a serious note, I do feel personally like Go Time is probably the only reason that I continue doing Go.

And also, I think it’s one of the few opportunities… I mean, I joked about it at the beginning, but what other conference podcast organization would take some squirrel-looking hyperactive newbie, who literally could write a Hello World… That was it. I’m not even joking. I could write a Hello World. That was it. And Jerod was like “Hey…”

What are you saying? We’re fools, or what?

No, in the best of – well, you can judge whether it was a good or bad decision…

I loved it.

But all jokes aside – and like would give me a chance to be on a podcast… And I actively have learned over the… It’s made me a better software engineer, it’s made me a better gopher… Because on most of these episodes I’ve had the privilege of like learning actively in that moment from these brilliant people, that otherwise I might never have been able to interact with. But being able to say “Hey, I’m a host on Go Time. I want to learn about, I want to dig into X, Y, Z topic.” It has enabled me personally to interact with so many interesting, awesome people… But also given me so many other opportunities that I never would have otherwise got, by taking a chance on people. I think that’s the beauty of Go Time. We bring on so many different types of people… There’s not this high barrier to entry where you have to be some staff engineer, written a book… Like, we really do host episodes that are coming from all different walks of life, people, experiences… And we’re able to give kind – I can’t remember who said it, but give these people… I think it might have been you, Mat… Who might otherwise have not had a forum to be able to have their voices, their opinions heard. And we go, “Yeah, sounds good. You have something interesting to say. It doesn’t matter if you have one, ten, fifty, six months, one week of Go experience. If this is a topic you feel passionately about, let’s get you on. Let’s talk about it. Let’s expose people to all the different levels and experiences.”

And so personally I felt that, but also, I think that’s the beauty of Go Time, and the role that I feel like and I’ve heard it’s played in a lot of people’s lives, and their Go lives, is that it’s a place to feel heard, to feel listened to, to feel like you’re accepted, in a way that, bluntly, I think a lot of other software engineering areas - there is a higher barrier to entry. I certainly felt this. There are spaces you go into where you just don’t feel – you feel embarrassed if you’re not like a 10-year veteran of the language, and you know 17 languages.

Sure…

And it makes me really sad to think that that forum is going to go away, but then extremely hopeful, because we have Fallthrough, because we have this continuation, and because you have, you know, all of us lovely hosts who care deeply about these topics, but also care deeply about keeping that accessibility and that openness in the community, so we’ll be able to push it on. But yeah, it’s amazing.

[00:32:20.09] Yeah. No, there’s definitely something in that. I remember – I mean, I think having different perspectives, I think that’s in itself really useful, because you learn so much, and it’s usually very surprising stuff. It was also nice for – sometimes the experts didn’t know the answer. And I think that was also quite nice for people to also witness. In fact, I heard people talk to me about this, that they heard – we had somebody on that was an expert in something, and one of the questions, they were like “Oh, I have no idea. I’d have to go and dig in and find out.” And they talked a bit about how they would find out. And that was actually really useful, because that’s kind of the skill. It’s not knowing all the things, it’s really knowing how to figure out, how to find out those things.

So yeah, it felt very authentic. It wasn’t any show, or trying to really be bigger than we were, or be anything that we weren’t. I felt like it was very authentic, and I think that really helped also. So yeah, it was good. It was good, wasn’t it?

Yeah. You learned that some of those people you think are like incredible people, are incredible people, but they’re also human. Those people that you might hear of, or have heard about in the Go community, some of like the founders, for example - you get them on the podcast and you hear that funny story about what they ate for breakfast… And it humanizes them in a way that, for a lot of the listeners, because they’ve listened to that one episode where they saw that like Rob Pike’s a human, they then might see him at a conference and be like “Oh, I remember he said that he liked ducks. Let me go up and just talk about that.”

Yeah. It does do that, though. It helped – it’s definitely helped my social skills. Genuinely. Because when you’re hosting the podcast, you’re sort of forced into a place where you have to kind of carry the show sometimes. And with some guests it’s very natural and easy, and you don’t notice the time flying by. Other times it’s more difficult to kind of get the show to pick up… It’s just kind of what happens naturally in normal kind of conversations, I think. But in Go Time, you have to sort of get through it. In real life, I’ll just say “Oh, I’m sorry, my heel is hurting. I’ve got to go.” And I’ll just go.

Excuse me, your what?

My heel. [unintelligible 00:34:27.12] Yeah, it’s always a very specific lie.

That’s your go-to?

Yeah, I’m just like “Ooh. Oh.” “Are you alright?” “Yeah, but it’s just my heel.” “What?” “Yeah, my heel… It’s just a bit– oh, I’m just gonna…” and then I just hobble off.

It’s got to be true. That’s very specific, it’s got to be true.

Exactly. No one’s going to make up that lie. Heel? Kind of [unintelligible 00:34:46.27]

Unless they heard this show.

Yeah, you’re dropping gems right here, Mat. These are gems.

Well, I don’t use that now. That was 2023. [laughter]

We didn’t always do highly technical episodes, though. Sometimes we’d do non-technical, even to the point of more like social dynamics kind of talks. I remember we even had – perhaps, actually, Kris, you might have led that one… We had a show on your diversity, if I remember correctly. That one was completely non-technical, and that was an interesting conversation. And we even had one or two comments come through on that episode. But yeah, I liked the fact that we didn’t abide by a strict rule of “We must always be nerding out on the particulars, the esoteric, ghost stuff.” We would deviate, we would step out of bounds, so to speak… And things that were relevant by some measure, or on the table. And we could feel free to go in and out, and draw outside the lines a little bit, from time to time. And I enjoyed that about the show, for sure.

I think that episode was actually organized by Angelica. I think you were the host of that one.

I know. One dream, one team. We don’t need to take credit, but yes, it was.

No, no, credit where it’s due.

[00:36:06.12] Well, I heard great things for that, from people at conferences, that came up and identified as neurodiverse, and said that was just a real big surprise, to just have that subject laid out and just discussed openly. So that really did resonate. You can tell the ones that do, because you will hear back, in-person, usually. Those people remember it, and it stays with them. So that’s really nice to see. And I wasn’t even part of that episode, but obviously, I took credit in the moment, because… Otherwise it’s really awkward. Like, I’m saying, “Oh no, you’ve been really nice, but I reject that. It should go towards Angelica.” I’m not going to do that, am I? I’m going to say “Thank you very much.”

Are you sure they weren’t thanking you for not being on? They’re like “We appreciate that one.” [laughs]

But I think that’s part of what made Go Time so special, is that none of us have huge egos.

Well…

Well, actually, most of us. I see you, Mat. Most of us don’t have big egos. [laughter]

She looked right at him when she said that.

I looked right at you. But I think it’s great, because we always brainstormed together, we supported each other… I remember many an episode where there would be maybe two of us hosting, one of us couldn’t make it, and then the other one stepped up… I think this was really a true collaborative, supportive environment, which - again, it all adds to the culture and the vibe and the way that you see us as hosts interact with each other. We’re not just pretending to like each other. We actually do. I’ve got some wonderful friends out of this… And I think it really is – like, we’re all in this to create and help the community. We’re not in it for ourselves. It really is like a joyous community endeavor.

Yeah, yeah. When we get together at conferences, we see each other, we hug, we hang out… It’s a continuation. We just pick up right where we left off, that kind of thing. And that definitely helps when you’re kind of running a show day in and day out. When you see each other as “Hey, these people are literally my friends. When I see them, I’m happy to see them.” That definitely helps with doing this.

You guys are really setting up this Go Time reunion panel that you’re going to do five years from now. “Where are they now?”, you know? [laughter]

This reminds me, Johnny, when we were in Berlin… Because we did exactly that. I was so excited to see Johnny in Berlin. I gave him a hug. I gave him a hug, and I just thought –

Johnny didn’t even remember it, Mat. He didn’t even remember it.

No, he does remember. He mentioned it earlier. He thought I forgot about it.

Oh, you forgot it. That’s right.

That’s what he thought.

I forgot who forgot.

No, but you gave me a nice, nice long hug, and you’re like “You feel great, mate.” And I was like “It’s a little awkward, Mat…” [laughs]

Just on the record, I’m not sure if that’s… But I did hug him and think “This guy works out.” You know what I mean? There is no doubt about it.

You had enough time to feel around…?

Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it?

[laughs]

Hey, when you get a shot to hug Golang Johnny, you really take advantage of it.

[laughs] Oh, my God…

Golang Johnny…

Otherwise how’s the gonna look any good…? I can just hear horns going. One of you New Yorkers, no doubt…

Seriously…

That’s my bad. [laughter]

It’s New York. There’s always horns.

Yeah, that’s one diversity area we failed on. We got too many New Yorkers on this podcast.

I mean, it’s the same for Fallthrough. I mean, three quarters of us on Fallthrough are in the New York City metro area, so…

Gotta fix that, man. You’ve gotta fix it.

Goodness.

You know any good Nebraskans that can join us?

I would be happy to join fall through at any moment’s notice. I just won’t have any good things to say.

I would love to, but I want to move to New York. I would move to New York too, though. I’d love to live in New York for a bit. I might do it.

You should. What’s stopping you?

That sweater.

They don’t check this. They don’t check your luggage for that, do they? Is that what they’re putting you through the machines for? They’re like “No, that’s that’s going to look terrible in Central Park.”

Stop you at customs. “Sir, you can’t bring that. You can’t bring that in here.”

This would kill in Central Park. Kris, back me up.

[00:40:11.02] I mean, I don’t think we should be talking about killing near Central Park right now, but…

Oh, yes.

Oh, too soon…

Oh, dang… [laughter]

Oh, man.

That was another thing we always would do, is put our foot in it sometimes, which is quite fun. Yeah. We got away with it, though, I think…

I did have my microphone backwards for an episode, and Kris never let me live that down. [laughter]

Did everything you say come up in reverse? Like [unintelligible 00:40:41.08]

It’s just, when Ian has audio issues, I’m like “Oh, is your microphone backwards?”

So how’d you finally figure it out, Ian?

It wasn’t a whole episode. It was just like the warm-up time.

Ian, were speaking into the cable bit that plugs into the computer? What do you mean the wrong way around? [laughter]

It was just sitting backwards. The cardioid was pointing at my monitor.

They didn’t make them obvious enough for that to be embarrassing, I don’t think.

Is that a horn?

Somebody’s seriously mad.

Yeah, that’s New York for you.

Oh, there’s a school bus outside.

That is a sustained honk.

Oh, yeah, no.

I feel like this is a good question - Jerod, did we ever have any sections of episodes that had to be like completely cut, because they were just like not suitable for air? I feel like we fluffed up and did a few things that were a little bit dodgy, but none that felt to me at least full-blown like “Why did we say that? That needs to be cut.”

Not that I can think of. I know sometimes we would take longer conversations and maybe put them in the Changelog++ bonus, because it’s just like, this went on for way too long… And so nobody –

Kris… [laughter]

Heey…! [laughter]

Every time Kris goes, “And another thing…” you’re like “Oh, here we go… He’s got another point.”

Listen, I’ve had many people come up to me and compliment me on my monologues. Thank you.

I enjoy your monologues… After we edit them. [laughter]

“This is part six of Kris’s monologue.”

Yeah. The longest unpop ever.

I got some jokes – I did get some jokes cut.

Did you?

I think so. Yeah. I think it was fair enough, you know…

No, you’d be like “Oh, we should take that out in post”, and then Jerod would leave it in.

Yeah. That was one of our moves. So one of my favorite shticks that Mat ever did was the New Year’s episode a couple of years ago, where he acted like you guys were having a fireside chat… Do you guys remember this?

Oh, yeah…

I know Ian and Kris were there. Was Johnny there? I think Johnny was there. I think it was you four. And it was like the first episode of the new year, and you were like talking about how great our productions are… And then you started describing things that you heard.

“And I want to do a special tribute to the editors and the sound technicians. They go above and beyond, I think, every year, and deserve a bit of recognition. Just listen to this fire crackle, at this fireside event. It’s just – you can hear it. It’s in HD. It’s amazing.

And listen in the distance, birdsong. They’re fading as the winter sun sets across the snowy rooftops. You can almost hear water trickling underneath the frozen surface of a stream. So not just water… It’s underneath kind of a layer of ice, so it’s muffled in some way. Isn’t that beautiful? An articulated lorry careens around an icy corner.”

You had each person say something they heard going on, like “Someone screams out for help” and we had to go back in post-production and find all those sound effects, and put them in. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense. And we thought about just leaving them all out and making it look so stupid, but… We played along. [laughter]

That’s funny.

That was great. There was a bit of meta trolling, which I always think is good. Yeah, I think it’s healthy, isn’t it?

I think there was a number of times where you had to like sandwich in positives after something like a little bit dodgy happened… I think that happened a lot, where individuals would say something about certain individuals in the community, and then you’d have to be like “Yeah, but they also are great at this. And I think that they’re actually wonderful… And shout-out, actually, to them.”

[00:44:26.10] That feels targeted, Angelica.

Yeah, I think it might be going in a specific direction… Most of us are nice.

Yeah, I just think some of us who like to talk, and have a lot of really strong opinions, sometimes say opinions that I just want to make sure we pad a little bit, with sandwiches of positivity.

Balanced.

Yeah.

I do find myself taking the like opposite opinion in a lot of episodes purposefully, so that it doesn’t feel too in like one area… Which I think has got me in trouble a number of times, because I started down a route or an argument that I actually don’t think is true, and then someone’s asked me a question about it, and I’ve been like “It’s a great question. I would be intrigued to hear YOUR answer actually, to that great question…”

Like spin it right back at him.

The amount of times that I’ve done that… Like “Great question.”

Yeah, before you know it, you’re a flat-earther, denying the existence of Australians.

I don’t go that far…

I do remember arguing with Kris and being – by the time I got done arguing, being like “Actually, I’m wrong.” [laughter]

Talk about humility… Hey, that’s a good thing right there.

He argued you into submission.

Because you were actually wrong, or you just wanting Kris to stop? [laughter]

Can it be both?

“Okay, you win, you win…”

“Fine, fine, fine…”

“Let’s end the show…”

I’ll have you know, one of my new co-hosts loves my rants, and is excited to talk with me about that, so…

I think they’re great.

We all love your rants, Kris.

We all love your rants, Kris.

We rip into you as a form of endearment and love.

I know…

We wouldn’t tease you if we didn’t like you. We’d just be really nice.

We’d also tease you if we didn’t like you.

Yeah.

But not in front of your face.

Ah, okay. Okay.

Not to your face.

If we tease you to your face, we like you. It’s when you don’t hear anything negative that you should be worried.

Now that you mention it, Angelica, I don’t ever hear anything negative about me, from you…

I need to shout louder…

Yeah. [laughter]

You’ve tuned her out.

You’ll get a voice memo next time.

There’ve just been many Roast-a-Mat episodes, and I feel like they start with Angelica saying something. I feel like it’s that Brit to Brit energy…

I think that’s true… [laughter]

Well, there was the one – the reunion episode, where we brought back Brian, Carlisia and Eric…

Yeah.

And it turned into a Mat roast-a-thon. Like, everybody was coming after Mat. I feel like you were hosting – it might’ve even been a Gophers Say, or it was a game show that we were playing with them. It was like episode 200, or 300, or one of these anniversary episodes…

Yeah.

And Carlisia just let you have it, I remember. And I was in the background just laughing, because you were – it was almost like the Brady Bunch, where the maid is in the middle, and the whole Brady Bunch surrounds her, and she’s like looking around at everybody… That was you, only they were just like belting you with insults the entire episode.

Kris, if you had to pick one, what would you say is your favorite GUID?

GUID. Globally Unique Identifier. Microsoft loves GUIDs. Do you have a favorite, Kris? Any have caught your eye?

No, so I’ll just answer Erik’s question instead, because I like that one… So I prefer Dark Mode for my editor, and Light Mode for everything else.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

I wanna strike that balance.

Cool. Okay. I’m really not getting the respect I’d hoped for on this, with people just choosing their own questions… But let’s press on. We’ll press on.

That’s true.

[00:48:03.07] Yeah, absolutely. And honestly –

It was awesome.

Yeah, was it? That does happen, though…

[laughs] On the regular…

…well, it happens because –

That’s just a thing that happens.

I think if you listen to Go Time, you feel like you really get to know each other. So people feel like they really know us, like we’re their friends. So that shortcuts a lot of social usual etiquette. And what happens is they leap straight into –

People just make fun of you in real life, too?

Yeah, they’re just immediately like “You’ve got a really high hairline.” They’ll just say that. [laughter] And it’s a joke…

This is the opener.

It’s just rude.

It’s a callback to something I’ve said.

It’s like, “Excuse me, who are you?”

They’ll sometimes make jokes at me, which are callbacks to things which I’ve said on the podcast, which I’ve forgotten. So again, they’re just raw insults, in the moment…

Just opening wounds…

And you’re like “Why is this person insulting me?” [laughs]

Well, I learned eventually… “Yeah. Oh, I see. It’s like, we’re being friends.” But it’s funny.

Oh, man…

Someone said “Is that a wig?”

Really?

Yeah, yeah. “Is that a wig?” Why would I choose this? [laughter] You know what I mean? Imagine going – have you gone into a wig shop on a budget?

They’re saying you’re bald and have bad taste.

Right. Yeah. I’d rather just leave it as it is.

Mat, how about that episode that we did, that was just you traveling to GopherCon?

Oh, yeah…

And that old lady called you a wanker at the end… [laughter] Remember that?

Yeah.

Wow…

And you said “Thank you…” because you had figured out that that was their way of –

Did you keep that in?

Oh, we had to. It’s not a cuss word over here in the States. We don’t know what it means.

Yeah, it got through the filters. It’s in the episode [unintelligible 00:49:46.10]

Oh, so if I swear, just not in anything American…

Yeah, you can use – bollocks, is that a swear?

You can say bollocks. Yeah…

We don’t know. We don’t know. It just sounds cool.

Bollocks doesn’t sound cool, does it?

[laughs] We don’t know what it means. It’s like “Whatever…”

This podcast is in American English.

No, but that’s true. Well, that was me – I went to GopherCon EU, I was hosting it, so I had to get the flight, and everything… And I just thought it’d be funny to just record –

You were just using your iPhone, weren’t you?

Yeah, exactly. Just the voice memos. So I just recorded bits. And then when something funny happened, I would just record a little bit about it. And it’s one of the – yeah, it’s one of the episodes. It’s nice, because –

And then you got back and you just sent it all to me, and you’re like “Can you do something with this?”

Yeah.

And I’m like “Oh, great…”

I tried to send it in the right order. That was important. Yeah. But otherwise –

It turned out pretty nice, actually. It’s kind of a funny, shorter episode…

Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah. Mat’s GopherCon EU Diary, episode 250.

Everyone was saying “Danke”, because I was in Germany. So they were saying “Danke!” And I thought they were saying the other thing.

Wanker…

Yeah…

Bleep that one.

Bleep it in the UK.

That’s right.

Yeah.

I do appreciate how much work that you, Jerod, and the rest of the Changelog post-production team put into making us sound good… So I know there’s some episodes where we were just saying stuff, and I was like “I don’t know how they’re going to fix this…” And then you listen to it and it’s like “Nah, this sounds great.” So…

Taking out my 45-second pause before I answer a question…

That does help, doesn’t it?

And now that I have to do that on the other side, I’m like “Oh, right, this is a lot of work…”

It is a lot of work.

Especially is we’re gonna do video, too…

Well, shout-out to our editor, Jason, who did the content edits for Go Time, and the mastering for Go Time for the last couple of years. Without him, it was even harder…

Thanks, Jason…

Yeah, Jason’s awesome.

Thanks, Jason. Yeah, it’s true. And guests would also say that. They’d say – one time someone asked me where the script was.

Wow.

And I said “No, no, there’s no script.” And they’re like “What? This just happens?” So that was a big compliment. Quite a surprise as well. But yeah. So they were surprised by – it feels very natural when you’re actually… It’s just like a Zoom call. You sat, chatting about something.

[00:52:09.22] Exactly.

And you quickly forget about the mics. You quickly forget you’re on a podcast, don’t you? So you end up just talking in a little group, basically. So that’s the experience. And then when it comes out, people were very shocked by exactly that. The production value, just how good it sounds when it’s in that context, how legit it sounds next to other podcasts… Yeah, people are very complimentary.

And I’m thrilled to be on it. I think, like you said, we had so many guests, we had so many different people speaking, talking about all sorts of stuff… We had more speakers than a Bang & Olufsen restaurant.

That one was scripted…

No, but would that be loud, or just a high-quality audio restaurant…? But yeah, lots of people had a great time also doing their episodes, and I think that’s quite nice, too. They’ve got their own little bits they can point to.

And do we have any highlights from the panel, in terms of an episode that you love, or something you may go back to and listen to, even once Go Time is dead and gone?

I still love that maintenance miniseries that I did… I just really love those episodes. I don’t know what it is about those episodes, but I go back and listen to them, and I’m like “There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there.” It’s good stuff.

It’s actionable stuff, I think. That’s what I like. I like those episodes where you can listen to it and then you know – you’re changed at the end of it, because now you think in a slightly different way about some problem.

Like how to eat Cheetos while you’re coding.

Yeah, exactly. With chopsticks, of course.

It changed my life. I haven’t tried it yet, but mentally I’m different.

Yeah. He types with Twizzlers as well. I don’t know [unintelligible 00:53:40.04]

[laughs]

I –

I loved the defer one.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Go on.

No, go on.

I’ll defer to you, Mat.

Ohh…! Now we have to leave it in.

No, I’ll do it in a bit.

Oh.

Double defer.

No, you have to do it now.

Triple defer. Who’s the most courteous? It’s a courteous-off.

Yeah, it’s a polite-off.

There you go.

I believe we have ours–

Okay, I liked – Mat! So what I liked the best was… [laughter]

He’s got shushed.

The real Angelica, please stand up… [laughter]

“Who owns our code.”

Oh, yeah.

I love that one. I loved that, part one and two.

I literally put that in the notes.

Yo, Angelica, how did you just steal an Ian’s favorite episode?

6 Because I loved it, because I think I learned so much, and I think it was really interesting… We got a really great guest, who really knew what they were talking about, which was great. I think it was one of the episodes where I came out of it feeling both that I had learned a lot, and really enjoyed the conversation, but also that it was an episode that would be really helpful for anyone who was interested in that question… So I loved doing that one. I think that was great.

Yeah. That one was approachable, yet insightful.

That’s a nice advert.

That sounded like a Goodreads, didn’t it?

It would be a nice advert if it didn’t have the police sirens, the New York police sirens in the background… [laughter]

Listen, there’s a lot going on in this city.

Yeah. That was like a peaceful sort of mindfulness thing, except you’ve got the horrific sort of sirens going off; something terrible’s happened.

You get used to it. You kind of drown it out.

Yeah. Breathe in… Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee!! …breathe out. [laughs]

The sirens I don’t mind. What I do mind is people honking their horn for 90 seconds at 2 AM. Those people – when congestion pricing finally was like “Yeah, we’re doing it”, I’m like “Good. It should be double.” Because I’m tired of these people honking their horns at night. Just keep raising it until people stop honking their horns.

[00:56:08.08] It should be an SLO for how much you’re allowed to spend on your horn… You can spend it all in one go, but that’s it. Then you have to shut up for the rest of the week.

You’re done.

Yeah. So more like the little paps; just like pap-pap, just to let just to let them know you’re there. That’s all it’s for. Yeah.

Thank you, observability Mat. [laughter]

Our range of products’ available at Grafana Labs.

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Grafana Labs Incorporated.

You’re going to steal mine. Don’t steal it.

Well, which one is yours? Because I’ve got two. I’ll pick the other one. See what good sport I am?

My favorite Go Time episode of all times was episode 235, “205

A Go Odyssey” with Ron Evans from the future. This was the best, and a complete surprise and delight to me, because I had nothing to do with it until it showed up in post-production, and I’m like “This is amazing.” So much so that we even – we’ve had Ron on Changelog & Friends a few times. He’s a regular over there, and I had him go through the entire backstory of how that episode came together.

Oh, great.

So there’s a 20-minute storytelling session over there of Ron’s perspective of that, but… This was just too much, Mat. This was kind of your – not your idea, but you prompted him to have this idea, right?

Yeah, we talked about mistakes that he saw that we’re making, and he wanted to talk about them. And so the idea was he would beam in from the future…

So he’s in like a dystopian future, and he’s beamed in somehow and he’s interrupted the signal, and then he’s telling us warnings from the future. That was the idea. And he went – he was in a studio, he had like a set…

He went all out.

Yeah. He had like LED lights… It looked like he was genuinely – like it is a podcast. It was not on video.

Right.

Although I think that is, isn’t it?

We were doing Go Time live back then on YouTube, and so there was a live video…But yeah, for the large, large majority of the audience, they did not get to see what he looked like that day. And it was preposterous and amazing.

Yeah. And it’s worth listening to, just because he’s such a character. And Natalie and I were sort of just trying to tame him really on that episode.

You guys played along really well. It was really well done.

It’s all we could do. All you can do with Ron is “Yes, and…” That’s my advice to you if you meet him in real life. And you’ll have a great time. Actually, he’s a fantastic bloke as well. And he does a lot for the Go community. So again, it’s nice to celebrate Ron. But yeah, that episode… And also, I loved John Gregory’s talk. He did the “Seven deadly Gopher sins” around Halloween one time.

Oh, yeah.

So he translated some classical list of deadly sins into Go sins. And what a fun way to sort of look at it and go through it. And I don’t think we ever got any complaints, did we, Jerod? Did we get ever any complaints for any episodes, or anything?

That’s a lot of evers, and anys. Yes, we’ve gotten complaints throughout the years, but not about that particular episode, I don’t think.

Alright.

Yeah. I mean, everybody has opinions… It’s the internet, so we have opinions and complaints, but –

Yeah. That’d be a good episode.

Just to read them all off?

Yeah.

It’s kind of like the mean tweets thing they do. Yeah.

Go Time, the hate. [laughter]

Well, there’s an old adage on the internet, “Don’t feed the trolls.” You know?

There are some horrendous individuals out there, so let’s not do that.

Oh, there’s not… Is there? Aww…

We’re not going to bring the mood down.

That’s right.

Keep the mood up.

Keep the mood up.

[01:00:02.26] Keep the mood up. There’s been so much positive feedback on Go Time. Let’s read some of that out. Let’s make a song or a rap about all the positive things said in episode… And I’m going to tap Mat, because you’re great at jingles, and I also feel obligated to say something nice to you, because I’ve been a middle bit of a not nice person to you during this entire episode… [laughter] You should do the jingle, because you’re so great… Also, that was an example of where I was not trying to be sarcastic. Being English makes me sound sarcastic. I think that would be very fun… And maybe we can do it for the five-year reunion. That could be fun.

Love it.

Yeah.

Five-year reunion… That’s in like 2029? I don’t want to think that far ahead.

Time will fly when you’re having fun.

If you’re having fun.

Well, don’t have fun is the advice, isn’t it? Time flies. Time is going too quick, so… Apparently though, that’s because you need more diversity in your day if that’s happening. So get out there, kids…

Yea, just look at some social media. That’ll give you some diversity.

I love how Mat tried to turn that into a teachable moment… Ian has to pop off. Ian, anything to say before you say goodbye?

Oh, I feel on the spot now.

Well, you are, man…

No, just sad to see this go, but I’m excited for Fallthrough. I hope you’ll join us over there… I think you’ll like it. We’ve got one episode in the bag, and I think you’ll like it.

Nice.

You’ve gotta have some sort of a come-on. You’ve gotta say “Hey, come on through. Why don’t you fall through?” Something. You’ve gotta sell it, man. You’ve gotta sell it.

Fall on through to the other side, you know? Like the old song.

I’ll let Kris come up with that.

We do have a little singer at the end of our trailer. It’s a little play on words.

It can’t be follow through. It can’t be that.

No, no…

There’s no way around. Only through. Like workshopping, you know? [laughter]

I’m sure we’ll figure it out. We’ve got some big things planned, so I’m sure something will fall out of it. So…

Oh. You were so close there.

Fall through it?

Yeah… See? You need to get Johnny on board. He’s got all the puns.

Yeah, man. I’ll see you through it. [laughter]

Make sure you never fall. Okay…

Alright. Well, I will see you all at the reunion, five years from now…

Awesome. See you, Ian.

Well, hopefully before then… We’ve just been talking about how [unintelligible 01:02:28.11]

“See you in five years, suckers…!”

We’ve just been talking about how much we will like each other. “Bye! I never have to see you again…” [laughter]

Alright… See you soon. And goodbye.

Much better.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Bye, Ian. See you on the Go Time on Fallthrough. Go Time on Fallthrough. That’s what we’ve gotta do. Listen, there were plenty of Go Time puns, so there’ll be plenty of Fallthrough puns. It’ll just – it’ll come out in the wash.

It takes time to percolate, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, you’ve got to work through some of those.

Exactly. There’s gonna be a lot of through things.

Maybe by next fall, you’ll have something.

Yeah. A lot of falling, a lot of throughing… [laughter] Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alright. Well, I guess we could have all said goodbye, unless - Mat, is there more on your agenda for this? I mean, how do you end – it’s like ending the final episode of Seinfeld. I don’t know. In Seinfeld they all just walked different directions, you know? Actually, that was not the finale. And in the finale of Seinfeld, they were all in jail, I think.

Oh, were they?

So we can’t do that.

No.

But there is the episode where they – are you guys Seinfeld watchers? They all get off of the subway, and the episode’s over, and they don’t really know what to do. They’re all just standing there and they all just walk different directions, and the episode ends. I thought it was kind of poetic.

Yeah, that’s nice. Well, I suppose we will walk different directions from here… But yeah.

Without our signature last segment?

Oh, could we do it?

Unpops?

That feels wrong.

But think of how unpopular that would be.

That would be unpopular.

Exactly. Isn’t that the perfect –

Oh, good point.

Isn’t that the perfect way to end it?

[01:04:09.03] The final unpopular opinion…

We’ve get some troll on the internet saying, “Y’all just mailed it in.”

Final unpopular opinion: unpopular opinions are not good.

You don’t want me to randomly think of an unpopular opinion. Jerod’s done it a number of times… That doesn’t work.

Break: [01:04:27.19]

Well, I do have one. Mine is that my password is too complicated now. It’s slowing me down.

That’s your password? “It’s slowing me down”?

That’s not my password.

I’ll be right back… I’ve got to go log into a few bank accounts…

It’s longer than that. It’s this really long, secure password, because it was hammered into me by security people who came on Go Time and told me “You need a nice, big, long password…” I use 1Password, or an equivalent password manager… I don’t want to give too many clues away to the hackers. [laughter]

Where is it that you log into this password manager?

So it remembers all my complicated passwords. So the real passwords are way too complicated for me. But my one for that even, and for my computers and stuff, is just too much. And I’m losing – I think over the year it’s hours here, I’m talking about.

Yeah, use a passkey. Isn’t that the new hotness? A passkey.

How do you log into your computer with it?

Oh, I don’t know.

I mean, that’s with the biometrics. Use that fingerprint, bro.

Yeah.

I’ve got a cool mechanical keyboard that’s heavy in metal.

[01:08:16.00] Well, that’s what’s slowing you down…

That is slowing me down.

It’s heavy?

It’s very heavy, actually.

And metal?

Made of metal. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I have an unpopular opinion. My unpopular opinion is that Mat’s unpopular opinion was actually a joke hidden as an unpopular opinion, and that our listeners are actually going to love it, and so they would vote Yes. So I think it was good. My unpopular opinion is that yours was a good one.

Oh, that’s quite meta, isn’t it? I didn’t know you were allowed to turn the unpopular opinion format against each other…

My unpopular opinion is that your unpopular opinions are not that unpopular.

Get him, Johnny. [laughter]

Not so big now, eh, Jerod? Johnny works out. He works out!

[laughs]

I feel like I just played rock and Johnny played paper right on top of it.

Oh, yeah. Another unpopular one I’ve got is AI – we don’t really need to code as much as we used to now with AI helpers. And I think everyone should embrace them, and get them to accelerate what they’re doing. That’s my – and maybe that’s unpopular, but…

It’s certainly unpopular with me, but…

I know. And I think there’s the ethical side. I think that ship has sailed. I just don’t see how we put that genie back in the bottle. And therefore, let’s…

Embrace it?

…let’s use it to our advantage.

Let’s embrace it. Just throw ethics to the wind.

I was like this with the calculator though, when that came out. It was the same.

You were trying to stick to the abacus?

Probably spell check and grammar check, too… You were like “Oh, let’s just use these tools all the time.”

Yeah, yeah…

Wait, how old are you, Mat?

Ancient… [laughter]

Oh, yeah, the calculator. No, that was out already.

Are you actually 70?

That was out for ages, even before I was born. Not born. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

I mean, if your hairline is any indication, you might be up there, right?

Aww… [laughter]

I was this close, this close to making the same joke…

We almost made it off the pod without that…

It’s evergreen. It’s evergreen.

It’s certainly not… What I always say, what my mum told me, is “What I lack in hair, I more than make up for in face. So if face is your thing, I’m your man.”

Do you want to know something?

Yes, please.

In the few interactions that we’ve had, Mat, I’ve heard you tell that joke three times.

Oh, no…

He forgets. He forgets. Perhaps it’s a sign of age, I don’t know. He forgets. [laughs]

It’s true. So…

It’s a go to.

This is not a joke.

I love it.

It’s like you trigger a subroutine, you know? Mat just calls a function.

Mat, he just keeps walking – he’s the one walking right into them, you know? [laughs]

Mat, do you have a stock response for when someone says what Angelica just said to you?

Well, I just let people have their moment, really. I don’t wanna –

What did your mum always tell you about this moment?

She said “If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

That one is fresh. I’ve never heard that one.

Oh, man…

[unintelligible 01:11:24.10]

Mat’s sincerely regretting this unpop segment…

Well, yeah. So I don’t know… Kris, what do you think about AI? Do you not use Cursor? [laughter]

We don’t have all day…

Switching up…

Oh, well, here’s a good model to – no.

[unintelligible 01:11:41.00] Kris, what do you think about AI? Take the stage…

Using it to make coding quicker…

[01:11:52.22] I mean, generative AI is – I mean, yeah, it helps you in the short term, but I just think the long-term ramifications are pretty rough. We’re currently in an industry that’s in crisis because not enough people know how to build enough of the stuff… So we don’t have good ways of really building solid low-level stuff that we need. And you have like three people maintaining some of the most critical infrastructure that we have. You don’t want people building OpenSSL to be using AI-generated code.

Also, AI is going to be average, kind of by definition. It’s taking in all the code, the good, the bad, the best, and it’s spitting out the medium of it. So I guess if we want to all have a bunch of average code… But I don’t know, over here in America, we like being number one. The best. And that’s not going to happen if you just have a bunch of average code floating out there. You want to have the best code. And the best code requires some human element and some training. A little more than what AI can give you. But if you want to sit down and use it, I’m like “Okay, but just be prepared to fall behind and not be as good in the future.”

Yeah, you definitely have to still be a part of the process. You can’t just let it do it. I asked it once to retry an HTTP request if it failed, and it just put that code in line. And so I was like “No, I don’t want that. I want you to create a type that can do this.” So you do still need that knowledge. You can’t really get away from that. And I think you also need to own the code that it generates as well, like you said. It can’t just be –

It’s like one of those – it sounds like a good idea until you realize that you already need to have the knowledge of how to write the code well in order to use it… And then if you already have the knowledge of how to write the code well, then why do you need this thing that’s writing the code for you? Why not focus on tools or language features that allow you to write that code more concisely in the first place? So it’s like - yeah, sure, if you have to write a whole bunch of verbose code to implement this thing, AI might help you. But we could also be working on adding more language features or more IDE features that just allow us to write those things more concisely, or building libraries that allow us to write that more concisely… And then you’re not dealing with kind of the garbage that AI tends to spit out quite often.

Yeah, I think the technology that is doing what you describe is the AI. I think that is the technology that is helping us do those things better. And it’s a trade-off, like you say; it’s not always perfect, it’s not always right. You still really do have to – you have to kind of babysit it. It’s like having a junior dev that can type really quickly. But yeah, it’s like autocomplete. I mean, it is autocomplete, really, in a way…

It’s like autocomplete that’s just wrong 10 percent of the time or more.

Yeah. If you keep an eye on it though, and guide it…

But 90 percent, though… That takes you a long way. I mean, in most cases, that’s good enough.

But I do think also – for individual usage, I think it’s good. But when you look at also how much energy and all of that it takes to train it and the impact it’s having on the world, it doesn’t really seem like it’s worth it so that you can write your code a little bit faster. It just seems like maybe we should not be boiling the planet, so that I don’t have to go learn some library or something like that, or so I can ask the computer questions that I should probably already know the answer to.

Well, unfortunately, Kris in New York deciding on moral grounds not to use AI because he doesn’t want the oceans to boil is going to have zero impact on the industry’s movement towards that trend.

Oh yeah, of course. I mean, I’m not saying like we’re just going to stop AI tomorrow, but… I don’t know. Someone asked my opinion, so I gave my opinion.

Yeah, no, and I think it’s quite convincing. I think you might convince some people… It’s just – we did a hackathon, and I was writing React code, which I’ve never really written… TypeScript, React. I was dealing with that stuff, and probably prototypy quality level, if we’re honest. I would want someone who really knows it to probably rewrite it, frankly, at this moment. But yeah, there’s times where that autocomplete just really does accelerate it.

[01:15:57.05] There are other times where its suggestions lead you down the wrong path. And I have the experience enough maybe to know that, and others might not. And so I do think we have to be cautious with this. But you have to know what to press on a calculator, too.

If I were to have an unpopular opinion about this topic, I would say that we should stop calling it artificial intelligence, and start calling it like maybe digital intelligence, or just call it intelligence… It feels kind of derogatory to computers to call it like “artificial”. Like, what’s special about human intelligence that we’ve got to call it artificial over there? Why can’t it just be regular intelligence? But then if you go look at the actual history and path of where we got to artificial –

That’s how it starts. We annoy them so much they just say “You know what? Let’s take these humans out.”

Well, not that much… But when you scratch that surface, you find some things that are less than pleasant… So I think that’s why the artificial is there a lot of the time. But I’m in favor of, you know, just call it intelligence. Let’s start defining what intelligence means, and broadening that field, and then figure out how digital computers can augment human intelligence, and make us better at what we do… Instead of just trying to recreate human intelligence. Like, something that augments us, and makes us better. It doesn’t try to be us. Digital computers are not biological entities.

I like your last, like, 20 seconds. [laughter]

Jerod’s like “I’m just going to edit it down to that 20 seconds.”

Yeah. That might be all people hear. No… [laughter]

Just be like “I’ll clip it right there.”

That was a good 20 seconds, Kris.

There’s build-up to get to that, you know… But for an actual unpopular opinion, I’m actually happy that Go Time is ending, and that we’re actually starting something new, with a different name. I think that there’s a lot that I love about Go Time, but it started to feel, at least for me, a little constraining being so focused on Go, and I wanted to kind of expand out just a little bit more. And I feel like that’s what we’re going to do with Fallthrough. So I’m really excited for that, and I would much rather us kind of make that move now, when Go Time is still at its height, still shipping regularly, still having lots of listeners… Instead of at a point in time in the future where it just kind of fades away into nothingness. So I’m happy that it’s ending, as bittersweet as that is.

I can’t wait to see that one go out on the polls to find out if people think that’s unpopular, Kris… I hope they do. Hopefully, that wins the all-time – that just smashes it and wins the entire thing.

I mean, I’ve had some really unpopular opinions, Mat, so I don’t know…

Yeah.

None from Angelica…

No, I don’t have an unpopular opinion… Because whenever I do an unpopular opinion, Jerod tells me off, because it’s too random…

It’s the last time, Angelica… Just generate one.

We’ll cut it out in post… [laughter]

Yeah, Jerod will cut it out anyway.

Yeah. Just generate one, we’ll cut it out later…

My unpopular opinion is that people that know little to nothing about the topic at hand are much more interesting to listen to than people who think they know everything about it.

Ooh… I like it.

Is that the Dunning-Kruger thing? Or am I just making it up because I don’t know enough about it [unintelligible 01:19:24.17] [laughter]

The reason I say this is because people who acknowledge that they know little to nothing about a topic I think will be more curious, will ask more interesting questions, will make things more accessible for others, and will lower the barrier to entry. So there is reasoning behind this unpopular opinion.

I love it, Angelica. I think you just won the podcast right there.

Thank you.

Because you’re describing yourself on the show, right?

[laughs] No…?

Was that like a low-key shade a little bit?

No, because – from your earlier statement about the new eyes.

Jerod out here dragging people…

[01:20:03.22] No, I just feel like she maybe should have let it left unsaid, I guess…

Geez…

She just won the show.

Jerod…! [laughter]

It’s the final episode. Let’s get it all out. Let’s get it all out on the table.

Tell me how you really feel, Jerod…

Well, we have to end it now, I guess…

Hey, what about my unpopular opinion? I don’t matter?

Yours was that mine was bad.

Yeah, I guess I did get it in…

It was so long ago that you forgot about it.

Come on, Johnny… We’ve got to get one more Johnny unpopular opinion.

Go ahead, Johnny. Angelica has to bounce, but… Go ahead, Johnny.

Alright, alright, alright. And actually, this one’s a serious one for me, because over the last couple of years I think I’ve really – like, social media has really sort of turned me sort of off. I really don’t like – I don’t find the same joy in using Twitter as I once did, or even now Blue Sky, that’s like spinning up, and there’s some activity, and it’s a little better… But now it just feels like everything is just about attention grabbing, and just trying to spike my stress for views, and engagement farming… Like, everything just seems to be like just seeking something other than just community building. It’s just hypercommercialized, and it just feels different. And honestly, I’m contemplating just getting off all these things, shutting down accounts, deleting these things. It’s no longer – I find myself sort of valuing… And I always did sort of value the face to face interactions, but the thing is, I wouldn’t have met the people that I now know, all of you – I met you online before I met you in person. I wouldn’t have never come across and built these relationships without having these online communities. But man, I’m wondering what the trade-off is now, because every time I go online, I feel worse for wear. I have an experience, online, and everything else, I’m just like – “Uhh.” I don’t want to be in these spaces anymore, so I’m contemplating just shutting these accounts down, just… It’ll be sad, but I don’t know, perhaps I’m at the point in my life where I’m like perhaps I value my mental health more than follower counts, or likes, or things like that. But I still have a presence in the community, I still like to do good things, I still like to have workshops, I still like to reach people in some way… But maybe I need to find a different way to do that, that doesn’t involve being on these platforms, because they’re just not good for my mental health.

Yeah, that really resonates. I don’t know how unpopular that will be, honestly… Yeah, I feel like that’s true. There are times when it’s nice, but you just can tell it’s algorithms feeding you stuff. I get notifications for things which would outrage me if I read it and took it literally. So I’m getting notifications for things to outrage me now through that X app. I don’t get it through the others, but… Yeah, and I know why that’s happening. It’s just literally to drive all that attention. But I think so.

[01:23:08.02] But I do feel like we need to change. We need to grow up now out of this, into something else, and I think that’s what will inevitably happen. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but… Yeah, I know what you mean. I think breaks, especially; take breaks from that. If you find yourself waking up and the first thing you’re doing is scrolling, and just having like –

Doom scrolling…

…a hundred different ideas very quickly injected into your brain immediately, that is an unusual thing to happen. And certainly, you wouldn’t say it was a very natural thing in how we’ve lived before. So yeah, there is something about that.

I know people that – and I do this sometimes. I don’t always remember… But basically, leave your phone elsewhere, not near your bed, so that it’s not the thing that it became, where it’s just like an extension of yourself. It’s a tool that you use sometimes. So that was quite nice, to do that a bit…

Yeah, I watched a YouTube video about – I don’t know if it was about attention spans; it was about like maybe attention spans and social media.

How long was it?

Did you get to the end?

The link in presidential debates and how they were like three hours long, and there was like a one-hour opening statement… And because people were used to reading books, they could like hold their attention for that whole hour, and hold that attention over the course of three hours. And now that we’re so used to short snippets of information that we consume, we just don’t have as much of the ability to do that. But one of the ways you can kind of combat that, because our brains are so plasticky, and they can kind of mold to their… They have plasticity; that’s the word, not plasticky. Plasticity. And they can mold to new things; like, you can actually train yourself out of that by like turning off your phone for a day, and sitting down and reading books, and you can kind of get yourself out of that consumption of really short snippets of information, and the doom scrolling, and all of that. But it’s certainly hard.

Yeah. So this is kind of quite a nice way to sort of round this up, I think… You know, taking a break from your socials, and taking a break from things, and do something different, do something new… It seems to be a nice theme. But yeah, I’ve loved Go Time, I’m really pleased it happened… Yeah, it’s something I’ll always hold dear. And it’s helped me tremendously, frankly.

Cheers. Here’s – raise a glass to Go Time, and to everyone that helped make it happen. Cheers!

Cheers.

Cheers.

And thanks to you all for listening. It wouldn’t be a podcast without your ears.

Not technically true, but carry on…

Can I have your ears back now?

Technically not true, but spiritually true…

Spiritually true, definitely.