January 2025 Q&A

What better time to start the new year than with a Q&A‽ In the span of four hours, we got through almost 90 questions(!) covering everything from IPv6 to ethics, from Rust's 2024 edition to monetization of content. The questions were asked both ahead of time and live (using https://wewerewondering.com/ ), and I've timecoded them all as chapters on this video for easier discovery. Live version with chat: https://youtube.com/live/eMuGHXMjJTU 0:00:00 Introduction 0:02:42 What's your stand on "the AI stuff"? 0:06:51 Have you had to do a "LeetCode" interview? 0:09:52 How can I actually finish projects I start? 0:12:53 What is your opinion about nix and NixOS? 0:16:48 How do you view the Zig programming language? 0:19:18 Will you do any more CodeCrafters streams? 0:21:18 will you do any more from-scratch building videos? 0:21:57 Do you use a debugger like GDB? 0:24:40 Will you decrust rayon? 0:26:11 Can you tell us more about ReadySet? 0:30:28 Who's been instrumental in your programming journey? 0:34:08 What do you think about Amazon’s recent RTO-mandates? 0:39:31 How do you navigate a large codebase? 0:45:23 How do I learn to write performant code in Rust? 0:49:35 Can we ever be truly free from libc? 0:52:15 How did you learn to speak so "carefully"? 0:58:32 Do you have any favourite Rust or programming blogs? 1:03:23 I'm learning Rust but am struggling to follow your book/videos 1:07:48 Should rustc move away from C++ written LLVM? 1:11:41 What are your thoughts on the state of IPv6? 1:13:30 Are you interested in formal verification? 1:25:16 If you could study CS again, what would you do differently? 1:29:50 As a Principal Engineer, do you escape the PM aspects? 1:34:16 Do you have ethical concerns about working in the military industry? 1:44:03 Can you provide more technical details around what you've worked on? 1:49:30 Thoughts on the Rust 2024 Edition? 2:02:12 Rules of thumb for "bolt more on" vs "just rewrite it" 2:05:19 What are your main sources to keep up with new technologies? 2:09:04 Do you still keep up to date with academic research? 2:11:29 What inspired/influenced your way of working with humans? 2:18:42 How can we help you make more educational content? 2:36:15 Have you read about the academic research around CRDTs? 2:37:51 What do you think about Rust-side GUIs like Tauri? 2:41:22 What is missing from Rust? 2:51:00 What are you looking forward to the most in 2025? 2:53:22 How are the cats doing? 2:56:56 Is this OK to wish Helsing will never need to use its products? 2:58:55 How do you choose the right abstractions when coding in Rust? 3:01:18 Is the Rust performance debugging experience worse on macOS than Linux? 3:03:49 Have you ever used Elixir/Erlang/other BEAM-based languages? 3:07:49 Rust with a team who are excited about Rust but have no experience 3:10:06 What's a concept that you initially found challenging? 3:13:35 Picking Rust as a startup language 3:15:27 Is the adoption of Rust slowing down? 3:16:50 What new technologies are you willing to learn this year? 3:18:03 Have you considered going vegan? 3:20:37 Does Helsing sell arms to Israel and would you stay if they did? 3:22:06 What is something that you think is underrated? 3:29:18 Running through remaining questions (list in description) Here are the questions I covered in the "run through" at the end. There were _way_ more questions left that these, but these are the ones we go to! - What is one thing you regret learning in 2024? - Thoughts on gpui from the zed team? - What language would you "main" if rust wouldn't exist? - How do you see Rust in Linux kernel? - Have you used ghostty? - Have you made any updates to your setup recently? - Are you neurotypical? - What do you think about graphics programming in Rust? 3:32:14 - Why is your mascot a llama? - How hard is it to land a first job working with Rust? - Will you decrust actix-web? - Have you ever had to fix memory fragmentation issues in Rust? - What are your plans for 2025 around content creation? - How do you retain knowledge? - How do you stay motivated? - How can you stay so lean all the time? - What do you enjoy except coding? 3:35:35 - Is it expected to look so many things up while reading R4R? - When did you pick up Rust? - Why didn't you stay in academia? - Is self-teaching Rust possible? - Are you afraid of dying (too early)? - How can I improve my English? 3:39:34 - What is the tech stack for this site? - Why doesn't Rust support arbitrary sized integers (e.g., u1, u2)? - Why can't Rust's std be distributed as a static library? - What's the source of your aversion towards Blockchain? - Are you still enjoying Norway? - Are you concerned about Rust unsoundness bugs? - What software do you use for dealing with documentation? 3:44:50 - How do you keep up with friends (esp. across timezones)? - Have you tried the zed editor yet? - Does being in Norway make up for career/income upside lost from the US? - Any wisdom on Borrow vs AsRef?