WeAreDevelopers LIVE - Playing in Production

On this edition of WeAreDevelopers LIVE we're joined by Andrew MacLean, Developer Educator at Twilio, to talk about why it's important to play in production, as well as discussing software licenses, foldable phones, competitive pretzel cutting and the Flight Simulator inside Excel, and much more besides. 

We discuss the tech news of the week, and of course play a round of Fake or News.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hello and welcome to another Wear Developers Live. This is a recorded version because we have a guest again who's not in the time zone of Europe. So we might make that a normal thing anyway soon. So again, if you want us to do that, if you want to have the show live later on in the day, please give us a uh drop us a line, tell us about it, and we can see uh or comment here and you can see what's going on. Um now uh both of us are actually a bit uh out of sorts, of sorts, because we just came back from We Are Developers America, North America, and uh I'm jet lagged. Uh Dan you flew a day earlier, so you're probably better off.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Uh up and down. It comes in waves, doesn't it? It sort of hits you for a couple of days. So every time, I think this morning when we spoke, I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'm over it. And then come the afternoon, yeah, I'm flagging again. So give me a couple more days.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah. So it was the first time that we are developers was in America, and we were in San Jose, took over the whole convention center and the places around it as well. And uh yeah, it was it was exciting. It was the lineup was a bonkers good, I have to say. And uh also people uh the I I loved how some of our partners, the booths that they came up with, some of the booth designs were absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, they really were. And I mean, there was we we saw quite a lot of people actually sharing those things on socials, so it was good for us to sort of just have to repost them because they they did sort of speak for themselves. But um, yeah, I quite I mean I don't want to call out any indiv in particular, but I really liked the F1 style uh gear that uh Dash Zero had. I just I really wanted one of those. That was the swag that like I wanted to come away with, but didn't get it.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Well, I got the backpack from them, and they they were all, I mean, for those who don't know, they were in Berlin as well, and they have these uh Formula One uh pit crew uh uh onesies, not onesies, uh overalls on, and uh in Berlin they must have been boiling because it was super warm. But uh one thing at San Jose Convention Center was the AC was brutal. I mean, there was penguins dancing around, and I had no idea. Like, I mean, in the rooms I saw people wrapping up in like hoodies and putting up tents and stuff, so it was it was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

It was just yeah, you could tell who the European developers were, you know, all the developers from Europe were all saying it was so cold. But I don't know, everyone seems used to it. But you know, there were lots of other sort of differences we found out there, but it was also just it felt like take you know taking Berlin. We sort of forget forget where we were for a while. It felt like we'd just taken Berlin with us, so yeah, it was great. It was a really um it was like you said, the lineup was amazing, but it was only when you were there, it sort of felt surreal, like you couldn't believe it it was there, but also it was better than I was expecting, you know. It was um yeah, really, really amazing week.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

I mean, I was very happy to be able to invite friends and people that I always admired and got finally got them to speak for us as well because we didn't have to ship them over for uh to Berlin. So I loved that the trifecta at the end was like Kelsey High, uh Kelsey Hightower, Angie Jones, and then Simon Willison. And that was just the final last three talks of the event, and it was just incredibly good. I mean, Simon I've been working with for decades and uh well, decades ago, and then uh I've seen him now rise to that LLM whisperer that has every information about what's happening in the AI space, and he gave a great talk about finishing off what's happening in LLMs in 2026 so far. So there's lots of information in there. Now, uh as we were preparing this, or we we pretended to be preparing this, uh, we we wondered who to actually invite. And you grabbed one person at the event or or from the event. So uh we got Andrew McLean here today, uh from Twilio. Hey, I mean, he's kind of branded, so we obviously see this. And um, yeah, you've been at the event as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:39

I have. I've been this is this was my third We Are Developers, and then obviously my first We Are Developers uh NA. And yeah, I gotta say, A, yes, everything you said, amazing, like great event. I was on, I got to be on a stage. So anytime I get to be on a stage, I'm also really psyched about a conference, but also Dash Zero. I uh I was talking to my parents about this on like our weekly call. And I was like, listen, I go to a lot of conferences and I have sat through the Dash Zero presentation multiple times and never gotten this backpack. And this time I got this backpack. It's the only piece of swag that I took home with me because it is so, so good. And honestly, I love I loved hearing more about like why they wear the the jumpsuits too. That was kind of a fun story. Um, yeah, so excited to be here. Thanks so much, guys. I you gotta be so jet-like I had like a few hours' flight to get home, so y'all, y'all are are real ones for doing this. Chris.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

And the other amazing, amazing booth was JP Morgan. I mean, they had this like garage and it was all like with like uh uh 60s, 50s style kind of stuff. It looked like it looked like Loki, the TV show without the creepy stuff, and uh uh and I was also amazed to meet how many people from JP Morgan I met that were complete nerds. You know, you would expect a bank to be like very much like tied up, like like suit wearing uh people, but they were just really, really fun people. I won one of them was like in a full punk outfit with a with a Scottish hat on, and he was also incomprehensible for everybody who wasn't ever in Scotland. It was great. I love it. We're gonna do more with them.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

I love it. I was wearing the first person I ran into was uh was that exact person who you're talking about, and my first selfie from We Are Developers was was with him, and I was like, JP Morgan, really? That's like this is what you want. You want your bank to both be like secure, but also just like the most badass ever.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah, he did he he did only selfies. I mean, when you when you look at his LinkedIn, there's like everybody, he took a picture with everybody, it seems. But yeah, it's one of the bigger problems I have with We are developers at Congresses is basically I moderate the main stage, so my job is 24-7 there, and from time to time I just run around the shop floor, do a quick swag uh uh uh uh grab kind of thing, and uh and then people just start wanting to talk to me and take selfies. And I mean, I had one person that talked to me for 10 minutes, I still have no idea what they said. I mean, I've never had anybody who just like started 10 conversations in one sentence, and I'm like, yeah, you take a lot of time that I don't have right now, so that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Like, I mean, I'm just impressed how well y'all are able to get around to the booze, even just for like five minutes. I've seen you at every single one of these conferences taking time for people that are there. That is not an easy thing to do. And honestly, it's not just you guys, it was everybody. The number of conversations that I had with We Are Developers team members, I was like, y'all have so many more like like chaotic things to deal with right now, and you're taking time. And I think that's kind of the magic of what y'all do. You're making community first.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah, that's uh that's a lot of effort, but good as well. And I mean it it helps that they basically had to chase coffees and stuff like that because backstage was there was a catering room, but it was it's the same distance than the shop floor. So basically, I went to to random people. I did the same at other conferences. I always go and ask for coffee, and that's the the icebreaker, and then our sales team talked to the people after I had my coffee. So that's a that's a good way to get in. And uh yeah, it's a coffee, so that's always a good bit. Uh now you uh uh Twilio had these rotary phones. What the hell was that about?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

So we have uh like a series of activations that we do at like sort of all these major conferences that we go to, and they're always again sort of Twilio's like a telephony company. Um, and so over the years, like that phone has disappeared, but it's never truly disappeared from like the heart. Like if you look in like the Twilio logo, it's kind of the rotary phone, and so we have that everywhere. And I think there's something super magical about just like hearing that rotary phone ring is so cool. And then when you sort of combine that old school nostalgia with like these new sort of like conversational AI things, it's such a cool like juxtaposition. I never thought I would use juxtaposition in a podcast on the internet, but here we are. I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

It's a good word. It's a good word. And what does the thing do? Did you uh did you call an agent on the phone or uh was it just a red telephone directly to Moscow or what was going on there?

SPEAKER_02 8:05

I I mean both can be true. Uh no, this so it was actually to order um to order a smoothie. So if you saw, if you walked by, there were like these smoothies that I think Danny uh must have been on that phone for hours. Um and so you could literally pick it up and talk to an AI agent uh that would sort of like walk you through the process of ordering one. Um yeah. So it was kind of a uh a real-time customer service agent um like demo while also being this really, really cool experience of like picking up that phone, calling it, and then getting that physical thing afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Cool. It's interesting how like uh how like these nostalgia shows like like uh uh um uh stranger things and these kind of things made people yearn for this again. Like, I mean, like no, I'm I I remember I remember doing uh having an extra connector to our rotary phone because I actually needed to connect to BBSs and things like that. So you couldn't do that with a rotary phone because you needed the dial tone. So you basically typed the thing in and held it to the receiver. And I basically went to went to uh phone booths at times and connected to BBSs and connected to answering machines to do mostly half-legal stuff. But it was uh it was interesting that these things still existed. Like it's uh um when I when I moved to England and I yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I was just thinking then something about it as well, just that the physical technology, you know, like the fact that you're actually using this kind of physical thing when so much of what we do is just clicking buttons and so many demos are that, you know, just showing you screen recordings or something. So it made it kind of uh yeah, definitely come to life in that way. And and it just intrigues you, doesn't it? You see it, and it's like you see a red phone, you're gonna go, it's like a red button. You want you're gonna go and press it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

100%. And it's interesting too. I uh like so these phones are all obviously we're not sort of like sitting there with like um uh landlines you can plug into. And so they're all sort of like VoIP phones, and we've got this zip adapter. And I'm so I'm Canadian, I live, I live on Vancouver Island, and so I always love little Canadian connections to everything. And I uh do you guys remember BlackBerry from back in the day? Uh so obviously crazy huge, successful Canadian company, and Blackberries kind of die, but RIM, the company that made them, exists. And I didn't realize that one of the major things they do is they actually make software for um the uh like the VoIP routers, basically. Um, so they're making for like there's these products called like grand streams, which are the way that you kind of attach a uh um a SIP line, so like the digital phone line into these sort of like these physical phones, and it's it's uh a Canadian company that's keeping the lights on. Software is kind of ugly, but it works. So uh I feel like BlackBerry is living up to their name. Kind of ugly, but it works, but it works.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

It's weird because SIP lines is what we have that go from like mountains to other mountains, and you can go around them because like we call them, we come we call them landlines. I mean, I've seen like USB uh connectors that are like an old phone receiver that you can put in your iPhone and call people that way. That would that I've seen before as well, and it's really bizarre that yeah, like uh this is you know the inconvenience that you had when you were working in call centers back in the days, that you had these extra connector to it, so you could hold it on your shoulder because otherwise you would hold up the thing the whole day long. That's not fun either. And then we got headsets and then we got smartphones, and then we go back to these things. I mean, uh it always fascinated me because people didn't know about that BlackBerry, that rim it means research in motion. And I never understood how that is related to the company because that feels more like a Pelotron kind of thing, or like you know, like and at one time they had the uh the job offer side where you can get jobs, and they had the short connection rim.jobs, the domain, and until somebody explained to them that's probably not the best idea.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, I wasn't sure for a moment if that was like a UK only thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Yeah, no, it's international. It's funny too. They um there's uh so I don't know if you remember the jobs, like all the Steve Jobs movies that came out years ago, um, and sort of starred every star in Hollywood. So a couple years ago, there was a documentary that came out.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

I'm just doing that thing. It's like that's the same from the post. I just realized you talked about you talked about jobs, and I was just basically doing the one from the famous poster of him without realizing it.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I love it. See, this is the impact that these like these like things have. Um, but but yeah, it's funny. They did they did a a uh like a uh a biopic on like the the Blackberry Rim story. It's kind of chaotic, like highly, highly recommend. It's like a these amazing uh Canadian uh actors like that you have seen in different things that are all playing these roles that they are far too young to play, um, which makes total sense. Uh but yeah, I uh the the small world. I also I will say I was this close to like um just plugging in like a phone receiver and doing this entire uh this entire show like on a phone. So missed opportunity now that we're talking about it. Next time.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah. I mean Blackberry was interesting. I I once wrote a blog post on my Blackberry in a mall in America because I had to finish it and I just like, why do I didn't do that to myself? But the uh the Blackberry messaging service was completely encrypted and uncrackable. Uh, because during the riots in London, that was one of the biggest problems of the Met Police that they actually could not follow people's messaging on BlackBerry, but they could do on SMS and other gateways. But BlackBerry was basically the one that was completely safe and secure, uh, and yeah, basically used to actually orchestrate the whole riots going on in London. So that was an interesting one. It's kind of awkward as a tech company. You want to you want to celebrate that, but you shouldn't. You know, that's a problem there. So yeah. You're not wrong. Cool. Let's talk about some resources that we collected and I mean, I say collected shoddily put together uh yesterday, so we can actually have the show running. And one thing that I've that I love to bits was that somebody created a vibe-coded AI slob license.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

That actually that you actually can use for all your vibe-coded stuff, and it's just absolutely hilarious what's all in there. Like the author may not have written the software, read the software, reviewed the software, understood the software, test the software, run the software, noticed that half the dependencies do not exist, and so on and so forth. It's just wonderful that that the licenses like that exist.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

This is such a developer thing to do is create a license for things that should never see the light of day in some cases. But you know what? They may not be able to see the light of day, but they can they can be licensed. So I just like the humor that's in here is so good. Um have you guys ever seen the first commit on Git that um Linus Torvalds made? There's like a great meme online, and if you go back into it, um the humor that has kind of continued in this space of like developer like README files is kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I love it. It's worth scrolling down there, Chris, as well, just on that page, because the comment at the bottom um is uh from Mitchell, it's the very bottom comment, which I think's great. Um, and it's just uh change copyright to sloppy right. And I thought, how have I not heard the term sloppy right before? It's 2026 and it's taken that long. Um, but I thought that was great. So yeah, hope to see it happen.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

There was also the do whatever you want, the the hell what you want with it license at one time, which I liked as well. Like, I'm not I'm not taking any responsibility, you do whatever you want. But yeah, it's uh uh no this is a i slop. Nobody cares what you do with it, not even the people who made it.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Yeah, but uh it is it is amazing how uh how when you release open source, like the only people that are actually asking for your license are the people that do open source as well. And the only conference I've ever been where people were really excited about licenses was uh was FOSTEM in Belgium, like an open source conference, and it was just incredible how much detail you have there about these kind of things. But yeah, it's it's weird. Like, I mean, we talk about like in the 90s when when uh high school kids got sued for millions of dollars for downloading like three songs, and now a companies are just scraping the whole of the internet and using it in their systems without actually doing anything about it, and don't nobody get sued for it. It's odd.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

I I was wondering that though, you know, how much does it matter anymore? Um, because it's it feels like there's such a huge quantity of uh whether it's say about vibe-generated, uh vibe code generated apps or or just like um the the huge quantity of data online that it feels like even if you could um police this enough to find, you know, it's it feels like now that uh even if there was something that had a restrictive license, you might generate your own thing anyway and just create slop generate uh uh um a create uh a competitor. Do you see what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Well, that's what that's what people did. I mean, they they used like make models to to copy uh uh license things and change them around until it's not like that anymore, but that's still illegal. So I think the licensing thing is something to protect your own IP and to make sure that basically that a company can't take your stuff without doing it. And that's why when you use MIT license, of course, it's just they can do it. If you lose a license that is not non-restrictive, but forces them to also open source the product that they've created with it. That's something where uh where a lot of people then get into a space where um they haven't. I mean, I almost wore the uh the JavaScript t-shirt that I have with the Java logo, and I mean when you look when you follow this, like Dino versus Oracle, there's a huge thing going on. So you could say it's it's not necessary, but that's actually not the right way of doing it. A license is there to protect your hard work from other companies making money with it. So uh, but whereas this is fun, it's sometimes really important to understand it. And I love that GitHub and other hosting uh uh providers now have a way when you when you put a new repo in to pick the license and give you a helper to know what so might want to do it. Now uh the other thing I haven't seen anybody yet with it, but uh sorry, Chris just Andrew, you are uh you're muted then, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Man, I gotta stop hard muting myself. This machine shouldn't just keep your hand off of it, Andrew. I so before we kind of move away, I was I was I was really excited about this. Have you guys heard of the FAIR code license movement? Um is that a thing that you've heard of? Like N8N came out with this a few years ago, and it it's like um this idea that uh MIT licenses are out there, they're amazing, but if somebody suddenly starts to to make money off of something and they're a big enterprise, they should have to pay. And like there's just so many cool, cool licenses that exist out there. And the fact that we've got everything from like uh fair code to now just like these vibe coding slop slop licenses. Um, there's space for everyone.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

Yeah, yeah, which brings me to the fair phone. What happened to that one? That's another that was another interesting bit, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

It was. I mean, I was looking yes literally yesterday. Um trying to get like a second phone, and I was like, oh, the fair phone, that feels but now the price of it is like as high as some of these other phones that are out there, and I feel like it's such a missed opportunity. This modular phone movement was such a cool thing, and the fact that it has completely disappeared while things like the framework laptop are just absolutely like taken off right now. Um, I'm really, really hoping that some other competitor comes into the space so that I can get a phone that I don't have to upgrade every two years.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

What is that laptop that took off and where do we go?

SPEAKER_02 19:42

The framework laptop. So this is uh these are the modular laptops uh by this company framework. So they're like a I think they're North American-based company, but if you if you look up framework laptops, um these are uh these are super this this super cool company. Um and uh yeah, these are like they're for the sort of like repair yourself movement. And so you can replace everything. You can replace ports, you can replace a hard drive, like they are meant to be taken apart and put back together. Um and they have gone from a like a single laptop to now a desktop. And this is the cool one, the framework desktop. It's literally like a case that you put your motherboard from an old laptop in and turn your old laptop into a desktop. Like it's just all of the things that they're doing is trying to make these as like repairable as you possibly can. Um and they're amazing, like such a such a cool company. It's like the anti-Apple.

SPEAKER_03 20:44

Yeah, I mean, but Apple uh just got forced in Europe to actually make things repairable as well. Like, I mean, that is basically now a law here. And it's funny because we're going back to the like, oh my god, you can change parts of a laptop. Who knew? Like, I mean, that goes back to the days when we started those. I mean, the other day I had something, I had a bit of trivia. I don't know if it was on the show or if it's just in general when we were talking. Uh, do you know, Andrew, why Google has these colors, this green, blue, yellow, red?

SPEAKER_02 21:15

No idea. No idea. But I'm excited that I'm gonna find out.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

The first desktop that they had had a broken case. The first server that the thing was running on. So they actually built one from Lego. So these are the colors of the Lego bricks that were basically the box of the main computer that they had.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

That's so cool. Okay, I love that. That makes me that makes me kind of fall back in love with Google a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

And it's in the basement of Stanford University, and I uh I took a picture of it because nobody ever sees that thing. And there was a book called The Art of Lego or the The Cult of Lego, and they actually found my picture because it was Creative Commons licensed on Flickr, and it's actually part of the book, so I got a free copy of the book because I Took the picture of that thing. So that was quite fun as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

That is so cool. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

The reason why Yahoo, why Yahoo was yellow and purple as the colors, which is like for a redhead to wear, never a good thing. Uh and I worked there for five years. Uh, was that these were the colors in the DIY store that were the cheapest to paint the first office? So basically, if you're if you were a marketing person, you probably hated the founders of going with that because this was these were the colors that were on sale at the DIY store when they painted their first office.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

This is the thing that I love. Like, even the Dash Zero guys, because I was wondering, I was like, why do you guys wear these like the coveralls? And I was like, okay, like maybe this is like some marketing person got this great idea. And no, it's because the founder of the company loves F1, and this is his pit crew. And so they're all dressed in those red jumpers, like they're dressed in these dread, they're in the red onesies because it's sort of like this founder's like dream, and it works. It works. Like you go to an event, you see somebody, you're like, they work for Dash Zero. And I remember when, because they're not that old um as a company. And I remember going to we are developers actually in Berlin a couple of years ago, and I was like, who are these? Who are all of these like dozens of people just wearing these red jumpsuits? And it makes an impression.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

I remember Twilio had the uh the t-shirt with the uh with the uh rotary phone, uh with the with the receiver and the twilio logo as the cable coming from it. And you were the ones that didn't fold their their t-shirts, it was the same as this one, the really, really soft ones. Uh, but you wrote them together like burritos. So every time I went past the Trilio booth, I'm like, oh, they have lots of food. Wait, these are shirts. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

I mean, I will say we also have cool custom things. So, like, there's a track jacket that you probably have seen Twilions over the years. It's like it looks like it's out of um uh um uh like the royal tenant bombs kind of style. Yeah. Um, and these are something like we actually, every Twilion that that like comes to the company, they they can do like a track jacket workshop to earn their track jacket, and they actually have to build an app on Twilio. So you have like people that are in marketing and people ops and like all of these different non-technical roles that all come in and have to build an application that utilizes the technology. And like these track jackets are are beloved. Like I've I I got my hand on a second one that's in my cupboard, and I was like, this is good because I'm wearing this to far too many Twilio events. Um, and again, another one of those things that like the founder's idea to kind of like do this that snowballed into something that still exists like 17 years later.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

It's a bit like the in Mozilla, we had like uh when you worked on certain products, you got a t-shirt with a style from the from the person who did all the graphics that basically was only for this product. So only the people who worked on the product would have that Mozilla t-shirt. So it was like TDD, like t-shirt-driven development. And uh basically people were like really excited about that. I like the one in we had in Microsoft internally, it said, like, this is my last re-org.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Oh, I hate that I get that now. I've been in startups forever where the reorgs were like you are laid off, and now I've been in corporate long enough to be to understand uh what it truly means for reorgs to happen.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Cool. Now iPhone Duo is there's a there's a a long description what you need to do to actually make your app ready for the iPhone Duo. And I love that CSS is actually earlier than like local, uh that's like native stuff there. So it's interesting. I mean, I haven't seen anybody with it yet. I'm not sure if I want a phone that's foldable. I think all phones are foldable if you put enough effort in. But uh it it's just uh it's just the the phone factor feels awkward to me still.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

You have one, do you care for one? Uh so I've for a long time really wanted sort of a small tablet that I can carry out with me. I like the idea. The idea behind it is awesome because I'm never gonna buy, I don't really want to have like an iPad and an iPad mini, and then my iPhone, and then my Android phone that I need. So the idea of being able to kind of combine these two things is fantastic. But like it takes people so long to catch up anytime you change like any form factor, right? Like I remember when we moved from like the really small iPhone screens, like the old five inch and under screens, and then suddenly everything's like 6.5 and people are needing to figure out scaling, and you're still going to websites that are like from 1999. I it's just gonna be it's no other product is gonna follow this exact spec. And so now you just have every designer out in the world now that is like shaking their fist at Apple saying, like, why have you made my life more difficult? But I suppose they can actually just say, Why have you made Claude's life more difficult or Codex's life more difficult?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

I would be devil's advocate there because I think any designer that did things for the web that thinks they know the display size should not be a designer of the web. You know, that like I mean the the the amount uh you're totally right, but the first iPhones came out, like the amount of people that that downloaded a CSS framework that was exactly like iPhone, and then uh iPads came out, and all of a sudden you had one button on your iPad this big, and that's the rest, and the rest of the interface was hidden. Or you have like 10 years later, you see websites that have buttons that look like they're from iPhone, because that was what we simulated back then. I think I love that we're having more and more products that basically give you no chance to actually prepare for it. And CSS has has gone such a long way to be from like pixel sizes and uh and font sizes to fill up the space with as many columns as you can, and if not show them, show them one under the other. So the amount of like pixel perfection is something that needed to die in 90 in 2001 and is still in people's minds, it seems.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

I think as well there's something to be said for like my when I first saw this, I thought, well, okay, it's another media query breakpoint, but really if people bother with it, it's gonna depend on how popular the device is. You know, if it becomes like the new iPad where you go, okay, there's enough um people buying this that we should meaningfully do it on every single website that we build. But this this article you're looking at now, Chris, is actually kind of where I where I ended up. That um I am I am always a fan of a new device and how it might bring about kind of new experiences, you know. And I use that word in quotes because I always think a lot of the time we use the word experiences for what are just websites. But when you've got um when you've got something like this where it's the the foldable aspect, you've got the opportunity for new forms of creativity, um, that as long as we can support it, then you know you can you can have some really new interesting things come out that hopefully are just more than a slightly smaller iPad.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Do you I mean here's my question though? Do you guys do you think that that people are incredibly excited about like I remember Apple also like spent so much money on Vision Pro and like you had everybody that was buying? And I remember being in a conversation with somebody who was an Apple super fan, and they just said, like, I bought the Vision Pro, I used it for two weeks, I sent it back. And I feel like we have entered into the space of like we're creating technology where there isn't necessarily a problem, and hoping that the the sort of like world and industry kind of grows around it, but you're actually making people's lives more difficult. And in a time where like time is money and attention is the biggest commodity, like you're fighting for attention, but maybe in the wrong ways. People want simplicity, they want ease of use. Like I've been shocked the number of cool tech tools that have come out recently, like uh like the Index 01 by the Pebble guys, you've got like the Spark classes that are out there as well, and it's so focused. Not not the Apple or not the uh the ones that have the camera in them, but like these simple, like green displays that show you techs. We we have this world of such complexity in tech, and it feels like the simple tech is winning and a foldable iPhone. I don't know. I mean, would I buy it if somebody if somebody offered it to me and convinced me? Probably, but I'm not I'm not not waiting at the not waiting in line for it.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

I think the price tag is another problem. I think uh back in the days when the new feature came out it was a $200 thing, and you're like, Well, let's try it out. But I mean, I loved it to be because I worked on Hollow on HoloLens back then, and I also worked with Google guys on Google Class, and then everybody said, like, and now Apple is bringing it out, and they're gonna be the ones that make everybody wear a VR headset, and uh the Oculus was out before as well, and like and even they didn't make it happen. I mean, I I never tried it, it looked like uh it kind of looked like uh um goggles for diving to me, like for swimming in. Uh, but I I I've uh I haven't got uh I'm really creeped out by most people with smart glasses that have like cameras in them as well. Uh Dan and me we got uh we got uh a smartwatch as a present that is JavaScript based, but I didn't have time to hack on that one yet because I worked on I had a few smartwatches, but I like I don't have any one right now, but I like physical watches, I like cogwheels. Like, I mean, I want the thing to just have but not be another gadget in my hand. But I also haven't upgraded my phone since the Pixel 7. So I basically there is a level where I'm like, it does what I want it to do. It the battery life is good enough, so it actually does what I need to. And uh maybe it's just because I'm getting older and I don't care anymore, but I I don't see that many people chasing the new anymore. You're totally right with that.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Um, what's the watch? I'm super curious. A hackable smartwatch sounds spectacular.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

See if I've got it in the above.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

I don't think I have I have it on the other desk. I have to find it, but we can we can put it in the show notes afterwards as well. Amazing. And it's like the person who gave it to us as well. I mean, I also got a logite uh at the at the uh tech influencer dinner that we had at our thing, we have a Logitech external keyboard as well, where you have different buttons that you can set to different applications and a dial. I don't know what that one is yet. So I have a lot of stuff arriving at my house right now that I don't have the time to actually work with. I'm really excited that yesterday my GTX Spark arrived as well, but now I'm going on holiday for two weeks, so I'm not gonna do anything with that one as well. But uh I was worried about that because seeing the price tag on that one, I thought it would be German government uh charging me millions to actually get it in in uh in uh in like tax, but uh yeah, nothing. They just dropped it off with my neighbors while I was gone, and I'm like, maybe they paid it. I don't know. But it was interesting to uh it was interesting that these these things to play with are there, and it would be interesting to see how the foldable features that's in iPhone actually work out because agreed. I I want I wonder, I mean, people talk about the iPhone moment with other companies, it became uh a general thing. I wonder if Apple has lost this luster as well to a degree with that. I like that it's not like the one thing anymore.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

It feels like kind of the hardware game is so hard now because what was it like Joni Ive gets hired by OpenAI to release this amazing technology and he releases a mini keyboard? And I had somebody that said to me the other day, they're like it was a it was a bad stream yard or stream deck. Um, and it's beautiful, it's gorgeous. And you know what, maybe too early. Um, but but it just feels like if you're gonna be successful in the hardware space now, it's less about shiny new, like world-changing thing and more of a you're making some product that people are using in their day-to-day lives better, easier to use, longer lasting. Like everybody's got buckets full of tech. We want tech that's gonna like make our lives better. And I think that's across the board. I think like everything that we do in 2026 in the tech world is like, how do we spend more time on the things that we want to do? What things do vibe coding and agenda coding enable? Building cool things fast and spending more time with your family and friends and going outside and touching grass. Um, anyways, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

There's a little bit of a I wonder if that's what people are doing. I mean, that's the that's the thing. I mean, we we're running in this productivity nightmare where basically we're making ourselves so productive that we actually can do even more rather than just like, okay, drop things off. I mean, I'm now going to be gone the next two weeks on holiday. I'm not gonna even take a laptop with me. I'm just basically we have one laptop where we watch Tallyon, and that's about it. And uh uh it's I think it's important to do that thing. And uh, I think it's important to actually start thinking about like if we make ourselves more productive with AI that's really expensive, then actually use that time for something else. And you're totally right, like touch, smoke, grass, whatever. It's uh it's basically a thing where you get out there and not do another hustle and make it more efficient.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah, it's so I mean when when all you're doing is clicking yes for things, it's yeah, it's so easy to just like keep going the next feature, the next feature, the next feature. Like it's it's actually harder to like pull yourself away, it feels like now.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

I saw this one a few months ago and uh uh when I and wrote about it on social media as well. There is a fake capture coming out there uh on like certain websites that then asks you to actually copy and paste uh code that's in your uh in your paste bit pasteboard into the terminal and run it yourself. And I was at the time I was like wondering who is this for? Because the people who actually don't know about the terminal will not I will not be able to understand these instructions, and people who know the terminal will never paste anything in. Well, they then again they paste things from their agent now without thinking about it. So maybe we are at that space right now where this is a where this is a valid phishing attempt.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

I love it. I love that the sorry, go on, Rajin. I was gonna say the I love the last recapture led to um uh the creation of uh like a language learning platform, and this one leads to the creation of just like massive wealth for criminals. Oh, that's terrible.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Well, the other recapture, the other thing recapture did was allow Google Books to actually clean up scans. That's why the the these distorted things was basically going back to the model that is actually for the OCR scanning of books in uh in Google.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

And then that same person then goes and creates Duolingo, which early Duolingo was doing the same thing, was helping, yeah. So I there's an amazing TED talk out there by the found the guy who created Recapture, who is also the founder and CEO of Duolingo. And early Duolingo, he says, followed the same model of like you're translating uh certain material into uh like English or whatever language you're in. Um, if I this there's two TED talks that I love. His is one of them, and then there's another one by like an educational researcher. But like that one is I highly encourage you. Go look at like co-founder Recapcha TED Talk. It's so good.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

The one from uh Khan Academy was also amazing, the one about how we teach in schools and how it's completely pointless. And that's a really good TED Talk as well.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

A hundred percent. Um, yeah, and if you live, by the way, and I'll I'll never get off this high horse. There's a there's a TED talk called A School in the Clouds by Sugata Mitra. He's like an Indian researcher who focused on like if you just give people a computer and walk away, what can they teach themselves? And he had like kids in rural India teaching themselves genetics by the end of this process. It's so, so good. A school in the clouds. You wrote a book too, but it basically is like uh I did a talk at like at Weird Developers in North America on like constructivist learning and how it's like such a massive part of learning in the AI era. And that is like one of those pieces. And honestly, even the like the Duolingo recapture talk is too. Man, go and watch all of these things, by the way. If you're watching this podcast, go watch the podcast, go read the books, go like get inspired by all of the amazing people that are live in our industry and are doing cool things.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

I gotta say, I'm more excited about TEDx nice these days than about TED. I think TED became very formulaic and like very much like Blue Sky. Here's I'm changing the world kind of talks. TEDx talks are more about the people that actually, I mean, I gave two TEDx talks. That's how you see how how rubbish they are in terms of quality at times. But uh, I mean, a few of those that I saw there were just wonderful, wonderful because it's the opportunity to also meet interesting people. And also, TED is super expensive. That's the other thing. I mean, the talks are free, but if you want to go there, it just feels very elitist. It's a bit like when we had food camp and bar camps kind of thing back then. That was the same, like, let's uh let's not make this an elitist thing. So, but a few geek things. Uh, I love this. I have no idea why that's turning to this.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

It's the breakpoint. I I just did it myself. Yeah, it's the breakpoint for iPad. Is that just the orientation?

SPEAKER_02 38:51

I love it. I thought this was like I thought you were you literally called it inverted asteroids, and I was like, is this is this not what it's supposed to be? This is spectacular.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

So basically, this is at this asteroids, and instead of turning the spaceship and shooting at things, you're you're paying uh you're putting gravity wells that pull the stones, so you have to destroy the ships with that way. So you're actually the the asteroid, so to so to say, and not the ship, and that's turning the whole idea of the game on its head. It's much easier to play when it's not turned around, but it's actually a beautiful and rather complex thing to do because you have to see where the ships are coming from and uh what to do, and you're playing the asteroids basically. And uh Andrew turning his head to watch.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

I just like I feel like this is such a meta thing to do. What does AI enable? It enables you to think like the asteroid, like what a I somebody's boss out there where they created that was like you you get it, you understand. I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

This is also fun as a search engine for content before 2022, before before Gen AI started, and basically all the content that is not AI sorted. So let's try Titanic. Wow, I'm really terrible. So basically it gives you Wikipedia, it gives you videos that were not generated from stuff. Uh oh as I'm in Germany, it actually gives me the historical museum and it gives me the official uh official uh TV channel. And it's it's really really nice if you want to have search results that are not completely awful.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

I love that. That's so cool. Huh.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Even more hardcore, there's an archive Usenet Rewind of basically Usenet uh uh um groups. So news groups before we actually had the internet, we had news groups and email lists, and news groups were a thing where you can find all kinds of stuff, and it was I remember down downloading like uh um what was it? Like Star Trek sounds there was a group that actually had that. Um security check, of course. Star Trek sucks. And it's just so good to actually see like news from like 2010 and earlier in 1997 onwards. And it's actually it's actually a lot of fun to actually uh look at this usenet yet for it used to be. I mean you you uploaded something and when it was more than a one 1.4 megabyte, you actually made RAW files with 1.4 megabytes, so you can actually put it on floppy disks if you downloaded it and put it somewhere else. And I remember downloading from use groups overnight because it was a 56k modem and it took ages to do. But it's uh it's really interesting to see that these things are still around there.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Like I love these, like the the way the internet was, and I mean everybody looks back and like nostalgia, and we have so many cool things now, but there's something about yeah, like use group, like forums. Like, I remember before I knew what Laravel was, and before it was having its moment, I discovered this company, this these European guys who had created like a new like take on PHP BB and had made it beautiful, and it was based on Laravel and a bunch of other small microframeworks. And I was like, I hope, I really hope that like the forum world returns. And I feel like Discord tries, but it's not quite there, and like we've kind of lost a little bit with um with some of the others, but I love this. It's so cool, Chris. Like this, this this is peak internet.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

I know it's like crazy not a PHP BB. I mean, that was a complete completely forgot about that, you know. But that was I think the first time I probably saw the words PHP, I had no idea what it was, you know. But it was you'd see all of these kind of what actually was it? Was it an open source uh like a framework perforums? Like something like that.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Yeah, it's a PHP bulletin board. It was basically a CMS based on PHP. Yeah. And it's funny, I've got no good. Yeah, no, I'm not gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I was just gonna say, I I was uh I when I was at We Are Developers, I went to an event that was hosted by the render team, and I met somebody who was a core contributor like 15 years ago on the PHP BB project and WordPress, like back before PHP was like kind of having its moment in the light. This person was contributing, and I was like, the things that we are developers bring together and the people is so cool.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

And typo three had their booth next to render, and that's a but that's a PHP-based uh uh operate uh content management system right now. So yeah, uh that is also quite fun. Uh perfect slice. You have a you have a shape and you actually have to cut off 60% of the shape. So if you do a uh do a line and then you basically say okay, and then you confirm it. You say this is 66%, and okay, I was 57.71, I was off by 2.29. And it gets more and more annoying that where the when you do it, like 60. Ooh, that was far too much. So yeah, these simple things I just love that people just throw them out. There and that's just little fun things to do now.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Um, have I have you seen? I feel like this is like so connected. There is a meme that is going around the internet, which is like a German game show where um they're having to cut something perfectly in half. Have you seen this? Yeah, that's the one.

SPEAKER_03 44:20

That's the meme. Yeah, they're cutting pretzels. Yeah, it's a comp it's a it's a competition on German telly. I'm I haven't seen it yet, but I mean the other thing is also that there is a uh shopping cart rolling it back into its container thing competition to push it in the right section to it slides into the other shopping cart. So that's another German late night thing that is happening.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

So I'm taking note of these, so I'll be cutting these in afterwards. And I love how it led from this. It's kind of the idea, isn't it, that it's like it's pointless, but it's weirdly addictive and you can't look away? Like something like this games like this. I was thinking, are they more like frustration games that keep you playing because they're frustration, or are they like sort of fidget spinners, you know, where they're kind of slightly annoying and they make noise and they irritate everybody else, but the person playing them has what happened to fidget spinners?

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Is there like a huge island of fidget spinners roaming around the Pacific now? I mean, I never understood what they were for in the first place, but I heard it's an ADHS thing that basically it gets people, uh uh calms people down. But they were sold out everywhere and then they were available everywhere. They were swag at every conference, and now you see they don't see a single one of them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

I love it. I hope, I hope that there is. Do you guys remember there's like a news article years ago, a shipping container full of Garfield telephones disappeared and they just wash up every like few years? I hope the same thing happens for fidget spinners. And Danny, I'm so excited that you've never found this. Look up Garfield Phones Beach and it will change your life. And if you're watching this, like Danny is gonna cut it in, but like go go look this up. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Oh, yeah. There's also a a huge floating uh Lego minifig that actually kept washing up on different beaches in the Netherlands, and people were wondering where that one came from.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

So uh that's part but I met a person uh at an Avara in as a sports group that I do, and he's in he's in oceanography, it's like a PhD in computer science or something like that, and he works for for the the Department of Fishery and Oceans. And I was like, What were you doing this summer? He was like, Oh, we were like on a ship going in like looking for these shipping containers that like uh like uh they tipped off of a boat or whatever. And I was like, What's in them? He's like everything, and we're doing research on like can like corals survive or can fish survive when like all of this stuff is in it. Um, and I love I love that there could be just like people doing research on fidget spinners being used by fish one day.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

I love the the this was a thing that started in the early 90s. He does these things, these kinetic uh uh things that just walk around the beach in the Netherlands. And uh uh this is like the newest one. Let's try to find some older one.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

You know, when you were saying before, Andrew, like this is such a developer thing, like things developers do. Like this yeah, this kind of thing, I wouldn't put it past a developer. Kind of it's like obviously it's a piece of art, but it's kind of the um obsession taking it to a crazy degree. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Then people rebuild it in popsicles and stuff like that, and it's it's really, really fun. I mean, the best thing I've seen in that was also a TED talk where somebody built these big balls made from recycled uh water bottles, and they're actually uh they got a weight in the middle, and actually what they do with it is uh is run them through the desert in North Africa to get rid of uh mines, like uh to to clear to clear minefields with like recycled uh plastic bottles.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

This is what I want vibe coding to enable. I want it to enable us to build just like the coolest shit that like makes the world better if by entertainment or by like actually making it a better place. This is amazing. This this is why vibe coding exists, or this is why it should exist. Stop making yet another app, finish that app you're building, and go and make cool art. Like that's the that's the play.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Couldn't agree more. Okay, let's talk about play. We're gonna skip the tools for today because we actually talked for a long time already. So uh let's play fake on use. So you we will give you headlines, you have to tell us if they're real or if I made them up. Tesla the X semi-customers ahead of handover event.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

I don't know. That one seems too easy, fake.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

Yeah, it does. I think, even though it could well be real, but it was too vague as well. I think fake care.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

100%.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

It is real.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

God, why do all these seem I'm I'm gonna aim for the golf score here and go for as low as I possibly can. I don't know. This one fake.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Fake. I don't know. I think Claude would be good at pattern recognition. I think CRISPR is to do with DNA. I don't know. That feels news. You think it's news?

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Ah uh, Danny, I'm trusting on this one. We're gonna go news.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

Oh, it is news.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

All right, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

CRISPR is a super exciting thing. It's basically hacking DNA. Tesla cyber trucks are reported to only detect electronic scooters of certain companies. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Yeah, that feels I feel like it's gonna be true because that feels like something Tesla would do, but also I don't know, I feel like they've got better things to do. Fake fake news.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

And it is fake, yeah. I mean, the the they in safety measures they cannot do it as well. And uh it's interesting. Spotify works on moves feature that analyzes your dance moves and plays fitting songs.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

I actually believe this one. And if it's not true, Spotify, please, please make this feature like running. I want it for running and I want it for I want it for dancing. So I don't even care if I get this wrong. News, please, please be news.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

You know, I wasn't convinced, but you're saying that there's a but the running idea. I think that's good. I could see that. Yeah, it's it's fake, but I I worth it.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

I'm okay with that. I I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody except for Spotify. I run a lot and they killed the APIs that allow for you to like build your own Spotify playlist. So I was hoping they're building themselves.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

All right. Google's new Gemini TTS models can clone a voice from 30 seconds of audio.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

That that one's true. You can do that with open source models too, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Yes, used. Correct. I was expecting the technicality there, but yeah, I'm glad we got that.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

I know it's like it was 35 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

Researchers discovered that legacy languages like tickle are 40% more effective for agents than Python.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

I mean, they're probably like 75% more effective or something like that. Ah, this one feels like where the technicality is gonna come in. Or it's gonna be like languages like Fortran. You know what? I'm gonna say fake. And just because I feel like Danny, we can't have two of these in a row.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

Yeah, yeah. Correct. And it is fake. I just found some old tickle tickle files that I've written and I wanted to bring it in there because I like the language. Tickle.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

I like it. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

New video codec, Mpex XL, creates larger files with fewer glitches because of inbuilt checksums.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

I mean, that feels believable, but I feel like a new video codec in 2020 and 2026 feels like unlikely.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

I sometimes we had AV1, which was 2025.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

I go for the simple one with new video codec both having capitals and the rest of it not. No, I think this is written by Chris. I think it's fake.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

Fake it is fake. We got JPEG. We got JPEG XL, not MPEC XL. And uh the fewer glitches was when we had conversations about uh uh burning CDs, and you could get rid of the checksums, then you got more data on one CD. So we're geeking out on that, so that's why I came up with that. I love that. Uh very strong score so far. Um, number one.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Don't say things like that. Why you gotta do me dirty like that? No pressure.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

I opened a fake auto shop for AI agents.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

That feels right. That feels like such a clickbaity blog post that somebody would write. Like, yes, 100% news.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yeah, I think you're right. I want to see source of this, but to find out afterwards.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

And if it's not, I'm gonna get Claude to write it.

unknown 52:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

It's true. Mice with human brain cells offer a tool to study TCs. Ethicists say what's next.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Yeah, 100%. They've been, I've I've been I've been reading about like a bunch of research that's being done on like creating Neuralink unlocked some things that maybe we should have left locked up. Um I feel like this one is news, but I don't know, Danny. What are you saying? I mean, how are we?

SPEAKER_00 52:43

But it could be a little detail in there.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

Oh, okay. Correct. FBI hack exposed FBI's old hacking unit.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

That's the most true thing that I could ever see as a news headline. If this isn't true, it probably should be. Yes. Or it's gonna be like CIA or something like that. This is why I get stopped at the border. Uh, news.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

Uh how little faith we have. Number 11. The problem with smart appliances. Some of Samsung's AI bridges have shut down and lost their cool after a bad update was accidentally pushed to them.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

This is direct out of Silicon Valley. I'm gonna say fake. This feels it's probably happened, but I feel like it's not a news article. Samsung's buried in that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Yeah, I like the little lost their cool detail, but I feel like that's Chris. His uh Chris's brilliance with puns getting away from him.

unknown 53:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

Nope. It was actually the red, it was actually the register of people. I mean, they have the same kind of humor, so yeah. Alleged male thief arrested after bragging about crimes on Instagram stories.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Yes, true, very true. Absolutely. It's 2026. This is this is the time we live in.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Yeah, this headline's probably been published about thousands of times so far, just this year. So there we go.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

You made it! To the top of the leaderboard. This this is exciting. This is my days. This one, you guys say play in production, like this is what play in production means.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Yeah, and you can put that on LinkedIn today and then say, like, say hello in the first uh in the first comment to get my book on how to win fake on news or something like that. I don't know how people use LinkedIn these days. I think that's how they use it. Cool. So let's talk quickly about what you're on about. So you got this uh uh you got this hat on that looks like Dawn of the Dead, but it's actually Twilio World. Uh so what is that and you're working on that? What can we look forward to with you being part of this?

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Yeah, so yeah, Twilio World, um, sort of a new play on developer education and training in sort of the age of AI. So, what if you could kind of have a conversation with your account on some platform that you're using um where there's puzzles inside that you have to solve? So Twilio has all the tech to do that. And so we decided, hey, we should actually build this. So you make a phone call, you talk to an agent, it gives you puzzles that you've got to solve, learn Twilio by using Twilio and getting a demo of it. Um yeah. And so it's it's and I did it. There's a great talk from We Are Developers that I did on like the teaching theory of kind of how we landed on this after sort of like a fairly significant amount of time on kind of trying to look at what the future of developer training looks like. Um yeah, this is this is kind of my baby. I started about two years ago at Twilio and sort of got tasked with can you create curriculum for Twilio's sort of developers that are coming in and using our tools? And this was sort of before it we'd gotten as kind of crazy with uh gentic coding as we have now. Um, and sort of through that process, it was okay, we can't we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we've got to uh appreciate the fact that um the road has changed. So let's let's see how we can sort of reimagine the use of that wheel on this new road.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

And uh, I remember I was at the Twilio event in what was it, July or or June, and uh and you announced it there and uh uh it didn't happen. What was the delay about?

SPEAKER_02 56:13

Like your your it's it's live now, but it's live, yeah, it's live now, and like people can join, uh can kind of join the test. Yeah, here's the talk. Go watch this, uh, and get some info. Um, building software in a large enterprise is challenging. So I'm like my background is similar to Danny. Um a teacher by training, always loved tech, but kind of like landed here. And uh when I kind of had this idea, we needed to build a piece of software. Twilio is not a startup. Twilio is this amazing 16-year-old um tech company that's been um building sort of the infrastructure for AI for years, or the the infrastructure for like communications for years. Um, and so there's lots of systems and best practices that are in there. So like I've had to learn sort of like Kubernetes, I've had to learn um sort of like how engineers are working in in this new age. Like by building Twilio World, I think I have become a better engineer. And it's like the goal of Twilio World is through like building things that you will become a better engineer. So it's a very like meta approach. Um, but also like so fascinating. I've gotten the chance to connect with um Twilio's got, I think, like 6,000 employees around the world. I think I've talked to like 5,995 of them to kind of bring this program to life, from people in product to legal to engineering to executives to partners, like creating a piece of software, especially one that sort of falls outside of the traditional flow, is such a unique process. Um, I have a friend who was also at Weird Developers who's sort of like within a larger startup who or within a larger enterprise company who's building a startup. And it seems like it's a really cool idea. You get the the the security of a big company, but you get the the glory of a startup. But you've then got to kind of follow all of these processes that exist in a large company that startups just aren't having to deal with. So um it's fascinating. This is the second time I did it. I did this years ago at a university, and I was like, I'll never do this again. I'm never gonna be an entrepreneur. It's like it's not good for you. Like I had hair uh years ago. Uh, there's a reason I wear hats now. Um, but uh but yeah, it's been so, so amazing. And we wanted to make it scalable. I mean, the goal here, like when Twilio Quest, the previous generation, existed back in sort of like the late 2010s, like it had tens of thousands of developers, like it was huge. And so we wanted to build something that we knew was scalable from the beginning, but also it's a gentic. We want to make it safe and like and to go through this process. So people are are learning, but they're learning in kind of a fun and safe way.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

I mean, that's always been a few things. I remember code combat and things like that that allowed you to play games by by writing code or create games by writing code, and also uh Scratch is the classic one, of course, that basically allows you to for children to learn coding by putting like puzzle pieces together. And uh it's fun to have this. What I found when you said just said like uh startup entrepreneurial thing inside a larger company. I keep hearing that we had like the brick house in Yahoo, and my my uh uh my ex uh here in Berlin worked in a finance part of Volkswagen, and you're like you always say, like, oh, you're in the cool part of the company now, you can you can do whatever you want, you can do that. I'm like, I always say, like, there's one year on the clock when you do this where you have to prove that you're actually innovating and also bringing revenue in, and if not, there's gonna be the people in like that that are with the company for like 15 years knocking on the door and taking over your department again. Which of Cas is is uh is good as well because I always found it very hard for inside the company when you when you work on the day-to-day stuff and you go through bug lists and you see these these kids that actually are in the cool section of the company that can do great stuff. How do you deal with that? Like that that people in Twilio that have to keep the SMS gateways running, look at what you're allowed to do and the budgets that you have and get jealous of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Yeah, I mean we're we've been pretty lean with the budget, but I will say like one of the things is I got everybody involved, like from the very beginning, got engineers involved. Mark, like there's nobody at Twilight, nothing is is uh is uh untouchable. Every channel for the project is open, every stage of the project is open. Our repos are available if you want to contribute. All of our docs are there. We I built like a like a bot so that you could ask it questions about the project early on, recorded every meeting. And so, like, the I think authenticity and transparency are key in here and like honestly communicating like, hey, this is a big struggle. And everybody wants to help, like everybody genuinely wants to help, but also they're going through their stuff. So it's a bit of quig pro quo. Like, if somebody's helped me on this project, it's like, how can I like support you and what you're doing? Do you need somebody to like test a feature that you're building? Do you need somebody to review a doc? I think we live in this corporate world where it feels very sort of um impersonal, but it's still 6,000 awesome people that are working for a company that all are just kind of working towards the same goal, having a job, doing cool stuff at work, and doing cool stuff after work. So I've been really lucky. Also, like the brand team created this logo and this concept, and like we've been sort of playing around with it. So everybody's got a little bit of ownership. Every team that's worked on Twilio in some way feels like this is not just the developer relations team of Twilio doing something cool. This is sort of the the company kind of coming together and creating a cultural moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

If you can't earlier when I went just to get the um the link to the GitHub, just for the the specific one, because I know you've got a lot of repos on the Twilio one. So it's just to see if I could um do you say it's open source, the the the um Twilio World stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:47

So it's it's not it's not right now, it's definitely a conversation we're having, but just twilio.world um is the domain, or if you just like go to Google and look up Twilio World, um, it's there, people can join in. It's free, like there's no cost, like it's basically like you can use a trial account, or we give you like uh like uh like some small credits to play because the goal here is like try the Twilio experience and then we'll we'll kind of figure out the rest down the road. So um yeah. So what are you gonna say, Chris?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

I like that the that you said you started by pressing control all delete and then you get to a terminal with the on the side, like oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

Can I I gotta show this because I know it wasn't working for Tony, but like I've got it up on my other screen. Uh allow. Oh no, it's probably oh, maybe it'll let me do this. Share with audio. Um, is it share my screen? Oh, there we go. Um, yeah, so like this is the Twilio world and everything that's on this page, there are um Easter eggs that I'm gonna show you now. Like if you try and right click on the page, it won't work. There's a reason for that. If you try and left click on the page, it won't work. And yeah, if you do like control alt delete um on the page, um this like terminal comes up, and then we've got like a bunch of commands that are in here. So, like this is like an actual like JavaScript terminal library that we're using here. Um, like the goal here has always been like this is a fun game for developers. And so we want to like give them a cool, um, yeah, like a cool way to explore Twilio, but in a way that's very authentic to them. And honestly, it's like a bunch of engineers that are kind of going in here, but there's a weird like 404 page that exists here too with a game in it. There's a game that exists in the um in the terminal um developer tools. So like there's games that exist in here that you can run. Um yeah, anyways, it's just like, oh, I guess you can't see that now. Um, but anyways, there's there's so much that is um that's sort of part of this experience. And the goal here is like the world is chaotic and we want it to be fun. And so if we can create opportunities for there to be fun for developers out there, that's really what we want to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

I think my favorite story about the Easter eggs was that the flight simulator in Excel. Uh, that there's that there is a flight simulator in Excel, and the main reason why they put it in is to get the binary big enough so it didn't fit on one uh CD but needed more. So they actually it was an anti-piracy thing. They put they put that they put a flight simulator in there to make it harder to copy the the main app. And uh that was interesting to see as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

I love it. And see, these are the things, right? Like, this is the kind of developer lore, the things that you can put in there. I just really, really love um the and developers look for it. When we published this marketing site, we didn't tell anybody about these Easter eggs. And I had an engineer during a conference where we launched this at Signal who was like, Have you have you guys been on the Twilio World marketing page yet? Like, there's some there's some Easter eggs in there. Um, anyway, so so like that's that's the goal, like wonder spark magic, spark wonder, get people excited. Tech is tech, fun is fun. If you can combine the two, then we're in this wonderful world of experience and learning and growth and and joy. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

Talking to which, this was a joy to have you here. Uh, we we we are at the end of the show, but we we're gonna we should do some more stuff. Like when you get more into the weeds of it, maybe do a coffee with developers. Uh also joy. I just watched Inside Out 2 on the flight back, and it's uh uh it's just that that's such a wonderful the the rendering of Joy, the character, is as she is a light, all the other characters have reflections of her in it. The amount of details that that uh that Pixar goes into is just wonderful as well. And I've been at a at a fancy dress party in England one time when one lady was dressed up as Joy and she had like homemade uh uh plastic balls with like different lights in them that she gave out as wishes to people, and it was just I love when people do that kind of stuff. It was just beautiful, beautifully done. Well, thanks very much, Andrew. That was that was good fun. Uh, I think we have a lot of last words already that we talked about the show. Um great to have you. Uh great to to uh uh to yeah, we should shift the show to another time zone so we get more people involved because it feels like the European thing is great for lunch break, but it uh it's not that many people coming in. So it will be fun to see. Um where can people learn more about you?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Uh yeah, uh I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on X. Basically, just look up Andrew D. McLean um and the word Twilio, um, and you will you'll find me on the internet. So uh yeah, come find me. I'd love to connect with with everybody out there. And thank you so much, Chris and Daniel, for for having me on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

Thank you. It's very early for you as well. So, yeah, we appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:24

Uh, this is a great start of the day. Then that was Weird Developers Live for today. So, see you next week. Well, won't I be in holiday, but you will see Dan doing stuff. Yep.

unknown 1:06:33

Do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

Bye, everybody.