Category: 3-SometimeTechTalk

Quinn Slack, CEO and co-founder of Sourcegraph, joins the show to dive into the implications of AI coding tools on the software engineering lifecycle. They explore how AI tools are transforming the work of developers from syntax-focused tasks to higher-level design and management roles, and how AI will integrate into enterprise environments. 

Episode notes:

Sourcegraph is building AI-code agents for enterprises to accelerate how companies build software.

Connect with Quinn on LinkedIn, X, and on his website. 

Today’s shoutout is for user sumek, who won a Populist badge for answering the question How do you search through Vim's command history?.

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M.G. Siegler is the author of Spyglass. He joins Big Technology podcast for the latest of our first Monday of the month discussion about Big Tech strategy and AI. Today we cover Mark Zuckerberg's vision for personal superintelligence and whether it's more of a recruiting play or a real difference in the way the company builds AI. We also cover the massive bets on AI and whether they'll ever pay off, how interlinked big tech is with AI, and whether you should outsource your writing to AI.

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Topics covered in this episode:

• rumdl - A Markdown Linter written in Rust
• * Coverage 7.10.0: patch*
• * aioboto3*
• * You might not need a Python class*
• Extras
• Joke

Watch on YouTube

About the show

Connect with the hosts

• Michael: @mkennedy@fosstodon.org / @mkennedy.codes (bsky)
• Brian: @brianokken@fosstodon.org / @brianokken.bsky.social
• Show: @pythonbytes@fosstodon.org / @pythonbytes.fm (bsky)

Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Monday at 10am PT. Older video versions available there too.

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Michael #1: rumdl - A Markdown Linter written in Rust

• via Owen Lamont
• Supports toml file config settings
• Install via uv tool install rumdl.
• ⚡️ Built for speed with Rust - significantly faster than alternatives
• 🔍 54 lint rules covering common Markdown issues
• 🛠️ Automatic fixing with -fix for most rules
• 📦 Zero dependencies - single binary with no runtime requirements
• 🔧 Highly configurable with TOML-based config files
• 🌐 Multiple installation options - Rust, Python, standalone binaries
• 🐍 Installable via pip for Python users
• 📏 Modern CLI with detailed error reporting
• 🔄 CI/CD friendly with non-zero exit code on errors

Brian #2: Coverage 7.10.0: patch

• Ned Batchelder

• Actually up to 7.10.2 as of today

• patch allows coverage to run better when a covered project uses

  • subprocesses
  • os._exit()
  • execv family of functions

• Looking at subprocess

  • “Coverage works great when you start your program with coverage measurement, but has long had the problem of how to also measure the coverage of sub-processes that your program created. The existing solution had been a complicated two-step process of creating obscure .pth files and setting environment variables. Whole projects appeared on PyPI to handle this for you.”

• From release notes

  for 7.10.0

  • A new configuration option: “

    [run] patch

    ” specifies named patches to work around some limitations in coverage measurement. These patches are available:

    • patch = _exit lets coverage save its data even when <code>os._exit()</code> is used to abruptly end the process. This closes long-standing issue 310 as well as its duplicates: issue 312, issue 1673, issue 1845, and issue 1941.
    • patch = subprocess measures coverage in Python subprocesses created with <code>subprocess</code>, <code>os.system()</code>, or one of the <code>execv</code> or <code>spawnv</code> family of functions. Closes old issue 367 and duplicate issue 378.
    • patch = execv adjusts the <code>execv</code> family of functions to save coverage data before ending the current program and starting the next. Not available on Windows. Closes issue 43 after 15 years!

Michael #3: aioboto3

• via Pat Decker
• Wrapper to use boto3 resources with the aiobotocore async backend
• aiobotocore allows you to use near enough all of the boto3 client commands in an async manner just by prefixing the command with await.
• With aioboto3 you can now use the higher level APIs provided by boto3 in an asynchronous manner.

Brian #4: You might not need a Python class

• Adam Grant
• This is an important periodic reminder to everyone coming into Python from other languages.
  • Many other languages lean on classes a lot more than we need to in Python
• Adams suggestions
  • Simple Data Containers: Use Named Tuples or Data Classes
  • Stateless Utility Functions: Just Use Functions
  • Grouping Constants: Use Modules
  • Managing State with Simple Structures: Use Dictionaries or Lists
  • Simple One-off Operations: Use Lambdas or Comprehensions
    • I’ll add “just use functions”
  • Avoiding Complexity: Built-in Libraries
  • When You Actually Need a Class
    • I’ll add
      • You probably don’t
      • If you think you do, ask a friend. Friends don’t let friends create extraneous classes in Python.
      • If you think your case is an exception, it probably isn’t
      • If you think dataclasses aren’t right for you, check out attrs

Extras

Brian:

• PyPI Incident Report: Phishing Attack -Sent in by listener John Hagen
• Both of Adam Johnson’s recent-ish interviews are now up on Test & Code
  • 236: Git Tips for Testing - Adam Johnson
  • 235: pytest-django - Adam Johnson

Michael:

• Dive into uv webcast with me and Will Vincent

Joke: Default text editor

Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Alex's profile of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei + extra reporting 2) Are Anthropic's convictions earnest or marketing? 3) Where does Anthropic fit in the broader AI landscape 4) Will one AI company 'win it all' 5) Anthropic is raising at a new, $170 billion valuation 6) OpenAI hits 700 million ChatGPT users 7) Hyped for GPT-5? 8) AI video creation's promise 9) Videos in Google's NotebookLM 10) Is the stock market in a bubble or hitting real returns.

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Laura Bennett, host of the Coach’s Corner Podcast and a principal at BDL Consulting joins the show for a candid conversation on leadership, resilience, and how to take meaningful steps forward amid uncertainty. Together, we explore what it truly means to be resilient—not just to withstand challenges, but to actively navigate through them and emerge stronger. Laura shares insights from her coaching work and podcast guests, discussing the power of small, intentional steps, emotional detachment, and being selective about what we consume—especially in today’s distraction-heavy environment.

Tiffany Johnson is originally from Texas, but grew up in California. At a young age, she was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, partaking in skydiving, snowboarding, wakeboarding and gymnastics. In school, she fell in love with Econ, Mgmt, and Statistics - and eventually, fell into the payment industry by accident. Outside of tech, she has been married for 20 years with 3 kids. Her kids are all snow skiers, though she doesn't hold that against them as a snowboarder.

A few years ago, Tiffany was contacted about a new opportunity at a decades old company in the payments space. This company wanted to bring to market a solution around embedded finance, specifically for SaaS solutions - and Tiffany was the perfect product leader for the role.

This is Tiffany's creation story at NMI.

Sponsors

• Paddle.com
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• PropelAuth
• Postman
• Meilisearch
• Mailtrap
• .TECH Domains (https://get.tech/codestory)

Links

• https://www.nmi.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-johnson-b339242/

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U.S. Bank has undergone a significant digital transformation, implementing a multi-cloud strategy to accelerate innovation and improve customer-focused development. Operating in a highly regulated environment, the bank must navigate the challenge of balancing innovation with strict compliance requirements while meeting the evolving demands and needs of customers and employees. 

In this episode of Leaders of Code, Jody Bailey, Stack Overflow’s CPO, Anirudh Kaul, Senior Director of Software Engineering, and Paul Petersen, Cloud Platform Engineering Manager, discuss the U.S. Bank’s journey from traditional banking practices to embracing new technologies. The conversation covers the technical and organizational aspects of large-scale cloud migration, along with their leadership approach during this transformative period.

Key topics include:

• How U.S. Bank empowers teams to innovate without sacrificing team agility. The importance of team collaboration, transparency, trust, and continuous communication in fostering innovation and successful tool adoption.
• Cloud migration strategies and the role of platform engineering in enabling and supporting organizational change.

Notes:

• Connect with Anirudh Kaul and Paul Petersen. Learn more about U.S. Bank.
• Connect with Jody Bailey on LinkedIn. 

Dario Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a raw, unfiltered conversation about AI's potential, its stakes, and the source of his outspokenness. The interview is part of a major Big Technology profile about Amodei, ft. interviews with more than two dozen of his colleagues, friends, and critics. You can read that story for free here: https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/the-making-of-dario-amodei

We also cover Mark Zuckerberg's AI talent spending spree, Amodei's rivalry with OpenAI, his response to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's criticism, the state of the AI scaling laws, and whether there's a risk we'll lose control of the technology.

Tune in for a candid, emotional, and high energy conversation with one of the leaders driving the AI wave today.

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Audio and Video by Matt Breetzke of Fireside Visuals: https://www.firesidevisuals.com/

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The Gene Simmons of Data Protection: Protegrity's KISS Method

Today, we are releasing another episode from our series, entitled The Gene Simmons of Data Protection - the KISS Method, brought to you by none other than Protegrity. Protegrity is AI-powered data security for data consumption, offering fine grain data protection solutions, so you can enable your data security, compliance, sharing and analytics.

Episode Title: Navigating the Future of Data Management: Type Systems, Quantum Computing, and Protegrity's Innovations

In our final episode, we are speaking with Michael Howard, CEO of Protegrity. We talk about how traditional type systems often fail short in modern data management, as well as potential threats posed by quantum computing to current encryption methods, as well as how Protegrity's product embeds context and security into the data itself, in order to repel any threat.

Questions

• Tell me and my audience a little bit about you. 
• I know that you’ve referred to type systems as “lame.” Can you explain the concept of type systems in databases, why they’re lame, and why they pose challenges for modern data management?
• How is quantum computing poised to impact the current landscape of data security and encryption?
• What are some of the limitations of traditional type systems in databases, and how can they be improved to handle modern data challenges?
• Can you share insights on how Protegrity's approach to data classification and protection differs from traditional methods?
• Looking ahead, how do you envision the role of type systems evolving with the advent of quantum computing and other emerging technologies?
• One of Protegrity’s talking points has been how far behind legislation for data privacy and security is compared to today’s rapidly accelerating data landscape. What do you think needs to happen – in quantum and AI – for conversations to turn into action?

Links

• https://www.protegrity.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-howard-2b7b273/

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