Podcast #3

This is the third episode of the StackOverflow podcast, wherein Joel and I discuss the following:

• A brief, but awesome, reference to Donald Gibb in Revenge of the Nerds.

• We are now using Skype and Pamela to record our podcast for higher quality.

• Joel's original 2002 Recommended Programmer Reading list and Jeff's Top 5 Programming Books -- and why stackoverflow.com will complement, not replace, these kinds of books.

• The ineffable Steve Yegge, and a digression on the philosophy of Apple and Microsoft font rendering strategies.

• Confirming that stackoverflow.com will be as language agnostic as we can make it. It is for programming questions, whatever the language and platform. Yes, it's true that Joel and I have a Microsoft background, but we respect that programming is far larger than Microsoft.

• Why You Should Learn C (again).

• On our technology stack: stackoverflow.com will be built in ASP.NET running on our dedicated Windows Server 2008 x64 box -- but that doesn't mean stackoverflow.com, the site, will be about ASP.NET!

• On jumping the shark.

• An extended examination of everyone's favorite language: Wasabi! Along with some reasons why you might actually want to build your own DSL and compiler.

• A discussion of our logo contest at 99designs.com.

• What, exactly, is a stack overflow?

We also answered the following listener questions, with a lot of peripheral discussion on related topics:

1. Dave Kauffman: On Computer Science versus Software Engineering: is there any real-world use for recursion?

2. Nick Malaguti: How should he deal with real world programming projects as a part of college classes? Specifically, the fact that there's no real hierarchy and an inability to move the deadline? Also, what software do you recommend to manage software projects? (Joel swears that Nick was not paid to ask this question, in case you were wondering.)

3. David Alison: What do we think of services like the Google App Engine?

4. Tim Patterson: How to use blogtalkradio.com to easily record a question for stackoverflow using nothing but your telephone and a web browser.

If you'd like to submit a question to be answered in our next episode, record an audio file (90 seconds or less) and mail it to podcast@stackoverflow.com.

The transcript wiki for this episode is available for public editing.

Episode source