Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss Stephen Wolfram's excellent primer on ChatGPT! An incredibly dense work, they briefly summarize its key takeaways, talk about whether or ChatGPT is truly intelligent, and reflect on how their views of the current AI landscape have changed after reading this book. Enjoy!

Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" by Martin Fowler. Join them as they talk about the importance of automated testing when refactoring, how to play nice, and how refactoring can be justified as a business consideration!

Dive into the philosophy behind software design as the hosts highlight the importance of pulling complexity downward. They shed light on the contrast between traditional clean code practices and Ousterhout's insights advocating for code clarity. The conversation tackles the intricacies of Java vs. Unix file I/O, revealing the benefits of simplification. Delving into iterative design, they emphasize self-critique, and explore the balance between strategy and tactics in programming. Lastly, the significance of meticulousness in design is compared to lessons from iconic figures like Steve Jobs.

In this inaugural episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "The Practice of Programming" by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike. Written in 1999, Carter and Nathan discuss its timeless advice around style guides, interfaces, and debugging, as well as reflecting on how the software engineering industry has changed in the 25 years since it's been written.