Be The Luck For Other Software Engineers - Interview With Scott Hanselman

All right. I don't know how to entertain everyone. I'm not very good at this. But, uh, I wanted to say while Scott's getting whatever he's getting, I am super stoked to have Scott on here. So, uh, it'll be a little bit shorter today. I think we're going to aim for another 36 minutes. We both have a hard stop at the end of the hour here. But, hi, I'm Nick Coantino and I'm a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. This is arguably the coolest thing I've been able to do in my content creation journey. So, this is one of the most exciting things I've been able to put together. It's a pretty brief interview with Scott Hansselman, but it was so awesome to be able to sit down with him and just talk about his career progression. And I really love the message that he was able to deliver in this conversation. I remember once I confirmed the interview with Scott, I ran over to my wife and I was trying to explain just how excited I was and why Scott was such an influential person. And I really didn't know how to compare him to something that she might understand. So Beyonce was basically the only thing that I could come up with. Now, I still don't think she really understood, but I think for a lot of you watching this, you know who Scott is. You understand how cool this is, and I really think that you're going to enjoy this conversation. It's not super technical. We get into some technical pieces, but I do think that the message that Scott is going to share in this interview is so powerful, and I can't wait for you to hear it. So, sit back, enjoy, and I'll see you next time. Awesome. So, Scott, thanks so much for joining. Uh, the one of one of the things I wanted to start off with, cuz I kind of love jumping into this with different people, is like career journeys, right? Uh, obviously you have a very extensive career. Um, I probably don't have enough time to hear all of the details obviously, but uh, I think for for folks that are listening and watching, it would be super cool to kind of hear like where did you start? Like how did you know that you wanted to get into this? Did you know from the beginning and then like what did that look like as you progressed all the way to where you are now? Um, as I'm realizing how long I've been doing this, I realize that, you know, everyone people talk about like generations and stuff, but it's less about generations and it's more like >> what was happening in tech when you popped in, >> right? >> Like there are people who are like amazing front-end engineers and you could ask yourself why they are. Is it a generational thing? And it's like, no, it's because JavaScript popped as they entered. So I'm I think of myself as being someone who thinks about the whole stack because the stack was smaller when I started right. So in like you know like 1982 1984 when I started like programming it was lowlevel it was assembler it was 6502 assembler and then you know we understood assembler and then basic and logo and things got layered on top of it. So if you hear me and now 30 plus years later in 2024 talking about the benefits of understanding the full stack, it is because of the privilege of where I started, it may not necessarily be great advice for for for the young people because maybe JavaScript is the assembler for them. I don't know. That said, uh mid80s, uh I got a hold of an Apple 2 and then I got a hold of a a TRS80 and I got a hold of a uh uh a Commodore 64 and that's kind of where I started. And I've still got some I can grab a Commodore over here and I actually just I actually just built a uh if you can see it. >> This is a PDP11 >> uh emulator over here. So it's like a it's a called a PIDP. >> Okay. So, it's a Raspberry Pi running PDP11. Uh, and it's got the blinking lights and everything. 3D printed a case around everything. >> Um, okay. But like my parents are not computer people. My dad is a firefighter. My mom is a zookeeper. >> Um, so we were, you know, we're the first, my son, my brother and I are the first ones to go to school. So, um, I don't know like my fifth grade teacher was like, "You got moxy, kid." and uh put me in front of this this apple. And then I've told this story on other shows before, so if people have heard it before, I apologize. But my dad had this van. This is a 1972 Ford Econolo line, and it was in the front of the house, and it was always parked there. And then one day I showed up, and the van was gone. And there was a Commodore from Sears in a box uh with with the Sears. You're you're you said you're Canadian, so you did you have Sears up in Canada? >> We did. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. here. Hang on a second. Entertain the crowd. Hang on a second. >> All right. I don't know how to entertain everyone. I'm not very good at this. But, uh, I wanted to say while Scott's getting whatever he's getting, I am super stoked to have Scott on here. So, uh, it'll be a little bit shorter today. I think we're going to aim for another 36 minutes. We both have a hard stop at the end of the hour here, but uh, we'll get into some net stuff, too. There's Scott. Oh, wow. So you you you you you think about this this van that's in your front yard for all these years of your life. Like it's the thing and then the front of the house is empty and you're like what is what what is wrong with this house? This scene looks wrong. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then replacing the van is this and with the iconic tape. This is the Sears tape. They would put tape around the box to make sure that it hadn't been opened. >> Right. That's how you know >> that's how you know that you're not stealing it. Right. So this Commodore was there and they were like, "Well, your teacher said that you would be good at this." >> Wow. >> Right. So they they they bought this because they thought I would be good at it. >> That's kind of crazy, isn't it? >> Yeah. Like in a hindsight, right? It's uh pretty fascinating. So to have that that that that access and that privilege so early on with the Epics fast load cartridge and now you know we're a couple of or where maybe we're one old guy and one younger guy on a uh on a call here you know looking at this kind of stuff but like that underscores the importance of access. >> Yeah. >> There are people even now I work with an engineer a young engineer who only started coding three years ago. Right. So you you you'll meet people my age who'll be like, "I've been coding for 45 years." And you're like, "As since I was in the womb, I've been coding professionally for 32 years." I don't count the 10 years from like age 10 to age 20. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? But like that's such a privilege that my parents made that decision to sell the van. >> Yeah. That's that's a very incredible like like I said, in hindsight, it's fascinating to think like what if that didn't happen? What if you didn't have that opportunity put in front of you so early? I don't even like thinking about that. That's so kind of scary. >> That's important. You know, like we're in this time of like the MCU and multiple universes and stuff like that. There's this really before the MCU, there was this really great movie with Gwyneth Paul called Sliding Doors. >> I've not seen that. Okay. >> So, she's she's running to catch her train. She runs down the stairs and there's a little girl who's coming up the other side with her hand on the railing and she kind of does a little juke and goes around the little girl and then the movie stops. A line like this line here drops in the middle of the screen and it splits in half and now there's two universes. One where she jukes around a little girl and bumps into her and one where she smoothly moves past a little girl. One Gwyneth Paltro gets on the train, one doesn't. And then the movie spends the rest of the movie in two halves. >> Wow. >> What happened when she didn't hit the train? And what happened when she did? >> Just from one little event, right? >> From one little event where she's jumping down the stairs, she's rushing for the train and she and she does it smoothly on one person, does it not smoothly? And then the next 5 10 years of her life is completely defined by what if I'd gotten on that train. >> Right. >> Right. So like that might sound a little over overly dramatic but like it cannot be overstated that we are the product of those little moments and that that I think of that as being luck and I've talked about this before as well but luck is opportunity plus being prepared. Okay. And um you have to have both sides. There are a lot of people out there who are prepared and ready for this thing to happen but then the opportunity never presents itself. >> Sure. And then there are lots of people who just get opportunities thrown at them, but then they're not doing the work and they're not they're not prepared. So then how do how do I now that I have luck that has happened make luck for other people? >> Ah, I love that. Yeah, it's like a ven diagram of having these opportunities overlap, right? >> So luck can be uh I can go and like refer someone for a job. >> Sure. >> I can't get them the job. I can't get them the interview, but I can put them in the machine and I can say, "Okay, I did an I did a referral." So, I'm very generous and very like, "Hey, absolutely. I will refer people if you're cool and you and you know your GitHub repository is great and your LinkedIn is awesome. I will refer you." So, that just adds up over time just in making luck. That's why I'm a big fan of like focusing less on mentorship because a lot of people are over mentored. Uh because that's just a weekly lecture with an old person. Um and and sponsorship, which is oh Nick, why don't you give the talk? >> Okay, well I wasn't ready. You're ready. Opportunity presents itself. >> You're ready. Luck. And then 10 years from now, you know, you're a CEO of a company. Oh yeah, that one time when I got to present to Satia, that's when it all happened. That's your sliding doors moment, right? So, the trick is to make as many of those as possible cuz somewhere there's a Hanselman in another parallel universe that didn't get seen by their fifth grade teacher that didn't get a Commodore 64, etc., etc., etc. >> Yeah, that's a that's a fascinating thing to think about. Like maybe one could argue like okay, if you didn't have that opportunity so early just based on how you are like maybe something else would have come up a little bit later. Like certainly it would have worked out this way, right? But like I don't know if I I buy that personally. >> Well, so here here's another one like and I can go back and like identify these things now with hindsight because hindsight's 2020 is that I I again first one to go to college. So I I didn't know how to apply to college. I didn't know how to uh visit. We didn't have money to visit universities. But I did uh have a girlfriend uh who went to Boston. So, I followed her to Boston and I visited MIT and Boston University and walked around the Harvard campus and try to get a vibe of like what college would feel like. And it wasn't for me. It just felt weird. I kind of had a low-key panic attack on the MIT uh campus. I was just like, I'm not ready for this. >> Okay. >> So, I came home and I moved into my parents' garage and had no plan. No plan at all. And then my buddy Jack Elmore, and Jack Elmore still works, he works at Microsoft, but you know, he was 17 at the time. He's like, "Hey, come over to my house and I'm going to teach you pointers in C." So I go over to his house. He's we start talking about pointers and C and I'm comparing it to like some of the other coding that I've done before because he's all about C. C is the next big thing. Okay, you know what I mean? Now C had already been a thing for a while now, right? But he was very excited about C. So he starts teaching me C and then juxtaposing how C is different than C++. And he's like, "Hey, you know, Portland Community College is doing a software engineering course. It's the first year because computer science was the department at the community college." >> Okay. >> But but they were having a feud with the software engineering department and they believed that computer science was too vague, too wide open for getting a job. >> Okay. >> So this was more of a practical um what's the word? a a trade school perspective on on software. Like we could teach you computer science, but it doesn't let teach you how to deliver software. >> Yeah, here's all the theory behind like how these things work in computer science and then you get more practical. Let's go build something. I I assume that's kind of the Okay. >> So he's like, "Yeah, they're doing an open house. Come with me." So I freaking go with him and I enroll in software engineering out of my parents garage at Portland Community College. And then the greatest thing about that program was that it had a required internship. >> Ah, >> you had to go and become an intern. So you had to go and find a local company and get them to hire you as an intern. Then they hired me at 10 bucks an hour and then 12 bucks an hour and there you go. And and if Jack Elmore hadn't said, "Come and hang out and let's talk about pointers, >> right?" >> Because that's the kind of nerd I was. >> I was gonna make a comment about that. Yeah. >> Oh yeah. If Portland Community College hadn't been doing a software engineering degree because computer science wasn't the vibe, >> right? >> Then what would I be doing? Something else. I My my dad's a firefighter, my brother's a firefighter. I'd probably be a firefighter, which is great, >> but it's different. >> Yeah. And that's just it, right? It's not about being better, worse, or whatever. It's just like it would have >> it's about finding your thing or not. >> I think this is my thing. So then now I don't think my thing is computers. Here's the funny thing. Oh, >> okay. I think I'm a teacher. >> Okay. >> I just really dig telling people about stuff and getting people the feeling of being empowered and like, "Oh, yeah. Have you heard the news? You can do this." >> Right. >> So, um, yeah. Oh, and then I don't know if I I think I told someone this one time. U, I don't know if I said this a lot publicly, but when I got promoted last year, so now I've got this this title VP, which is such a weird thing. It's a funny little um uh compliment that capitalism pays you. Yeah, good job. And congratulations, by the way. That's a that is a it's like an accomplishment for sure. >> Thank you. Titles are made up, though. But thank you. Um, but you know, it's it's kind of kind of a nice little period at the end of the sentence. Um, so I'm like, "Okay, that's cool." Uh, I started calling all the different people that had been those sliding doors for me. So I called I first I called Jack Omar and I was like, "Dude, I just got BP and here's why it's important that you did this for me 30 years ago." And I called my first boss who gave me the internship who's like 80 years old now. And I called Taylor Hannah who was the head of the Portland Community College software engineering group who's in a retirement home on the east coast, you know. And I went through this list of like I called Don Box uh who I met at Incredible Universe Fly Fries Electronics who like gave me my first interview and we wrote we wrote C on a napkin at a Sherry's pie shop while having peach pie, you know, like that. I just called all these people to just say, "Hey, you were one of the people where there was a moment there and I could have hung left and I went this direction instead." >> Right. That's incredible. That's uh and I can't even imagine for some of those people getting a call like that and being like how what that would feel like to be like holy crap like you know it that might have seemed like such a small thing at the time right but like you said having creating these opportunities for individuals over time is just >> oh yeah >> and and um that has now that I'm getting older that has started to happen occasionally uh to me which is super cool. I uh I had given a I had like sponsored some young people on Twitter like there was a a person who needed a laptop so I got him a laptop and there's somebody who needed some paperwork done for immigration and I did some immigration paperwork and then you know you don't follow them around. You're not keeping score. You're just you help people and you move on. And then I get a text like you know four years later. Hey I've immigrated to Germany and I'm in Germany now and I'm working as a full-time engineer and I'm sending money back home. So then I just happened to be in uh Berlin a week before last and I get to go and have like lunch with these guys. >> Wow. >> Right. And there's another guy who just got his immigration paper and he moved to London. You know, again, moving out of his country, helping his family out and you know, and I I did one thing four years ago, but I just knew that like that's a kid that is going to be awesome and I want to I want to put I want to sp and I don't put like if you could buy stock in a person and like do an early investor like you want to be like an angel investor. >> Yeah. So, I'm starting to do that kind of stuff and it it's a long it's a long process but like four years later you're like hey and then you become that little one moment where hey I gave you a Commodore 64 in 1980. What could feel like honestly like what's more fulfilling than that to be like you know being able to have people in the future tell you like hey you you changed the course of my life for the better and then hopefully for a lot of these people you kind of impart on them like you see how powerful like something that might have been small for you in the moment like see how powerful that was to transform someone's life like that's fascinating >> well and that's the thing like it is it is a amazing thing to be a teacher but it is also a selfish thing like if you want like pure unadulterated did like like mainline give me a give me more of that be a teacher and then like my my aunt is a is a was a teacher a Portland public school teacher for many many years and she said she'd be just wandering around at Safeway and then some full-g grown adult would come up and say oh my god Mrs. Hanselman, you know, 20 years ago you were my teacher, you know, and like that's where like, yeah, give me more of that, right? So, being a teacher is is a wonderfully magnanimous but also very selfish thing. And that's a kind of selfishness that I'm willing to uh to accept. >> Yeah. I feel like that's a probably a pretty fair trade, right? Like I don't think we'd like to promote selfishness too much, but I think uh if you're going to be >> selfish kind of selfishness, right? It's like, you know, Yeah. >> No, that's incredible. Well, thanks for thanks for sharing that. think the really kind of walking through those different like and I'm I'm sure for people listening and watching it's like they might have already had some of these types of things or you know there's going to be these these moments of luck that that come up for them kind of uh in the future right so that's really cool I think >> or you can spot them now right and then >> jump on them and make them happen for other people >> yeah it's uh no it's really cool I I haven't had for myself I don't I don't feel like I've yet had too many situations where I've done uh something for someone else. There's been a couple of little things like being able to, you know, send off free books to people and stuff. Well, free for them, you know, I'll pay for the the Amazon part, whatever. It's like small things like that, but I have not yet kind of had that uh the sort of the feedback loop. And I don't like for me, I'm not like, hey, I'm doing that so that I can get it, but >> you know, it might be really uh really awesome in a few years where it's like, hey, little things that you were doing planting those seeds kind of come back. Well, it could be like like I you know it could be having a maybe an earlier in career person on your show. Uh I've been doing uh this Hanselman and friends idea a lot >> because I am very blessed to be invited to like keynote stuff. >> So now I bring people along. So then it's like awesome Hanselman and then whoever else the person is. And then what you do is you slowly reverse it. >> So it's not Hansman and friends, it's this person and then also the Hanssman guy is still there. Right. Very cool. >> And then like on my podcast, my face is not on the podcast anymore, right? So it's all about the guest there. My face is nowhere to be found. So like those little tiny changes as you slowly shift focus, right, >> is to try to put a spotlight on the the next generation, the next person because I'm >> and that's that's incredible, right? Because you've you've and I don't want to say like like it was just luck, right? But you've you've done all of this work through your career through a series of events. So now you're in this position where you you can be able to do that for others and that's >> well so you say like just just luck like people seem to think that luck is a dirty word and it's totally not. It is okay to to ascribe >> a huge part of your uh your career to luck. That's fine. It doesn't negate the hard work. Yeah, I think that's the the thing, right? And thank you for for stating that. It's uh yeah, I think there can be luck. And I when I say that, I don't want to suggest that there was no hard work because I think that would be very incorrect to say, "Yeah, you didn't do anything. It was just luck." >> Yeah. Well, this this is just when we're talking about luck, that's the focus. We're talking about luck, right? Uh it's like what was the there's an old joke of like if someone is is doing a um if you're doing a charity dinner for like cancer, you don't have someone rush in and say, "Well, hang on. All diseases matter." Like, "No, we're talking about cancer right now." Right. >> Right. So, it doesn't negate other things. Uh a huge huge swast of my career are luck also. Maybe maybe equally large amounts are hard work, >> but you can't unpack that. Well, well, when you do unpack that, you get this pie chart that is an ever moving pie chart. And again, luck is so important is opportunity presents itself. >> And then preparation, right? You can't just like like I could say, "Hey, Nick, uh, Nick, give give this give this uh give this keynote opportunity, >> right?" But then you totally sleep through it. You don't prep. Your computer crashes. You're not prepared. Oh, the demo gods. Okay, you just bumbled the bag. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, was that lucky? Was that not lucky? Like, no. Luck didn't happen because opportunity presented itself, but you didn't prepare. >> Yeah. In fact, >> you prepare, you grind, you grind, and then no one ever invites you to give a talk. Also unlucky. >> Yeah. In the situation where you like describe fumbling the bag, right? It's like people would say that's that's unlucky, right? Probably like even though you had the first part of it, >> you fumbled the bag and now it's unlucky. Right. So my theory is that there are a ton of prepared people just waiting for opportunities. And that's where you invent luck is by just making make you make luck for people by adding that one piece of the formula that is missing. And that's why and that's what it's called sponsorship. Sponsorship is talking about your mentee when your mentee is not in the room. >> Right? me mentorship usually uh and this is an overgeneralization. >> Sure. >> I call it a weekly lecture from an old person, >> right? >> This is how I used to mentor. I would bring this big dad energy to talk to young people and it it changes a power dynamic. So instead of two peers talking to each other, it started to go and it's just like you should work harder, okay, read this book, okay, study hard, you know, that's not the energy that most people need. what what what they need is not mentorship. They need planning, strategizing, uh, you know, specific tactical things that they can do to make luck. I don't think I'm getting enough visibility. I don't think my work is being seen correctly. You know, like those kind of things. And that's where a focused sponsorship is. So, like if I give a present, if we're doing like a team presentation to a VP, I could give the whole presentation. It'll be fine, >> but I got this great team. What I should do is be like, you know, Hugh Jackman and The Greatest Showman where I'll just be the opener and I'll go, "All right, I'm going to pass it off >> to so- and so, and then she'll do it, and then this person will do it." So, then it's all about the visibility of the team. You don't want to be going like, "Oh, look at me and the hard work that 30 people did." Uh, then I'll take credit for it. >> Yeah, >> that's dumb. >> Yeah, it's a missed opportunity for individuals. And I mean, at the end of the day, like it it's basically impossible that one person could be doing all of the things, so it doesn't doesn't look >> whole point of the team. That's the whole point. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> No, that's uh that's super cool. Um Scott, I know we have a little bit of time left because we both have hard stops. I'm curious. I I asked you a little bit before about Net stuff. I don't want to put you on the spot for like hey like tell us the latest and greatest everything we need to know all the exact features coming in net 9 nothing like that but um maybe like to kind of kick things off in the net space um just some general thoughts and kind of questions around this like I feel like and you're probably way more in tune with this but I feel like personally net and C have been picking up a lot over the past few years. Um, is that the same type of thing that you're observing or do you feel like it's always kind of been like at this level or is it kind of like taking off? >> I feel like .NET 8 is just such a good release. It's such a lovely solid release that it's it's getting people's attention. >> Um, I still think there's a branding problem. I think that uh you know there's C there's F to a limited extent there's Visual Basic buttnet as a brand is a weird brand >> right >> um young people know about C um and then you have to go and explain versioning and all the numbers and stuff like that but we've had now net core 3 we've had at 5, 6, 7, 8, and then nine coming out. So, we've had, you know, consistently every November a new version coming out. And just like Ubuntu, you alternate between LTS and STS, standard support and long-term support. So, now that we've got these these three year-long support versions ofnet, and upgrading from one to the other is like not rocket surgery. I'm actually in the middle on this on this monitor over here of switching my my website from .NET 6 to .NET 8. Um, and it's not that bad and only good things happen and it only gets faster that like the word is out and it's been crossplatform now for freaking ever. >> Yeah. >> Like like a generation. >> Yeah. >> And still And still we're trying to remind people that it does work. >> I wanted to ask you about that part. And first before I jump to that, thank you for saying rocket surgery because I say that all the time and I don't know if I've ever talked to someone else and they've dropped that. Um, every time I say it and my wife hears it, she go she looks at me funny and I'm like, "No, that was on purpose." Like, >> well, it's like when you like when you list out bullets and stuff and you go, "Okay, Nick, here's what's going on." So, first one, you need to do better. And then B, you know, like doing doing weird little anacronistic things like that. Uh, make sure that people are still listening. Uh no on the on the on the side of like reminding people about crossplatform and this type of thing. I I feel like like I observe it a lot still a stigma around like about net and like hey like Microsoft it's a Microsoft thing Microsoft is big bad and scary and close source and Microsoft's going to own all your code and it's only on Windows and I'm like I don't know where these people are coming from but is do you still observe this kind of thing like a lot? It's just it's just it's just education. It sucks. It is what it is. Um >> but yeah, we have to remind that >> here's the thing though. What's the biggest language on the planet, right? Well, there's two. There's C, which you don't see. No, no pun intended. That's like that's the little language that could like every all the all the low-level stuff is happening. All the IoT stuff is happening. Like your thermostat is not written in JavaScript. And then there's JavaScript. So the the the argument of like, well, how is .NET going to win? Well, it can't. JavaScript's won, but what has it won? Well, it's won the text boxes over data war. So, you know, that's that's fine. But C though, uh, is just so darned flexible. >> Yeah. >> You know, you've got IoT devices all the way up to cloud devices. You've got Xbox games and Unity. You could got Linux and ARM. It's just it's just it is the Swiss Army knife of platforms, >> right? >> And I think people sleep on it a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. I had uh someone asked me the other day about like they were asking about programming language strengths like why why C? And I I think the context before that was about like people are a lot of people are talking about Rust and stuff now. And they were like well it's not as fast as Rust is it? And I'm like, well, hold on. Like, you have languages where they're going to be more purpose-built for certain things. But I said, I think my opinion is C. One of the benefits is really just that it can do so much. And if you know C, you can start applying it to these very different domains and not have to go, let me go completely like I I could imagine switching between Rust and JavaScript would be like my brain would probably melt if I had to keep context switching between the two. So, >> yeah. And then benchmarking those things. It's apples and and apples and oranges. Like you just can't like here here's one. This is stupid. I just throw this up on the screen here. Like a rust versus C# benchmark. What is a benchmark? Like are we doing just tight uh tight uh for loops? You know, are we doing Fibonacci? You know, here's Rust and C uh you know, within 20 30% of each other, but then you've got standard deviations of stuff that are that are outside. You've got because you've got the jitter of course you've got more memory of course but like is it appropriate to compare these things we've also got AOT really making a move in the C space ahead of time compilation as a general rule for generalized computing all these languages are asmmptoically approaching perfect like you know what I mean like we're hitting the laws of physics on a lot of these things >> so yeah you're going to have more here you go like the system time is higher, but as a general rule, we're doing very well. We're holding our own. I'm not saying it's a fight, though. It's not supposed to be a fight. I think that's a good point, though, right? I think a lot of people they frame it like, "Hey, look, we have to put these things against each other and battle to the death." And it's like, but they it's just not like that. I I'll give you a very quick example. If someone said to me, "Hey, Nick, I need you to go spin up a web server and you could go between Rust and C." Obviously, I have more experience in in C# than Rust, but I could imagine for the average person, like you could literally just press a button in Visual Studio and have a very quick web server done. And I don't know if you have so much flexibility in Rust without trying to do a lot more primitive things. And it's not that those primitive things would be wrong or worse. In fact, they might they might be way faster, but it's just different. >> It's like having a fight between do you buy a Honda or do you buy a Toyota? you're gonna get where you're going. I'm not like I just don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with this people like Rust is great and everyone seems like really excited to make Rust the new thing. Fine, but what should it be the new thing? Are we trying to make video games in Rust? Like really what people are looking at Rust at is, you know, making kernels better. But before we move on, this is just a reminder that I do have courses available on dome train if you want to level up in your car programming. If you head over to dome train, you can see that I have a course bundle that has my getting started and deep dive courses on C. Between the two of these, that's 11 hours of programming in the C language, taking you from absolutely no programming experience to being able to build basic applications. You'll learn everything about variables, loops, a bit of async programming, and object-oriented programming as well. Make sure to check it out. um the uh you know like you're already seeing rust showing up in the Windows kernel like it is a better C is it a better C that's a different question like just it's we don't have to go and take over all the curly brace related languages and say that like shell do rust >> right >> it's okay for rust to be good at one thing I'm not writing kernel level code in C yet so use rust for that >> yeah absolutely >> my website's going to be written in C# sharp. I I like it. It's very fast and very productive. >> Yeah. And it's like the I think the context is key, right? Like all a quick example even from I mentioned before we got on the call like I work in the substrate side of Microsoft and we uh I manage part of the team that's the routing plane. We have pieces where we have consciously said we will we will rewrite these things in Rust because there's a very specific need. >> Lots of other stuff is in C and there is absolutely no reason for us to go move because it works very fast. it does exactly what we need. We can develop uh you know quickly in it. So like why would we just go hey like Rust is just new and the new hotness. Let's just go jump ship to it. Like it doesn't really make a lot of sense. >> I think also that like it's always fun to explore like like generational shifts. Sure. >> You know people people don't really people think that they don't get promoted for sustaining engineering. They get promoted for like big dangerous moves like let's move all of it to rust. Okay. I mean it is fine. It's fine right now. No. No. We got to do it all like Yeah. >> I have a much more chill attitude than when I was a architecture astronaut back in the >> or astronaut. Yeah. >> Um but this uh this similar conversation came up even with Blazer. So, uh, I was having a discussion with someone online and they were saying like like from their perspective, they're like, "Blazer is just like it's a terrible idea." They're like, "It's never going to beat out JavaScript and like I don't want to like I don't want I think the phrasing was I don't want to be forced into using C." And there were a few of us that were like, "Hey, look, like as C developers, like we want the opportunity to write more C#. I don't think anyone's forcing you. Like I don't I don't think that's the goal is Microsoft came in and said no more JavaScript. >> This is a this is a silly analogy that I have used once that I like. So my son and I were in Finland and Finnish is a really weird language. Uh and linguistically because I did a little bit of work in linguistics in in college. Um it's like a foreign language. It's like it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't fit. It's almost like they were teleported here from Mars. Like like it doesn't fit into the branches. >> Okay. Yeah. So, so, and there's like, I don't know, four or five million people that speak Finnish. So, my my son who's like 13 at the time, he's like, "Why don't they just speak English?" I said, "What do you mean?" Well, you know, like everyone likes their own languages. People got to speak their own language. And he's like, "Well, they're not going to win." Ah, okay. Yeah. >> Well, here's the thing. They're not, right? We love the Fins. Fins are great people, but they're not winning. Well, winning what? Okay. Well, that's exactly right. Like, first, no, there was no competition. No one said there had to be a win. Well, everyone should just speak English. Well, why? Well, it's a perfectly English is the JavaScript of human language. >> Yeah, >> right. It's just the one that steals from all the other languages. It became the language that we're just forcing everyone to use. It's not the language we deserve, but it's the one that we have. It was invented in a weekend, you know? It doesn't make any sense. So, the the the why doesn't Finn give up, >> right? >> Okay. Why doesn't Erlang give up? >> Right. >> Right. Well, because people who speak Erlang and Finnish like it and there's Finnish poetry and uh and cinema and like those are the things that make them happy. They should be h like that. This is so stupid. I'm more of a language preservationist. When I hear that there's like an, you know, an indigenous language and there's like six people who speak it. Let's go save that language and let's learn it so we might better understand ourselves. But the argument of like, oh, you know, this language should give up because it's not going to win is stupid. >> Yeah. Because like you said, like what is the competition? It sounds like there isn't one and people just assume it's there. >> If if there's a language that makes you happy, write that language, right? These are and these are tough questions. Like if I was the CTO of a company, would I go and write it in Erlang? I wouldn't, but the people who made WhatsApp did and success is a pretty good metric. So good on WhatsApp for choosing Erlang. >> Yep. I remember uh when I before Microsoft I worked at a digital forensics company and uh when we were recovering things off of devices like so literally having to recover deleted information from file systems and stuff. I remember talking with people at job fairs and stuff and they're like oh so you guys must use a lot of C and C++ and I was like we use .NET for everything and they're like how like that that's impossible you can't possibly be getting that low-level stuff and it's like no we and we can build really fast and we can do all these awesome things. So I think people just uh yeah kind of looking for maybe competitions where there aren't actually >> these battles. >> Yeah. Now Facebook went and rewrote the thing in C++ but that was their you know that's kind of a bummer. >> Yeah. No that's uh no that's interesting. So on the on thenet side of things do you have um do you have like a are there a set of things where you're like super excited about and you're like I can't wait for this. Um, or is it are you just kind of at this point? I think you kind of said like a lot of the languages are approaching this point where it's everything almost feels like perfect. >> Well, okay. So, there's the language stuff which is all the syntax and keywords and nonsense and features. >> Everyone's got async and await and you know, everyone's been fighting about who invented async and await and like you know C# takes this feature from F and you know there's that that that all happens. That's you know there's Americans that think burrito is an English word. Uh, right. We can all argue about if it's pronounced foyer or foyer. >> Uh that that happens in in programming languages as well. I'm more interested in like delightful um uh features that like make my life better. So >> the work that is happening innet to make it work well on docker and in containers is just like it's just unheralded silent pushing the rock uphill work. Like if you go and look at our Docker tags, the diversity of opport of of options for your, you know, your base image, >> we've got chiseled images. We've got images that are getting smaller and smaller. Uh we've got distro images. Um we've got, you know, the fact that you can write C#, you didn't have to do anything and then all those ARM PCs came out and it just works on ARM. >> Yeah. >> Right. like I'm running, you know, a 22y old codebase on my blog and I didn't do anything asnet matured, >> right? >> I slowly moved it from .NET 2 to four to six and now on the way to 8 and I've quietly and and peacefully moved it from Windows Server 2000 to Linux to containers and now it runs on a Raspberry Pi, right? like my podcast website runs happily on a Raspberry Pi >> and I'm just pushing a little bit of text around or changing a uh a Docker container thing like that that's really significant and it is I use the word unheralded like people should be singing that and and and the hard work that the net team and the folks that work on that stuff are doing should be more appreciated. >> Yeah, it's a Yeah, I think it's a good point. There's a lot of work that goes into that kind of stuff and it's it's almost like until it's all there and we're just used to having it, it's like >> you take it for granted. >> Yeah, it must have just happened overnight or it was always there, right? Um no, that's cool. Um I I realize we're coming up on time here and you have a hard stop. Uh so I I did want to say like thank you so much for being able to kind of sit down and chat with me. This is super cool. Um, I think, you know, one of the the really key takeaways, uh, just this reminder that trying to create these little opportunities for other people, like creating luck for others. I think that's something that like I almost feel like I need a tattoo or something of that to just like as a permanent reminder that like, yeah, we only got so much time and if we can start doing that for others, there's a lot of opportunity. >> I appreciate that. I don't it it didn't become uh like it didn't go viral or anything but I used to use this hashtagbe the luck like if you go about your day deciding that I'm going to be someone's luck today >> right >> whether it be giving them a tip uh whether it be a financial tip or an actual like advice >> or sitting down and talking to someone uh you know putting in your um in your email signature that you're open for mentorship and you're open for sponsorship or whether it's just quietly giving an opportunity to someone else because you have enough opportunities. >> Right. Yeah, that's our small our small things. >> Yeah, I love that. >> And by the by the way, it's totally random, but like while we're talking, like bring up the the screen here. >> Oh, nice. >> I'm just running. So, here I decided to go and I'm running this is building the podcast inside of Docker on.net and then I'm running headless uh unit test and playright tests. And then, of course, I've got the exact same thing building over in um uh in on Linux. So this is this is Linux on Windows. So here I'm doing a build and there you go. And then over here >> So it doesnet does work on Linux. I can't I can't believe what I'm seeing. >> Oh yeah, it's crazy. It's only it's only been years and years, you know what I mean? >> So like yeah, just happily doing doing my own thing here while and then Yeah. So now we're exporting that image and then this is going to go and start running these >> but I'm in the middle of cleaning up some of this work. >> Yeah, these are running these are headless playwright tests. So it's running like Chromium and Edge headless invisible and then there you go. So there you go. So all my tests pass and I'm slowly moving it up to uh to .NET uh I need to check all this in. >> That's super awesome. Yeah, it's great to see that you have like like you said, you're able to demonstrate that you can do it in these different environments and it just it works. So >> yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm everything I'm selling is free, so I don't care if you use net. That just means more.net for me. >> Yeah, that that's right. Cool. Scott, um, thank you so much for the time again. Um, I wanted to say I usually say to my guests like, "Hey, give me all your links and stuff." And but I think anyone who's watching this absolutely knows who you are, but I'll make sure that I add some links and stuff to the description and people can >> That's very kind. What I would love is that if folks enjoy this conversation, of course, continue to support you, but also I would uh respectfully and gently offer my podcast. Uh I've done almost 960 episodes of my show. I think it's a good show. I wish more people would listen to it and I wish more people would review it and give me those, you know, stars or whatever. Like share the thing. I think it's it's quietly take it for granted and I would very much appreciate folks to check out my podcast. >> Absolutely. I'll make sure that I have that linked. I'll put a comment and stuff too and uh we'll blast it out. So Scott, thanks again. Uh I appreciate the time. >> Bye.