11: Vite, Rust & The Future of JavaScript Tooling - Evan You

In this episode of the Better Stack Podcast, we sit down with Florian Dedov, creator of NeuralNine, a nearly 500,000-subscriber YouTube channel with over 1,000 videos teaching Python and machine learning. Florian shares how his content journey started with self-published Kindle books written to fund a high school graduation trip, the keylogger and Trojan-horse tutorials that went viral before YouTube forced him to delete them, and why "stupid-sounding" content like AI stock prediction consistently outperforms his more serious work. We also dig into his seven-year streak of never missing a single upload, his real estate fintech startup LoanMap, an early brush with GPT-2 through a game called AI Dungeon years before ChatGPT existed, and why he's rethinking what his channel should look like next.

Vincent Warmerdam of Marimo joins the Better Stack Podcast to talk Python notebooks, the CoreWeave acquisition, and why LLMs still can't analyze data. He breaks down how Marimo grew 5% a week to become the next evolution of Jupyter, why Python beat every compiled language for data science, and how a gorilla hidden in a dataset exposes the gap between AI doing the work and actually understanding it. Plus mechanical keyboards and RSI, PyPI supply chain attacks, vibe coding and skill atrophy, and the scrubbable IDE he built to make himself care about code again.🔗 Relevant LinksCalmCode YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoi0sH40GlLvNl9TZB40QegMarimo YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@marimo-teamVincent Twitter: https://x.com/fishnets88❤️ More about usRadically better observability stack: https://betterstack.com/Written tutorials: https://betterstack.com/community/Example projects: https://github.com/BetterStackHQ📱 SocialsTwitter: https://twitter.com/betterstackhqInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterstackhq/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@betterstackLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/betterstack📌 Chapters:00:00 - Intro & the Keyboard Collection07:29 - Vincent's Background & Marimo15:09 - Purple-Pilled on AI20:48 - The Dynamite Balloon Story28:26 - Why Python Won Data Science36:51 - The Road to Marimo46:30 - CoreWeave & Supply Chain Attacks50:27 - Vibe Coding & Caring About Code1:02:19 - Where's the 10x Better Software?1:12:21 - Vincent's AI Setup1:15:47 - Turning the Tables on YouTube1:33:10 - The Gorilla Dataset

In this episode of the Better Stack Podcast, we sit down with Alex Bouchard, founder of Hookdeck, the company on a mission to kill webhooks. Alex shares how a frustrating basement side project — sparked by a Medium post titled "Webhooks suck, but there's something you can do about it" — turned into a fully-funded event infrastructure company. We dig into why he coined the term "Event Gateway," how Hookdeck's open-source Outpost project stays aligned with its business incentives, and why AWS EventBridge's vendor lock-in leaves the door open for a more agnostic alternative. Alex also breaks down the hidden latency problems behind vendor webhooks (and why GitHub, Shopify, and Stripe outages hit harder than you'd think), how AI agents are reshaping event-driven architecture, and why he thinks push-based queues are underrated compared to poll-based ones. Plus: the Vercel testimonial that came out of nowhere, running a 10-person team with an async-first culture, and a spicy hot take on why most queuing systems are "just very dumb."

In this episode we sit down with Elliot, the developer behind the Dreams of Code and the Dreams of Autonomy YouTube channels, for a conversation about where software development is heading in the age of AI. We dig into why he's gone all-in on Rust for 2026, the reality of building a cross-platform video editor with unsafe FFI, and why he ditched Claude Code for Codex. Elliot shares how he actually uses AI day-to-day (stubs, public interfaces, and aggressive git staging), why he believes LLMs are hitting diminishing returns, and the death of coding tutorials. Plus native vs web apps, NixOS, his full camera setup, and a round of spicy hot takes from everyone at the table.

In this episode of the Better Stack Podcast, we sit down with Chris Pennington, DX Engineer at Resend and creator of the Coding in Public YouTube channel. Chris shares his unlikely journey from a documentation role with no professional coding experience to becoming the 10th hire at Resend, all sparked by a YouTube video about React Email. We dig into how Resend gets Claude to recommend them ~70% of the time (JSON-LD, Q&A sections, recency bias, and being early to LLM tooling), how his team runs scoped OpenClaude agents for competitor analysis and marketing reports, and why he still codes by hand despite AI. We also cover email deliverability myths, React Server Components' ongoing struggles, why Astro should be the default for most websites, and Chris's mental hack of planning only until 1pm to stay ahead. Plus: his video setup, Raycast obsession, and why coding with his kids is his favorite way to learn.

In this episode, Ben from Warp joins us to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-powered development tools. We explore his journey from creating whiteboard programming shorts to working on Astro, his honest take on React Server Components, and how the rise of coding agents is reshaping what matters in API design. Ben also dives deep into Warp's vision for the future of terminals, transforming them into agent-ready workspaces with built-in diff views, file explorers, and code review features that work with any CLI agent like Claude Code or Codex. Whether you're curious about the future of frameworks, how to work effectively with AI agents, or why terminals are becoming IDE-like, this conversation covers the cutting edge of developer tooling.

In this episode, we dive deep with Tom Krcha, former Adobe Flash evangelist and creator of Pencil.dev, about the evolution of design tools and the future of AI-powered design. From his early days building Flash games and Adobe XD to creating a visual design interface that bridges the gap between human creativity and LLMs, Tom shares insights on multi-agent orchestration, model benchmarking with Opus 4.6, and why parallel agents are unlocking new workflows. We explore the human touch in AI design, future frontiers like animation and 3D, and how new interfaces beyond chat, from eye tracking to visual cursors are making AI feel more creative and alive.

In this episode, Amin Astaneh shares his journey from open source enthusiast to SRE expert, discusses the impact of AI on DevOps, and offers insights on building reliable, fast-moving teams. He also talks about his nomadic lifestyle and adventures on the road, providing a holistic view of technology and life.Show notes:Certomodo.io: https://certomodo.io/The Field Guide to Understanding Human Error: https://sidneydekker.com/the-field-guide-to-understanding-human-errorThe Phoenix Project: https://itrevolution.com/product/the-phoenix-project/The DevOps Handbook, Second Edition: https://itrevolution.com/product/the-devops-handbook-second-edition/Practice of Cloud System Administration, The: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services, Volume 2: https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Cloud-System-Administration-Practices/dp/032194318XToyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results: https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238Leading Change: https://www.amazon.com/Leading-Change-New-Preface-Author/dp/1422186431

In this episode, Evan You, creator of Vue.js and Vite, shares his journey from building Vite to founding VoidZero and developing a complete Rust-based JavaScript toolchain. He discusses the evolution from Vite's ESBuild+Rollup hybrid to Rolldown, the 50-100x performance gains with OXC (linter, formatter, parser), and how Vite Plus aims to simplify the entire JavaScript onboarding experience. Evan also shares his thoughts on the future of bundling vs no-build approaches, why his team chose Rust over Go, how they're using AI to ship features faster while maintaining code quality, and offers a candid take on React Server Components as a long-time skeptic who believes the trade-offs often outweigh the benefits.Link:Do we need bundlers - https://rolldown.rs/in-depth/why-bundlers

In this episode, Bashbunni shares her journey from mastering terminal tools to joining (and leaving) Charm, to building inclusive coding communities. She discusses her transition from Vim to Doom Emacs, the impact of AI on coding education, and why balancing shortcuts with hands-on learning is crucial for developer growth. Bash also loves to coding in public and she regularly streams to encourage more people to code along with her and also to give her tips on what she can do to improve her Linux setup. Link:Bashbunni - https://www.bashbunni.dev/Charm - https://charm.land/VScode vim plugin - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vscodevim.vimSeven Languages in Seven Weeks - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Programmers/dp/193435659XDoom Emacs - https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacsLearn X in Y minutes - https://learnxinyminutes.com/The Pragmatic Programmer - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pragmatic-Programmer-Andrew-Hunt/dp/020161622X