Happy Path Programming

Hosted by Bruce Eckel &amp; James Ward

TechnologyInterviews guests

Website RSS feed

Episodes

119

Latest episode

Jun 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

No-frills discussions between Bruce Eckel and James Ward about programming, what it is, and what it should be. Buy the Happy Path Programming t-shirt: https://happy-path.printify.me/products

Listen to episodes

60 recent

June 2, 2026Episode 1201 hr 10 min

#120 Aver AI-Native Programming Language with Szymon Teżewski

We dive into the new Aver programming language with its creator, Szymon Teżewski: The AI-native language where code explains itself.Aver is a language where every function carries its intent, side effects are visible in the type system, and tests are executable specs next to the code. The optimization target is the reviewer, not the generator.Resources:- Aver: https://averlang.dev/- Agent Languages: https://agentlanguages.dev/Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF

January 24, 2026Episode 1191 hr 29 min

#119 FP Reaches the Masses with Paul Snively

We chat with Paul Snively (https://x.com/JustDeezGuy) about how Functional Programming has gone mainstream.Resources- Winter Tech Forum - https://www.wintertechforum.com- Paul Snively's LambdaConf Talk on Verse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBT0j14rn5c- Paul Snively's Blog Post on the Verse Calculus - https://paul-snively.github.io/posts/2022-12-15-verse-calculus.html- Eugenio Moggi, "Notions of Computation and Monads" (1991) - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~crary/819-f09/Moggi91.pdf- "Implementing Lazy Functional Languages on Stock Hardware: The Spineless Tagless G-machine"** by Simon Peyton Jones - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/1992/04/spineless-tagless-gmachine.pdf- The Verse Calculus Paper - https://simon.peytonjones.org/verse-calculus/- "How to Solve It" by George Pólya - https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691164076/how-to-solve-it- Fidelity Framework - https://github.com/FidelityFramework- Happy Path Programming Episode #37 from Aug 14, 2021 "The Future of Everything with Paul Snively" - https://open.spotify.com/episode/62iyGUUwh5CBkxkDpJmUuoDiscuss this episode: https://discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF

January 2, 2026Episode 1181 hr 11 min

#118 Effects of 2025

Bruce & James recap the technology shifts of 2025 and look ahead to what may be ahead in 2026.Resources:Register for the Winter Tech Forum (March 2-6 2026 in Crested Butte, Colorado)The Eternal Return of Abstraction: Why Programming Was Never About CodeThinking in Typesjavadocs.devWhat's New in EmbabelDiscuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF

November 18, 2025Episode 1171 hr 12 min

#117 Special Episode: Entering Computer Science as a New Graduate

At Western State Colorado University in Gunnison on Sept 11, 2025, Bruce Eckel, Bill Venners and Dianne Marsh each give their own 10-minute perspectives on finding fulfillment in the field, especially considering the impact of AI and other recent changes in computing. The remainder of the session answers questions from the student audience.Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF

September 19, 2025Episode 11658 min

#116 Infrastructure as Effects with Sam Goodwin

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is "code" but without most of the benefits of being code. Sam Goodwin is reinventing IaC with Alchemy and an upcoming Alchemy Effect project which aims to manage infrastructure dependencies & provisioning in the same way we manage requirements in Effect Oriented Programming.Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠

August 11, 2025Episode 1151 hr 2 min

#115 More Python Type Checking! Pyrefly with Aaron Pollack & Steven Troxler

Excitement around Python type checking continues to grow and the tools continue to evolve. We chat with Aaron Pollack and Steven Troxler about ⁠Pyrefly - a Rust-based Python type checker and IDE extension. We also touch on the adoption and sentiment around types in Python's ecosystem.Resources:Pyrefly DiscordPackage Type Coverage ReportPackages being tracked for moving types from typeshed to the source projectTyping Survey SlidesBlog post with survey analysisPython typing community forumMCP PyreflyDiscuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠

July 25, 2025Episode 1141 hr 5 min

#114 ty: Fast Python Type Checking with Carl Meyer

Carl Meyer works on the ty Python type checker, built in Rust by Astral the creators of Ruff and uv. We chat about type systems, the evolution of static typing in Python, and the focus on performance.Resources:Richard Feldman: Roc compiler moving from Rust to ZigDiscuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠

July 21, 2025Episode 1131 hr 5 min

#113 Graph & RAG with Jennifer Reif

We chat with Jennifer Reif about integrating LLMs with data using RAG, vectorized data, and Graph databases.Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠

July 2, 2025Episode 1121 hr 14 min

#112 AI Agents Get More 9's with Rod Johnson

Rod Johnson, creator of the Spring Framework, has created a JVM-based AI Agent framework called Embabel. We dive in and learn how enterprises can build more reliable Agents using deterministic planning and domain-driven orchestration.Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠

April 10, 2025Episode 11151 min

#111 Wasm & MCP with Steve Manuel

We chat with Steve Manuel (of dylibso.com and mcp.run) about LLM "plugins" with Wasm & MCP (Model Context Protocol).Discuss this episode: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠discord.gg/XVKD2uPKyF⁠⁠