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Carson Gross, computer science professor at Montana State and creator of htmx, joins the show to cut through the noise around AI and programming. He explains why the jump from high-level languages to LLMs is fundamentally different from past transitions, why junior developers who skip writing code risk being at the mercy of a stochastic system, and why systems architecture and managing code complexity are the skills that will matter most. A grounded, rational take on the future of software development jobs. Resources Yes,and...: https://htmx.org/essays/yes-and/ We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod. Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/ Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form, and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. Chapters 00:00 Introduction — Carson Gross and the "Yes, And…" Blog Post 01:45 Why Carson Felt Compelled to Write About AI and Coding 03:30 The Assembly-to-High-Level Analogy — and Why It Falls Apart 06:00 Juniors Must Write Code to Be Able to Read Code 08:15 The Sorcerer's Apprentice Trap 10:30 Could AI Actually Increase Demand for Programmers? 12:45 Why "SaaS Is Dead" Is Shortsighted 15:00 Systems Architecture as the High-Value Skill Going Forward 17:30 Essential vs Accidental Complexity — The No Silver Bullet Framework 20:00 How LLMs Break the Natural Feedback Loop of Bad Code 23:00 Will AI Change How We Think About Testing? 26:30 Abstraction, Paradigms, and Human-Readable Code 29:00 How Much Has AI Actually Boosted Carson's Own Productivity? 32:00 The Mental Health Cost of the AI Hype Cycle 35:30 Final Thoughts — Give Yourself (and Others) a BreakSpecial Guest: Carson Gross.

Rich Harris joins the podcast to discuss his talk, fine-grained everything, exploring fine-grained reactivity, frontend performance, and the real costs of React Server Components and RSC payloads. Rich explains how Svelte and SvelteKit approach co-located data fetching, remote functions, and RPC to reduce server-side rendering costs, improve developer experience, and avoid unnecessary performance overhead on mobile networks. The conversation dives into async rendering, parallel async data fetching, type safety with schema validation, and why async-first frameworks may define the future of JavaScript frameworks and web performance. Links X: https://x.com/Rich_Harris Github: https://github.com/rich-harris Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rich-harris.dev Resources Modern front-end frameworks like Svelte are astonishingly fast at rendering, thanks to techniques such as signal-based fine-grained reactivity. But there's more to performance than updating the screen at 60 frames per second. In this talk, we'll learn about new approaches that help you build fast, reliable, data-efficient apps. Slides: https://fine-grained-everything.vercel.app/1-1 We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod. Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/ Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form, and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. ChaptersSpecial Guest: Rich Harris.

Michael Hladky joins the pod to explain how CSS performance improvements like content-visibility, CSS containment, contain layout, and contain paint can dramatically outperform JavaScript virtual scrolling. The conversation explores virtual scrolling, large DOM performance, and how layout and paint work inside the browser rendering pipeline, including recalculate styles and their impact on INP Interaction to Next Paint. Michael shares real-world examples of frontend performance optimization, discusses cross-browser CSS support including Safari content-visibility, and explains why web performance issues tied to rendering are often misunderstood and overlooked. Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hladky-519340148/ GitHub: https://github.com/BioPhoton X: https://x.com/Michael_Hladky Resources Conference link: https://push-based.io/event/perfnow-2025-michael-hladky-zero-js-virtual-scrolling-css Conference resource: https://github.com/push-based/css-contain-and-content-visibility-research We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod. Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/ Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form, and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to CSS Performance and Virtual Scrolling 01:20 Why Interaction to Next Paint (INP) Changed Everything 03:00 The Real Cost of Layout and Paint 05:10 Why Large DOMs Break Performance 06:45 How CSS Containment Works 08:30 Contain Layout vs Contain Paint Explained 10:40 When Containment Breaks Your UI 12:20 Introducing Content Visibility 14:10 CSS Content Visibility vs JavaScript Virtual Scrolling 16:40 Why CSS Skips Recalculate Styles Entirely 18:50 Real Performance Gains on Desktop and Mobile 20:40 Cross-Browser Support Including Safari 22:10 Common Pitfalls and Flickering Issues 24:10 How to Measure Layout and Paint Performance 26:10 Why Frameworks Should Use This by Default 28:00 Design Systems and Low-Hanging Performance Wins 30:10 The Biggest CSS Performance Misconception 32:00 Final Takeaways on Frontend Performance

Paul sits down with Mark Techson to break down Angular v21. They explore how Angular signals power new features like Angular signal forms, improve scalability, and simplify state management. The conversation dives deep into Angular AI tooling, including the Angular MCP server, Angular AI tutor, and the Angular Gemini CLI extension, explaining how Angular is adapting to modern AI-first developer workflows. Mark also shares how Angular Aria introduces Angular headless components with built-in Angular accessibility, reshaping UX collaboration. The episode wraps with updates on using Vitest with Angular, and performance features like Angular defer syntax and Angular incremental hydration. Links Blog: https://marktechson.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marktechson YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@marktechson X: https://x.com/marktechson Github: https://github.com/MarkTechson Resources Announcing Angular v21: https://blog.angular.dev/announcing-angular-v21-57946c34f14b Angular v21 video announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDAHORVzQ5g We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at elizabeth.becz@logrocket.com, or tweet at us at PodRocketPod. Check out our newsletter! https://blog.logrocket.com/the-replay-newsletter/ Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form, and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. Chapters 00:00:00 – Introduction & What’s New in Angular v21 00:01:00 – Angular Release Cadence & Why v21 Matters 00:02:45 – Who Angular v21 Is For: Scaling Teams & Apps 00:04:00 – AI in Modern Angular Workflows 00:05:00 – Context, Memory, and AI Tooling Strategy 00:07:30 – Web CodeGen Score & Evidence-Based Best Practices 00:08:50 – Introducing Signal Forms 00:11:00 – Client vs Server Validation with Signals 00:12:00 – Migration Strategy for Signal Forms 00:13:00 – Signals vs Observables: When to Use Each 00:15:00 – Rethinking UX with Angular Aria 00:17:00 – Headless Components & Design Systems 00:19:30 – Styling, AI, and Design Collaboration 00:22:00 – Testing in Angular v21 & Vitest 00:24:00 – Why Vitest Took Time to Land 00:26:00 – Developer Experience & Framework Fatigue 00:29:00 – Choosing Frameworks in 2025 00:31:00 – AI Tutors, MCP Servers & CLI Tooling 00:34:00 – Deferred Loading & Incremental Hydration 00:35:00 – Where to Learn More & Closing Remarks