7 ms·

Interview with Chris Lattner [audio]

221 points by xenadu02 10y ago

Zezima 10y ago
This was an awesome episode with great questions from everyone (John, Casey, Marco). Massive respect for Lattner and his long, multi-year, persistence to making amazing world-changing software and actually caring about open source. One of the best ATP episodes in years!
- mitchty 10y ago
  Agreed, I especially loved Chris putting John to the mat on GC vs ARC. Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical. Now I wish there was a podcast where language implementors could talk about all of this stuff. I just don't get the yellow car bit at all.
  - nickm12 10y ago
    > Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical. Is this a typo? As a programmer, I wish I was as technical as Chris Lattner's used kleenex.
    - mitchty 10y ago
      Not a typo. You'd have to go back and listen to the prior podcast. But for reference, the discussion was basically (I'm paraphrasing): - Chris is leaving because Apple is doomed - Chris couldn't get into the rumored Apple car division - Chris was being forced into a more VP/management role - etc... When it sounds more to me that he just likes making new things that solve hard problems. And I imagine Apple is in a good spot and he just wanted a change of pace. 11 Years at one company is a pretty good run.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    > Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical Was ever there any question or doubt about Lattner's technical ability?
    - seanparsons 10y ago
      As someone who has been writing Swift for a year, I've definitely got some questions!
      - Avenger42 10y ago
        Apparently the place to get answers is the Swift evolution mailing list - they mentioned it several times.
        austinz 10y ago
        He doesn't have actual questions. He's making an ad hominem attack against the author of a language that he's forced to use, but hates.
        seanparsons 10y ago
        I don't remember any ad hominem attack, you appear to be inventing something. I was being flippant granted, but that's after the most frustrating year of my career, which is 90% Swift annoyances.
  - Avenger42 10y ago
    > I just don't get the yellow car bit at all. Note that it was actually a "white car" bit. Casey, Marco and John originally did a podcast called Neutral which was about cars, and the very first line of the first episode was Marco quizzing Casey on why he only seemed to buy white cars. White cars have become synonymous with Casey ever since, and Marco took the opportunity to bring it up again with Chris. Link: http://neutral.fm/episodes/1-big-fat-and-bloated http://neutral.fm/episodes/1-big-fat-and-bloated (Technically, the question was "what is it that makes somebody buy a white car?")
    - mitchty 10y ago
      No, I mean I don't get why you'd want a Yellow car is all. :)
      - macintux 10y ago
        Oh, man, I really wanted a yellow Jeep when I was shopping for a used one, and managed to get lucky enough to find it. Some color/vehicle combinations are classics.
        mitchty 10y ago
        We'll have to agree to disagree on that one in that case. Pull me over red however, is more what I'd consider in the classic category.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
newsat13 10y ago
Oooh shots taken at Rust (~56:00). He claims rust doesn't have much adoption and swift caters better to application programmers. Wonder what the rust community thinks about it.
- xenadu02 10y ago
  I didn't take it that way; he said Rust was a very interesting language. It seems like he believes pervasive borrow checking is not the right approach for the average application developer, even if it is the right approach for systems programming. He also mentioned eventually having a mode that only uses borrow-checking without ARC, e.g. for writing firmware. Rust originally had lofty goals to support compile-time lifetime proving and GC mode; GC was abandoned for sensible reasons. Swift uses ARC, so it is trying to support full-ARC, mixed mode, and compile-time lifetime. Whether that is achievable remains to be seen.
- diimdeep 10y ago
  Also later he mentions that, Swift might add `borrow checking` but not at the core of type system and required to be used like in Rust, but as extra optional feature, that way Swift is still easy to get started with, but for more advanced programmers for example in kernel development is will be convenient addition.
  - tejinderss 10y ago
    I wish rust could have taken a similar approach. I want to do rust development for general purposes as opposed to writing kernels and browser engines in it. I think swift or go are better targeted for these purposes, I wish swift scene on linux becomes viable in the next version.
    - jnbiche 10y ago
      > I wish rust could have taken a similar approach. Then use Swift. Other than the approach to memory, Swift is extremely similar to Rust. > I wish swift scene on linux becomes viable in the next version. Swift 3.0 is totally viable on Linux. And Swift package manager works great, although it's not quite as nice as Cargo (yet!). I've been very impressed with Swift on Linux, but I've yet to use it for production (although there are lots of folks who are). There are some very nice web frameworks for Linux in Swift. I'd say that for web, Swift on Linux is more advanced than Rust. Take a look at Perfect, Zewo, Kitura, etc. They've even got lots of authentication/authorization plugins, which last I checked no Rust framework had.
favorited 10y ago
Just for fun, check out these 2 carpentry projects he did for his family: https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/736237407016607744 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/736237407016607744 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/818499400313909249 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/818499400313909249 How he had time to work a director-level job at , develop a new programming language, oversee/participate in the OSS work for LLVM/Clang/Swift, and build things like these I'll never know.
- rcarmo 10y ago
  I would bet on relentless compartmentalisation, i.e., making sure he kept on going and took advantage of the different contexts to get a breather/clear his mind for the others. But he does mention the house took months to build, and handcrafts are a great hobby...
  - arcticbull 10y ago
    To some extent Apple's secrecy makes it easier to compartmentalize. You're literally forbidden by work from talking to people outside the company including friends and family. Now assuming you don't take that to mean 'always be at work', it's not all bad. That was my experience there.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      That kind of doesn't apply when you're the head of Swift - an open source project where the whole roadmap is discussed on a public mailing list.
    - sdegutis 10y ago
      > "You're literally forbidden by work from talking to people outside the company including friends and family." Wait, what? This is the first I've heard of Apple forbidding you from talking to anyone else. Unless you mean specifically about the project, and not just ever and about anything?
      - 10y ago
peterclary 10y ago
The discussion about ARC vs GC would be very interesting. Is there a transcript anywhere for the hearing impaired?
- Patient0 10y ago
  Yes I thought that was the most interest part - it was the last 20 minutes or so.
- jen729w 10y ago
  I thought this might help, but it doesn't give actual transcripts, just the ability to search keywords. http://podsearch.david-smith.org http://podsearch.david-smith.org Which bit are you interested in? If it's a <~10 minute section, I'll transcribe it for you over the weekend. Contact details are in my bio. Edit: duh, Patient0 notes it below and it's one of the chapters of the podcast! Drop me an email so I have your address; I'll also post it online somewhere and drop a link here.
  - dronedronedrone 10y ago
    side note, _davidsmith has a blog post about why its a search rather than a transcript-- basically the text to speech library he is using produced abysmal results for transcription, but was good enough for search.
  - peterclary 10y ago
    Thanks for the kind offer. Looks like ATP have posted a transcript as per bestows's comment.
- damuellen 10y ago
  Start listen at 1:56:30
- bestows 10y ago
  ATP have just posted a transcript http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript
jmduke 10y ago
I would love to see Swift become a reasonable alternative for server-side development and, in general, non-Apple development. I have my misgivings with the iOS/macOS development stack (chief among them being Xcode), but Swift is probably the language I enjoy writing in most. It's powerful and expressive and pleasant. I'm happy to know that even with Chris leaving, the pieces are set in motion for the language's expansion to other contexts.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  > I have my misgivings with the iOS/macOS development stack Clang is pretty amazing. The world before and after Clang are very different places, so I'd say Apple has had a really positive impact here.

221 points by xenadu02 10y ago

This was an awesome episode with great questions from everyone (John, Casey, Marco). Massive respect for Lattner and his long, multi-year, persistence to making amazing world-changing software and actually caring about open source. One of the best ATP episodes in years!

mitchty 10y ago
Agreed, I especially loved Chris putting John to the mat on GC vs ARC. Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical. Now I wish there was a podcast where language implementors could talk about all of this stuff. I just don't get the yellow car bit at all.
- nickm12 10y ago
  > Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical. Is this a typo? As a programmer, I wish I was as technical as Chris Lattner's used kleenex.
  - mitchty 10y ago
    Not a typo. You'd have to go back and listen to the prior podcast. But for reference, the discussion was basically (I'm paraphrasing): - Chris is leaving because Apple is doomed - Chris couldn't get into the rumored Apple car division - Chris was being forced into a more VP/management role - etc... When it sounds more to me that he just likes making new things that solve hard problems. And I imagine Apple is in a good spot and he just wanted a change of pace. 11 Years at one company is a pretty good run.
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  > Also, you can't argue Chris isn't technical Was ever there any question or doubt about Lattner's technical ability?
  - seanparsons 10y ago
    As someone who has been writing Swift for a year, I've definitely got some questions!
    - Avenger42 10y ago
      Apparently the place to get answers is the Swift evolution mailing list - they mentioned it several times.
      - austinz 10y ago
        He doesn't have actual questions. He's making an ad hominem attack against the author of a language that he's forced to use, but hates.
        seanparsons 10y ago
        I don't remember any ad hominem attack, you appear to be inventing something. I was being flippant granted, but that's after the most frustrating year of my career, which is 90% Swift annoyances.
- Avenger42 10y ago
  > I just don't get the yellow car bit at all. Note that it was actually a "white car" bit. Casey, Marco and John originally did a podcast called Neutral which was about cars, and the very first line of the first episode was Marco quizzing Casey on why he only seemed to buy white cars. White cars have become synonymous with Casey ever since, and Marco took the opportunity to bring it up again with Chris. Link: http://neutral.fm/episodes/1-big-fat-and-bloated http://neutral.fm/episodes/1-big-fat-and-bloated (Technically, the question was "what is it that makes somebody buy a white car?")
  - mitchty 10y ago
    No, I mean I don't get why you'd want a Yellow car is all. :)
    - macintux 10y ago
      Oh, man, I really wanted a yellow Jeep when I was shopping for a used one, and managed to get lucky enough to find it. Some color/vehicle combinations are classics.
      - mitchty 10y ago
        We'll have to agree to disagree on that one in that case. Pull me over red however, is more what I'd consider in the classic category.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

newsat13 10y ago

Oooh shots taken at Rust (~56:00). He claims rust doesn't have much adoption and swift caters better to application programmers. Wonder what the rust community thinks about it.

xenadu02 10y ago
I didn't take it that way; he said Rust was a very interesting language. It seems like he believes pervasive borrow checking is not the right approach for the average application developer, even if it is the right approach for systems programming. He also mentioned eventually having a mode that only uses borrow-checking without ARC, e.g. for writing firmware. Rust originally had lofty goals to support compile-time lifetime proving and GC mode; GC was abandoned for sensible reasons. Swift uses ARC, so it is trying to support full-ARC, mixed mode, and compile-time lifetime. Whether that is achievable remains to be seen.
diimdeep 10y ago
Also later he mentions that, Swift might add `borrow checking` but not at the core of type system and required to be used like in Rust, but as extra optional feature, that way Swift is still easy to get started with, but for more advanced programmers for example in kernel development is will be convenient addition.
- tejinderss 10y ago
  I wish rust could have taken a similar approach. I want to do rust development for general purposes as opposed to writing kernels and browser engines in it. I think swift or go are better targeted for these purposes, I wish swift scene on linux becomes viable in the next version.
  - jnbiche 10y ago
    > I wish rust could have taken a similar approach. Then use Swift. Other than the approach to memory, Swift is extremely similar to Rust. > I wish swift scene on linux becomes viable in the next version. Swift 3.0 is totally viable on Linux. And Swift package manager works great, although it's not quite as nice as Cargo (yet!). I've been very impressed with Swift on Linux, but I've yet to use it for production (although there are lots of folks who are). There are some very nice web frameworks for Linux in Swift. I'd say that for web, Swift on Linux is more advanced than Rust. Take a look at Perfect, Zewo, Kitura, etc. They've even got lots of authentication/authorization plugins, which last I checked no Rust framework had.

favorited 10y ago

Just for fun, check out these 2 carpentry projects he did for his family: https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/736237407016607744 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/736237407016607744 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/818499400313909249 https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/818499400313909249 How he had time to work a director-level job at , develop a new programming language, oversee/participate in the OSS work for LLVM/Clang/Swift, and build things like these I'll never know.

rcarmo 10y ago
I would bet on relentless compartmentalisation, i.e., making sure he kept on going and took advantage of the different contexts to get a breather/clear his mind for the others. But he does mention the house took months to build, and handcrafts are a great hobby...
- arcticbull 10y ago
  To some extent Apple's secrecy makes it easier to compartmentalize. You're literally forbidden by work from talking to people outside the company including friends and family. Now assuming you don't take that to mean 'always be at work', it's not all bad. That was my experience there.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    That kind of doesn't apply when you're the head of Swift - an open source project where the whole roadmap is discussed on a public mailing list.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
    > "You're literally forbidden by work from talking to people outside the company including friends and family." Wait, what? This is the first I've heard of Apple forbidding you from talking to anyone else. Unless you mean specifically about the project, and not just ever and about anything?
    - 10y ago

peterclary 10y ago

The discussion about ARC vs GC would be very interesting. Is there a transcript anywhere for the hearing impaired?

Patient0 10y ago
Yes I thought that was the most interest part - it was the last 20 minutes or so.
jen729w 10y ago
I thought this might help, but it doesn't give actual transcripts, just the ability to search keywords. http://podsearch.david-smith.org http://podsearch.david-smith.org Which bit are you interested in? If it's a <~10 minute section, I'll transcribe it for you over the weekend. Contact details are in my bio. Edit: duh, Patient0 notes it below and it's one of the chapters of the podcast! Drop me an email so I have your address; I'll also post it online somewhere and drop a link here.
- dronedronedrone 10y ago
  side note, _davidsmith has a blog post about why its a search rather than a transcript-- basically the text to speech library he is using produced abysmal results for transcription, but was good enough for search.
- peterclary 10y ago
  Thanks for the kind offer. Looks like ATP have posted a transcript as per bestows's comment.
damuellen 10y ago
Start listen at 1:56:30
bestows 10y ago
ATP have just posted a transcript http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript

jmduke 10y ago

I would love to see Swift become a reasonable alternative for server-side development and, in general, non-Apple development. I have my misgivings with the iOS/macOS development stack (chief among them being Xcode), but Swift is probably the language I enjoy writing in most. It's powerful and expressive and pleasant. I'm happy to know that even with Chris leaving, the pieces are set in motion for the language's expansion to other contexts.

santaclaus 10y ago
> I have my misgivings with the iOS/macOS development stack Clang is pretty amazing. The world before and after Clang are very different places, so I'd say Apple has had a really positive impact here.