Git Out

Change is challenging but quite often the tools that we used to solve yesterday's problems are unfit for tomorrow's problems. In this episode, Kris and Matt are joined by Rain Paharia, one of Matt's colleagues at Oxide who is also the creator of cargo-nextest. The trio discuss version control, the most difficult problem of Rain's career, and the challenge of rigor in an age when it's becoming cheaper than ever.

Rain brings their knowledge from a decade at Meta to our ongoing discussion of jj, git, and why version control systems are so much better at the big tech companies. The trio discusses their gripes with GitHub, including some fresh perspectives from Rain on GitHub's attempts to fix issues (including some awkwardness with how Stacked PRs actually work). Then the conversation shifts to discussing how the team at Oxide managed to create an incremental updating system that works on air-gapped racks with hundreds of components. Along the way the trio also discuss API versioning and property based testing.

You might be wondering where Kris' voice is in this episode? Well, he can certainly be heard in this weeks' supporter content! This week the expanded edition includes deep conversations about why LLMs got better at code but worse at prose, why Rain doesn't allow LLMs to write comments, LLMs as cliche machines, and some discussion of our favorite topic, Go modules. Are you not a supporter yet? You should fix that! Head on over to https://fallthrough.fm/subscribe and sign up today. You'll get expanded content in Fallthrough, bonus discussions in Continue, and higher quality audio-only editions.

If you prefer to watch this episode, you can view it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/C-xkusj-uvc.

Thanks for tuning in and happy listening!

Table of Contents:

• Prologue (00:00:00)
• Chapter 1: Meet Rain Paharia (00:01:39)
• Chapter 2: Three Months Without Telling Anyone (00:03:21)
• Chapter 3: JJ for Git Refugees (00:05:49)
• Chapter 4: Simpler and More Powerful (00:09:17)
• Chapter 5: Agents Actually Like JJ More (00:12:28)
• Chapter 6: Worth Spending Tokens on Beautiful Things (00:14:32)
• Chapter 7: Git Is a Little Bit Outsider Art (00:17:11)
• Chapter 8: Eleven Stacked Diffs (00:21:28)
• Chapter 9: Force Pushes Don't Work (00:25:26)
• Chapter 10: Super Pull Requests (00:27:50)
• Chapter 11: Does No One Have Product Vision at GitHub? (00:30:04)
• Chapter 12: Meta Had Docker Before Docker (00:32:38)
• Chapter 13: Meta's Final Form (00:35:19)
• Chapter 14: Minimum Upgradable Product (00:38:26)
• Chapter 15: The Hardest Problem of My Career (00:41:26)
• Chapter 16: Consider Fewer Microservices (00:44:28)
• Chapter 17: The Hardest Version of the Hardest Problem (00:46:58)
• Chapter 18: Everything Gets Translated to API Calls (00:50:39)
• Chapter 18: Everything Gets Translated to API Calls (00:51:28)
• Chapter 19: Update the Server Before the Client (00:55:19)
• Chapter 20: The Source of Truth Is Rust (00:58:43)
• Chapter 21: Burden Proportional to the Change (01:02:34)
• Chapter 22: A Little-Known Rust Feature (01:06:29)
• Chapter 23: No Secret Sauce (01:08:55)
• Chapter 24: Testing Is Hard (01:10:28)
• Chapter 25: Property-Based Testing 101 (01:12:42)
• Chapter 26: A Simpler, Less Efficient Version (01:17:02)
• Chapter 27: Two Lenses on the Same Thing (01:18:49)
• Chapter 28: Allow Me to Provide a Stepping Stone (01:24:03)
• Chapter 29: Six Bugs, Then None (01:28:18)
• Chapter 30: A Rock-Solid Window Manager (01:32:43)
• Epilogue (01:37:01)

Hosts

• Matthew Sanabria - Host
• Kris Brandow - Host
• Rain Paharia - Guest

• Website
• Bluesky
• Threads
• X/Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Changelog Zulip
• Gophers Slack

• (00:00) - Prologue
• (01:39) - Chapter 1: Meet Rain Paharia
• (03:21) - Chapter 2: Three Months Without Telling Anyone
• (05:49) - Chapter 3: JJ for Git Refugees
• (09:17) - Chapter 4: Simpler and More Powerful
• (12:28) - Chapter 5: Agents Actually Like JJ More
• (14:32) - Chapter 6: Worth Spending Tokens on Beautiful Things
• (17:11) - Chapter 7: Git Is a Little Bit Outsider Art
• (21:28) - Chapter 8: Eleven Stacked Diffs
• (25:26) - Chapter 9: Force Pushes Don't Work
• (27:50) - Chapter 10: Super Pull Requests
• (30:04) - Chapter 11: Does No One Have Product Vision at GitHub?
• (32:38) - Chapter 12: Meta Had Docker Before Docker
• (35:19) - Chapter 13: Meta's Final Form
• (38:26) - Chapter 14: Minimum Upgradable Product
• (41:26) - Chapter 15: The Hardest Problem of My Career
• (44:28) - Chapter 16: Consider Fewer Microservices
• (46:59) - Chapter 17: The Hardest Version of the Hardest Problem
• (51:28) - Chapter 18: Everything Gets Translated to API Calls
• (55:19) - Chapter 19: Update the Server Before the Client
• (58:43) - Chapter 20: The Source of Truth Is Rust
• (01:02:34) - Chapter 21: Burden Proportional to the Change
• (01:06:29) - Chapter 22: A Little-Known Rust Feature
• (01:08:55) - Chapter 23: No Secret Sauce
• (01:10:28) - Chapter 24: Testing Is Hard
• (01:12:42) - Chapter 25: Property-Based Testing 101
• (01:17:02) - Chapter 26: A Simpler, Less Efficient Version
• (01:18:49) - Chapter 27: Two Lenses on the Same Thing
• (01:24:03) - Chapter 28: Allow Me to Provide a Stepping Stone
• (01:28:18) - Chapter 29: Six Bugs, Then None
• (01:32:43) - Chapter 30: A Rock-Solid Window Manager
• (01:37:01) - Epilogue