It's All Vibes

Ian

Hello?

Aaron

Morning. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was on I was on drop off duty today.

Ian

I know how that is. Yeah. How many were you dropping off? Just, one set or both sets?

Aaron

One set. So the the au pair is off today and tomorrow. Her her sister and brother-in-law came from Germany to visit.

Ian

Oh, wow.

Aaron

And so they drove down they drove down to Austin. And so Jennifer and I are, we are we're we're solo parenting, but we're I mean, there's 2 of us. But we are we are we are without help today. Yeah. So I'm starting a little bit late.

That's my fault. Sorry about that.

Ian

Man. Wow. I don't I don't I can't even

Yeah.

I mean, I don't wanna go into my stuff with kids right now because it's just like there's a lot of stress and pressure and all that stuff, and it's like, I can't but I just wanna say I can't imagine when you get to my phase and you have 4 of them and they're all so close in age.

Aaron

Yep.

Ian

Just like Yep. Like, here's some advice.

Aaron

Tell

Ian

me. I was not mentally prepared. Like, you have to go, you have to get mentally prepared for this, like, years in advance. Like you just have to be be saving, be financially prepared, but also be mentally prepared.

Aaron

I don't wanna talk about that. Let's go to the

Ian

mental side.

Condition. The whole thing, just be ready because it's very stressful. There's a lot going on with it. So, yeah, we're not gonna get you there.

But

Aaron

With with with which transition? Just the whole thing?

Ian

Somebody. The whole thing. It's like when they get to be teenagers

Aaron

prepared, and then you don't tell me what for.

Ian

I'm just saying you think it's hard right now and you think it's bad, but it's it gets worse in different ways. What are they doing? It's very physical. Right? Like you're tired and they're crying and you're carrying them and like all that stuff.

But then it gets hard. Mentally, it gets stressful. They're becoming adults. They're going out into the world. You gotta help them, but you can't help them too much.

But you wanna learn some stuff on their own. Where do you step in? Where do you let them go on their own? College, where are they gonna go to college? That whole process is an insane mess.

Like, maybe by the time you get there, it'll be a little bit cleaned up, or maybe it'll be worse. Who knows? I mean, it's hard to imagine. It's hard to imagine being worse, to be honest with you. But, yeah, it's it's just a lot.

It's a lot. So

Aaron

Well, thank you for the happy talk. That's awesome. I super appreciate it. Yeah.

Ian

The best advice is to start early. That's the thing. I think like it kind of snuck up on us a little bit. We were like, oh,

Aaron

I still don't know what I'm starting, but

Ian

I don't

Aaron

know. I'll, I'll start.

Ian

Yeah. You gotta start early. You gotta just start mentally preparing for your oldest twins to leave, right. For like what that transition's gonna be, help them earlier with getting ready for college. I think this is a, an area we're gonna make a change with.

Like, we kind of let our oldest just do his own thing. He picked his own schools, which is fine. Like, I'd like that because he doesn't love what he ended up with. And that's so on one side, it's like, that's on you. Like you, we had nothing to do with it.

This is a good life lesson for you. On the other side, like maybe we should have given him a few hints along the way to be fair to us. We didn't know how messed up the whole thing has become. Exactly. I mean, we were obviously aware

of the general vibe of

it's expensive and it's hard to get into, vibe of it's expensive, and it's hard to get into. At this point, every school kind of has low admissions rate in a lot of ways, but there's just a lot there, man. I don't know. I don't wanna spend the whole podcast on. I'm not ready to do it today.

Aaron

Touched I touched the nerve.

Ian

Yeah. You touched the nerve.

Aaron

Drop my kids off at school. I didn't realize. Maybe we'll

Ian

get more into it another day. I can't I can't I can't even get into it today, but we're we'll we'll maybe touch on it in the future. But, we

have to a we have

Aaron

to a roaring start. This is great.

Ian

We got 13 years or whatever for you, right, before you before they're even getting close. So we got some time. We can hit this on the pod along the way. You know you

Aaron

know what's crazy is there is a there's a non zero chance that we end up with 4 kids within one grade of each other because the oldest 2 were are born in May, which is, like, they'll either be the youngest or the oldest. And at this rate, I think we might end up holding them back. Our son still isn't talking, and so we might end up starting them late. Yep. And if the, you know, the other 2 were born in November, so that's, you know, kinda right in the middle.

So it could be that we have 2 seniors in high school and 2 juniors in high school or, like, 2 6th graders and 2 7th graders. That's gonna be insane.

Ian

So listen. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. A good thing we're having this conversation because

Okay.

Like, we have the situation where, like, we have, when the oldest gets out, the middle one goes in. So it's just like this continuous, which has its upsides and downsides. And then behind him is the baby, and she's gonna be like, 3 grades behind him. So they're mostly sort of evenly spaced out, but like, this is a real decision for you. Like, like just financially mentally.

Right? Like stop

Aaron

saying the F word, man. I can't handle the F word right now.

Ian

What do you want them close together or not? Like, there are interesting decisions there. Like if they're a little farther apart, it gives you like a little more breathing room, but then they're also like kind of stretches it out a little bit. You have twins to begin with. So it's a lot all at once just in general.

So you might wanna, you might want the extra gear in there. You might want to like space that a little bit potentially, Intentionally.

Aaron

Can I tell you a piece of trivia about myself? Yeah. I never went to the 5th grade. Oh. Never went to it.

Ian

You would

Aaron

have heard of it. I skipped. I was a genius in the 4th grade. Pretty normal in the 6th grade, but I was a genius in the 4th grade.

Ian

Yeah. I don't think you know, they don't do that anymore. The skipping grade's not a thing anymore.

This is

like a thing they did back in back in the day. I don't think it's a thing anymore.

Aaron

Yeah. Yeah. American exceptionalism is over. You just gotta go through the system now. So back in back in the day, back when I was young, I came out of came out of an elementary school that was great and transitioned to a just a normal school, and a lot of people actually skipped grades coming out of the school.

So my brother skipped 5th grade, and I skipped 5th grade. And so I my when I went to college, I was 17 until until 2nd semester. I didn't turn 21 until 2nd semester of senior year.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Aaron

It's not good. I loved it. Really? It was awesome. It was special.

Yeah. It was great. And so I was I was the youngest, and I got out of college, and I was 21, and I had friends that were, like, 23 and 24. I'm like, I'm gonna live forever. It was great.

And so I feel I feel hesitant holding them back. I'm like, I love being young, but everyone else, especially in Texas, is like, oh, no. You gotta hold them back so they can be big for sports.

Ian

I'm like, man, that's not really something I'm super worried about. Yeah. Texas stuff. Yeah.

Aaron

Dude, it is so common in Texas to talk about that.

Ian

Okay. I've never I've never heard of that. I wouldn't do that. But I do think being younger, you know, maturity wise, I think there's some potential issues there. Like, just as especially nowadays, kids are a little different than even when we were kids.

Like, you know, the screens, there's like a maturity difference in the kids, I feel like, and the teenagers to some degree and, like, being younger. I mean, obviously, it's gonna depend a lot on the kid. Right? Like, some kids are gonna be plenty of time at 17 and be fine.

Aaron

And still am the youngest of 4. And so I felt like I was always around much older kids.

Ian

Right. So that probably played a little more mature in general and all that. So but you know, there's some stuff there with that. Yeah. I, I, my secret is I was held back 2nd grade.

So I did 2nd grade twice and then I was the oldest. So I went, I was turned 19 my freshman year of college, like in October. Wow. And yeah. So I was a year older.

Aaron

Yeah. So you were just you were just stomping on all the little kids Yeah.

Ian

In 3rd grade.

Aaron

I guess 2nd grade again. Yeah.

Ian

2nd grade again, same teacher, same setup. It was probably

Aaron

an easy, easy year for you.

Ian

Yeah. I cruised. That'd be good. I think it wasn't it wasn't like, I, it wasn't the grades thing. You see, back then it was like, they were always looking for your maturity.

So it's like, all right, like, if you're not like optimal maturity in every way, we're like, we're gonna hold you back. Like lots of people got held back kind of like, that was like a fad. We also had the fad of, I was right in the middle of this fad. And so now I basically can't write at all,

Aaron

in

Ian

any way, because it was like, okay, we're not gonna do print. We're gonna start with cursive. And so they kinda started us heavy with cursive. And then they decided, no, that's stupid. It doesn't work.

We're gonna just do print. But, like, I was in the transition, so I kind of learned nothing. And so now I can sort of write print in all capitals, but that's it. Like, I can't

Aaron

write anything. Even even with 2 years in the second grade, you never learned how

Ian

to write.

Aaron

That's

Ian

crazy. That's crazy.

Aaron

System failed you, but you're very mature now. So I guess in some ways, it worked.

Ian

That's fine.

That's fine.

Aaron

Yeah. It totally evens out. Well, that's a lot of stress. Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about something else.

Ian

Let's talk about some good news. Last Monday Last Monday. Friend of, ours and friend of the show, Taylor Otwell, was in New York City, and he tweeted out. I wanna get I wanna get exact. Honestly, not sure anything beats a beautiful New York City evening.

And I just my heart was filled. He gets it. That is the New York City at night. No. 70 degrees.

There's literally not a better place on earth on the whole planet. Maybe in the whole universe. Right? Because we don't know if there's anything else out there. It might be the best thing in the entire universe.

That's an actual possibility. What? Okay.

Aaron

So he tweeted this, and I thought, what have you done, Taylor? You're you're killing me here. It immediately ended up in the Trello.

Ian

Immediately. Literally, it was under 5 seconds.

Aaron

Only item on the board was New York City is the greatest city ever. Listen. He couldn't even bring himself to take a picture of it. All he did was he put a little emoji at the end of his tweet, likely because there was too much scaffolding and garbage to even take a picture.

Ian

No. Here's the thing. How do you take a picture of love? Right? Like, if I say to people love.

Right?

How do

you capture that? A picture cannot capture the glory of the greatness of this. That's why words

Aaron

was you've ever said.

Ian

Words is better. And I'm even gonna go. I'm gonna dip in.

Aaron

Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Ian

I'm gonna dip in to to a private little message he sent me. And all he said Yeah. All he said was all he said was I understand now.

That's all

I said. No. No. I understand now. He gets it.

He gets it.

Aaron

No. No. No. No.

Ian

That's why we're gonna get you there on a nice May evening, maybe next year.

Aaron

Oh, maybe next year.

Ian

Be 70, 75 degrees. The city's gonna be alive, lights, people.

Aaron

Wanna go I just wanna go on the record as saying how do you take a picture of love is the most insane thing you have ever said on this podcast. You've been wrong a lot. You've you've been almost exclusively wrong. Oh, no. You know, the 30 or 40 episodes we've done here.

Ian

Mhmm. How do

Aaron

you take a picture of love is the most crazy thing you've ever said.

Ian

Oh, my god. Of all of all the directions

Aaron

of all the directions I thought you were gonna go Oh. I gotta admit. That is that is not the one. That is the one.

Ian

Why he couldn't do a picture, man. There's no way how you can capture it. You can't capture a feeling in a photo. It's so it's not possible. The words are enough.

He gets it. He understands. He feels vibes.

Aaron

The only thing that I think I will concede the only point I think I will concede is the, like, the energy of the city. That, I think energy. I think I I I believe that. I understand that. I I like that.

I think that's great. Mhmm. It's just everything else. It's just the traffic, the scaffolding, the garbage, the urine, the just everything else. If it were, like, if it were, like, clean and tidy and not

Ian

cost for phobic.

Aaron

No. It's not.

Ian

How do you guys pooping

Aaron

it in a box?

Ian

Let me tell you.

Aaron

It clean.

Ian

If you were there in 1992, you'd be like, holy shit. It's the cleanest city ever. It's so clean. And by the way, when I go to the In the nineties

Aaron

or as compared

Ian

to the nineties. Now as compared to 9. Yeah. Now it's super nineties. It was not being nineties.

Yeah. But, like, I was in Chicago a year or 2 ago. Filthy. It's terrible. Like, you're

sitting way cleaner. Murdered in Chicago. I so I'm

Aaron

not going to. Chicago. I so

Ian

I'm not going to.

Aaron

Can't wait to

Ian

see Dallas. I don't think it's gonna

be as great as

New York. Dallas is great.

Aaron

Not a lot of Whatever weirdo Dallas

Ian

you live in that's basically just a suburb. Like, it's not a city of Dallas

right now.

Aaron

Just Don't hit me with the don't hit me with suburb. I'm not a

Ian

I'm not a sub

no. No.

No. No. No. City lines, but that's not. I get it, but it's still a suburb.

Right? Like, you're not a city. I haven't even seen the big buildings are, Alan.

Aaron

I'm not down.

Ian

Land. Yes. You have all this land. It's basically just a suburb. It's literally a suburb.

Aaron

1, 2 acres.

Ian

Does your house touch the house next to you?

Aaron

No.

Ian

Okay. That's a suburb.

Do you

have a No.

Aaron

There's not. It's not New York City.

Ian

Do you have grass? Yes. Okay. That's a suburb.

Aaron

Let's get out of here. You don't

Ian

know what's going on. Way?

Do you

have a driveway? That's a suburb. That's what a suburb is.

Aaron

Got it all, baby.

Ian

Exactly. There you go.

Aaron

Not a suburb. That is not

Ian

a 100%.

Percent is a suburb. A 100%.

Aaron

No. No. No. I live so in in Dallas, in the Dallas area

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

If you say I'm from Dallas, usually, you have to follow it up with, oh, what part? And then people will be like, Frisco. Like, okay. Well, you know what? That's 45 minutes north of Dallas.

I live in Dallas. Like, Dallas, Dallas. That's what when Right. If you live in Dallas, Dallas and someone says, oh, what part of Dallas? You say Dallas, Dallas.

Like, actual Dallas. So no suburbs here. I grew up on a suburb. I know what they are. We do not live in

Ian

I'm just gonna say, I'm sure I could find some parts of Dallas that are not optimally clean. I'm gonna go out on a limb.

Aaron

I'm sure that there's not I could not find a part of New York City that is optimally clean. So therein lies the rub. Also

Ian

Double negative.

Aaron

Speaking speaking of properties, the, properties under Francis management, they're going down. Going down 1 going down well. Properties on the Francis payroll are going down to 1 at the end of this month.

Ian

Really? Shoot. Yes. The the new house is renovated and ready?

Aaron

Well, it will be by the end of the month because we're moving in.

Ian

So in Dallas, Dallas?

Aaron

It's in Dallas, Dallas. Yes.

Ian

Okay.

Interesting.

Aaron

Like, 2 minutes from the studio and, like, 2 minutes from the rent house. So the rent house goes away, which is awesome because that's a lot of money. And then, Try Hard Studios LLC is taking over the rent for this studio. And so, finally, as an unemployed person, I will only have 1 mortgage to pay, not a mortgage plus 2 rents. So feels good.

Feels real good.

Ian

Good. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Aaron

So we're moving, I think, Memorial Day weekend. Is that the one that's coming up?

Ian

Sounds right.

Aaron

Yeah. We're moving we're moving in, like, 2 or 3 weeks.

Ian

And how

are you managing the move? Hiring movers?

Aaron

Hiring movers. We looked at hiring packers as well, which sounds amazing. Yeah. But it's very expensive. It's like another 2 or 2 or $3,000.

So can't really get we're packing.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Packing with help of, help of both sets of parents have come over. You know, we've already started. Jennifer's really doing the bulk of it right now, but we've already started, like, putting things away, throwing things away, and grandparents are coming over to watch kids while we do some of that. So, yeah, not fun, but packing, man, is real expensive to get professional packers.

Ian

Yeah. We, we got lucky. So we have, we built our house like now 14 years ago or something like that. And it was during the 2,008, like economic downturn or 2,009, whatever it was. Yeah.

And, maybe 15 years ago, whatever it is. And, I I don't know. It was still in that zone of like, real estate was off and all that stuff. And so we were able to hire movers who like did everything and they packed the whole house and they unpacked the house, and they did it all for it was, like, $35100 or something. And I was, like, great.

Let's do it. So, yeah, it

Aaron

was smooth. Man.

Ian

And our, the house we lived at had like all these stairs and like, so it was actually really nice that, it happened. But, yeah. So that'll be a busy weekend for you, but it'll be good to be in the new house.

Aaron

Be in the new house, finally.

Ian

Office in the new house? Nope. No office. That's Okay.

Aaron

Nope. I thought we were gonna do that and then realized, that would the room that we had set aside for the office is tiny. And shortly after the new kids came, we all realized that's not going to work. And so that's what ended up putting me here in the studio.

Ian

Okay. I don't know if you wanna just a little private space there, but just need to use utilize it all for humans.

Aaron

Yeah. I think so, unfortunately. Well, fortunately, but also unfortunately. Yeah. It's good to have this many humans.

It's bad to have so few rooms, but we'll make it work.

Ian

Yeah. The au pair get their own room, I assume, is part of the deal.

Aaron

Yep. That's part of the legal contract as she gets her own room. She will be sharing the bathroom in the new house with the with the kids, so she'll be upstairs with the kids. So, you know, less maybe less than ideal, but also she has more privacy. So I don't know.

We'll see we'll see how it plays out. But, yeah, excited to get over there.

Ian

Wow. Lots of stuff. And then I feel like you'll be settled in. Right? Like, you'll be kinda you'll be good, I think.

You got the house. Ugh. You got the office.

Aaron

From your lips to God's ears, please. I would love I would love to be settled in

Ian

a little bit.

That would be nice. I guess we sell get selling some courses maybe, and then Hopefully. Then you'll be good.

Aaron

Hopefully yeah. What a what a wild couple of years.

Ian

Couple months?

Aaron

Twins and then was like, alright. Alright. You know, leave Tupelo, go to PlanetScale, get settled in. Oh, shoot. We're having more twins.

We gotta move. Let's rent this house. Great. We have the twins. Now you're laid off.

Now you've got rheumatoid arthritis. Now you're starting a business. Now you're remodeling a house. Like, what are you doing, man?

Ian

You're building an office. You're like, yeah.

Aaron

Think it through.

Ian

There are these years that just end up that way. Definitely, it's crazy when that happens. We just have these years sometimes that are hectic in one way or other, and then then you appreciate the down year. I I don't feel like I've always appreciated the down years enough. Like, I'm trying to do more of that.

It's like, oh, when there's a down period or even a down day, like, gotta appreciate that because then when you get the crazy times, like, it's crazy when in the crazy time.

Aaron

Oh, man. It's crazy. Man. Yeah. Reducing reducing the burn that should help, reducing the mental stress of, like, trying to run a remodel as well.

Ian

So Yeah.

Aaron

Things are looking out.

Ian

Talked about that much, but that's not its own craziness. I mean, when we were building our house, I mean, you really gotta be on top of stuff, and it's hard to be on top of stuff when you're getting laid off and you got babies and the whole thing. But, yeah, it's the contractors aren't always They're not great.

Aaron

They're not great.

Ian

So you gotta be on them. So I don't know I don't know if

Aaron

I don't know if general contractors or accountants are worse at communicating, but they're they're in the running. They're right there together.

Ian

Yep. It's crazy. We had, we, our electrician in our job when we built our house, like, I mean, this guy, he was like kind of a friend, even of the family. He knows we're like super techie that we got at the time the internet was over the cable wires and that the internet was gonna be really important to us like this. He knew this and to save literally, like, I don't know if it was some aggravation or maybe a few dollars or whatever it was.

He put these splitters in the wall to connect cable wires together instead of doing home runs all the way to the basement. And then we move in and we try to set the internet up and nothing fricking works like, because these splitters are like some ancient splitter. That's got zero bandwidth, connecting these 2 cable wires. Brutal. And it's just like this whole brutal thing.

Obviously, the whole house is finished. The walls are pinked. Everything's done.

Like, how

Aaron

do you stack painted? Yeah. They're still getting it out. Yeah.

Ian

So we're having to, like, run wires and weird spots to, like, get at least one home run for the Internet, and it was just like, why? Why? It's so crazy.

Aaron

I wanna build a house someday, but it scares me because I feel like building the second house is actually what you wanna do. You don't wanna build Right.

Ian

You don't

Aaron

wanna build a house the first time. Nobody wants to do that because after

Ian

you build a house

Aaron

the first time, you're like, well, now I know what I would really do. Now now I now I know how I would fix everything.

Ian

Yep. Exactly. That feels like how we felt. We were like, oh, we just spilled all this money and deplete our savings, do all this stuff.

Mhmm. And,

like, now we know we're doing. Like, if we had the money and time and energy, we could really build the house we actually wanted. But, yeah, definitely definitely that. Yeah, 2nd house or retirement house maybe where, like, the stakes are not so high. It's not like kids and all that stuff in the mix.

It's like, whatever. I'm just gonna be hanging out. Maybe something like that.

But

Aaron

I'm I'm one of these days after after Steve and I get super rich, I'm gonna build, like, a, like, a creek house or something. I don't really care for a ranch so much, and I don't really want, like, a necessarily want, like, a lake house or a beach house. I want a creek house. I wanna I wanna

Ian

I like a

Aaron

creek house next to, like, a babbling brook. That's what I want.

Ian

In COVID, we rented a lot of those up in the Catskill Mountains, which is near here. That's nice. Yeah. It was great. It was like, I like those, especially in, like, the summer where it's like the creek bed is actually, like, mostly dry.

Maybe there's just, like, a little bit there. So you got, like, you're walking out on the creek bed and you're kinda hanging out, but there are some pools downstream and stuff. Yep. And then, yeah, like in the rainy seasons, you got, like, the little mini river situation going on back there. So, yeah, I'm I'm down with the creek house.

I like this idea. K. That's the dream. We'll see if we can have water in Texas. Is there stream?

Oh, yeah. And things.

Aaron

Yeah, we got tons of water. We're not California. We got tons of water. We got water everywhere.

Ian

All right. Good. All right. Let's talk some business. You did a trailer.

Aaron

How about that? Did you like it?

Ian

I loved it. I loved everything about it.

It was

Aaron

It's a good trailer.

Ian

Executed. It did bring up, obviously, some questions we're gonna talk about, but, but, hey, give us the give us the rundown here.

Aaron

So we released a trailer for the first course that we're working on, which is a SQLite course, or SQLite, which feels insane. So SQLite. Yeah. Yeah. We released it last week.

Typical, you know, hype trailer for a database course. Right right down right down the middle. You know? Very, very normal. So the big the big announcement was, one, we're working on a SQLite course.

2, it's being sponsored by Terso, which is awesome. Yep. And so we're working with them to hopefully bring, a lot of, one, education, yes, but, 2, awareness to, like, their their brand. So we released that last week, and Steve just man, I did so little for that trailer. Steve is just he's the real I I hope he's not listening.

He's real talent. He's, yeah, he's the one that's actually good. I I'm just good at making a spectacle. He's actually talented. So it turned out amazing.

So good.

Ian

Yeah. Really good.

Aaron

And people were really excited. And I think that, like, continues to prove the thesis that there's a lack of quality database education on the market, and we hope to fill we hope to fill that gap. So, yeah, super exciting. Got a lot of work to do, but I think I think people people are into it. Let me check.

Ask me some questions while I check the mailing list numbers.

Ian

Well, I think of the things I'm always struck by with this is that I feel like there are these advantages you can have in business that they're actually kinda subtle, but it's like just you guys, like, taking, like you taking a little time to like set up the camera and record yourself and to think about maybe something slightly interesting to do while you're doing it. And for him to then be really good at the editing and setting the scene and stuff like it. I could just rises above everything else so clearly that people are drawn to it. Cause it's like, oh, this isn't like standard YouTube fair where somebody set up a camera and it's like sort of half ass lighting and half ass editing. Right.

It's like, no, this is like something better than that. And just even the production quality. I feel like gets it so much attention, before you even get to the content and then Obviously, I think there's a lot of demand for the content, but there's

a lot

of sequelite stuff out there too. Right? Like Yeah. Already and there's people making other courses I'm sure and whatever. Like there's a lot of stuff going on in the market.

So it's sort of interesting to, like, utilize these advantages you have to get that attention.

Aaron

Yeah. So we I think I think you're absolutely correct. And we could have gone we could have gone a different route of, like, just saying just announcing it and saying, hey. We're working on this course.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And I think one thing that a lot of people miss on Twitter is, Twitter specifically because that's where we announced it. I think a lot a lot of people miss is they, like, they put the value of the thing, like, through the link. So it's like, hey. Check this out. And then you have to click the link to go get the the valuable part.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And you'll see that often with, people being like, just just recorded a new video, and that's it. And you're like

Ian

Yeah. What? Tell me more.

Aaron

Like, I'm not gonna click the link. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna do it. Or somebody will say, like, y'all go check out my new article. It's like, no.

I'm not gonna do that.

Ian

I'm not going out of the out of the stream unless I know that it's, something dumb.

Aaron

Out of here. So I think what a lot of people miss is, like, taking some of that value or interesting content and putting it on the platform such that people share that announcement, which, of course, you know, if you if you hold constant that like 3 or 4 percent of people are going to click through, which I have no idea, just totally making that up. If you hold that constant, your goal is to make the announcement tweet as shareable as possible so that it gets more and more views so that that 3% becomes a meaningful number. And so instead of just saying, like, hey, we're doing this thing, you know, we put the entire hype video in the tweet itself, hopefully making that shareable. And it worked.

It worked. People shared it. Let me see.

Ian

And Twitter algo is sort of, you know, they want you to upload the video directly and all that stuff.

Aaron

Yep. So we announced this just scrolling back. We announced it on May 7th, and it has 270,000 views on Twitter.

Ian

Holy cow.

Aaron

Just crazy. And the mailing list

Ian

sign up to get

Aaron

mailing list right now is at all almost, 2,000 people Wow.

Ian

On the

Aaron

waiting list. So not Awesome. Not bad for one tweet No. Honestly. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. That's exciting. That's really great.

Aaron

Pretty pretty pumped about that.

Ian

And I think a lot of people are probably thinking this is farther out than, you know, if they're not listening to podcast, they don't realize your timeline is I don't think you mentioned the date. Right? In the tweet?

Aaron

I think it released

Ian

the end

Aaron

of the video. It says, like, coming in June. Oh, maybe.

Ian

I think.

Aaron

So I guess, yeah,

Ian

it's it's a quick

Aaron

it's a quick turnaround, man. Yep. We got we got a lot to do, but it's good. And it, like, it's funny with, you know, being running running this business now. I'm getting a I'm getting insight into, like, the sales cycle.

And, you know, you you talk to people and then they hem and haw for a couple weeks, and then they, like, let's have another call, and then they hem and haw. After we released this video, a lot of those people came back and were like, hey. What's going on? We would love to we would love to do some stuff.

Ian

Like, yeah.

I've been

Aaron

trying to tell you.

Ian

Like, I'm I'm I how

Aaron

do I convince you I'm good at this? I guess I just have to do it. Yeah. But it's working. Yeah.

So a lot of people a lot of people came back.

Ian

That's a really interesting thing too because, like, kind of your biggest splash has been under the planet scale banner. Right?

So

I could see that, like, people like, well, how much is planet scale? What is PlanetScale or how much maybe they're helping you produce or research or who knows? Right? Like, we know that you did you and Steve did a lot of the heavy lifting here, but like Yeah.

You know,

from the outside, it's not as clear necessarily. So as you guys are able to produce more, obviously complete courses will be even better, but even just this trailer video, it's like, oh yeah. Like obviously they just, the 2 of them did this and right. It's awesome. And it's gotten a lot of attention and got a lot of signups and all that stuff.

So yeah, it's all that, you know, it's just like when you're selling B2B software, it's like, there's a reason every B2B app has a million logos about how, you know, Microsoft uses it. And yeah, this company uses it because the social proof is valuable, and helps people be at ease with that. You have some idea what you're doing and Exactly. Somewhat valuable. So And I think the thing we've

Aaron

proven the thing we've proven now, or the thing we are on our way to proving, maybe it takes a few more times, is that we can capture attention, which I think is

Ian

for a pretty that's

Aaron

a pretty important, pretty big deal. Like, that's The biggest part of it.

Ian

Like, honestly, from the company's perspective

Aaron

From the company's perspective, correct. Yeah. That is the biggest, most important part. And now from the Steve and I perspective, we have to prove we can sell the course to make like, so that he and I can make money. Right.

But I think for outside, like, sponsors or companies wanting attention, I think we have at least taken a step towards proving we can capture attention. Yeah. Which is pretty important.

Ian

I mean and this whole setup is very interesting of, like, it's sort of a much bigger company play of, like, having other companies sponsor your content in some way or some kind of brand partnership or whatever. It's not normally something done that you are crazy,

Aaron

isn't it? To people. Awesome.

Ian

Yeah. So it is awesome. I love that whole whole part of it. That's like, yeah, we have like a brand partnership Yeah. To do this course.

Like, that's insane. That's right. So, yeah, it's so good. And databases are enough that like, just even in that little niche, you can imagine doing a few more. You can imagine in the framework niche doing a couple, you, you know, there's not a hundred of these, but there are more than 1 too.

So you can imagine

Aaron

there's enough for, for us to be eaten for a while.

Ian

Busy for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So how's been to work with, I guess?

I know you can't go maybe super deep, but how's that whole process gone?

Aaron

Awesome. So when I was doing the rounds of interviews, like, trying to figure out if I was gonna go solo or get a job, I had a call with Glauber, the CEO at Tersow. And we got on the call, and he basically immediately said, like, hey, man. We can't afford to hire you, but I need to tell you, like, you should you should go out on your own. You've got what it takes.

And I was like,

Ian

woah. This is awesome.

Aaron

I feel so encouraged. So just, like, from our first ever interaction, he was already being like, you can do whatever you want to do. You can do it, and I think you should. And I was like, dang. This rules.

And so that was a big that was a big, like, encouragement, the very beginning of being laid off. And so after that, like, we decided, hey. We're like, let's do this thing and, you know, emailed Glauber back and was like, can we like, do you wanna talk about this? And they were just they were just in immediately. So they've been super great to work with, very much, like, trusting us to kind of, like, do the right thing.

It's very low stress, low pressure. Yeah. And our goal as as Steve and I, our goal is to, like, so massively over deliver that they're just happy forever.

Ian

Yep.

Aaron

And I think, like, the, you know, the first the the announcement tweet of the course that is to come is already doing that. And so I feel really Right. I feel really good about that. Yeah.

Ian

They gotta be happy with that. Yeah.

Aaron

Yeah. If they end up getting 10 or 20 times the value that they're paying us in US dollars, I'm like, that's amazing. Thrilled. Thrilled to death for them. Don't feel any percent bad about leaving money on the table, like, just happy as could be.

So No. It's been it's been great so far, and I think it will continue to be great. I think a lot of people a lot of the responses online were very positive about us working together. It's a very, like, it's a it's a very well loved brand, and so people are pumped that we're doing it together, and I didn't see anyone being like, oh, man. You can't believe you're working with them.

Ian

So Yeah. No. No. Not at all.

Aaron

So it's great.

Ian

And that's even a thing. Like, definitely, if you're able to capture that information, hopefully, like, that'll especially if it's a good number, I think that'll be huge because like, then you can just go to everybody else and be like, listen, this is ultra low risk. Right? You put money in more money comes out the other side, like that is a no brainer. Even if you don't get the 10 x, even if you get a 2 x.

Right? If you get even if you get one x, you're not gonna lose any money. Right? And it's like, you're most likely to make a 2 x or 3 x or 10 x or 20 x. Right?

So just makes it easy for the marketing managers to be like, sure, let's do it because my risk here is minimal. My work here is minimal. Every marketing manager loves that.

Yeah. Exactly.

Low risk, low work. Yeah. Let's do that.

Aaron

Good return. Yeah.

Ian

Right.

Let's let's do that. I'm down with that. Yeah. So alright. So in this video, though, we're gonna dig in.

Aaron

Alright.

Ian

Alright. Alright.

Everybody's happy on the Internet. The Twitter people are happy. That's

Aaron

right. Except the no man. Except the no man.

Ian

I'm not really know about this, but it was fascinating. Cause it's like it's so the video is you kind of reading the docs, or whatever, something you're reading And kind of throughout the week, not just in the video, you know, you've been releasing some of your process, which appears to be you destroying entire forest full of trees.

Yep.

To print it out

Aaron

Yeah. Personally.

Ian

Everything. You're out there hacking the tree down. You're making paper. You're doing all that stuff.

Aaron

Anything I don't need in the forest, I just light it on fire so no one else can have it. Yeah. So what

Ian

are you printing out? What are you printing out? Where are all these printouts?

Aaron

What am I not printing out? Name somebody who printed it.

Ian

Let's see. The docs, obviously.

Aaron

The docs. So the SQLite docs, very good, slightly funny, very opinionated. I have noticed about

Ian

the docs in the past.

Aaron

Yeah. Very, very transparent. Very much like, hey. If you do this, it's gonna end poorly for you.

Ian

It's like

Aaron

They're very old,

Ian

old, open source. These are not the Laravel open source docs. These are, like, chromogeny guy. 1993. Yep.

This is why this thing's all messed up. It's still messed up. I'm probably never gonna fix it. Throw it don't shade it. Okay.

Aaron

Other parts of, like, the computing world, like, basically making, making jabs at cheap hard drives or certain ways the Windows locking mechanisms work in the file system. It's like Yep. Dude, you know you know way more, and you have way more opinions. This is the kind of person that's, like you know how some people have opinions on everything and everything they say, you're like, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Ian

Yeah. I know what you're talking about.

Aaron

This guy has opinions on everything, and he knows everything. Right. Right. I I believe you about Windows sometimes lying whether the the content has been flushed to the disk out of the buffer.

Ian

I believe you.

Aaron

I have no idea what you're saying, but I believe you. So printed I printed all the docs, all the docs that are fit to print. So there are some that are like, oh, that's a great name. I should start I should start a a printed documentation company called all the docs fit to print. That's a good that's copy right now.

Ian

Some of

Aaron

the docs are more about, like, this the low level c, APIs and interfaces and stuff, and that's just, like

Ian

You're not getting in there.

Aaron

I can't grasp that, and it's not relevant for the course, and so I didn't print those. But I printed everything else.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

And then I also went to, like so I went to Hacker News, like the hn dot hnsearch.algolia or something. There's a there's an Algolia site where you can search Hacker News. And so I just searched

Ian

know about that.

Aaron

Yeah. It's great. Let me see if I can pull it up. I think it's, h n search it's really good. H n search Algolia.

And it's, of course, wicked fast. Yeah. Hn.algolia.com. Yep. So you can you can search stories, comments, all that stuff.

So I just searched all the stories that had SQLite as a title and had, like, a good a good, amount of upvotes. Found all the blogs

Ian

and went through

Aaron

yeah. Found all the blogs that like, all the articles that they were referencing, went through and printed all of those, printed anything that those articles themselves referenced. So I ended up with a lot of, like, fly. Io blogs. There's a guy called Simon Williamson, maybe?

Maybe Williams, who's written a ton about SQLite. And then there are a few other sources that I ended up printing a lot from. So I printed all of those. And then for some stories that were like, you know, ask hn, why why do you use SQLite? I printed all the comments.

And for some of the for some of the bigger stories, even if they're, like, aren't ask HN for some of the bigger stories, I printed all the cop the Hacker News comments for those too. And it's it's great. So then, you know, you you follow the web you follow the web of links out as far as you can go. You print it all, and then you sit down and try to digest

Ian

it all.

Aaron

So that's what I'm printing.

Ian

Alright. Now and do you have do you also bookmark, or do you just print?

Aaron

I do actually bookmark. Yeah.

Ian

Okay. So you can go back to digital should you Mhmm. Should you need it.

Aaron

Should I. Yeah.

Ian

Okay. I mean, people were a little obsessed with the printing which is fine. And I was okay with the printing. I mean, we had talked about that you're a big printer before.

Aaron

Big print.

Ian

I'm a little more concerned with your highlighting technique because the highlight technique.

Aaron

That's a good technique.

Ian

There's a couple of things, but you're highlighting a lot, which I feel like is interesting. Maybe that's

Aaron

just an

Ian

unpaid saw. Yeah. Right. Maybe that's not universal, But you appear to highlight

Mhmm.

With a ruler Wow. Or some type of Yeah. Device. I don't

Aaron

know what to call it. Device. A ruler

Ian

What's going

Aaron

on there? Yeah. That is the word for it. It's a ruler.

Ian

It's a ruler.

Aaron

Straight it's a straight device that I use to help highlight. It is a it's a great little ruler. It's a little three sided. It's almost like a a prism, you know, an elongated

Ian

prism. Triangle architecture rulers? Okay.

Aaron

Exactly. Exactly. It's an architecture ruler. Really great. 6 inches long, so it's not, you know, it's not embarrassing.

So, like, when I get down to the pool, I'm not like the guy bringing out my drafting board and

Ian

stuff. Okay.

Aaron

It's probably still embarrassing. But when I'm walking on the treadmill Mhmm. So I'm walking and I'm reading, trying to highlight, You're all you're all wonky hands. Right? So you're you're walking and you're like, woah.

Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. This is what it this is embarrassing.

So I have the ruler for when I'm walking, so I can put it down on the page, slam it right across the ruler, and be done with it.

Ian

Oh, wow. Yep. That's such a that's a a care level there I'm enjoying. Yep. Gotta do it, man.

If I

Aaron

if I'm highlighting and I'm hitting, you know, I'm I'm hitting a line or 2 up or a line or 2 down, it's like, I gotta reprint that. Yeah.

Ian

Now. Okay. So what's your next step? So you have a big, huge pile of highlighted printed out things. Also do you highlight in the books or do not highlight in the books?

Okay. So you got books, you got printed pages. You got lots of stuff highlighted everywhere. Mhmm. What's the next step?

Aaron

Alright. So there's 2 at least 2 steps. There is, there's expand and then there's contract. So we're in the expand phase right now. We we we follow every rabbit hole, read everything, highlight everything.

And here's the great part about the expand phase. There's no pressure. There's Mhmm. You don't you just don't have to think about anything except is that part interesting? And if it's interesting, you highlight it, and then you move on.

There's no there's no worrying about where does this fit in the course. Like, when does this come in the content? Not not my problem. My problem right now is learn everything I can. In fact, you don't even have to remember everything.

That's what the highlighting is for.

Ian

You don't

Aaron

even have to remember everything. You just say, ah, what an interesting piece of information. Let me highlight it. Then then you move to the contract phase. So you've expanded.

Your whole world is broad. Then you're like, ah, I gotta bring this in. So that's when you sit down with all the papers, all the books, and everything, and you start looking and writing down. It's like you flip through and you look through the highlights. So now we're moving it, like, we're moving it like 50 x because we're just looking at highlights.

You look at all the highlights and, either write them down on note cards

Ian

or

Aaron

type them into a big ass text file, just like Okay. Line after line after line. You don't have to type out, like, everything that you've highlighted. You just type out, like, you know, row ID equals primary key when this and, like, just a little shorthand, and you put a little reference next to it. You put, like, you know, docs page, whatever, or this book page, whatever.

And you just you go through all your material and you just write it all down. And so at this point, you've got a huge text file of, like, half interesting ideas or, like, turns of phrase or, like, topics. And then at that point, you look and you think, okay. This is this is the material. Like, yeah, I'm gonna flesh it all out, but, like, this is basically the material.

And at that point, you start moving in this text file or on your note cards. You start moving, like, ideas that are that are kind of related. You move them next to each other. And so if you have, like, a lot of interesting things about primary keys, which, you know, it's extremely interesting.

Ian

If you

Aaron

have a lot of interesting things about primary keys, you kinda move them all together, and then that's when you start to see the outline, like, emerging out of this primordial soup. Because then all these clumps are together, and you're like, actually, I gotta talk about this before I can even talk about primary keys because there's some backstory here. And so you put that one above the primary keys, and that's when it kinda all just, like it all just shakes out. So that's the process. What do we think?

Ian

I love it.

Aaron

Right? It's pretty good.

Ian

Well, so here's the thing that's interesting to me because I feel like the the really big upside of the printed pages slash books and all that stuff to me is that I've never personally been able to find the like digital version of that that's really worked. Like once notion gets too big, once the week gets too big, what whatever your thing is. Right? We've all tried them all. It does falls apart a little bit when you're trying to get through this what you're talking about here.

If you just have a lot of ideas in there. Yeah. And whatever. Obviously, people are able to use it. I've never really used it.

It sounds like you haven't made it work for you in in that use case. I have other use cases where they're great, but in this use case, I have not found it effective. And so that kind of, Yeah, just going through the paper and on paper, like, is actually easier in some ways in that regard. And then to move it to digital, I like this idea of a single huge file because it's like, it's just a I'm not gonna try to make a 1,000 pages, and then I don't remember what page that was in. Nope.

And then all that stuff. It's like just putting it all in one spot. Like a tag shirt or, like, a scheme or something. Yeah. Right.

So I like all that. Now do you reference where you found the item, like, when you put it in a text file? Okay.

Aaron

Definitely.

Ian

So I will come

Aaron

up with I'll come up with a shorthand. So, like, when I did it for the the MySQL course, it was HP 3 and HP 4 because that was high performance edition 3, high performance edition 4, and then the page number. And so if I do need to like, if I sit I'm I'm sitting down to start recording a video and I'm like, what the hell did I write here? Or, you know, equally likely, I need a little bit more I need a little bit more info for the specific thing I'm about to say, then I can go back to the book and, like, read the surrounding text. But, yeah, I come up with a I come up with a a shorthand, and I put every reference I can in there.

Ian

I'm I'm down with this process. I like this process.

Aaron

I'm a big

Ian

fan of the huge doc. I feel like in the age of, like, LLMs, like, just that one huge page could be kinda cool if you wanted

to jump

in there and find any interesting cross references or whatever. Who knows? But, like, yeah, I think it sounds good. So, like, are you too recording yet or not too recording yet?

Aaron

Not yet.

Ian

Not

Aaron

yet. That starts that actually starts this week.

Ian

Okay.

Aaron

Yeah. So I'll record this week, next week, and the week after, with a goal of hopefully releasing June 4th, leaving June 11th on the table. Those are both Tuesdays. But, yeah, I'll start recording this week. Today and tomorrow's goal is to come up with the curriculum, like the outline.

I feel like I've, you know, I've I've read enough, and it's really interesting to me to read these docs because, I already kinda have, like, a lattice, you know, a mesh of information in my brain about

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

SQL in general and specifically how my SQL works. And so everything I'm reading is kinda like getting caught in this mesh or this lattice and, like, attaching to other things that I already know, and I feel like the web is getting denser. And, you know, I can like, a lot of the stuff I'm learning is, like, I view it in the light of how it works in in my SQL. And so it's like, oh, I have this knowledge. I can associate this new knowledge with the old knowledge because it's slightly different or the same or whatever.

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

And it's just it's just very, very satisfying to, like, learn this stuff. I'm enjoying it immensely.

Ian

So one other thing, it doesn't sound like you've done this, but I wonder if you've thought about this, like, so you have access to this sponsor.

Mhmm.

And they obviously know a lot about SQLite. Like, are you planning on interviewing people there or, like, getting any knowledge out of them as a resource? And or if you do this in the future, might you do that?

It seems like that could be an interesting angle. Yes.

So I think, angle.

Aaron

Yes. So I think, I will probably end up talking to, you know, some of their engineers or if they have, like, a DevRel or somebody. I will talk to that person to get kind of a an angle from, like, the company's perspective. Additionally, I've got a list of people that are, famously or well known for using SQL And I'm gonna try to get all of those people. I'm gonna try to get, like, interviews with those people Mhmm.

As a part of, not necessarily course content because it'll it it might be course content, but it'll be free. And so it's gonna be, like, marketing content, basically. So I'm gonna reach out to, like I'm gonna shoot my shot and try to get DHH because, you know, once is, is

Ian

Get him get him in the cold. Yeah.

Aaron

I know. I'm gonna try. Peter Levels famously uses SQLite, so those are some of the the big shots.

Ian

Big names. Oh, I like this.

Aaron

I'm gonna try to get the creator of SQLite. Right. Because this guy that I had lunch with gave me his phone number, and I'm, like, gonna call him and see if he wants to

Ian

Call him.

Aaron

Tell me about the history.

Ian

Yeah. It's gonna be great.

Aaron

And then, you know, a couple other people that we know and some people some people that aren't as well known, I think will be interesting. But, yeah, I'm gonna try to get that as less less from, like, help me influence the curriculum and more, like, help me create interesting SQLite content.

Ian

Yeah. Even, like, Nuno with, like, Pinkery I know.

Aaron

He's on my list. Doing

Ian

yeah. Doing SQLite Yep. Vericel.

Aaron

For Assad. On the list. Yeah. There are a lot there are a lot of people that I think would be, interesting to hear about their experience.

Ian

Alright. So I don't know. Do we have other other items on that topic? Otherwise, I wanna go with technical topic quick.

Aaron

Oh, wow. This is this is the part where my wife, Jennifer, turns off the pod. Let's see.

Ian

We have one piece of feedback I thought would be interesting. And it kinda ties into what you just said.

Aaron

Alright. I think that's it.

Ian

Hit me. Alright. So, obviously, we'll talk about the course more along the way here. But, Sebastian did Ding? I think so.

His last name totally wrong. But he had a question for us, and I thought it was interesting and just hiding

what what

you just said. So, listener question, would love to hear thoughts on identifiers in Laravel and databases, auto incrementing IDs, UUIDs, snowflakes. What are you using these days and why from security, portability, and database perspective? So

Great question. Yeah.

Love that everybody hits early. Right? It's like you're

Aaron

there. Everybody.

Ian

Day 1 of your new project. Like, alright. I gotta build some tables. Let me get the schema builder thing going, and I'm like, what do I do for IDs? Do I use just the incrementing IDs?

Do I use the big ins, the regular ins, UUIDs? Whatever. So what are your thoughts there?

Aaron

I have I have many. My thoughts are as as one might say. Alright. So so let's see. I need I need to do a full, like, video on this because it's a very interesting and very complicated topic.

So I'm gonna hit I'm gonna hit the highlights as quickly as I can. So the question is, what should you use for your primary keys? And the answer is 98, 99% of the time, you should use auto incrementing unsigned big integers because it gives you infinite room. Like, you're never gonna run out of unsigned big ends unless unless you're getting paid 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars

Ian

to run your bank account. Guys if you hit that issue.

Aaron

Exactly. It's

Ian

not a problem, though.

Aaron

So put put aside put aside your, fever dreams of running out of, big ends. Never gonna happen. No. Okay. That being said, why why are big ends better?

Okay. The alternative to a big end is some sort of UUID. Right? GUID, UUID, snowflake, some sort of string. First of all, huge huge size difference in an integer and a 128 bit string.

Right? So Yeah. The the the size difference is massive. Are probably, you know, tapping on their phones being like, but, Aaron, the hard drives are are cheap. It's free.

Like, yeah. Okay. I understand that. Here's the thing, though. You want your when when you're dealing, like, when you're dealing with millions or potentially 100 of millions of roast, turns out size kinda that that kinda does start to add up over time.

But the more interesting thing the more interesting thing is when you when you index when you index those values, then you're not just talking about hard drive space. Right? You're talking about something much more expensive, which is memory, and you wanna keep that as compact as possible. Mhmm. So that's kind of that's kind of compelling.

I think it gets more compelling when you talk about when you talk about it in, from a perspective index that is not the primary key has a copy of that primary key in the index. Mhmm. And so if your primary key is enormous, then all of your secondary indexes are gonna be much, much bigger because they all contain that identifier so that they can go back to the main table and find the row. So now we're, like, doubling or tripling. I mean, how many indexes do you have?

You got 10 indexes? We've got 11 copies of this huge UUID flying around everywhere. So that starts to get really expensive. Okay. Somewhat compelling.

The most compelling the most compelling reason to use auto incrementing big integers is they're auto incrementing. So the way, at least in MySQL, the way that the table is arranged, the actual like, your content in the database is arranged by primary key. So when you have an auto incrementing big integer, new data just goes at the end because it's just like, well, it's the last one. I'm just gonna put it at the end. That's great.

Super fast. Nobody's moving around the old stuff. All that old stuff

Ian

Leave that alone.

Aaron

Stay right where it is. 3 is bigger than 2. 4 is bigger than 3. We just keep adding on to the end. When you have one of these UUID variants that are random or rather are not time ordered, If you have a u u variant that is not time ordered, you could end up putting data anywhere in the middle of your table.

Right? So if you generate this view, you would constantly generate this, and then the database has to be like, alright. Well, I gotta slot this in order in between all these other UUIDs. It goes. It finds the spot for it.

Potentially, it has to rebalance the entire table such that that tree structure is pretty and normal and, like, the left and the right sides are all balanced out. And so potentially every time you're inserting, it's moving a bunch of other data around. It's like, well, shoot. I'm out of space on this page. I gotta break this apart, add some new pages.

And so finally, if you're gonna use a UUID, you must use one of the ones that is time ordered, which I don't remember what the variants are. I think variant 4 is bad. 7 is good? Okay.

Ian

Yeah. 7 is also ordered.

Aaron

There's also a u lid, which is lexographic, I think.

Ian

Yeah. There's something yeah. There's something with that. I haven't looked like that as much.

Aaron

That's always increasing, which is what you want. Mhmm. And if you're gonna use a UUID, you want to store it as binary data, not as a string because it's storing all of this character information, which doesn't actually matter. Like, you're not actually looking at the characters. The characters

Ian

are irrelevant.

Aaron

So you wanna unhex it and store it as a string. Now final point. This is just not true in SQLite. It's just not true. All of what I said is basically not true.

Ian

Great news.

Aaron

Yeah. Save for some of, like, the size. Like, it's still much bigger. But SQLite uses a secret, auto incrementing ID. Oh,

Ian

right. It just has a key behind it.

Aaron

It uses the row. It uses something called the row ID. And so if your primary key is this giant uuid, all of the secondary indexes, they actually contain the row ID, not not the UUID. And so it's like you like, they use auto incrementing big integers even in SQLite, because then you can avoid a second lookup, which is a topic for another day. How did I do?

Ian

I think that was pretty good. I think, that's I'd agree with all that. That's all good stuff. I think, the only thing I would add, I think, is that the, you know, one of the people get like worried about the performance of, you know, whatever I'm going to have a 1,000,000,000 rows or whatever, but I mean, you could see the performance issues of like bad indexes and large indexes, or no indexes and things like that much sooner. And so like a lot of the stuff that comes inherent with the row IDs type of sit with, you know, increment IDs is like the ordering is built in, which kinda what you're getting at with like different daytime order.

So you really want that. Otherwise it has to order on something and it has to do other more passes over the data to reorder versus knowing when it read it it's in order or maybe you just have to reverse it. But instead, if it's a UID situation, it's gotta go somewhere else to even find how to order it and all that stuff. So you get more lookups there. So yeah, there are some, like, these practical things and just those indexes I think are always slower anyway.

Like even just searching for an exact key probably UID is going to be slower than on an ID because it's like a bigger index and the string comparison is slower and all that stuff. That's probably a little more secondary. But, and then the other thing is, like, yeah, what you're saying with data storage, like, if it has to go to more places to look up data, the data is not close together, That's slower too. So

Aaron

Bad news. Yep.

Ian

Yeah. So, yeah, I think I totally agree. I think unsigned big int is like all you need. I mean, I 99% of applications can just use regular int unsigned, and they're gonna be fine because you still have 4,000,000,000 IDs or whatever, and you're very unlikely to ever hit that.

Aaron

I would say fully 50% of applications could use small ints and nobody

Ian

would notice. I mean, I've run the app for 20 years. I've I've yet to have You know, it's not each customer has their own database, so it's not, like everybody's in 1, but still nobody's run out of IDs ever. And I doubt even if they were in one database, every we would have run out of IDs anywhere except maybe the history table. Yeah.

Probably has more than 4,000,000,000 history items. But, anyway, you're talking about, like, a 20 year old app. So, like Exactly. The you know? We should all

Aaron

be so lucky.

Ian

Right. Exactly. So, like, it's not a big deal. But with everything being fast, yeah, I think you just start with unsigned big end. You just never have to think about it ever again.

Yep. One thing, I mean, people do sort of one interesting concern. I don't tend to have this concern myself is hiding the, the ins.

Aaron

Right, right,

Ian

right, right. Let you know, reduce the sort of competitors can see how many users I have because Yes. They see their user is 72 or whatever. Yep. I don't really subscribe to this that much because, a, who cares about my competitors and regular users would never look at it or notice it.

So it's sort of irrelevant unless you're in some ultra geeky dev type thing. But Mhmm. There is a little bit of interestingness there. There's a little bit of interestingness to the idea of, like, does it maybe help in some in certain areas with some sort of security angle in terms of at least they're not knowable. So should something escape, or a whole discovered that lets you pass IDs through, you can't just, just get every piece of data because you know the incrementing ID, and you can just keep going till you have it all.

You have to guess them, and they're obviously very hard to guess. So there are some, like, edge case stuff that's sort of interesting in maybe particular use cases. I don't know if you have any, info on that end of the world.

Aaron

I do. I'm I'm wholly unmoved by the security argument that some people make. I think Yeah. I think if you're relying on security by obscurity for guessing IDs, you're in a bad spot.

Ian

I love security by obscurity.

Aaron

There it is an additional layer. Right? Obscurity is a layer. And so that I'm I'm fine with that. What I would say in those cases is have an external ID.

Just simply have an ID that is yeah. That you can pass around. First of all, you you woulds are ugly. They're huge. Yeah.

They've got dashes. They're terrible. They're they're hideous. I would say a scheme like nano ID. And there's a PlanetScale has an article, because this is how we we did it at PlanetScale.

We had big ints internally and nano IDs externally. Mhmm. Nano IDs are great because there are no coordination. So it's one another one of those things where you could just generate your own, and you're almost a 100% guaranteed that it's never gonna have a a conflict. They're much, much smaller, which is good, and they're prettier, which is which is nice.

And so what I would say is keep all of your all of your keys internally as the most compact data type possible, which I think is gonna be big ends to to preserve room. That's gonna be right. And then additionally, have a unique index on external ID or slug or whatever. And then you kill that at, like, the boundary of your application. So something comes in under external ID, you look it up, and it's gonna be fast because it's a unique ID on a much smaller index than a than a, u u it would be.

And then from then on out, you're dealing with primary or you're dealing with big ints internally. I think the other reason that people may potentially use UUIDs is they need some sort of distributed environment, and they can't rely on they can't rely on auto incrementing big IDs. That's fine.

Ian

Sharp. That's totally fine.

Aaron

Uh-huh. Exactly. And then the other thing is if you are inserting so many records so fast, you can have some contention, to get that next auto incrementing number. And so for very, very few people, if you're if you're, inserting too fast for the auto increment to keep up, you can generate your own UUIDs with no coordination, and you won't have that that tiny bit of luck contention at the auto increment layer. So

Ian

Yeah. There you go. I like it. I I only And if you want

Aaron

more of that, go to high performance sequel like dot com to learn more.

Ian

It always bothers me that they're, like, not actually necessarily unique. You know? Like, I know it's extremely unlikely that you would ever have a duplicate, but it's not actually 0 that you would have a duplicate, which sort of is just always in the back of my mind. It's, like, kinda bothers me. I I'm honestly, I don't think I've ever used a UUID ever in the product application.

Aaron

No. I don't think I have either.

Ian

But alright.

Aaron

Good question.

Ian

Other light items here. IPad ad.

Aaron

Yeah. What'd you think?

Ian

Of the culture. Yeah. I thought it was really weird and bad.

Like,

it was just bizarre. Like, the Uh-huh. I'm not usually what like, super sensitive to these type of things, but it's just like the emoji when its eyes burst, and you're just like, ah, man. I don't know. This is like a weird vibe.

It's like, yeah. I get you're squishing all in there, and it's thin, and it all yeah. I get where you're going.

Mhmm.

But yeah. I don't know. And then, like, especially when people came out with the reversed version, and it's like, oh, everything comes out of the iPad, and it's all this wonderous. Like, that's what the ad, like, so clearly was trying to convey and should have been. And instead, it's like this ultra negative.

We're crushing the humanity out of everything and putting it in the sheet of glass that's got no soul at all.

Aaron

Right. With the cold dark blue lighting and steel and

Ian

Terminator, big press squish, end of the world

type

of thing. Yeah. So I it didn't work for me. I know. What did what did you think about it?

Aaron

So I think I am I don't know if I'm the dimwit or the topwit, but you know those Okay. The midwit you know the midwit meme. Right?

Ian

Oh, it's the best meme.

Aaron

I'm either the dimwit or the topwit because I thought this is bad. And so, like, so so in the middle of the bell curve

Ian

Mhmm.

Aaron

On the dimwit meme is everyone's saying, like, no. This is actually really good, and you don't understand it, and it's art. And, like

Ian

Right.

Aaron

We have to take risks. And I look at it, and I'm like, everyone hated it. It's a bad ad. Like, it doesn't it doesn't matter. That's the thing that I that's the thing that, like, blows my mind is people are trying to defend the ad, and I'm like, listen.

If everyone hated the ad, it's a bad ad.

Ian

Right.

Aaron

That that's that's the that's the what we're judging on is is it a good commercial? And if everyone hates it, then no. It's a bad commercial. And I felt the same way. I looked I watched it and was like,

Ian

I don't

Aaron

like that.

Ian

Terrible. Yeah.

Aaron

I don't like it. That's just, like that's as deep as my that's as deep as my, cultural criticism can go as that is good or that is bad. That's why I love Fast and Furious because it's like, that's good. This is a good movie. Yeah.

And I watched that ad, and I thought, this is a bad ad.

Ian

That was it. The weird defending to me, the weirdest, like, sort of defense was, like, you know, it's just for publicity and all publicity is good publicity. And I'm like, you know, maybe for Ian Landsman and HubSpot, that would be true. Maybe if you gave HubSpot an ad that got 200,000,000 views, that even if it was somebody MKBHD decides to take a dump on HubSpot, that it would still be good for me because I get so many links and people would know about it, and that would be great. Right?

And it's, like, even though it's negative, it's actually fine.

Mhmm.

But Apple, like, everybody knows about Apple. Like everybody knows, literally everybody on the planet has heard of apple. They've heard of an iPad. Like there's no new ground to cover here. Like it's going to be introduced to a new audience.

Like, everybody in the world has heard about it. So it's just bad. Like, if it just makes you feel bad, if it if it seems bad, if it's not interesting, if it's got a weird point of view, like, that's just bad. Apple Apple's not looking at it as, like, this is great. We got the publicity.

We've never had. Like

Aaron

They didn't pull a fast one

Ian

on us.

Aaron

They're like, I'm sorry. They literally said, I'm sorry.

Ian

They didn't really apologize. Like Yeah. So yeah. But that was it was kinda interesting. It's always fun when these things take over.

Yeah. Whatever It is, an afternoon.

Aaron

You can't you can't overestimate the importance of vibes. It's just you really can't. It's all vibes. Everything is vibe driven. You look at honestly, you look like like Vercel, and they just kinda the vibes are bad.

Right.

Ian

What is it?

I don't know if

Aaron

the vibes are just bad.

Ian

No idea.

Aaron

Bad vibes. Yeah. And it's the same with this ad. It's like, I don't know. Bad vibes.

Don't like it.

Ian

It's kind of an interesting thing about the future is, like, the the role of taste. Mhmm. And, like, can LMs actually replace taste or not? Mhmm. And is there still gonna be this human element of taste involved in a lot of things that isn't so easily moved.

Aaron

I am I'm betting on it. Yeah. That that Steve Steve and I think that are one of our main competitive advantages is we have good taste. Yeah. And I'm just I'm counting on that to carry us a pretty long way.

And I think I think it is I think it is true. I think taste is a differentiating factor, and an LLM can make interesting things, but I don't think it can have good taste. Or or it can't have, like, it can't have a point of view almost. Like, maybe it says good things or it writes good things, but you're always like I think when you connect with a brand or creator or something, like, you like their point of view or you like their taste.

Ian

And

Aaron

I just feel like that at at least at this point, I can't see that being replicated very well.

Ian

Yeah. I don't know. It's tricky. I think I agree. I do wonder, like, if you shove the Apple ad into an LLM video viewer thing, whatever.

Could it have come out with the idea that this seems potentially negative? I think it

Aaron

could probably,

Ian

Probably. Right? Maybe today it can't, but in the near future, it can. Right? But then is that like, what do you do with that?

Like, is that do I trust it enough to be like, let's scrap this ad? Do you know? It's it's hard it's hard to know. Like It's

Aaron

gonna first of all, it's gonna both sides you. It's gonna both sides you. Right? Some people might see this, but, you know, they might also it's like, okay. Well,

Ian

you're just sitting

Aaron

on the fence again. And then I think there's something like maybe in that discreet example, yes. The LLM could look at that and say, hey. This feels even for a robot, I think this is a little dystopian. It it might have uncovered that, but there's something there's something even, like, more nuanced and less precise about looking at a thing and getting a good feeling from it.

Right? So you can you can watch a a video you can watch 2 videos about the exact same thing, and one makes you feel like, oh, that was that was really good. And one makes you feel like, oh, it's kinda crappy. And I think most people can't put their finger on why, and I think that is the important part. Like, that is the important role of having good taste is you can identify things that make the final product feel so cohesive and tight and good Yep.

That people can't really identify why it's good, but they know, man, this is good. And I think I don't think an LLM is gonna get there anytime soon.

Ian

Do you ever see, oh, man. I'm trying to look up his name super quick. The guy, he works with, like, a lot of rappers and and different, different I know

Aaron

who we're talking about. Rick Rubin.

Ian

Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin. Yeah. Rick Rubin. I got it.

Rick Rubin. And he has a, you know, he has a book. He's a fascinating interview. Yeah. So where he's like Great book.

In this interview, they're like, well, why did they pay you the money? And he's like, because he's like, you know, I don't know anything about music. I can't play instrument. Like, I don't know anything about

Aaron

music. Yeah.

Ian

And they're like, well, why are you, like, the producer who comes in and saves people people's albums? And he's like Mhmm. Because I have good taste. Like, that's literally his answer. He's like, I know what I like, and I know when I don't like it, why I don't like it, and I can, express that in a way that's productive, and then they can make changes or whatever.

And, yeah, it's exactly like that. It's like something subtle and not maybe definable.

Aaron

No. It's an amalgamation of, like, 50 different things that don't matter, and you put them together and you you ball it up into a giant ball, and then it matters. But all

Ian

Yeah.

Aaron

Each each thing individually, that's why that's why Steve and I are are try hards because it's like each thing individually doesn't matter. But we're gonna try super hard. And if you do each thing super well and you put it all together, people are like, oh, that's good. I don't know why. That's good.

Alright. Can't really Yeah.

Ian

I don't know.

Aaron

That's good. Like, yes. I know. That's what I'm telling you.

Ian

Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Alright. One final sort of follow-up, item for the show here today.

Wes Boss, who's, you know, very well known JavaScript course creator, had a tweet where he's like the he standardized on a single pair of socks. Standardized. It's awesome. He has a picture of a truly unruly number of socks. I mean, it's a 70 big amount of socks.

It's a lot of socks.

Aaron

I liked I liked them before. I like them a lot more now. He went he went all in.

Ian

Do we know if this is from you or no? Or was this just I don't think he referenced. We didn't reference you or the show.

Aaron

No. I didn't I didn't get a tag or anything.

Ian

Standardized on socks. These are Carhartt socks that I was quite intrigued by as well.

Aaron

Interesting choice. Something to talk about, but keep going.

Ian

Yeah. I think that, well, I'm interested in I imagine they're they're good on the absorption front and things like that. But, yeah. So I don't have anything to add other than that. Here's another very smart gentleman who subscribed to the Aaron Francis tool thought.

I bought some more of your socks myself recently. I'm still on board with the Aaron Francis sock train. I do have a couple of other specialty socks around, but for the most part

Aaron

That's fine.

Ian

That's fine. Removed all of the day in, day out socks. I'm only on your Amazon socks. Love it. I wasn't able to get the old like, a pack of only gray, so I do end up getting some gray and black and white, which I sometimes switch.

So I'm

Aaron

a pick the different colors. Purpose, doesn't it?

Ian

No. No. It doesn't because it's fine. Because sometimes I'd like to have those options, but just even having the same sock. Because to me, I care less about the color and more about the feel.

Yes. I love that every day I get in there in that driving seat, and it feels right. I feel comfortable. It's ready to go. Yep.

All the laundry stuff. Yeah. I'm not like, oh, this one's too tight. Oh, this one's loose. This one's thin or whatever because I just grabbed some random ones.

Shoot.

Aaron

I put on that one sock that I hate. That I hate.

Ian

Yeah. Exactly.

Aaron

I remember this guy. Yeah.

Ian

Yeah. Those guys are all gone. They've been donated. I've ejected them from the dresser, and, I'm on board with the sock train, the motar with a modification.

Aaron

Love to

Ian

hear it.

Aaron

I love I love to hear that I'm I'm moving I'm moving the culture. This is great news for me. So West Boss, I just counted, bought 100 and 50 pairs

Ian

Okay. Of socks.

Aaron

So I see I see these Carhartts come in a pack of 3 pairs, Yeah. Six socks total. That's how many, you know, to prepare. That's how it goes. And then I I'm counting, I think, 25 individual packages.

So just real quick, 25 times, oh, 3 pairs. I did times 6. Okay. That's that's much better. 25 times 3 is 75 pairs.

Ian

Right. So it was something at those 70 something pairs.

Aaron

Yeah. 75 pairs, which is a lot. So first of all, I missed I missed my shot here. He's got 7,600,000 views on this tweet.

Ian

7 point 6. Holy cow. I missed that.

Aaron

1,000,000. Yeah. So feeling feel a little bit like, ah, shoot. Could have been

Ian

should have been me.

Aaron

That's fine. So it goes. That's how the algorithm works. Next thing, he went with not not the no show, but the low cut. It turns the corner.

So on my socks, on your socks, the it doesn't turn the corner. It reaches Right. You know, you got the foot part, then you got the part of the foot that turns up. I guess you call that the ankle. Who knows?

Not a doctor. But at the at the ankle, on our socks, it the it just dips. Right? It just dips down to the heel, and then we hit the heel and we go under. These, it's turning the corner.

It's turning the ankle corner, and then it cuts across the top and then dips down. I don't like to turn up at the ankle. I'm not a I'm not an ankle turner.

Ian

It's definitely touching the ankle at least. It might even be over the ankle depending on the size of your foot and whatnot, but it's definitely gonna be a straight across under or at the ankle situation. Mhmm. Mhmm. Those are the ones I used to wear.

I did I did like those. I do prefer I've always preferred the low cut, but I never will find your pair are the best pair I've found, for they're not really no show. Like, there are real no show socks that literally don't show. They don't literally no show. Right.

Like, if those never stay on your heel, though, so they're super annoying. Like, there's no way to keep that on your hair. So yours are a nice compromise. Like, it's mostly no show. With some shoes, it might actually be no show.

With some, it's not totally no show, but it's close enough. And, yeah, you're free and comfortable in the summer. It's a little bit cooler and all that stuff. So, yeah, he's gone with the more, I would say traditional probably overall, sort of men's sock situation. But I I've never even considered Carhartt for socks, So this kind of I hadn't thought that was interesting to me.

Yeah. That was really interesting. I was like, I want my cousin's been on Carhartt stuff, and I kinda get I don't even ever think of looking at Carhartt.

Aaron

Working, man.

Ian

It's like, yeah. It's like, what do I I'm just sitting here. Like, I don't need Carhartt, but I think there's

Aaron

some people

Ian

that are

broader now.

Aaron

Shirt jacket? I what what do I need a Carhartt shirt jacket for?

Ian

Because I never got a Carhartt. An orange one? Like, what Yeah. Exactly. Working on the road.

Like, it's fine.

Aaron

I'm not gonna cosplay work wear. Maybe, eventually. But right now, I'm I'm good on on clothes. So, yeah, the Carhartt Force Force Performance sock. It's very, it's very intense.

Ian

I like it.

Aaron

It's just the problem that just turns north at the ankle, which I can't get behind. Yeah. So if there's a Carhartt force, no show, there that might be that might be on the table. But What

Ian

would you do there? Would you would you actually eject all your current soldiers? Or

Aaron

Hey. Come on. No way. You're too loyal? No no freaking way.

I just you know, as a satisficer, I think we've talked about this. Yeah. I'm not a maximizer. I'm a satisficer. I find the thing that I like.

Yeah. I'm not out there looking. I find the thing that I like that makes me happy, and I'm happy.

Ian

And I'm not

Aaron

just I'm not constantly optimizing, so I'm happy.

Ian

I like that mindset. Yeah. I gotta get there myself. I'm sort of doing some areas, but I I need more work. I'm I'm still channeling my inner Aaron Francis on that front.

Aaron

That's good. Satis satisficers, I think, are happy. I think maximizers, aren't quite as happy. It's hard. Yeah.

Ian

That's true. That's true. You're always out there.

Aaron

Wondering, of all the options I consider, should I have gone with a different one, or is there a better one out there? And I'm just like, man, these socks are awesome.

Ian

Yeah. We're me and the wife are really bad at that. We're always like, Should we have what about this choice? Let's revisit that choice.

Aaron

Oh, does

Ian

it? Yeah. You can't revisit it. You guys can't no looking back. Can't look forward.

Yep. Alright, man. Sounds good. Thanks everybody for listening. Mostly technical dot com for all the, back episodes.

Mostly tech pod on Twitter and mostly technical podcast atgmail.com, if you have any feedback that you wanna write in. But we will see you next week. Thanks, everybody.

Aaron

See you.