⚡️ Matt Pocock - Why Engineering Fundamentals matter MORE now
Okay, we're here in the AI engineer Europe podcast booth with Matt Pocock of AI Hero.
好，我们现在在 AI Engineer Europe 播客展位，嘉宾是来自 AI Hero 的 Matt Pocock。
Hey man, how you doing?
嘿，兄弟，你好吗？
Good, man.
很好，哥们。
It's nice to be in your neck of the woods for
来你的主场，感觉真好——
[laughter]
[笑声]
Yeah.
是啊。
You do a lot of SF stuff, but nice so nice that you come to London.
你平时一直在旧金山那边，你来伦敦真是太好了。
Yeah.
是啊。
How do we stack up versus your other London event experiences?
和你参加过的其他伦敦活动相比，这次怎么样？
[sighs]
[叹气]
It's the worst I've ever been to.
这是我参加过最差的。
[laughter]
[笑声]
By far the worst.
差远了。
Absolutely astonishing.
简直令人震惊。
Astonishing location, great stuff.
地点令人震惊，棒极了。
You and I first connected when you were about to start your sort of creator journey and your developer journey.
我们第一次认识的时候，你正要开始你的创作者之路和开发者之路。
You started total TypeScript, which did very well.
你做了 Total TypeScript，反响非常好。
And then now you're running AI Hero.
然后你现在在经营 AI Hero。
You're just about to finish a Claude code course.
你正要完成一门 Claude Code 课程。
Yep.
对。
I run courses in two-week cohorts these days because AI moves so quickly.
我现在用两周制来跑课程，因为 AI 发展太快了。
Hard to release a self-paced course and guarantee updates forever.
发布一门自学节奏的课程然后永久保证更新，这太难了。
And so yeah, on the last couple days of a two-week course.
所以嗯，在为期两周的课程的最后几天。
It's wonderful.
这感觉很棒。
Does that mean that the Claude code source leaked just as you started?
这是不是意味着 Claude Code 的源代码就在你开课的时候泄露了？
Yeah.
是啊。
How was that?
感觉怎么样？
What what what did what what did you
那那那当时你——
Well, I'm cursed, you see, because I did a course on AI SDK and it was based on AI SDK V4.
嗯，你看，我是个被诅咒的人，因为我做了一门关于 AI SDK 的课程，当时是基于 AI SDK V4 的。
On day two of the course, they announced AI SDK V5, right?
课程第二天，他们就宣布了 AI SDK V5，你知道吧？
A huge breaking change.
一个重大的破坏性变更。
Um and this time, I think day two of the course, they released the 1 million context window or maybe just before the course started.
这次，我想课程第二天，他们发布了百万上下文窗口，也可能是刚好在课程开始之前。
And yeah, now the Claude code source has leaked.
然后就是，现在 Claude Code 的源码也泄露了。
But fortunately, the course is not really about Claude code.
不过好在，这门课其实不太算是关于 Claude Code 的。
I noticed that when I was building it.
我在做的时候就注意到了这一点。
It's mostly about engineering software fundamentals and that's I mean, that's the talk I'm giving here, too.
它主要是关于软件工程基础，这也正是我在这里做这个演讲的主题。
It's kind of what I'm focused on now is going back to these old texts, figuring out what's good and translating that into the AI era.
我现在聚焦的事情，就是回去重读那些经典老书，找出其中有价值的东西，再把它们转化到 AI 时代。
Yeah.
是啊。
So people can see the talk.
大家可以去看那个演讲。
You did a workshop as well.
你还做了一个工作坊。
You're one of the I had three people do a double session where, you know, because you're a big London figure, I wanted to make sure that we have enough exposure to to to things.
你是那几个做了双场次的嘉宾之一，因为你是伦敦的重要人物，我想确保大家有足够多的时间接触这些内容。
And I think often times conferences are afraid to double down on speakers.
我觉得很多会议都不敢在同一个演讲者身上重复下注。
But I think I have a particular thesis that YouTubers make particularly good conference speakers because you speak all the time for a living.
但我有个看法，就是 YouTuber 特别适合做会议演讲嘉宾，因为你靠说话吃饭。
And I don't know.
我也不知道。
Do you do you cringe when I call you a YouTuber?
你会觉得我叫你 YouTuber 有点扎心吗？
Is that a vanity?
这算是一种虚荣的标签吗？
Right.
是的。
I mean, like I mean, my agency is I'm a teacher, I really try there's a whole category of YouTubers that I don't really try to interact with or try to be, which is the pundit, right?
我是说，我的定位是一个老师，我真的很努力——其实有整整一个类别的 YouTuber 是我不太想去靠近或者成为的，就是那种评论员，你知道吧？
I'm not
我不是——
I'm not a guy who's trying to predict the future.
我不是那种试图预测未来的人。
I'm just trying to teach
我只是想教东西。
You don't you don't change your favorite idea every two week two weeks.
你不会每两周就换一个最爱的观点。
Exactly.
没错。
Like some some other YouTubers.
不像某些其他 YouTuber。
Exactly.
正是。
I mean, that stuff does do really well,
那种内容确实表现很好，
[laughter]
[笑声]
and it's very, you know, it's hard not to fall into those traps because those numbers are really good.
而且真的很难不掉进那些陷阱，因为那些数字实在太好看了。
But yeah, I'm trying to teach stuff that's durable, that's makes sense, that I feel good about, you know, that kind of thing.
但是，我想教的是经得住时间考验的、有意义的、让自己觉得没问题的东西，就这样。
Yeah.
是啊。
Fundamentals and of engineering and all that.
工程基础知识，还有这些。
What are the fundamentals that you hold dearly to?
你最看重哪些基础知识？
I mean, I'll kind of re- run my talk a little bit now, which is like
我稍微预演一下我的演讲吧，就是——
little preview.
小小预告。
People can find it on online.
大家可以在网上找到。
The theory is that there's this idea that code doesn't matter anymore, right?
这个论点是说，代码已经不重要了，对吧？
We're in an era where you don't really need to think about the code or hold the code in mind when you're building applications because you can just use a description in English and use the AI as a kind of compiler to turn that into code.
我们处于这样一个时代：你不需要真正思考代码，也不需要在构建应用时把代码记在脑子里，因为你只要用英文描述，让 AI 充当某种编译器，把描述转换成代码就行了。
You don't need to care about the code, it's just a compile target.
你不需要关心代码，它只是一个编译目标。
And I think that every time I tried that, every time I tried to ignore the code, I would just end up with a this terrible mess.
但我发现，每次我试图这样做，每次我试图忽略代码，最终都会陷入一团糟。
And so in kind of trying to better the compiler and improve the compiler, I went back to the old classic text, you know, like extreme programming and pragmatic programmer and philosophy of software design and DDD, all that stuff.
所以为了让那个编译器变得更好，我回头去读了那些经典老书，比如极限编程、务实程序员、软件设计哲学还有 DDD，这些东西。
And what I found there was just, oh, I can just take these and just put them into my prompts, you know?
然后我发现，哦，我直接把这些放进我的提示词就行了，你知道吗？
And I started going deeper and going deeper and going deeper and realizing oh, okay, there's actually there's so much more here than I realized and that everything that we were doing for humans really works with AI, too.
然后我越挖越深，越挖越深，越挖越深，慢慢意识到，其实里面的内容比我想象的多得多，而且我们为人类所做的那些事，对 AI 同样有效。
And actually keeping the code in mind and being really intentional about what you're building, not necessarily reviewing everything, but still keeping a sort of understanding of the architecture and the modules, especially, it really yields dividends because if you have a code base that's easy to change for humans, it's going to be easy for AI to change, too.
而且，把代码记在脑子里、对自己在构建什么保持真正的清醒——不一定要审查所有代码，但要对架构和模块保持整体的理解——这真的会带来很大的回报，因为一个人类容易修改的代码库，AI 也会更容易修改。
And it's going to mean that you can work a lot faster because a code base that's difficult to change for humans is is going to be even worse for AI.
而且这意味着你可以工作得更快，因为一个对人类来说难以修改的代码库，对 AI 来说只会更糟糕。
Yeah.
是啊。
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of a narrow waist.
我最近一直在思考「窄腰设计」这个概念。
I don't know if you've heard about this thing.
不知道你有没有听说过这个。
It's
就是——
It comes from old internet architecture philosophy.
它来自互联网架构的早期哲学。
You've heard about maybe layer 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.
你可能听说过网络的第 1、2、3、4、5、6、7 层。
The narrow waist is layers three and four, where basically TCP IP and HTTP have mostly dominated and there no other alternatives effectively apart from web sockets.
窄腰就是第三层和第四层，基本上 TCP IP 和 HTTP 几乎完全占据了这一层，除了 WebSocket 之外没有其他真正的替代方案。
Mhm.
嗯。
And I think introducing narrow waist in the code base allows you to contain slop, right?
我觉得在代码库里引入窄腰设计，可以帮你控制住那些乱糟糟的东西，对吧？
You can say, I don't care what goes on in here, but what goes in is defined by me, what goes out is defined by me.
你可以说：我不管里面怎么搞，但进来的东西由我定义，出去的东西也由我定义。
Do whatever you want inside.
里面随便搞。
Yes.
没错。
And so some there's some equivalents of this in my mind of this and the former decompositions of MVC.
所以在我脑子里，这和以前 MVC 的分层分解有某种对应关系。
People call it model view controller.
大家叫它模型视图控制器。
Today I call it model view claw.
今天我叫它模型视图 Claw。
I view this a lot in in terms of how I run AIE as well.
我在运营 AIE 的时候也经常这样想。
AIE is now a nine-person business.
AIE 现在是一个九人的团队。
Everyone has different parts of the elephant and I have to make sure that everyone sort of uh comes together and like produces a conference where nobody notices the the the the rough edges down under under the hood.
每个人负责大象的不同部分，我要确保大家能够协作好，让一场没有人注意到台下粗糙边角的会议顺利呈现出来。
And so part of it is yes, I I run the website.
所以，其中一部分就是，对，我管网站。
I run the speakers, I run the content.
我管演讲者，我管内容。
But everything has to flow from me down to, okay, well, what AV do you need?
但所有事情都要从我这里往下流，比如，好，你们需要什么 AV 设备？
What hotels do you need?
你们需要什么酒店？
What you know, other other sort of accommodations do you need?
还有，你知道，其他各种住宿安排你们需要什么？
And there's a huge coordination issue.
这就有一个巨大的协调问题。
It's just everywhere.
到处都是。
And I don't even feel like it's really programming anymore.
我感觉这已经不太像在编程了。