A Very Merry Descent Into Holiday Madness

A Very Merry Descent Into Holiday Madness

Author: Skill Issue Studios January 8, 2026 Duration: 1:01:57
This week, Robbie and Adam talk about holiday travel chaos, parenting stress, and health scares before diving into AI-assisted coding, Linux quirks, IDE trends, burnout in open source, and more. In this episode: - (00:00) - Intro - (02:07) - Whiskey rating & review: Flaviar & Jack Daniels - (06:02) - Stress gummies, holiday chaos, and why Robbie is fried - (13:05) - Adam on pulling back, burnout, and choosing quality over quantity - (21:02) - Second pour: Flavia SirDavis American Whisky - (21:23) - Building color tools for fun (and sanity) - (21:51) - Is React actually holding us back? - (25:16) - Food, culture, and building with the platform - (27:19) - The worst IDE idea ever - (31:00) - Vibe-coding an iOS app… on iOS - (32:39) - Where AI still completely fails - (34:02) - OpenAI vs. Gemini and the shifting AI landscape - (34:56) - Editors, agents, and AI overload - (38:34) - Space toggles in CSS and weirdly powerful tricks - (42:14) - Are AI tools getting more scatterbrained? - (44:20) - Perspective when everything feels heavy - (46:20) - Learning new skills without burning out - (48:03) - Curiosity is a survival skill - (48:40) - Working through hard seasons in life - (54:14) - TV shows, distractions, and mental breaks - (54:46) - Robbie vs. Lego ordering (again) - (56:05) - Adam’s exhausting travel run - (57:07) - Why kids are basically walking germs - (58:26) - Adam’s Beyond Tellerrand talk - (59:13) - Advent of Code **Links** - Flaviar Bhakta Golden Age Blend: https://flaviar.com/products/bhakta-1928-golden-age-blend-750 - Flavia SirDavis American Whisky: https://flaviar.com/products/sirdavis-american-whisky-750 - Jack Daniels Single Barrel Rye: https://www.jackdaniels.com/en-us/whiskey/single-barrel-rye - Whiskey Web and Whatnot live episodes from All Things Open 2025: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7uiIY_6TPL-iREDcpUVndAZaz118OE-h - Olly Stress Gummies: https://www.olly.com/ - Flaviar Whiskey Advent Calendar: https://flaviar.com/pages/advent-calendar - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: https://www.harrypottertheplay.com/ - ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ - Adam's blog post - An Update On My Involvement In Standards: https://nerdy.dev/update-on-my-involvement-in-standards - Primeagen: https://x.com/ThePrimeagen - Swach: https://swach.io/ - Chrome EyeDropper API: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/web-apis/eyedropper - Linux: https://www.linux.org/ - Wayland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(protocol) - GNOME: https://www.gnome.org/ - KDE: https://kde.org/ - C++: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp - Rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/ - Electron: https://www.electronjs.org/ - Antigravity: https://antigravity.google/ - Adam's color component: https://github.com/argyleink/css-color-component - theCHIVE: https://thechive.com/ - Preact: https://preactjs.com/ - React: https://react.dev/ - Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ - Seinfeld: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld - VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ - Ember: https://emberjs.com/ - OpenAI: https://openai.com - Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ - Nano Banana: https://gemini.google/overview/image-generation/ - Claude: https://claude.ai/ - Opencode: https://opencode.ai/ - Warp: https://www.warp.dev/ - Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/ - Big Pickle: https://opencode.ai/docs/zen/ - Windsurf: https://windsurf.ai/ - CSS: https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/ - Stranger Things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_Things - Chris Coyier: https://x.com/chriscoyier - Wednesday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday_(TV_series) - LEGO: https://www.lego.com/ - WebGL: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGL_API - Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/ - Figma: https://www.figma.com/ - Adam's Beyond Tellerrand talk: https://beyondtellerrand.com/events/berlin-2025/speakers/adam-argyle **Connect with the hosts** - Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner - Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd - Adam Argyle: https://x.com/argyleink **Subscribe and stay in touch** - Website: https://whiskey.fm - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/id1552776603 - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/19jiuHAqzeKnkleQUpZxDf - Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiskeyWebAndWhatnot **Whiskey Web and Whatnot Merch** Enjoying the podcast and want us to make more? Help support us by picking up some of our fresh merch at https://whiskey.fund.

There's a certain alchemy that happens when you combine deep technical expertise with the warmth of a good conversation, and that's exactly what you'll find in Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Hosts Robbie Wagner, Charles William Carpenter III, and Adam Argyle bring decades of collective experience to the table, but they leave the lecture format at the door. Instead, each episode feels like pulling up a chair with colleagues who are just as passionate about the craft of building for the web as they are about the nuanced flavors in a glass of whiskey. The discussion naturally flows between the concrete details of modern development-like navigating JavaScript frameworks, CSS architecture, or the practical realities of agentic AI and new coding tools-and the broader, human aspects of a software engineering career. This podcast from Skill Issue Studios is built on the idea that the tools and the people who use them are equally important. You'll come for insightful, grounded advice on developer productivity and emerging technologies, but you'll stay for the genuine camaraderie and the occasional spirited debate about which whiskey bottle truly earns a spot on the shelf. It’s a refreshing blend of substance and personality, making complex topics accessible and reminding everyone that there's always a story behind the code.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Whiskey Web and Whatnot
Podcast Episodes
Your Terminal Is Getting Smarter with Ben Holmes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:49
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Ben Holmes—Astro core team alum and now at Warp—about the rapid evolution of developer tools, the promise and quirks of AI-powered coding, and why he’s betting big on terminal UX.In…
Inside Sagamore: The Revival of Maryland Rye with Clint Spotleson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:26
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Clint Spotleson of Sagamore Spirit about the craft behind their unique Manhattan Finish Rye, the history of Maryland-style whiskey, and why great whiskey is meant to be shared. Clint…
What Makes a Good Job in Tech? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:52
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk about career moves and tech transitions. They discuss Robbie’s new role at HashiCorp and Chuck’s dive into cybersecurity. They also debate legacy tech quirks, open-source updates, and the…
Why Most Developers Overcomplicate Everything w/ Aaron Francis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:19
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Aaron Francis about developer education, Laravel vs. Rails, and the evolution of full-stack development. They explore the trade-offs of opinionated frameworks, the practicality of PH…
Tailwind 4, DeepSeek AI, and the End of the Old Web [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:12
This week, Robbie and Chuck cover a wide range of topics, including AI and its impact on web development. They discuss DeepSeek, Tailwind’s latest updates, and whether Stack Overflow is still relevant. Plus, a detour int…
Is jQuery Really Dead? And Other Hot Takes w/ Travis Wagner [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:13
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Travis Wagner about his career move from Universal Music to Crunchyroll and the nuances of backend development. They discuss a wide range of hot takes, including whether jQuery is st…
Is This the End of Tech Conferences? w/ Dax Raad [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:00
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Dax Raad about his evolving career from software engineer to open-source advocate and content creator. They dive into his work on SST, explore the bizarre economics of tech conferenc…
From JavaScript to PHP: Josh Cirre’s Unexpected Dev Journey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:29
This week, Robbie and Chuck talk with Josh Cirre about his journey from JavaScript to PHP, working with the Laravel team, and creating content for developers. They also discuss the value of opinionated frameworks, whethe…
The Future of Web Dev: Are We Overcomplicating Everything? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:08
This week, Chuck and Robbie talk about the neverending evolution of web dev tools and frameworks. Over a Hatozaki Japanese whiskey, they dive into ORMs, the pros and cons of Prisma, Drizzle, and AstroDB, and how modern d…