Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs - Episode 57: Holiday Special #2 - Ljubljana, Here We Come!

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

In this episode, Bryce and Conor have their second annual “casual Christmas chat”!Date Recorded: 2021-12-20Date Released: 2021-12-24White Elephant Gift ExchangeFiddler on the RoofISO C++ StandardMost Populous CountriesBalkansLjubljanaIntro Song InfoMiss You by Sarah Jansen https://soundcloud.com/sarahjansenmusicCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/l-miss-youMusic promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/iYYxnasvfx8

For ADSP the podcast, it's our tradition. We're on tradition You're not gonna appreciate my fiddler solo Welcome to ADSP the podcast episode 56 recorded on December 20th 2021 My name is Connor and today with my co-host bryce we have our adsp holiday special casual christmas chat episode merry christmas are you recording yeah you can't say merry christmas though man happy holidays i gotta i gotta i got a question for for all for all of you who celebrate Christmas. Okay, what's up?

Wait, wait, before that question. Here we go. Here we go. The black cherry buble in celebration of the holidays. Here we go. Oh, that is crisp, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Dear listener, please let us know if you'd like that

to stop i would like that to stop but nope no no no no no list dear listener you go right ahead and let us know if you'd like that to stop and i will go right ahead and ignore all of the said feedback asking me to stop it's like it's a part of it's a part of the podcast lore now we can't get rid of it absolutely absolutely not i'm not just gonna stop so maybe we'll upgrade from bubblies to something one day but um i got a question for all of you people who celebrate christmas which i do not because i'm jewish although as a kid i did until uh until my so i i had christmas as a kid I did until my, so I had Christmas as a kid because my dad was Christian. Well, pretty loose use of the word Christian here. But anyways, he did Christmas when he was a kid.

So when I was a very young kid, we did both Christmas and Hanukkah. Including when my mother and I lived at my grandparents' house when she took a few years off just to, you know, be a stay-at-home mom with me because she wanted a break from being a lawyer. And my grandparents were, like, much more Jewish than we were. And so my mother had to, like, sneak a Christmas tree into the house so that I could continue having Christmas. I remember one time, like, coming home and she and she like led me to my bedroom and there were lights coming from my bedroom and I'm like, what's going on? There was a little Christmas tree in my bedroom. But then she married my stepdad, very nice Jewish man. And then

suddenly Christmas went away from me. So there was a period of time where I blamed my stepfather for taking Christmas away from me. Now, hopefully none of my family is listening to this because my recollection might not be entirely accurate. I mean, it does sound like it was his fault. That's not an unreasonable thing for you to have done. Him and I did not get along when we first met. I was like 10 at the time, and he told my mom, like, I'm really good with kids. And I was like a pretty sensitive child in all the wrong ways. And the first time he meets me, he picks me up and hangs me upside down holding me by my ankles and i was

like what the f**k go away like this is not amusing for me anyways do you want do you want me to censor that those swear words or want to leave this in christmas holiday special the holiday special probably censor it especially since i suppose there's now some probability that my family will be listening to this one. All right. Anyways, anyways. What's the question that you have for the Christmas people? Is Christmas actually fun? Because it seems like all of you just like spend two months being miserable and stressing out about getting everybody gifts and then

stressing out about holiday drama. And then I keep hearing these things about these crazy gift exchange things where everybody buys a gift, but then you get to swap with other people's gifts if you don't like your gift. And that just sounds like a really great way to start a family feud. It just seems like a whole bunch of drama. And I don't know, maybe it's just my family, but like the holidays are like not a, it's a very calm, chill time, except Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is like, you know, its own whole drama. And then we have this whole crazy Passover thing, but like, it just doesn't seem like Christmas is really that fun for anybody other than like kids. Like, it seems like it's fun if you're like a kid.

But then when you're an adult, it's just like, oh, my God, I got to go buy like gifts for like 40 family members. So I shall be the representative for all Christmas people across the globe. They voted and elected me their Christmas leader. You're not you're not wrong. I believe a Christmas leader is called a Santa Claus. Do I have that correctly? Sure. I'll be Santa.

Ho, ho, ho. This episode has very quickly gone off the rails. I was just thinking that. I was just thinking, we're two minutes in. How are we so far from where we should be what do you mean so this is we have our tradition which started last year so it's not really it's becoming your tradition this year seeing as we're repeating it it's the holiday special i i already told you i'm jewish it's not tradition unless my people have been doing it for 6,000 years. So in 6,000 years, it'll be tradition.

For ADSP, the podcast, it's our tradition. We're on tradition. You're not going to appreciate my fiddler solo? No, I will cut in a clip from Fiddler on the Roof. Perfect. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word. Tradition. Perfect! And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word.

Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition!

Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition!

Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! Tradition! So that you didn't think I got that reference, but I was raised by a mother who very much loved musicals. So I've seen all the musicals oh my god well you have to take your mother to new york and i guess you could probably come too but your mom and i need to go to some musicals together you can you can come too she's been um before and yeah she's seen some broadway and off-broadway stuff um but yes getting away let's answer the Christmas question. You're not wrong. So like several years ago now, I remember there being some family drama in just that like a lot of – so I have three sisters.

There's four kids in the family. And I think we were all working. And there was just like everyone's trying to buy gifts for parents plus three other people plus significant others, blah, blah, blah. And long story short, we came up with the rule that we just weren't going to do gifts anymore. If we were going to do gifts, it was going to be one of the things that you referred to as gift swapping. It's typically referred to as a white elephant gift exchange, which I will explain in a second. What do elephants have to do with this? I don't know the answer to that question.

I could look it up right now, but you know what? We will leave it to the listener. Never mind. Bryce is looking it up. Keep going. Keep going. And so, and yeah, I am very...

Why is there no etymology section on this Wikipediaikipedia page for white elephant gifts exchange yes um i'm sure there's a section but uh i'm working on it i'm working on it you keep going but yeah it's um i'm a very anti-consumerist anti-capitalist kind of person what you say as you sit here with your like high end microphone dressed in your fancy

like lululemon designer workout clothes first of all that is entirely false you capitalist scum we're going to get into this right now we're going off the rails we're get into this right now we're going off the rails we're already off the rails and we're gonna go off the rails even more first of all i'm wearing a free t-shirt that i got from running the 30k saratoga trail run

um when i was in silicon valley so this t-shirt was free it's not it's not some luxury lululemon i am wearing lululemon shorts uh but that's just because that's what that's what you got to do and yeah i have a lot of like tech stuff keyboards computer you realize that that for the price that you paid for those shorts you could feed like a small village that's i mean they are more expensive shorts but they also like i have probably i probably have like three or four of the abc sort of dress shorts from lululemon and they each last like four to five years so like they're really high quality clothes how are you going through them in four to five years it's like i'm making fun of connor for this but literally my entire wardrobe is from the little woman like all of the clothing that i buy with the exception of tech shirts

are from the little woman um but like how like they last like longer than four or five years for me i mean if you religiously only wear those you can burn through them like and that's the thing is i i do religiously only wear those. I just take better care of them than you. Now, when you wash them, do you wash them in a delicate load? No. There's the problem. There's the problem.

I wash them in a delicate load and then I air dry them. I do not put them in the dryer. I air dry them as well. But when it comes to washing, just there's no separate loads. Just everything goes in and we just put it on sport. You monster. You monster. What are you doing to your fancy microfiber whatever?

Anyways, anyways, the point is I live very minimalistically. If you've seen my plate, you've commented on how I have absolutely nothing on my walls. The only piece of furniture that I bought was my mattress. Everything else is like... His apartment looks like a place that you would get murdered. Yeah, it does a tiny bit. Whereas my apartment, my apartment is very, very swanky. Like, my taste in furniture... What is it?

You like mahogany? No, not walnut. is that the wood you like yes yes the point being Bryce furnishes his place with walnut furniture I furnish my place with stuff that I got for free from people that were leaving town and i am i'm not like a minimalist by name but i definitely i and that's the thing i don't count technology products like keyboards laptops hardware uh wireless headphones i don't i don't count that because like that's my that's my work that's like my life but like outside of that stuff there are like four things that i consider of like i own like i own a vitamix that's a key part of my life wait what a what a vitamix it's a what do you take a take a guess

what do you think that is i have no clue that's why i asked you it's A container for your vitamins? No. It is a blender with 2.2 horsepower. My blender is better. What brand is your blender? Blendtec? No. Is it? Yes, it is Blendtec.

I mean, arguably Vitamix is the gold standard. Connor, you will come over to my place someday. Bryce, I might cut this. Well, you know what? Screw it. I'll leave it in. Because this is going to go against me saying that I'm a minimalist and an anti-consumerist. I think mine could physically beat up yours. Figure out how much horsepower yours has. Mine's got 2.2 horsepower.

It's got more horsepowers. This holiday special is such a mess. I'm looking up my mom. Looking up things. While Bryce is looking up stuff, the point is I'm sort of against gifts for family. Christmas time for me is about just spending time with friends and family. And I think that is honestly the case for a lot of folks that celebrate Christmas. It does not list its horsepower. You know what?

Probably it's because it's ashamed of how little horsepower it has compared to Vitamix's. I think that is highly unlikely. I'll keep going. I'll keep going. You keep doing your thing. I'll stop. I'll stop. I'll stop.

It has a 1200 watt motor. Yeah. If you got to measure it in like watts, that sounds pretty disappointing. I think you are wrong. But all right. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on. Anyways. But, but. All right. All right. Let's move on. Let's move on.

Anyways. So, yeah, I think that there are buying gifts for a bunch of people can be stressful. And the solution is to figure out a way not to have to buy gifts. And to explain White Elephant. Oh, I did. I did find. I did find why it's called White Elephant. I do not know if this is accurate, but apparently the origin of the term stems back to the kingdom of Siam, modern-day Thailand, where the Siamese king, Siam, I don't know how to pronounce that, would gift an actual white elephant to those who displeased him.

Interesting. Okay. Good to know. The way it works is there's a different variance of the game. The one that typically my family does is you have whatever, 10 people, 10 gifts. They're all wrapped. The person goes first, picks a gift, opens it up. And then the second person has a choice.

They can either pick a wrapped gift or they can take a gift that someone's already opened up if they like it. So you're not typically getting... That is a recipe for hurt feelings. Yeah, I mean, it's supposed to be fun. And typically you're supposed to put a dollar limit. So like you'd put like a $20 limit. Have you done it and ever had it be fun and not have hurt feelings? Oh yeah. It's always fun. It's like silly gifts. Like it's $20.

No one's like it's $20. Like, um, we're not like it's, uh, I mean, typically my, I think the last time I did it, it was not last year cause last year I didn't go home for Christmas. Um, but two years ago I think I, um, it was, I had had a I think it was like aardvark hot sauce or like a hot sauce from that shows show hot hot ones on YouTube. And it's a very delicious hot sauce. And so I think my gift got stolen like, you know, two or three times. And so, you know, it's a little bit sad if your gift never gets stolen, because that means that like no one wanted your gift enough to want to steal it.

That being said, like I don't, you know, it's, if someone really, really wanted something and they're like, look like they're bummed at the end of it, I'm pretty sure they'll just,

whatever, swap it with whoever. And, and yeah, there's usually some rules like you, a gift can only been, can be stolen like a maximum number of times. Otherwise, you can end up with like an infinite cycle.

This is so complicated. It's not complicated. It's not. How is it complicated? Your big brain can't handle either steal gift or open. Jews, we don't do this. Jews, we don't do this. We find other ways to make life complicated.

This is not one of them. You find this. You literally work on one of the this you find this you literally work on one of the most complicated programming languages in the world which has like a 2000 plus page standard and you think that white elephant gift exchange is complicated um it one of these two things involves significantly more people and human interactions than the others. Although. I don't even actually know which one you're referring to.

I assume you mean the ISO standard, but like. No, I actually meant the other way around. But then I realized, oh, wait, no. Like, yeah, most of my job is to be like a software politician these days. Oh, boy. All right. Now that we've spent, what is that, like 30 minutes answering your Christmas question? I don't even want to look at how many minutes we spent, but it was about 20 minutes because I got on at 6.33.

We are going to share a window. So what did you get me for Christmas? I didn't get you. I did not get you anything. I got this cookie in the mail. It came in a box. I don't know who sent it to me. I did not send you a cookie, and I do not recommend eating the cookie of unknown origin.

It should be fine. It's called a Neuenenberg or Neuerberg gingerbread cookie. Did somebody really? Wait, Connor, seriously. You don't know who sent you that cookie and you're eating it? Well, we're going to have to record for another 30 minutes just, like, so that I can go to sleep and not, like, worry that, like, you were poisoned and died. Okay.

Yeah, I sucked my teeth into it, but uh bryce scared me so i didn't actually i didn't actually eat it back to um the next portion of this holiday special folks let's take a look at how we've been doing globally first of all all, we love you, Slovenia. But what happened? What happened, Slovenia? Oh, no. At one point, we, so, at one point, we got to eighth position

as the number eight technology podcast. Can we see that point on the graph? No, because it only shows you the last month unless if you pay

this program, this website money. Well, how much money do I have to pay this website? Let's check. Chartable overview. You'd think they'd have a faster button to... To take our money, right? Yeah.

So look, Connor and I know absolutely nothing about web design and UI design. Like literally absolutely nothing about web design and UI design. Like, literally absolutely nothing. But all of you UI and web designers out there, pro tip, always put the button that lets us pay you money. Make it real big. Put it on every page. It's got to be, like, one click. Like, this has taken long enough that my desire to give you money

has gone down chartable it's crazy actually this is actually very shocking we literally could not find a way to give this this platform our money. All right, we should move on. We should literally move on because we've spent too much time on this.

Charitable, we probably would have, you probably lost a customer today. You probably lost a customer. This is crazy. Yeah. It's, damn. But go back to the list. Go back to the list because I think I saw Kenya on there. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, it's Slovenia. We love you. At one point, we're contacted by some podcast stat thing. It actually wasn't Chartable. It was a different one, pod status or something. And they told us we were ranked 11th in Slovenia. At some point, that peaked to 8. Woo!

But we haven't hit number one. So, yeah, Slovenia, let us know what we can do. I'm going to get us T-shirts printed saying that ADSP is one of the top 10 tech podcasts in Slovenia. Yeah, well, I think we can get to number one, honestly. And so I've... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so there's a bunch of...

I sort of perused through a bunch of different countries, and we're going to let you know if your country loves us. So Romania, we've got a pretty good track record in Romania. At one point, we were ranked number six not bad not bad wow i think greece we did pretty good yeah we got to number seven greece what i'm talking about uh let's check out kenya number seven as well pretty awesome currently ranked 37th. It's pretty cyclical. So the way it works is like we drop an episode on Friday and then Saturday we'll jump up and then typically it'll die down.

Can you – and I think Ghana, we do really well in Ghana as well. Number four. I just had a really good chat dinner with this fellow that he's a tech recruiter, but he's worked in C++ for a long time, lives in New York. But he also, he lives in New York part-time, lives in Ghana part-time, and he's interested in creating a pipeline to get students from various African countries into tech internships. Yeah. And there's a lot of like there's a lot of unrealized potential for programmers in Africa. Yeah. Untapped talent. potential uh for for programmers in in africa yeah untapped talent yeah yeah like you like i don't i think like people don't like realize like how large some of these african countries are um like there's like 300 million people live in nigeria or something like that and it's it's becoming a big tech hub it's becoming a big tech hub i think uh i think i think africa is going to be the next what 300 million people live in nigeria yeah yeah i'm pretty sure that's right if not

wait uh let me don't tell me anything sorry i thought like 200 million 200 million sorry that's still that's still way up there a lot that's still that's got to be like what top 10 most populated countries because like u.s breaks the top five, I think, at 330 or whatever they're at right now. Nigeria ranks number seven in the list of countries by population. Yeah, that's crazy. I had no idea. Yeah. Let me think. I think like every tech company needs to have like a hiring operation and a,

and a pipeline with colleges in, in Africa. Yeah, that's a, I had no idea. I can probably rattle off the top five populous countries, but if you ask me to do six to 10, I wouldn't suggest Nigeria.

All right, go. I got it right here. Go. Am I going to get this right in order? So I know China and India are one and two, I think, in that order. China, India are one and two, correct? Oh, here we go um is indonesia number three indonesia is in the top five but it's not number four it is number four who's number three uh then i'm gonna go with the u.s that is correct the u.s number three who is number five number five i will edit out this silence while i while i try and think

mexico no mexico's number 10 you're you're off by 100 million well let's see if I can keep going and see if I can get five, six, eight, and nine. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Nigeria is seven. Yeah. Australia? What? Are you kidding?

That was not my guess. Australia is 55. There are like 25 million people in Australia. Brazil? Yeah. But like, why did you say Australia? Can we go back to that? Yeah, Brazil's number six.

Should I cut out me guessing Australia? No, you are not allowed to cut out you guessing Australia. Oh, no, you're definitely not allowed to cut that out. And did you, you said Russia, I think? I did not. Russia? Yeah, yeah. I thought you said Russia, but yeah, you said Russia, I think? I did not. Russia? Yeah. Yeah.

I thought you said Russia, but yeah, you get Russia. Mexico was 10. You're missing five is Pakistan and six is Bangladesh. But here's another interesting thing. Out of those top 10, guess which one is the fastest growing? Nigeria? Correct. And Ethiopia is 12 at 114 million and also is growing pretty fast.

All right. So, yeah. All right. What other countries do people listen to us in? I think all of the sort of countries near like czech czechia you're gonna you're gonna have to edit that out because i'm not sure in what way you are being politically offensive um well well you you could have you could have said i think you can say the balkans yeah i think balkans is fine You could have said the Balkans.

But now you're talking about the Baltics, which is the Latvia, Estonia. So how are we doing in Latvia? Wow, we were number three in Latvia. Estonia, number seven. Number seven. Not feeling the love as much as Latvia. Mongolia. Mongolia.

Actually, I didn't know what have we armenia i'd love to be uh number 14 at one point in armenia so i haven't clicked on the country that we at least as far as i can tell peaked the highest at so we got to number two in a country can you guess that country um here let's open i'll open the google maps no i don't need a google map i don't need a google map poland did me opening up the google map and then poland being no no that that's it that's it that's it nothing i was just thinking where are where do i know that there are good like c++ programmers and i know that that in particular there are there's a lot of good c++ programmers come out of poland there's a lot of good universities there that teach systems programming and so i thought

perhaps we'd have a particular audience there and it's a country with a larger population no i was wrong all right fine i can be wrong what what which country which country then well here so i'll i'll i'll rotate and i'll zoom in and so we're looking at basically europe portugal and spain are in the bottom left ukraine and belarus are in the top right country it's on this map. It's on this map. And every guess, I'll zoom in a couple clicks. It's the game we'll play here. And listener, root for yourself because your country could get called. Hungary? It is not Hungary.

I will zoom in. It's somewhere in the Balkans. I know it's somewhere in the Balkans. I know it's somewhere in the Balkans. Four. I guess I got to go with Serbia. It is not Serbia, but I will zoom in. One, two. That's as far as I'll go.

So Bryce is very close, because there's only how many countries we've got? Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia. I'm sorry, but I got to rule Italy out. I know it's one of these, you know, it's not Italy. I'm almost certain it's not Italy. Or Bulgaria. And Romania is on the screen.

But so we know, we've seen Slovenia, we've seen Romania, and Bryce's guessed Hungary and Serbia. I don't think it could be Kosovo or Montenegro. So I guess I'm going to have to go with Croatia. It is Croatia. Let's take a look at Croatia. Oh, that's so exciting. I mean, I think it's safe to say that if we are ever the number one technology podcast in your country, we will come to your country and, like, give some tech talks and record an episode there.

I thought I actually had that idea. Hang on, hang on, hang on. This offer does not apply to like North Korea or any other countries that I legally cannot go to. I was thinking that, I mean, I really would love to be number one in Slovenia because, you know, they're a part of our podcast lore now too. And how funny would it be for you and i if like in the future there was an iso c++ meeting like in that neck of the woods uh that we just hopped over to slovenia and recorded like a a vlog of you and me yeah yeah i mean i hear it's a lovely country yeah i mean the capital do you want to take a stab at pronouncing that? Oh, no. No, I very much do not want to take a stab at pronouncing that.

I would like you to take a stab at pronouncing that. I'm going to guess that the L's are silent, and it's just Jubjana. But there's an L before each of the J's. It's L-J-U-B, L-J-A-N-A. What we can do is open up a, how'd you say, how to pronounce? Wow. It was Ljubljana. Okay. Not Jjabjana. So you you were you were quite wrong i was it was quite quite wrong yeah well if like if there was like a committee meeting in italy then we could just pop on over to slovenia we could probably we could pop on over to slovenia and then stop in croatia on our way yeah we should do what so what is is the oh my god we should do we should do what? So what is, is the, oh my God, we should do, we should do an ADSP Balkans road trip.

That is clearly what we have to do. Yep. Is, uh, is it politically correct? So like, I guess we got to keep all this in now. The Balkans. I'm pretty sure that there's like the term Balkanizedized that's not a good like don't use that anymore and that has negative connotations i know that that's on our list of terms with negative connotations and uh for for insights but the balkans is just the name of the region and i

i do not think that it is a politically loaded term for the name of the region. I think, yeah, I think it's totally fine. Google seems to be saying that that is correct. Yeah. If it's not, if you are from one of these Balkan countries and this is offensive, please let us know ASAP. Yeah. I would have to say for Americans and Canadians, my guess would be that the part of European geography that we know the least about is the Balkan Peninsula. If you sat down your average American in front of a map, they'd probably do a better job at guessing where

France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia are than any of the, and like, like where Italy is than any of the countries in, uh, in the Balkan peninsula. That'd be my guess. Oh, so Slovakia doesn't make the cut for the Balkans. But I like it. The Balkan ADSP tour 2022, 2023? Obviously, if we're going to do an ADSP Balkans road trip, we will have to go up to Bruno and visit Hana on our way out of Europe. So we will have to, you know, we could like drive down the coast and then like go up through, I don't know.

Oh, yeah, it's just a hop and a skip away. I mean, like, look, Europe's not that large. Like this is a big, Modulo, like any border issues that I don't know about, like this is a pretty viable road trip. You know what would be cool, Connor? It would be cool to see on a map the distribution of where people listen to the podcast. Do we have anything like that?

Yeah, I can take you to – actually, actually i don't know let's go to stats i don't think it shows us that it shows us our most listened to episodes popular apps but it doesn't say geography on buzzsprout which is our hoster hosting platform i guess it's good that i know that in case you get hit by a bus. I do have some bad news listeners, which is Connor does all the editing for this. I'm just the executive producer. I don't actually know how any of this works. And what that means is that if Connor got hit by a bus, this would be over. I would not even be able to upload the episode telling you that Connor was hit by the bus. Yeah, maybe I should. should i mean that's a little i don't want yeah

i was gonna say i could i could upload you an episode like while i'd still be alive being like the podcast is over because i died uh you all you would have to do is i could i could give you you know i'd write down on some you know piece of paper or whatever email and that you could log in and just hit the publish button. This is episode, you know, X, Y, Z. Unfortunately, I did get hit by a bus. I mean, I think we should do it. I think we should do it. I feel like that's the I don't know.

It's not like superstition or karma or whatever, but like, I feel like that's like you're setting yourself to get hit by a bus. So speaking of superstition, my, as I've mentioned a few times in this episode, my family is Jewish. My mother's side are all Russian Jews. And I can't tell if it's my family in particular or just the culture in general, but my people are pretty superstitious. My great-great-grandmother, whose name was Sora, refused to teach my great-grandmother how to cook or bake. The reason for this was that if she taught my great-grandmother to do these things, that she would then become redundant, and that would be like, you know, would bring about her doom. It wasn't that like she was like afraid that like somebody was going to kill her.

Like, you know, if she, it's just like, she thought it was like, you know, it was bad luck to pass down these skills. And so when I heard this, I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. Like you're supposed to pass, there's supposed to be a transfer of knowledge from parent to child but uh apparently there are some things there are some things that we're supposed to take to the grave just uh you don't want to you don't want to invoke any bad luck that's a pretty crazy story yeah there's no superstition in my family at least i don't think uh all right well we got we've got 14 minutes left on this holiday special that was basically the only thing i had prepared was to tell slovenia that we love them and uh let us

know what we need to do to get to number one and i guess are we doing this balkan tour 2022 2023 2023 i will be in italy september 2023. Why do you know that? You got a wedding? No, it's my stepdad's 70th birthday. And so he wants to take us all to like a villa in Italy. So I just got to save the date today. And I was like, I better put that on my calendar. Because my calendar does tend to get filled up with things.

So if you are if you are organizing a c++ conference or event and you would like me there please do not plan it uh for september 2nd to september 9th 2023 unless it is an event that is like right before or right after and happens to be in italy in which case I'll definitely show up. Oh, that would be so awesome on our Balkan tour. It would be so awesome if C++ conferences were scheduled around my family holidays. Yes, I agree. I agree, especially if your conference will pay for my plane ticket. No, my brain went five steps you said wedding no conferences unless

before after then i started thinking about conferences slash meetups and then i went to thinking like oh wouldn't it be awesome if we if we act well i don't know how long is our balkan tour because hypothetically if we could go for like a month and record a live episode like in every major city that we went to although what are the odds like you know how many people do you think are actually is it like you know like 10 people 50 people 100 people in each like capital of these countries or is it just we're getting lucky in this algorithm who knows who knows but i will i will say this i will say this i do think there is an interesting thing that that we could potentially do if we do ever go on some inventory of europe which is i would like to hear sort of

accounts from from from people in europe about who are C++ programmers. Why was this just specific to C++? Because this is what I'm interested in. I'd like to hear from C++ programmers in various parts of Europe how they became C++ programmers. Because we've talked a bit on this podcast about you and I's experience with the educational systems in, you know, America and Canada.

But, you know, I'd sort of be interested in hearing what it's like in other parts of the world and hearing how people came to become programmers in other parts of the world especially because i there is this phenomenon um uh where there's a lot of c++ programmers from uh uh eastern and central europe and i'd like to i'd like to learn more about you know how that happens like why are why are you all programming in C++? Is it just a different structure in the university system? Which is what my guess is, that you're taught different courses. There's just a different set of things that are prioritized in school. And that's what leads to the predominance of C++ in these countries. Let me ask you this.

Were you at all surprised to hear that most of our viewership in Europe is in Central and Eastern Europe? I was not surprised by any locations really except for maybe some of the african countries now that's yeah that's i could see i could i could see how you'd be surprised with that because you have not like i just like have happened to have like had the same aha moment like one or two years ago where like I learned like, oh, hey, there's like a lot of there's a lot of young programmers in Africa right now. And in a few years, like that's going to be a big thing.

Yeah, I guess like Ghana. I mean, if you had asked me to like, oh, where do you think you're most popular? There's no way I would have guessed Ghana. Um, only because like that, that's a country that's like peripherally on my radar, mostly because of like the world cup. Like if you asked me to like list some facts about Ghana, I wouldn't be able to say much. Um,

the thing that I was most surprised about is that in several countries, like we had broken into the top 10, however they measure that, like, is it accurate? Is it not accurate um but uh yeah i do know that there is you know in in europe in certain countries there does seem to be uh higher than above an above average percentage of c++ developers when you compare it to you know other countries that we're more familiar with now all right my guess would be that that it's probably a difference in like the math education at um like younger years in education in education like like the middle school high school level i don't know whether middle school and high school or a thing in countries that aren't the u.s but that's my best guess yeah

it'd be interesting to know we will make it a point of whenever the balkan 2023 or 2022 we don't know yet um tour takes place we will we will definitely we'll have to figure out some kind of like mic situation where we can just bop around and we can go into interviewer mode regardless of whether it's a C++ or anything. We'll just be walking down the street and if someone says something to us, we'll whip out the mic and be like, we're here live with ADSP on the road, Balkan 2023. So I'm pretty sure there's this whole industry called podcasting that's figured out, you know, how to record people when you're running about. Like there are these people who are like podcasters, like do this like full time. Like I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that's the solve problem. Pretty sure that's the solve problem. Yeah. We just get a mic, get a mic.

That's all you need. All right. How do we want, how do we want to wrap up this holiday special so happy holidays i feel like last year last year's holiday special was way better um we mostly talked about globally where people were listening we got into an argument about blenders. We talked about whether Christmas is fun. The highlight was probably me pronouncing Ljubljana as Jubjana. There is

some chance that we offended a large chunk of Europe. No, we love you, Europe. Most of you. We do love you, Europe. Do we love all of Europe? Of course we love all of Europe.

What part of Europe would we not love? Of course we love all of Europe. I don't know. I can't think of all the countries off the top of my head, but there's got to be a few. All right. Now I want you to name the parts of Europe that you do not love. I'm just saying i just don't want to say we love all of europe and find out that there's some country that's committing like you know war crimes or something and oh they said they love this and wow we got to backtrack three episodes later because we're getting canceled um well just

because you say you love a country doesn't mean that you current that you love the country's government right like that's a big difference. All right. Yeah, we love you, all of Europe and all of Africa. Yeah. Let's see. Do we become number one first in Ghana or Kenya? Or is it going to be, oh, yeah, we could go to Kenya too. I would really love to see a C++ conference in Africa.

Or let me put it this way. I'd really love to see a tech conference anywhere in Africa where I could go and talk about C++. Yeah. Yeah, and I would love to go to Kenya as well because I could basically train there at altitude for a week or however long I was there, come back, run some like half marathon or marathon, and I would clearly set a personal best because... My first choice would probably be Nigeria, and that's just because I know the largest number

of C++ people in Nigeria. But I'll take anything. Anywhere is good for me. All right, the call. We've set up a lot of stuff for the future. We've got the Balkans. I guess we have to do like an Africa tour too. Yeah.

Although I feel like we've got to wait until we've got a couple more countries where we break into the top 10. And Kenya and Nigeria are on opposite sides of the continent um yeah and i'm not so sure that i'm not so sure that the road trip works in uh in africa i do not i do not yeah there are some countries between kenya and nigeria that i do not think two white guys can do. Bryce, Bryce, we've already offended enough of the Balkan countries. Let's quit while we're behind.

I actually think it's more likely that we'd offend, that we'd cause offense to folks in the European countries than to folks in Africa., than to folks in, uh, in Africa. All right. Well, there you have it. We're doing, uh, so much trouble for this episode,

Africa, 2024. Yes. Balkans, 2023, maybe 2022. If, uh,

you know, Omicron and I, I, I have a feeling that, that are like three week road trip through the balkans is going to take a little bit more planning than than than that but we can do it maybe yeah all right with that we'll say happy holidays if you celebrate christmas merry christmas happy holidays even if you don't celebrate christmas yeah have have hopefully you're taking some time off,

spending time with friends and family and stay safe. Stay safe. Canada's going back, or at least Toronto's going back into lockdown. Will Connor get to go to the Nutcracker ballet? My tickets might get canceled. Stay tuned. Pretty sure.

After the knee ballet. I'm pretty hopeful. I'd really like to see the Bears on rollerblades. All right. With that, I'm going to stop recording. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed and have a great day.