Network engineers do not need to become full-time coders to succeed–but some coding skills are really useful. In this episode of the Hedge, David Barrosso (you can find David’s github repositories here), Phill Simonds, and Russ White discuss which programming skills are useful for network engineers.

download

Just about everyone is watching the financial markets, either wondering how much better they can get, or when the AI financing bubble is going to crash. Dough Dawson, from POTs and PANs, joins Tom and Russ to talk about the logic of a coming crash, and consider where engineers should be looking for potential future career fields to weather the storm.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-322.mp3
 
download

There are many “unsung technologies” in the Internet. While we often think of TCP/IP, various models, Ethernet, and DNS, we don’t often think about the lowly socket interface. What is the history of the socket, and why is it important in the world of the Internet? George Michaelson joins Colin Doyle and Russ White to discuss the history and importance of sockets.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-321.mp3
 

Over time, services like DNS and email have been centralized, leaving the Internet itself much more centralized. In this episode of the Hedge, Doug Jacobson joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss centralization and service consolidation.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-320.mp3
 
download

AI is everywhere. While there are many questions about whether AI is a bubble, the ethics of AI, and the cultural impact of AI, in this episode of the Hedge Mike Bushong joins Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ to talk about how network engineers can use AI. Are some use cases better than others? Are there pitfalls network engineers should avoid? Listen in and find out.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-319.mp3
 
download

It’s time for Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ to gather round the hedge and talk about various items of interest. In this roundtable, we consider what we can learn about product development from Bastiat, and the various ins and outs of Parkinson’s Law.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-318.mp3
 
download

 
How effective are AI tools–even agentic AI tools placed into a system–at building and testing software? Derick Winkworth and Donald Sharp Join Russ to discuss various projects they’ve worked on using AI tools, lessons they’ve learned, and how developers can make effective use of AI.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-317.mp3
 
download

Deploying AI for AI Ops, or even just for general use in your network, is very simple–but we often forget that these kinds of new technologies need to be governed. From privacy through cost, operators need to decide how to govern their AI deployments to control costs, ensure accuracy, measure productivity, and make certain these systems are being used effectively. Colin Cosgrove joins Russ and Tom to look at AI governance.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-316.mp3
 
download

This episode was published with a link to the wrong audio file. I’ve updated it to the corrected filed.

Strong opinions loosely held? This is probably not as good of an idea as it seems. Instead of producing confidence, it might produce overconfidence. Michael Natkin joins Tom and Russ to discuss the problems with this mantra.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-017.mp3
 
download

We often talk about “human infrastructure” in network engineering–but what does this mean, and how do we help engineers “produce” while helping them to flourish as individuals? Catherine Hicks joins Tom and Russ to discuss the psychology of software engineering, and how the lessons learned apply to network engineering.

download

You can find Catherine’s new book on the psychology of software engineering here.
If you would like to follow Catherine’s writing in this area, including the impact of AI on work, you can find her blog here.
You can connect with Catherine on LinkedIn.

Sometimes we can be so focused on the problems in front of us that we forget the people who are following in our footsteps. Michael McCollum, a new network engineer, joins Tom and Russ to ask questions about life as a network engineer.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-314.mp3
 
download