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npm Worms & RubyGems Coups: Trust Issues in Open Source

Whiskey Web and Whatnot: Web Development Neat October 16, 2025

This week, Robbie, Chuck, and Adam talk about the worst whiskey they’ve tasted, Tailwind as a “state management library,” and recent security scares in open source. Also — dependency hygiene, developer visa drama, and whether inflated tech salaries are finally being reckoned with.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro
(02:14) - Whiskey rating & review: Evan Williams Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
(13:00) - What's with all the recent web dev security issues?
(28:39) - Is Tailwind secretly the worst state management library?
(32:45) - Visa chaos: H-1Bs, gold cards, and reverse immigration
(40:51) - Are tech salaries being intentionally driven down?
(49:45) - Adam’s AI experiment with Claude + Parallelize
(54:09) - Why AI should specialize (and stop trying to do everything)
(54:44) - Best AI tools right now
(01:01:16) - Chuck’s VPN chaos + funny wifi names
(01:04:04) - Plugs

Links

GoDaddy: https://www.godaddy.com/ [https://www.godaddy.com/]
Bob Parsons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons]
Intuit: https://www.intuit.com/ [https://www.intuit.com/]
Evan Williams Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey: http://evanwilliams.com/straight-bourbon [http://evanwilliams.com/straight-bourbon]
Wrigley Chew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Company [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Company]
Bazooka: https://www.bazookajoe.com/ [https://www.bazookajoe.com/]
Juicy Fruit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicy_Fruit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juicy_Fruit]
Cinnamon Toast Crunch: https://www.cinnamontoastcrunch.com/ [https://www.cinnamontoastcrunch.com/]
Jack Daniel's: https://www.jackdaniels.com/ [https://www.jackdaniels.com/]
Crown Royal Black: https://www.crownroyal.com/canadian-whisky/crown-royal-black [https://www.crownroyal.com/canadian-whisky/crown-royal-black]
Suntory World Whiskey Ao: https://house.suntory.com/ao-whisky [https://house.suntory.com/ao-whisky]
Fresca Mixed: https://www.frescamixed.com/ [https://www.frescamixed.com/]
All Things Open: https://allthingsopen.org/ [https://allthingsopen.org/]
Ken Wheeler: https://x.com/ken_wheeler/ [https://x.com/ken_wheeler/]
JavaScript: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript]
Ruby: https://www.ruby-lang.org/ [https://www.ruby-lang.org/]
NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/ [https://www.npmjs.com/]
GitHub: https://github.com/ [https://github.com/]
Blockchain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain]
pNPM: https://pnpm.io/ [https://pnpm.io/]
Ransom: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117438/ [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117438/]
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/ [https://www.reddit.com/]
WordPress: https://wordpress.org [https://wordpress.org/]
David Cramer: https://x.com/zeeg [https://x.com/zeeg]
Django: https://www.djangoproject.com/ [https://www.djangoproject.com/]
Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/ [https://www.netflix.com/]
SemVer: https://semver.org/ [https://semver.org/]
Google: https://www.google.com/ [https://www.google.com/]
Snowpack: https://www.snowpack.dev/ [https://www.snowpack.dev/]
Socket.io: https://socket.io/ [https://socket.io/]
Guillermo Rauch: https://x.com/rauchg [https://x.com/rauchg]
Socket.dev: https://socket.dev/ [https://socket.dev/]
Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/ [https://tailwindcss.com/]
David K Piano: https://x.com/DavidKPiano [https://x.com/DavidKPiano]
Tesla: https://www.tesla.com/ [https://www.tesla.com/]
Next.js: https://nextjs.org/ [https://nextjs.org/]
OpenAI: https://openai.com [https://openai.com/]
Amazon: https://amazon.com [https://amazon.com/]
Jason Lengstorf: https://x.com/jlengstorf [https://x.com/jlengstorf]
Perl: https://www.perl.org/ [https://www.perl.org/]
Rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/ [https://www.rust-lang.org/]
Cobol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL]
Jarred Sumner: https://x.com/jarredsumner [https://x.com/jarredsumner]
Bun: https://bun.com/ [https://bun.com/]
Zig: https://ziglang.org/ [https://ziglang.org/]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ [https://www.facebook.com/]
Claude: https://claude.ai/ [https://claude.ai/]
Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ [https://openai.com/codex/]
Opencode: https://opencode.ai/ [https://opencode.ai/]
Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ [https://gemini.google.com/]
Ep 92: Hot Takes, Bun, and Zig with Jarred Sumner: https://whiskey.fm/hot-takes-bun-and-zig-with-jarred-sumner [https://whiskey.fm/hot-takes-bun-and-zig-with-jarred-sumner]
Neovim: https://neovim.io/ [https://neovim.io/]
Bolt: https://bolt.new/ [https://bolt.new/]
Lovable: https://lovable.dev/ [https://lovable.dev/]
Spec Kit: https://github.com/github/spec-kit [https://github.com/github/spec-kit]
South Park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park]
Proton VPN: https://protonvpn.com/ [https://protonvpn.com/]
HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/ [https://www.hbomax.com/]
Raspberry Pi: https://www.raspberrypi.com [https://www.raspberrypi.com/]
Stephen King: https://stephenking.com/ [https://stephenking.com/]
Cujo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cujo]
Nerdy.dev: https://nerdy.dev/ [https://nerdy.dev/]
Starpod.dev: https://starpod.dev/ [https://starpod.dev/]
Como FC: https://comofootball.com/ [https://comofootball.com/]

Connect with the hosts

Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner [https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner]
Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd [https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd]
Adam Argyle: https://x.com/argyleink [https://x.com/argyleink]

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