Episode notes
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel, Danny Thompson, and Adam Rackis sit down with Ahmad Awais, CEO and founder of LangBase, to talk about agents, context, and the future of AI-assisted software development. Ahmad shares the origin story of Chai.new, an agent that builds agents, and why he believes context, not code, is the true value layer in the AI era. The group unpacks how "vibe coding" is reshaping who can build software, why Chai isn’t just another AI assistant, and how agents might evolve into personalized, production-grade tools for everyone, technical or not. Plus:…
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Modern Web
Modern Web · Tech & Science · English
The modern web is changing fast. Front-end frameworks evolve quickly, standards are emerging and old ones are fading out of favor. There are a lot of things to learn, but knowing the right thing is more critical than learning them all. Modern Web Podcast is an interview-style show where we learn…
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6 Aug 2025 · 48 min
What is AI Agentic Experience and Why Provide a Great AX for Users?
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Sean Roberts, Head of AX Architecture and Distinguished Engineer at Netlify, about the emerging discipline of Agentic Experience (AX). They explore how AX is reshaping how we design services for AI agents, what makes an agent experience successful, and why traditional user flows often break down in agent-driven systems. Sean discusses the role of MCPs, the challenges of discoverability, and the future of content delivery in an agent-first web. They also dig into real-world examples, like how an agent…
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3 Jul 2025 · 36 min
Why Prompt Engineering Skills Matter More than Your AI Model with Melkey Dev
In this episode of Modern Web, Danny Thompson chats with MelkeyDev, a Machine Learning Infrastructure Engineer at Twitch, about AI’s real-world applications, developer productivity, and the future of careers in Go. They cover everything from the rise of tiny AI-driven teams competing with large enterprises to how system prompts may matter more than model choice. Melkey shares his thoughts on cost-effective LLMs, production pitfalls, and the cognitive downsides of over-relying on AI. The conversation also explores backend development with Go, what makes it great for fast-moving teams, and how…
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1 Jul 2025 · 39 min
What is Agent Experience (AX)? + Scalable AI Agent Orchestration
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson sit down with Andre Landgraf, Senior Developer Advocate at Neon (now part of Databricks), to explore the evolving role of AI agents in developer workflows. They discuss how more Neon databases are being spun up by agents than humans, what that means for developer and agent experience (DX vs AX), and how tools like MCP and step functions are enabling scalable agent orchestration. The conversation also touches on agent security concerns, real-time vs. async UX, and how developers can build resilient, human-in-the-loop…
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23 Jun 2025 · 40 min
The State of Authentication: The Future is BUNDLED!
On this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Brian Morrison, Senior Developer Educator at Clerk. They cover the state of authentication today, what makes Clerk stand out for small teams and indie builders, and how thoughtful developer experience design can make or break adoption.Brian shares why bundling tools like auth, billing, and user management is becoming more common, how Clerk handles real-world concerns like bot protection and social login, and why starting with a great developer experience matters more than ever.The conversation also explores the…
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12 Jun 2025 · 50 min
How MCP is Changing AI App Building
On this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel, Danny Thompson, and Adam Rackis are joined by Tejas Kumar, host of The Contagious Code podcast, author of Fluent React , and Developer Relations Engineer for Generative AI at DataStax. They unpack the current wave of AI announcements from Google I/O and Microsoft Build, and zoom in on the significance of MCP (Model Context Protocol) as a foundational shift in how AI-powered apps will be built and used. Tejas breaks down what MCP is, why it's catching on across the industry, and how it could become the HTTP of AI apps. The group…
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28 May 2025 · 35 min
Building a TikTok-Style App with React Native & Expo: Interview w Skylight Social CTO, Reed Harmeyer
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Danny Thompson sits down with Reed Harmeyer, CTO of Skylight Social, and Brandon Mathis, React Native engineer at This Dot Labs. They unpack the technical and strategic decisions behind Skylight’s meteoric growth: why they built on the AT Protocol, how they tackled video discovery and scaling challenges, and how a fast-tracked in-app video editor gave them an edge. Keypoints from this episode: Skylight Social was built on the AT Protocol, allowing users to retain followers across platforms like Blue Sky and enabling creators to publish interoperable…
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21 May 2025 · 39 min
What’s New About Heroku in 2025? AI Platform as a Service + What are MCPs?
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson sit down with Julián Duque, Principal Developer Advocate at Heroku, to talk about Heroku’s evolution into an AI Platform-as-a-Service. Julián breaks down Heroku’s new Managed Inference and Agents (MIA) platform, how they’re supporting Claude, Cohere, and Stable Diffusion, and what makes their developer experience stand out. They also get into Model Context Protocols (MCPs)—what they are, why they matter, and how they’re quickly becoming the USB-C for AI. From internal tooling to agentic infrastructure and secure AI…
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14 May 2025 · 44 min
Building Roo Code: Agentic Coding, Boomerang Tasks, and Community
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Hannes Rudolph, Community Manager at RooCode, to explore how this fast-moving, community-driven code editor is rethinking what AI-assisted development looks like. Hannes breaks down Roo’s agentic coding model, explains how their “boomerang tasks” tackle LLM context limits, and shares lessons from working with contributors across experience levels. Keypoints from this episode: - RooCode's "boomerang" architecture breaks complex coding tasks into structured, recursive subtasks, helping AI agents stay focused while…
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30 Apr 2025 · 38 min
Battle of The AI Agents: RooCode, Claude, & Cursor
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, Rob Ocel is joined by Danny Thompson, Adam Rackis, and special guest Coston Perkins for a lively discussion on the evolving role of AI in software development. The group swaps thoughts on everything from the rise of AI agents like RooCode and Claude, to what makes tools like Vercel’s v0 surprisingly powerful for frontend work. They debate Tailwind’s dominance as the styling output of choice for AI tools, unpack the implications of Shopify’s AI-mandate memo, and tackle the big question: will AI reshape team structures or just amplify developer…
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24 Apr 2025 · 37 min
Why Unkey Ditched TypeScript and Serverless for GO!
In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, host Danny Thompson and co-host Adam Rackis chat with James Perkins, CEO of Unkey, an open-source API management platform built for scale, security, and developer simplicity. James shares the challenges of building globally distributed infrastructure, and why his team ditched serverless and TypeScript in favor of Go and servers. They talk candidly about the realities of API management at scale, how Unkey balances open source transparency with enterprise-grade performance, and what it takes to build developer trust—both as a brand and as a product.…
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