The second episode of the Floating Point is no sophomore slump. Alan Vezina (@fancysandwiches) and Kody Kochaver (#NotOnTwitter) join host Hope Roth (@beerandpie) to talk glue-ware, defensive programming, and how you might turn your family pet into a touch panel. We kept producer Corey Moss (@cbmoss) on mute for a record-breaking 2nd straight episode.

First, we empathize (or is it point and laugh?) at the poor programmers who had to write the glue-ware to pull together several software systems for NASA. What does mission control software have to do with corporate boardrooms? Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you should throw the old code out and start over. The guys from Jydo tell us why they have upgrades on literal lock-down.

Alan very kindly segued us into our second topic (we think he wrote a Python script to automate segues). Terrible programming from some iOs developers recently broke web browsing for iPhone users who had these apps installed. Alan and Hope talk about why you shouldn’t hard code thousands of URLs and how you can defensively program to protect yourself from other programmers who might be inclined to hard code thousands of URLs. 

No user questions this month. If you have a question for us, please leave a comment or tweet at us (@thefloatingp). 

Finally, we finish by talking about the wackiest things we’ve ever automated. It involves a clever animatronic lion, a sad lighthouse, and a husky who likes to run away. 

Discussion links:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/nasas-glue-ware-for-computer-launch-systems-over-budget-behind-schedule/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/03/poorly-behaved-app-causing-crashes-and-link-problems-for-some-ios-9-x-users/

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