No Fluff Just Stuff: Recent Episodes
No Fluff Just Stuff
The No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) Software Symposium Tour has delivered over 400 events with over 65,000 attendees. NFJS speakers are well-known developers, authors, and project leaders from the software development community. Join us for news and discussion around software development. Current topics include: Java, JavaScript, Scala, Groovy, Clojure, Cloud, Docker, Software Architecture, HTML 5, CSS, NoSQL, Spring, and other development technologies.
Seriously Good Software
Marco Faella & Michael Carducci
This week we're joined by Macro Faella - Computer Science professor at the University of Naples in Italy and Author of Seriously Good Software.
If you want to get a copy for yourself, use promo code podnfjs19 and save 40% (this works for all products on Manning's site)
Likewise, if you want a more live, interactive learning experience, check out two big happenings:
First, the No Fluff Just Stuff virtual workshop series. A great way to augment your learning in an interactive, hands-on, instructor led environment.
Watch the video
The Second is the announcement of UberConf-V, a virtual version of our flagship event. The offer is off the chart good, check it out!
Watch the video
This week we're joined by Java Champion and JetBrains Developer Advocate Trisha Gee. Trisha helps us sort through the noise and confusion around some changes we've all seen in the Java ecosystem, she highlights some exciting development on the horizon, and shares insights from her decades of experience as a hands-on Java practitioner. Don't miss this great interview!
Trisha on Twitter
Java annotated monthly newsletter
This week we're joined by Paul Wilhelm Software Development Manager at MasterControl. We discuss leadership in Tech and how to develop an "outward mindset."
This is Water
The power of vulnerability
The Arbinger Institute
This week is a double-header. We're joined by Benjamin Muschko and Joshua Van Allen. We get both a front-end and back-end perspective of Bazel.
Ben's Report on Bazel
Getting Started with Bazel (requires safari subscription)
Alex Eagle @ NGConf on Bazel opt-in
Dr Heinz Kabutz is gifting a course to NFJS podcast listeners. Redeem this course here.
This week I'm joined by Dr. Heinz Kabutz. Heinz is the author of The Java Specialists’ Newsletter, a publication enjoyed by tens of thousands of Java experts in over 145 countries.
We discuss the best strategies to grow your skillset, learn and take advantage of all learning mediums available to us.
Linked Resources:
Data Structures Course (Redeem before Valentines Day 2020)
Mob Programming Guidebook
Mob Programming Podcast Ep
The Pomodoro Technique
Scott Adams - How to fail at everything and still come out ahead
Venkat - Lifelong Learning Podcast Ep.
Welcome to the 2020 season of the NFJS podcast! New episodes every other Wednesday!
This week we're joined with Hans Docter discussing developer productivity.
Hans Dockter is the founder and project lead of the Gradle build system and the CEO of Gradle Inc., a company with the mission to transform how software is built and shipped. Hans is a thought leader in the field of project automation and has successfully been in charge of numerous large-scale enterprise builds. He is also an advocate of Domain Driven Design, having taught classes and delivered presentations on this topic together with Eric Evans. In the earlier days, Hans was also a committer for the JBoss project and founded the JBoss-IDE.
WebAssembly is live, it's in your browser, and it's poised to completely transform how we build, run, and think about software. The promise of "write-once-deploy-anywhere" isn't now, but this fresh take comes with 20+ years of experience and boasts capabilities unimaginable just a few years ago.
Brian Sletten gives us the lowdown of what webassembly is, why it's important, as well a just a glimpse of how it's about to change everything.
To quote Brian: "Pay attention, Everything is changing!"
Webassembly Shell example (https://webassembly.sh)
The Progressive Web Experience (https://progressivewebexperience.io)
Brian's WASM training in February (https://nofluffjuststuff.com/n/training/2020/02/03/rust_webassembly)
This week we're joined by Kate Wardin, founder of Developer First Leadership (https://www.developer-first.com/). She shares some insights on how to empower technical leaders and teams. Whatever your job title, don't miss this one!
This week we benefit from hard-won wisdom coming from decades of experience as a software architect.
In this episode, Ken shares the vast skillset and the diverse roles that a successful software architect most possess.
If you'd like to dive deep into all of these areas, network with experienced software architects, and invest in your knowledge portfolio, join us at ArchConf 2019, December 9-12 in Clearwater Florida. Register today at https://archconf.com/
Recorded LIVE at UberConfX. This week we're joined by Craig Walls, Spring expert extraordinaire but we'll be discussing one of his other passions - smart home skills and conversational UI. Don't miss his insights and register for the Progressive Web Experience 2019 and join Craig for a full-day, hands-on workshop building talking applications with Alexa and Google. Also check out Craig's newsletter!
This week we catch up with Chris Judd (@javajudd) to get his analysis of the state of Java in 2019 - the new release cadence, the new licensing model, and what to expect in the future.
Recorded live @ UberConfX this week Nate Schutta shares his wisdom on the skills necessary to be a truly great software architect.
More insights and wisdom from Johanna Rothman. Don't miss this week's episode!
https://leanpub.com/u/johannarothman
This week I'm joined by Mike Hartington to talk about some of the new developments from the Ionic community. Ionic support for Vue and React, Stenciljs, Capacitor as well as his thoughts on PWAs and Webassembly.
This week we're joined by Chris Hansen where he shares the what/why/how of OKRs (Objective/Key Result) as well as pitfalls to avoid from hard experience. OKRs are the goal setting framework popularized by google.
Read more here: https://www.okrs.com/getting-started/
Recorded LIVE from UberConfX, This week I sit with Eric Wendelin and talk about how the team at Gradle is creating a better build process--even if you're not using Gradle for your builds. If you're at UberConfX this week, drop by and say hello to the folks from Gradle who are working hard to improve developer productivity!
This week we are joined once again by Llewellyn Falco (@LlewellynFalco) to discuss lessons he's learned an epiphany he recently had around documentation.
This week we are joined by Chris Maki to learn about his journey from monolith to 20,000 microservices deployment in a single year.
Chris is the founder and Chief Architect of Rip City Software, a company dedicated to Java Microservices and building systems in AWS. He has more than 20 years of experience creating web scale enterprise systems. Throughout his career, Chris has been a user group leader, speaker, and author. He's passionate about inclusive leadership, empowering teams, focusing on differentiated work and streamlining the development, testing and deployment process.
It's not too late to catch Chris and dozens of other great speakers at UberConf 2019. I hope to see you there!
Sam Newman twitter thread
This week I caught up with Søren Glasius at Gr8Conf in Denmark to get an update on what's going on in the world of groovy/grails.
Grails 4 RC2 details
This week I'm joined by Matt Raible and we discuss identity, security, and some best practices all developers should know.
Lyndsey Padget is a NoFluff speaker, Git Consultant and all-around Bad-ass. This week she joins us to share her expertise and journey with Git.
If you're like me, git is a tool we use but don't always understand. Lyndsey shines a light into the dark places, solves a few mysteries and shares some tips and tricks to grow our skillset.
Also mentioned - OhShitGit.com xkcd.com/1597
If you want to dive deeper into Git, don't miss Lyndsey's full-day, hands-on workshop "Master Git in a Day" an UberConfX
After a single interaction with VR, Eldon Alameda immediately recognized that this technology would be a seismic shift in our industry. He dove in head first and has been hands-on with the latest AR and VR technologies ever since.
In this interview Eldon shares some exciting developments in this space and looks forward to the future and how human-computer interaction will evolve.
It seems like every time we solve one problem, it opens the door to a more complex problem. Tools like docker and Kubernetes have solved many problems, but at the cost of increased complexity and increased developer stress. To quote Mark Richards: "It used to take me four months to build, not it just takes four months to configure."
Tour regular Jon Johnson weighs in about these problems, what's new in the community, and how open source tools are addressing that complexity, increasing developer productivity and decreasing developer stress.
This week we're joined by Sean Hunter, author of Aurelia in Action. He gives us the history as well as the current state of the Aurelia framework.
Aurelia is a JavaScript client framework for web, mobile and desktop that leverages simple conventions to empower your creativity. It is simple, lightweight, yet powerful.
Follow Sean on Twitter
Kotlin is an exciting new language for the JVM from the folks at Jetbrains. Kotlin has been making waves for a couple years now in the Android space but, as a general purpose language, it is finding it's way into many projects and developers seem to love it!
For those of us who haven't been hands-on yet, Ken gives us an overview of the language, it's features, and why it's worth getting excited about!
Follow Ken on Twitter
Check out Ken's other publications
Sign up for his newsletter
And, of course, here is the "Party Keynote" from KotlinConf 2017.
For better or worse, the industry has coalesced around the big three frameworks: Angular, React and Vue. Each framework has it's own strengths and weaknesses, and Vue has positioned itself nicely as a balance between the ultra-opinionated Angular and the laissez-faire React.
In this episode we discuss all three, why we're excited about Vue and why it won't replace Angular or React. More importantly, we discuss best practices, and how to evaluate and select the framework that's right for you. There's so much wisdom in this episode. If you're a web developer, don't miss this one!
This week I'm joined by Esther Derby and we discuss how tech teams get so toxic and dysfunctional and what we can do about it. Esther will be speaking at a few shows this year including the Northern Virginia Software Symposium and our flagship event, Uberconf.
Esther is the co-author of Behind Closed Doors - Secrets of great management along with Johanna Rothman, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, and she is the author of 7 Rules for Positive Change
This week I sit with Ben Hall and Jon Johnson to discuss an incredible tool for software engineers to learn, teach, and polish their craft - Katacoda. It is interactive, hands-on learning at it's finest with zero friction. Jon has been increasingly using Katacoda to share knowledge at work, as part of his talks, and to pick up new skills in his career as a software architect.
Ben Hall is the creator and gives us insight on the history, the applications, and the future of this tool. Don't miss this week's episode!
This week developer, architect, and open source contributor David Sietz and I sit and discuss how enterprises can adopt the open source model, the challenges, the benefits, and some of the culture changes necessary.
This week I'm joined by Rod Cope of Rogue Wave Software. The topic is multi-grain services. How to evaluate the tradeoffs and to chose the architecture that's best for you, your team, and the business goals.
This week we look at the big shift happening in Big Data as it moves to the cloud. Dave Hendrickson shares his experience at Thomson Reuters moving to the cloud, how to evaluate cloud vendors, and what to watch out for. Don't miss this week's episode.
Check out Dave's books on skills for architects here and catch all the great content for 2019 on the No Fluff Just Stuff Tour.
This week I'm joined by Alexander Von Zietzewitz from Hello2Morrow whose stated mission is to empower software craftsmanship. We talk about how to measure code quality, and more importantly, how SonarGraph can quantify code maintainability.
Alexander brings decades of experience and wisdom and his insights can benefit any software engineer focused on building better software.
The way we write software, our tools, and technologies have remained largely unchanged. This Week Tudor Girba demonstrates an entirely new set of tools that, in my opinion, will fundimentially change the way we read, write, and document our code. Don't miss this one!
This week I'm joined once again by Steve Pousty (@theSteve0) and we're talking about the convergence of Big Data and Web architecture, how we're entering the golden age of distributed computing and why everyone should learn a little bit about data and analytics.
This week we celebrate the holidays and roll into 2019 with the legendary Venkat Subramanium (@Venkat_S). In this episode Venkat shares his philosophy towards work and his approach to lifelong learning. There is no more inspiring way to ring in the new year than to spend 30 minutes with Venkat absorbing a few pearls of wisdom. Enjoy!
Special thanks to hooksounds.com and Rodrigo Vicente for the special holiday music!
With the conclusion of ArchConf 2018 we've wrapped the 2018 tour. This week I sit with Neal Ford of ThoughtWorks. We talk about the trade-offs of software architecture, how to identify those, and the 19th edition of the ThoughtWorks Tech Radar. Neal co-authored "Building Evolutionary Architectures" along with Rebecca Parsons and Patrick Kua. You can learn more about some of the ideas in the book at evolutionaryarchitecture.com.
"Software Architecture is the stuff you can't google." There's no one answer.
In this episode, I interview hands-on architect, speaker and trainer, Mark Richards. He shares some perspective on analyzing software architectures, and what it takes to continuously review and iterate on existing architectures.
With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching in the United States, we've decided to change gears on the NFJS podcast, pulling back the curtain on what it's like to be a traveling speaker. In this episode, I sit with Steve Pousty, who shares his experience as a Developer Advocate. This episode is packed with advice for anyone who has ever considered speaking. Listen to the end for a special giveaway and, of course, reach out if you're interested in taking the next step and giving some tech talks yourself!
Enjoy and happy holidays!
This week I get to sit with Jessica Kerr (aka jessitron) to discuss a topic developers love to hate – yak shaving. Jessica takes a different approach to Yak Shaving and sees it not as an inconvenience, but as an opportunity. Listen to learn more!
This week I'm joined by Steve Pousty, author of Getting Started in OpenShift. In this episode he gives me some insight into what kubernetes is, why everyone is talking about it, and why we should give it a look even if we're outside of the traditional devops space.
This week on the NFJS podcast I'm joined again by LLewellyn Falco where we discuss Mob Programming.
Mob programming is a software development approach where the whole team works on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, and at the same computer. This is similar to pair programming where two people sit at the same computer and collaborate on the same code at the same time. With Mob Programming the collaboration is extended to everyone on the team, while still using a single computer for writing the code and inputting it into the code base.
What are the strategies that make this more or less successful? How can we experiment with this in our team, Llewellyn gives us insights on this and more.
This week our host is joined in the studio with Rod Cope, speaker at the upcoming Tech Leader Summit, and we Discuss the future of software development. With supercomputers in our pockets, self-driving vehicles, and software recognizing images better than humans, what we recently thought of as the future is already here, so how do we define the next future? In this interview we discuss how different aspects of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, high-performance computing, digital platforms, massive bandwidth, and an obsessive focus on user experience will be the fundamental drivers to future application success as we build upon lower barriers to entry and shift from improving technology to improving life.
We all have to deal with legacy code. As frustrating as legacy code can be, legacy code is important. Legacy code has users. Legacy code is in the wild delivering value making people's life's better. It must evolve, it must be maintained so how do we manage best this? How do we improve this codebase consistently, reliably, and safely?
This week I'm joined by LLewellyn Falco, Agile Coach, Creator of ApprovalTests, Co-Founder of TeachingKids Programming, and Legacy Code Expert.
This week I get to sit down with Jeff Brown of Object Computing and we talking about Micronaut, the latest framework designed for creating fast, lightweight microservices. Listen in and learn why this new framework is worth a look!
New software technology appears every year. Like clockwork, another language, library, pattern, or approach will arrive on the scene with plenty of hype and developer enthusiasm. As someone whose job requires making architectural decisions, you need to evaluate these new technologies with an eye toward the inevitable tradeoffs before deciding if a new framework or language is right for your project.
This week I sit with Nate Schutta and talk about how to approach software architecture and mastery of the craft of software development. Check out Nate’s latest publication.
In this episode I'm joined by Tim Burglund who heads up developer relations at confluent. Tim brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in distributed systems, stream/realtime processing, and all things kafka.
He gives us an insiders tour of the past, present and future of this exciting technology.
The NFJS podcast is back after the summer break. This week Michael Carducci is joined by Johanna Rothman talking about agile. How to do it right; especially when teams are distributed.
This week I gather around the microphone with Ken Kousen where he reflects on a life and career focused on the JVM.
This week I sit with Jonathan Johnson and talk all things containers. What are the current trends, what are currently recommended tools and best practices. We also get a steak peek at Jon's full-day workshop he's hosting at UberConf this year (https://uberconf.com)
Recorded Live in Reston, VA
At ArchConf 2017, leading engineers and software architects converged to teach, learn and discuss all the skills and elements necessary to be a great software architect in 2018. In addition to the in-depth content in the sessions, ThoughtWorks set up an informal "Tech Radar" both to poll attendees at the event on where various technologies are in their lifecycle, but also to teach the Tech Radar technique as a tool for evaluating technologies in your organization and industry.
I was able to sit down with a few ThoughtWorkers and dive a little deeper into the tool, it's uses, and learn more about the company as a whole. Listen to learn more about how to build your own technology radar.
ArchConf 2017 Tech Radar
This week we dive into evolutionary architecture.
The software development ecosystem is constantly changing, with a constant stream of innovation in tools, frameworks and techniques.
Over the past few years, incremental developments in core engineering practices for software development have paved the way to rethink how architecture might change over time, as well as how important architectural characteristics can be protected as it evolves. Learn more here.
GDPR is a regulation that requires businesses to protect the personal data and privacy of EU citizens for transactions that occur within EU member states. And non-compliance could cost companies dearly. This week on the NFJS podcast, I sit with Jeremy Deane to discuss the architecture challenges of GDPR in 2018.
Tudor Girba gives us an update on how he and his team are changing the way we interact with code.
In this episode, we dive deep into the emerging trends with Brian Sletten, a forward-thinking software Engineer. Recording live in Chicago, IL.
This week on NoFluffJustStuff Live we dive deep into containers with the freshest face on the NFJS tour, Jonathan Johnson.
From an unchecked rm -rf to almost starting World War III, we've experienced them. To celebrate the holiday Michael Carducci and NFJS attendees share their experiences.
In episode one of NoFluffJustStuff Live, we dive into where we need to shift our mindset as developers around security, best practices and resources worthy of review.
In this episode, I explore a number of topics with Daniel Hinojosa. We talk about skills that should spread beyond developers, look back on our careers and talk about our techniques for making important information stick as we're learning and teaching.
Enjoy!
Many of the NFJS speakers are independent and frequently work remotely. This is a trend we're seeing more and more in our industry. Michael Carducci interviews speaker and independent consultant Daniel Hinojsoa on his thoughts on remote work and the conversation turns to our thoughts and experiences on air travel.
This week I have the opportunity to sit down with Nate Schutta. We had a fascinating conversation about the history and current state of Javascript along with it's evolution. We also dive into the evolution necessary to grow as a software engineer.
This week I sit with Rohit and we continue our discussion of his 10 step process for Microservice API design.
The NFJS podcast is back for the 2017 Season! This week I sit with Rohit and discuss his 10 step process for Microservice API design.
At the 2016 ArchConf in Clearwater, FL, I sat down with Tudor Girba to discuss his ideas around Software Environmentalism.
The NFJS tour series has supported Nuru International for many years. This week I sit down with founder Jake Harriman and talk about his journey to start Nuru, what they're doing and discuss leadership lessons that can be learned.
This week we discuss Venkat's philosophy on learning and work. Don't miss this insightful episode!
This week I sit with Mark Richards, author of several popular books and Software Architecture as well as hit O'Reilly video series and we discuss the challenges facing our industry and how to be better.
This week I sit down with Ken Kousen (Kousen IT, Groovy Podcast) and Jeff Brown (OCI) and we talk about what's new in the world of Groovy, Grails as well as their plans for the upcoming (G3 Summit).
QA is a difficult area to integrate into an agile process. This week we discuss common pitfalls and their solutions.
This week I sit with John Borys and we talk all things agile. We spend a great deal of time reflecting on where most teams and organizations go wrong in their implementations and how we can get better.
At AngularSummit West, I sat down with Daniel Zen of Zen Digital and talked about all things Angular2. Specifially what are some of the considerations for making the switch or beginning a new project using Angular2, some of the best resources to learn (it's not too late to register for AngularSummit East) as well as talking about some of the challenges unique to Angular2.
Reflecting on UberConf 2016, we dive deep into technology thinking critically about all the implications-both good and bad-of our ever evolving world. A great (and somewhat longer) philosophical discussion with NFJS speaker Brian Sletten.
We sat down with Jay Zimmerman, creator of NoFluffJustStuff to talk about the philosophy behind the tour and what to expect this year.
We're joined this week by Venkat Subramaniam digging into functional programming, why it's exciting and how you can begin to see the benefits.
At the tail end of the Rich Web Experience, I had a chance to sit down with Doug Hawkins and talk about his work optimizing the JVM in performance critical environments with Azul Systems. We discuss garbage collection, speculative optimization and some of the tools you can use to get better insight into the performance of your application.
If you're interested in learning more about optimizing the JVM, check out ArchConf West where Doug is one of our Featured Speakers. He's also going to be giving some great talks at our flagship event, UberConf. He is also an NFJS Tour regular.
Tudor Girba joins us at ArchConf 2015 where he discusses the work he's doing to change the way we deal with code and why fundamentally, code is not text but data and can be queried as such.
We're joined by Peter Pavlovich to discuss Aurelia, why Rob Eisenburg left Google to work on it and why it's definitely worth checking out!
Daniel Hinojosa talks Scala, the importance of being multi-lingual, and in the end shares his secret for learning new languages fast!
Today we're joined by Mike Hartington, Ionic Developer advocate. We're discussing what's new in Ionic 2, Angular 2.0 along. Also, how to build you apps to ensure a smooth upgrade and even whether or not you should wait for the 2.0 release for your next web app.
Full transcript
We're joined with Ken Kousen to discuss the current state of Groovy, Grails3 and why those technologies are well worth exploring.
The time for Groovy is now. It makes your life easier and quicker. Anything you do in Java you can simplify by a good factor of five-maybe 10-and still have code that's easy to write, easy to follow and easy to maintain.
Full Transcript
Is REST really dead? What are the alternatives and how could they be so superior?
We're joined this week by Peter Pavlovich, Principal Architect at Emerging Technologies & Innovations where we discuss the future of the reactive data.
Full transcript