My Ruby Story: Recent Episodes
Devchat.tv
My Ruby Story this week welcomes Elia Schito, a senior developer for Nebulab. Elia has been working with Ruby for the past 12 years. Charles starts off by asking how Elia became a developer.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined By Special Guest: Elia Schito
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * CacheFly
______________________________________
"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!
______________________________________ Links * RR 430: Opal with Elia Schito * Elia's LinkedIn * Elia's Twitter
Picks Charles Max Wood:
- Devchat.tv Supporters
Elia Schito:
- Devchat.tv
- Henry V
- Orthodoxy by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
- https://opalrb.com/
"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is available on Amazon. Get your copy here today only for $2.99!
My Ruby Story this week welcomes Taylor Jones, Support Engineer at Heroku. Charles asks Taylor how he ended up at Heroku. Taylor shares his journey after majoring in Computer Science at Auburn University.
Taylor had a lot of downtime in his first job so he started learning Rails online. Then after he graduated he was able to get more chances working full time with Ruby. He then started speaking at conferences such as RailsConf.
Charles and Taylor talk about how working at a place you really want to is not a pie in the sky but actually is doable if you position yourself correctly. For example Taylor really wanted to work at Heroku and was friends with the people at Heroku. When there was an opening his friends contacted him and Taylor was able to find a job at Heroku.
Charles wonders what drew Taylor to programming and Taylor talks about how he was introduced to developing through video games. Taylor also talks about the concept " if you start out with Ruby you stick with Ruby" and how this was true for him.
Finally Charles wants to know what Taylor's life is like outside of work. Taylor talks about what he does is in his free time which is playing guitars and hanging out with his family and his toddler.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined By Special Guest: Taylor Jones
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * Adventures in DevOps * CacheFly
Links * RR 425: Rails + Webpacker with Taylor Jones * https://www.heroku.com * https://twitter.com/hiimtaylorjones * www.hiimtaylorjones.com
Picks Charles Max Wood:
- https://jamstackconf.com/sf/
- Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu - Podcast
Taylor Jones:
- Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Book by Mike Isaac
- https://www.youneedabudget.com/podcasts/
My Ruby Story celebrates its 100th episode. To commemorate the 100th episode host Charles Max Wood talks about how My Ruby Story podcast started and how it progressed.
My Ruby Story started off as a spin-off of Ruby Rogues. Acting upon advice from a business coach he was working with at the time, Charles misunderstood her suggestion to double on Ruby Rogues and instead proceeded to create a podcast similar to Ruby Rogues. Over the years, the show proceeded to inspire many developers who are just starting out and the show developed a fan base of its own.
Over the years, My Ruby Story has helped people get better jobs, shaped their careers. For those who have been positively affected, Charles requests them to send him an email sharing how My Ruby Story or any other Devchat.tv podcast. If you have any questions or are struggling with how to get a better job, how to talk to your boss, or what steps to take to better your developer career, Charles schedule a call at Schedule a 15 Minute Call with Charles Max Wood.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * My Angular Story * CacheFly
Links * MaxCoders * Schedule a 15 Minute Call with Charles Max Wood
Picks Charles Max Wood
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink (Author, Narrator), Leif Babin (Author, Narrator)
- The 360-Degree Leade by John C. Maxwell, Wayne Shepherd
Joe Leo joins Charles Max Wood on this week's My Ruby Story. Joe is the Founder and CEO of the agile software consultancy, Def Method. He shares his journey as a developer. Joe was tutored by his uncle and learned how to code in Basic on a command line. He wanted to be in the music industry and liked math.
Joe is currently working on holistic product development and is delving into areas such as what makes a good product manager and what makes a good product design. Charles and Joe talk about difficulties in quantifying good product management skills or writing tests and other non-coding aspects that surround making a product.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Joe Leo
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * My Angular Story * CacheFly
Links * RR 423: The Well-Grounded Rubyist with David A. Black & Joseph Leo III * The Well-Grounded Rubyist: Covers Ruby 1.9.1 by David A. Black and by III Joseph Leo (Author) * Joe's LinkedIn * Def Method * https://devchat.tv/blog/what-really-makes-a-10x-engineer/
Picks Joe Leo
- https://www.kobee.io/
- ACR 2019 Ruby·Rails·React Conference
Charles Max Wood
- Sign Up on Devchat.tv for our weekly episode round-up
- How to Stay Current in Technology Effectively in 2019
- All In by by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
- For Men Only by Shaunti Feldhahn, Jeff Feldhahn
David A. Black, Software Engineer IV at 2U, joins Charles Max Wood on this week's My Ruby Story. David A. Black has been a Ruby user for 19 years and has been writing books about Ruby for the last 14 years as well as organizing conferences.
David has been coding since he was 13 years old. He was introduced to Ruby in November 2000 when he was looking at the computer section at the old bookstore Borders and picked up the book Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt. Five years later, David, who has a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University, resigned from a tenured professorship in the communication field to become a full-time programmer, trainer, and author. His book The Well-Grounded Rubyist is now in its third edition.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: David A. Black
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * My Angular Story * CacheFly
Links * RR 423: The Well-Grounded Rubyist with David A. Black & Joseph Leo III * David's Twitter * David's LinkedIn * 2U * The Well-Grounded Rubyist: Covers Ruby 1.9.1 by David A. Black * David A. Black Books * https://www.davidablack.net/
Picks Charles Max Wood
- Nikon D5600 Digital SLR Camera
- RØDE Microphones
Saverio Miroddi joins Charles Max Wood on this week's My Ruby Story. Saverio is a systems engineer and a backend programmer at Ticketsolve. He is originally from Italy and currently lives in Germany. Saverio shares his journey as a Ruby developer and also his passions outside of work such as bouldering.
Saverio fell in love with programming when he was 7 years old with COmmodere 64. He didn't follow up on it however until later when he was working as a consultant working as a System Administrator where he taught himself JavaScript. Later he taught himself Ruby on the job when he was working in London.
Saverio has written several articles such as Saverio Miroddi’s article, “An overview of Desktop Ruby GUI Development in 2018” and Debugging a live/stuck Ruby process.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Saverio Miroddi
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * My Angular Story * CacheFly
Links * RR 381: “Ruby GUI Development” with Saverio Miroddi * saveriomiroddi (Saverio Miroddi) · GitHub * https://saveriomiroddi.github.io * Saverio's Twitter * Savario's Blog * Ticketsolve * Saverio Miroddi’s article, “An overview of Desktop Ruby GUI Development in 2018”
Picks Saverio Miroddi
- Terraform Providers - GitHub
- saveriomiroddi (Saverio Miroddi) · GitHub
- goby-lang/goby
Charles Max Wood
- Superfans by Pat Flynn
- Reach out to Charles Max Wood at https://meetings.hubspot.com/chuck27/15-minute-listener-call
- RR 428: Arming the Rebels with Rails 6 Featuring David Heinemeier Hansson
- Running with the right running gear
Episode Summary This week's My Ruby Story welcomes Daniel Pritchett, an infrastructure engineer at Gremlin. Daniel talks about his programming journey and his life in Florida where he moved to recently.
Daniel has degrees in Management Information Systems and Computer Science from the University of Alabama. He talks about the fact that even though he learned about programming in theory at school, he didn't feel confident a a programmer until he was introduced to Ruby.
Daniel then talks about why he likes being an infrastructure engineer and the projects he has been working on.
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Daniel Pritchett
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * React Native Radio * My Angular Story * CacheFly
Links * RR 422: Build Chatbot Interactions in Ruby with Daniel Pritchett * Daniel's LinkedIn * Daniel's Twitter * Build Chatbot Interactions: Responsive, Intuitive Interfaces with Ruby * Daniel Pritchett
Picks Daniel Pritchett:
- Lucidchart.com
Charles Max Wood:
- https://villacappelli.com/
- The Olive Oil
- https://www.dropanfbomb.com/collections/nut-butters/products/macadamia-nut-butters
Episode Summary This episode of My Ruby Story is coming to you live from OSCON. Joining Charles Max Wood is Daniel Gruesso from GitLab to talk about developing in the Open Source and the Developer Report.
GitLab works with an open core model, Daniel talks about the trade - offs of having code open to public, the first of which is having everything up-to-date so any contributions made will work with the latest version. Daniel calls this the "bus-factor" where if one of the team members gets hit by a bus, the rest of the team will have everything to work with.
They then talk about the GitLab 2019 Global Developer Report results. One of the most interesting results of this survey with over 4,000 respondents, was that remote teams outperformed on site teams. This ties into the current Twitter discussion about "10x Performing Engineers". Remote teams are able to work on their own most productive hours and are not disturbed by their teammates when they are doing dedicated work on a deadline. Also remote teams by nature have to be more conscious of security.
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * Adventures in DevOps * Adventures in Blockchain * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Daniel Gruesso
Links * Daniel's LinkedIn * GitLab * Open Source & Software Development| O'Reilly OSCON * GitLab 2019 Global Developer Report | GitLab * 10x Engineer Twitter
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * Ruby Rogues * React Native Radio * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Rachel Roumeliotis and Roger Magoulas
Episode Summary Rachel Roumeliotis and Roger Magoulas from O'Reilly Media join Charles Max Wood at OSCON to talk about the process of content development for OSCON. Rachel is the Vice President of Content Strategy at O'Reilly and Roger is Vice President of Radar at O'Reilly.
Rachel and Roger talk about the history of OSCON Conference as well as the key technologies they wanted to cover this year such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Cloud-Native applications.
They then talk about the future of OSCON and the highlights they wat to cover next year such as security.
Links * Rachel's LinkedIn * Roger's LinkedIn * Open Source & Software Development| O'Reilly OSCON
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * Ruby Rogues * React Native Radio * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined by Special Guest: Thomas Grassl
Episode Summary Thomas Grassl from SAP joins Charles Max Wood at OSCON to talk about what SAP is doing in the Open Source world. Thomas talks about SAP's recently released a UI5 Web Components.
Charles wonders how the components will work with different frameworks and Thomas explains UI5 Web Components are HTML components and they should be used how regular HTML components are used. UI5 Web Components is Open Source so Thomas expects contributions from the Open Source community.
Thomas then talks about UI5 Web Components' enterprise-ready functionality and scalability features as well as the security and accessibility aspects.
They then talk about Thomas' position as Developer Relations in SAP and what it entails. Thomas then talks about the career opportunities that comes with customization on the enterprise scale.
Finally Charles and Thomas talk about how SAP approaches developer relations and what developers should do if they would like to contribute to SAP Open Source project.
Links * UI5 Web Components- SAP * Thomas' LinkedIn * Thomas' Twitter * Open Source & Software Development| O'Reilly OSCON * SAP Open Source | Developer
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined By Special Guest: Leonardo Tegon
Episode Summary Leonardo Tegon is a software developer at Plataformatec, the company that created the Elixir Language. Leonardo talks about how he ended up at Plataformatec.
Links * Ruby Rogues 416: The Difference between Devise and Warden with Leonardo Tegon * Leonardo's Twitter * Leonardo's GitHub * Leonardo's LinkedIn * Plataformatec * Devise * EverywhereRB Ruby and Rails Community
Picks Leonardo Tegon:
- Legion
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Charles Max Wood:
- New podcasts are being added on Devchat.tv - Sustain Our Software
- Ladders with feet on them so they don't slide off - Charles had an accident while working on the roof of his father-in -law.
- Check out the new Devchat.tv site!
- If you want to be on the Devchat.tv mailing list, sign up here.
- Cibola Burn (The Expanse) by James S. A. Corey
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Joined By Special Guest: Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene
Episode Summary Links * RR 410: Kubernetes with Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene * Kurtis' Twitter * Kurtis' GitHub * Kurtis' LinkedIn * EverywhereRB Ruby and Rails Community * Devchat.tv on Facebook * Devchat.tv
Picks Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene:
- Foundation | A New Era of Organic City-Building
Charles Max Wood:
- The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
- https://www.notion.so/
- Podwrench.com - if you are thinking of starting a podcast, reach out to Charles Max Wood
- Many more exciting new podcasts are starting on Devchat.tv be sure to check it out:
- Adventures in Blockchain
- Adventures in Devops
- Adventures in .NET
- Data Therapy
- Sustain Our Software
- If you are interested in becoming a host on one of these shows reach out to Charles Max Wood
- Other exciting topics Devchat.tv is looking to host podcasts on are:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality
- Python
- We have just launched the new Devchat.tv! - make sure to check it out and give feedback to Charles Max Wood
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Episode Summary Charles talks about his journey as a podcaster and his mission with Devchat.tv. Devchat.tv is designed to home podcasts that speak to all developer communities. Charles also plans Devchat.tv to host shows for technologies that are on the verge of a breakthrough and will be a lot more widely available in the near future such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). There are new shows being added continuously to reach out to new communities, some examples of which are: a Data Science show, a DevOps show and an Open Source show.
As a kid, Charles would record his own shows on a tape recorder. He was always interested in technology. While studying Computer Engineering at Brigham Young University, he worked in the University's Operations Center. Upon graduation, he started working for Mozy where he was introduced to podcasts. Listen to the show to find out the rest of Charles' story, some of the lessons and tips he learned throughout his journey and the evolution of the shows on Devchat.tv.
If there isn't a show for your community and you would like there one to be, reach out to Charles. Also if there was a podcast about a programming related subject that ended abruptly and you would like it to continue, reach out to Charles. Devchat.tv would like to host these podcasts.
Links * Charles' Twitter * EverywhereJS JavaScript Community * EverywhereRB Ruby and Rails Community * Find Your Dream Job As A Developer * Devchat.tv on Facebook * Devchat.tv
Picks * EverywhereJS JavaScript Community * EverywhereRB Ruby and Rails Community * Netlify * Eleventy * https://github.com/cmaxw/devchat-eleventy
Sponsors * Sentry– use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood Guest: Maciej Mensfeld Summary Maciej Mensfeld, a polish developer, shares his story with Charles Max Wood. Maciej starts with how he got into computers through gaming and explains how his interest depends later in school. Maciej discusses learning programming in high school and the influence of one teacher especially. Charles and Maciej share experiences working with PHP. Maciej shares his experiences in different jobs and projects, finding rails and ruby. Maciej discusses his current job, the European ruby community he is involved with and what his everyday life looks like. He loves to hike and shares some of his favorite hikes with Charles.
Links * https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/rr-402ruby-2-6-0-bugs-kafka-and-karafka-with-maciej-mensfeld/ * https://castle.io/ * https://allegro.pl/ * https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trzy_Korony_(szczyt) * https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolina_Pi%C4%99ciu_Staw%C3%B3w_Polskich * https://krk-rb.pl/ * https://github.com/mensfeld * https://mensfeld.pl/
Picks Charles Max Wood:
- Everywhere-rb forum
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood Guest: Igor Morozov Summary Igor Morozov shares what the ruby community looks like in Moscow, Russia and what Russian developers are doing. He talks about deciding to be a developer to make video games at 8 years old. He shares how scripting Grand Theft Auto really got him into developing. Igor and Charles Max Wood discuss university and learning through doing projects versus learning by reading books. Igor shares how he got into Ruby and what about Ruby made him stay a Ruby developer. The episode ends with Igor sharing what he is currently working on and what his everyday life looks like.
Links * RR 407: Functional Programming in Ruby using Dry Gems with Igor Morozov * www.morozov.is
Picks Igor Morozov:
- Triarius military trousers by SRVV
- https://dry-rb.org/
- https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/
- https://github.com/ruby/ruby/commit/9738f96fcfe50b2a605e350bdd40bd7a85665f54
Charles Max Wood:
- https://www.harborfreight.com/
- https://dragonruby.itch.io/dragonruby-gtk
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Lori Olson
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Lori Olson, Chief Instructor at WNDX School where she teaches software developers of all kinds to become published App authors, using RubyMotion. Lori invites all to come to her “six steps from idea to app store” webinar.
Listen to Lori on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Lori took her high school counselor’s advice and majored in Computer Science. She then went onto establishing The WNDX Group , a software development & training consultancy.
Lori describes the current projects she is working on, how her love of fantasy books started and what a day in her life looks like both in and out of coding.
Links * Ruby Rogues 405: Rubymotion with Lori Olson * Six Vital Steps from Idea to App Store | WNDX School * DragonRuby Game Toolkit Tutorial | WNDX School * The WNDX Group * Lori’s Twitter * Lori’s LinkedIN * Lori’s GitHub * https://rubymotionweekly.com/ * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Lori Olson:
- ipad Mini
Charles Max Wood:
- Looking for beta testers for Podwrench
- If you were listening to a programming related podcast that ended abruptly within the last 6 months and would like it continued please contact me. We would like to host these shows on Devchat.tv.
- Finding Slack channels for topics you are interested in
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Tung Nguyen
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Tung Nguyen, President and Founder of BoltOps AWS Cloud Infrastructure Consultancy, a Bay Area based DevOps infrastructure consultancy. Tung is also the creator of Ruby on Jets.
Listen to Tung on the podcast Ruby Rogues here.
Tung majored in Electrical Engineering in college but didn’t really enjoy working as an electrical engineer so decided to teach himself programming. He started with Perl language and eventually switched to Ruby.
Currently Tung is working full time for BoltOps consultancy and develops and maintains Ruby on Jets along with other open source projects. When he is not working, Tung takes care of his 3 children. Listen to the show to find out more about Tung’s journey as a developer and what he thinks the pros and cons of working from home are.
Links * How to Pronounce Nguyen - YouTube * Ruby Rogues 399: Jets Ruby Serverless Framework with Tung Nguyen * Tung's LinkedIn * Tung's GitHub * Tung's Twitter * Tung's YouTube Channel * BoltOps * BoltOps Nuts and Bolts Blog * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Tung Nguyen:
- The Children Learning Reading
- Opal: Ruby to JavaScript Compiler
Charles Max Wood:
- Podwrench – Podcast Management System
- Podcast Booth
-
Looking for hosts for podcasts on topics below
-
- Open Source Sustainability and Maintainability
- AI & Machine Learning
- Data Science
- Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality & Mixed Reality
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Python
- .Net
-
Buzzsprout.com
Sponsors * Sentryuse the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRSand use the coupon code “TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Pedro Cavalheiro
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Pedro Cavalheiro a software engineer at Xing from Brazil, currently residing in Hamburg, Germany. He has been working with Ruby and PHP languages, and since 2015 has been working full-time with Ruby on Rails.
Listen to Pedro on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Pedro has been interested in computers and video games since he was a child. Upon advice from his friend he attended a computer programming class. He got his first job programming in PHP language a couple of weeks after completing the course. After working for several startups in Brazil, he wanted to move to Germany where his ancestors are from and got a job at Xing in Hamburg. Currently Pedro is settling into his new position at the company and he is studying German. In the future when he has a bit more time, he wants to to learn Elixir and get back to teaching.
Links * Ruby Rogues: Creating a Heroku-Like Deployment Solution with Docker with Pedro Cavalheiro * Pedro’s Website * Pedro’s Twitter * Pedro’s LinkedIN * Pedro’s GitHub * Elixir mix * Ruby Rogues: Elixir with José Valim * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Pedro Cavalheiro:
- Lingoda
Charles Max Wood:
- Rome Italy Temple
- LDS Media Library
- Podcast Booth
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Justin Searls
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double, a software agency which helps developers improve their quality of the software.
Listen to Justin on the podcast JavaScript Jabber on this episode and this episode.
Justin got into programming playing with his Casio Calculator when he was 10 years old. He came up with little games such as guessing the number. Later on, he added features and soon created an ephemeral checkers game. He had no knowledge about the basics of programming and everything was self-directive.
Justin majored in Computer Science in college.However, he soon learned that Computer Science does not equal Application Development. The things taught to him by his professors were not very practical for building applications.
He had his first hands-on experience in programming when he worked at the campus library. He was asked to work on their flash base citation generator which was meant to help those who were doing research for their bibliography. Millions of people used it and its feedback led him to build web applications that could provide a free useful service to other people.
Over time, he found out that JavaScript was a good way to solve problems for people. However, he did not have a lot of autonomy over the jobs. He recalls an experience where every single Java library he wanted to pull off had to get approved by a committee.
He ended up building an earlier Ajax application which uses JavaScript for services. That was a path for him to record productivity.
To hear the rest of My Ruby Story Justin Searls, download and listen to the entire episode.
Links * JavaScript Jabber: Test Doubles with Justin Searls * JavaScript Jabber: Jasmine with Justin Searls * Justin's Twitter * test double.js (library) * SCNA * SCNA Talk - How to Scratch an Itch * Teenytest * Test Double blog archive * Social Coding Contract * Jasmine * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Justin Searls:
- USB-C
Charles Max Wood:
- Electro-Voice RE 20
- Battlestar Galactica 2003 series
- Stranger Things
- Arcanum Unbounded
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Stefan Wintermeyer
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Stefan Wintermeyer, a freelancer developer from Germany focused on Ruby on Rails, Phoenix Framework, and web performance.
Listen to Stefan on the podcast Ruby Rogues here.
Stefan got into programming when he was 8 years old. He started with Basic and Pascal and moved onto other languages. Even though he never received a formal programming education, he liked solving problems with software and was able to make money programming so he became a developer.
Currently Stefan is working on a project called vutuv which is an open-source alternative to LinkedIn. He has also written books and gives talks, ones that are well know in the Ruby community are Learn Rails 5.2: Accelerated Web Development with Ruby on Rails as well as a Cache talk he gave at RailsConf 2013.
Links * Ruby Rogues: Rails Needs Active Deployment with Stefan Wintermeyer * Stefan's Twitter * Stefan's LinkedIn * Stefan's Medium * Stefan's GitHub * Stefan's Talk * vutuv * vutuv GitHub * Stefan's Book * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Stefan Wintermeyer:
- Darknet Diaries
Charles Max Wood:
- Podcast - Gary Vaynerchuk
- MFCEO Project Podcast
- Girl In Space Podcast
- Audio Drama Podcasts
- JBL Charge 4
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plank * .TECH - Go.tech/MRS and use the coupon code “MRS.TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Sebastian Sogamoso
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Sebastian Sogamoso, a software developer from Colombia. Sebastian now lives in Panama City and works for CookPad. Listen to Sebastian on the Ruby Rogues podcast here.
Sebastian first started coding in high school with Pascal. Upon graduating with a Systems Engineering degree from National University of Colombia, he continued developing in Ruby.js.
Sebastian will be a track director in RailsConf2019 which will take place in Minneapolis at the end of April. He is also on the organizing team for RubyConf Colombia scheduled to take place in Colombia in September 2019.
Links * RR 349: The Overnight Failure with Sebastian Sogamoso * Sebastian's Website * https://medium.com/@sebasoga * Sebastian's Twitter * Sebastian’s GitHub * http://railsgirls.com/ * https://www.railsconf.com/ * CookPad * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Sebastian Sogamoso:
- Paper app: https://paper.bywetransfer.com/
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
- RubyConf Colombia : http://www.rubyconf.co
Charles Max Wood:
- Code BEAM SF 2019
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Genadi Samokovarov
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles chats with Genadi Samokovarov, a software developer who loves using Ruby.
Genadi has also been a guest on the podcast Ruby Rogues, you can listen to it here.
Genadi was born in Bulgaria and grew up playing video games. During his high school years he was the “go-to guy” for computers in his neighborhood. In his university years he got interested in Python and afterwards in Ruby.
He then applied for Google Summer of Code and continued developing his coding skills there. He is now working for the company Receipt Bank. Genadi is also on the organizing team for the Balkan Ruby Conference which will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria in May 2019.
Links * RR 386: Web Console Internals with Genadi Samokovarov * http://gsamokovarov.com/ * https://libraries.io/github/gsamokovarov * https://twitter.com/gsamokovarov/ * https://github.com/gsamokovarov * https://www.meetup.com/Ruby-Banitsa/members/ * https://rubyconferences.org/ * https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/ * https://github.com/rails/web-console * https://github.com/gsamokovarov/jump * https://balkanruby.com/ * David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)
Picks Genadi Samokovarov:
- AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee
Charles Max Wood:
- https://codesync.global/conferences/code-beam-sf-2019/
- City of San Francisco
Sponsors: * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Josh Justice
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Josh Justice, software engineer at Big Nerd Ranch, a Mobile app development, training and design firm.
Listen to Josh on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Josh wanted to be a software developer ever since he was very young, his father worked in IT so he had access to computers from very early on. After studying computer science, he started working as a developer in JavaScript, PHP and in Ruby. His specialties include Ruby on Rails, Ember, Vue.js and React Native. Josh really enjoys content creation for other developers and is currently streaming React Native TDD Fridays 2pm EST at Twitch.tv.
Josh and his family recently adopted a baby boy in addition to his two daughters. Listen to the podcast to hear more about this miraculous adoption story!
Links * Ruby Rogues 391: Frontend Testing Like a Rubyist with Josh Justice * React Native Testing feat. Josh Justice of Big Nerd Ranch * Josh’s Twitter * Josh’s GitHub * Josh’s LinkedIn * Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial * Josh's Blog * Learn Test-Driven Development * Object Oriented and Functional Programming Blog Post * https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/ * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Josh Justice:
- Webpacker
- Object Thinking
- Learn Test-Driven Development
- Ember and Rails Live Stream
Charles Max Wood:
- The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Chandan Jhunjhunwal
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Chandan Jhunjhunwal, a tech lead at Coupa Software from Pune India.
Listen to Chandan on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Chandan studied electronics in university but was hired as a software engineer at IBM after university and really liked programming. He then continued working as a developer for a startup before founding his own startup. Chandan is now working for the procurement department at Coupa Software. Chandan feels that no matter what your background is, nothing is too hard and if you like something you should dive in and do it. He also points out that especially in technology there is always a learning curve.
Links * Ruby Rogues 314: DynamoDB on Rails with Chandan Jhunjhunwal * Chandan's GitHub * Chandan’s Twitter * Chandan's LinkedIn * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Chandan Jhunjhunwal:
- Rescuing The Daughter
- No Ordinary Moments by Dan Millman
- Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial
- Metaprogramming Ruby by Paolo Perrotta
Charles Max Wood:
- Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
- Ultramarathonman by Dean Karnazes
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Vladimir Dementyev
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Vladimir Dementyev, a backend engineer at Evil Martians and a mathematician who found his happiness in programming Ruby and Erlang. He is also the author of Author of AnyCable, TestProf and ActionPolicy.
Listen to Vladimir on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Vladimir studied mathematics in university and started programming with ActionScript in an internship during his university education. He then went onto developing with Ruby and became heavily involved in open source projects. He is originally from Moscow but is currently based out of Brooklyn, NY working for Evil Martians, a web development consultancy company that supports open source projects. Vladimir will be a speaker at the RailsConf 2019.
Links * Ruby Rogues: Cables, Concurrency, and Ruby 3×3 with Vladimir Dem * Evil Martians * Vladimir’s Twitter * Vladimir's GitHub * Vladimir's LinkedIn * Vladimir's Dev.to * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Vladimir Dementyev:
- danger.systems
Charles Max Wood:
- MyFitnessPal
- CardioCoach VO2 Max App
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Radoslav Stankov
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Radoslav Stankov, the head of the engineering team at Product Hunt.
Listen to Radoslav on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Radoslav was interested in technology from a young age, he was recruited by a company at a youth community center for IT support. He was interested in web development so he started to coding in PHP. He then started learning Ruby on Rails and started working for a company which sells trucks where he built the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in Rails. The user interface for this ERP system was very successful and Radoslav stresses any software that can’t be used by the client can not be considered very good.
Radoslav then started working for a startup which failed but there he met the team which eventually led him to the job at Product Hunt. Radoslav and Charles share stories where they were hired by people they had met at other projects. They point out that people like to keep hiring those they trust and admire. Radoslav then goes on to share projects he has been proud of throughout his career.
Radoslav is currently at Product Hunt and one of the working to make the app work better and faster.
Links * Ruby Rogues: GraphQL at Product Hunt with Radoslav Stankov * React Round Up: React at Product Hunt with Radoslav Stankov * React Native Radio: React Native at Product Hunt feat. Radoslav Stankov and Vlad Vladimirov * Radoslav’s Website * Radoslav’s GitHub * Radoslav’s Twitter * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Radoslav Stankov:
- The Ruby Toolbox
- formulaic
Charles Max Wood:
- Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
- Writing Excuses Podcast
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS use the coupon code “TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Sihui Huang
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Sihui Huang, a software engineer at Gusto, which is a startup that works with payroll, benefits, and HR for companies.
Listen to Sihui on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode.
Before taking programming classes in university, Sihui didn’t know anything about programming. In fact, she had originally planned to study accounting and switched her major on the first day of classes. Read Sihui’s blog piece “From Hello World to Six Job Offers From Facebook, Airbnb, Salesforce…” to learn more about a step by step account of her programming studies.
Sihui did a couple of internships to figure out exactly what kind of a work environment she wanted to be in and Gusto fit that environment the best. She has been there since graduation. In her career, Sihui follows an iterative methodology where she sets one goal, unblocks herself and performs the necessary steps to reach that goal and then sets her next goal. Every 6 months she reflects on what she has learned the past 6 months and puts it in a blog piece to remember it. Check out Sihui’s blog here.
Links * Ruby Rogues: “How to Contribute to Ruby” with Sihui Huang * Sihui’s GitHub * Sihui’s Website * Sihui’s LinkedIN * Sihui’s Twitter * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks
Sihui Huang:
- Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Charles Max Wood:
- 31 Days to Build a Better Blog - ProBlogger
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan * .TECH– tech/MRS use the coupon code “TECH” and get a 1 year .TECH Domain at $9.99 and 5 Year Domain at $49.99. Hurry! * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Special Guest: Luca Guidi
Episode Summary In this episode of My Ruby Story, Charles hosts Luca Guidi, Senior Software Developer at DNSimple and creator of Hanami ( previously Lotus framework) from Italy.
Listen to Luca on the podcast Ruby Rogues on this episode and this episode.
Luca grew up playing video games and took his first programming class when he was 12. His dream was to become a programmer. After studying Information Technology, Luca started working as a programmer and Ruby felt the most natural to him. He found that Rails was a great to start off applications with but not necessarily maintain with. So he created Ruby web framework Lotus which he renamed as Hanami after IBM created software named Lotus as well. Luca is currently working on Hanami preparing for a 2.0 alpha release, he will also be a speaker at the RubyDay2019 conference that will be held in Verona in April.
Links * Ruby Rogues: Ruby Elapsed Time with Luca Guidi * Ruby Rogues: The Lotus Framework with Luca Guidi * Hanami * aculo.us * Prototype * Luca’s LinkedIN * Luca’s Twitter * com * Luca’s GitHub * RubyDay2019 * https://devchat.tv/my-ruby-story/ * https://www.facebook.com/DevChattv
Picks Luca Guidi:
- The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo
Charles Max Wood:
- Podfest Multimedia Expo
- MicroConf
- The Gifted TV Show
Sponsors * Sentry use the code “devchat” to get 2 months free on Sentry small plan * TripleByte offers a $1000 signing bonus * CacheFly
Host: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Andrew Mason
Summary Charles Max Wood introduces the newest panelist for Ruby Rogues, Andrew Mason. Andrew shares his background and how got into computer programming. Andrew and Charles share their stories of first using ruby and the sense of wonder they felt. Andrew talks about what he has done in Ruby and shares his excitement to learn while on Ruby Rogues.
Links * https://github.com/andrewmcodes * https://twitter.com/andrewmcodes * https://www.andrewmason.me/ * https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/
Picks Andrew Mason:
- https://undraw.co/
- Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Charles Max Wood:
- Modern medicine & antibiotics
- Inflatable donut pillows
- https://purple.com/seatcushions
- The Kingfountain series by Jeff Wheeler
- The Covenant of Muirwood Series by Jeff Wheeler
- Pomodoro Timer
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Kerri Miller
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Kerri Miller who is a developer who resides in Seattle! Chuck and Kerri talk about her background, how she got into programming, software, and much more. Check it out!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
0:52 – Chuck: Hello! Our guest is Kerri Miller – say Hi!
1:00 – Guest: Hi!
1:06 – Chuck: Tell us who you are and where you work?
1:13 – Guest: I live in Seattle.
1:36 – Chuck: We had you on past episodes RR 191 and RR 261. Tell us about your work!
2:10 – Guest: I have been a remote-worker for about 5 years now.
2:30 – Chuck: Let’s focus on you and how you got into programming and what you’ve contributed into the community. How did you get into programming?
2:45 – Guest: I had early access to computers. We also had the Thermal Printer!
I went into theater and dance and then came back into programming.
Kerri talks about sound boards that were using computers through her art world.
4:20 – Chuck: I love how people come from different backgrounds.
5:01 – Guest: Yeah you need to have other skillsets outside of being a computer programmer. What do you bring in and what do you have at the very beginning of your career and then you fill in those blanks as you go along.
5:33 – Chuck: Yep exactly.
5:47 – Guest: I am interested to see how my stage career helps my developer career!
7:35 – Chuck.
7:39 – Guest: Some people need walk-up music.
7:51 – Chuck: How did you get into Ruby?
8:00 – Guest: I was the only person that had heard about the Internet, so that’s how I got the job! I went to Barnes & Noble and read books; kids: that is an actual place!
9:24 – Chuck: You are still using Ruby right?
9:26 – Guest: Yes I am! I have explored GO and other languages, too, b/c that helps my skills with Ruby.
10:14 – Chuck: What made you switch? How do you decide to make that switch?
10:26 – Guest: This book really helped me: “Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby.” It invigorated my love for programming.
11:15 – Chuck: How long ago was that?
11:20 – Guest: About 7 years ago.
11:37 – Chuck: Some of the things you’ve done is conference organizing and speaking. Anything else?
11:50 – Guest answers the question.
13:17 – Chuck: What were your favorite talks to give and where?
13:30 – Guest: It really is hard to choose. I liked the one in Bath, UK last year: “Is Ruby Dead?”
15:00 – Chuck: Where do you see Ruby going? What’s the future like for Ruby?
15:10 – Guest: I think there are neat things that are happening in Ruby 3.
16:08 – Chuck: What other conferences are you involved with?
16:14 – Guest: Open Source & Feelings. (The guest goes into detail about what this conference has to offer!)
17:36 – Chuck: What should I be looking for there at CES (2019)?
17:52 – Guest answers.
18:39 – Guest: I have 6 Echos & Alexas in the house – do I need those many – probably not.
19:21 – Chuck: I think the same thing about giving / not giving my fingerprint to the government vs. Apple.
19:43 – Guest.
20:06 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
20:10 – Guest: If you have a problem with Ruby – I help with the Q&A and bug-support. Working on 2019 conferences, too!
20:43 – Chuck: Picks!
20:50 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
END – CacheFly
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- PHP
- RR 191 Episode with Kerri Miller
- RR 261 Episode with Kerri Miller
- Kerri Miller’s GitHub
- Kerri Miller’s Twitter
- Kerri Miller’s Website
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Kerri
- Motorcycle-riding
- Bear app
Chuck
- Marathon – St. George Utah – October 5th
- Friend – John Sonmez
- Garmin Watch
- V.02
- McKirdy Trained
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Olivier Lacan
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Olivier Lacan who works for Pluralsight remotely while living in France. Chuck and Olivier talk about his background, his education, and how he got into Ruby. Check it out!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
0:55 – Chuck: Hi! Can you update people where you are at now?
1:21 – Guest: I work on the Pluralsite remotely from France. (Check it out here!)
2:20 – Chuck: It feels like Pluralsite is offering new things for students. That’s nice!
2:30 – Guest: Yes, everyone has their own unique way to learn new things. Whether it’s through podcasts, reading, etc.
3:25 – Chuck.
3:32 – Guest.
4:01 – Chuck: RR 364 was the last episode that you’ve been on.
4:20 – The guest is talking about the changes that have occurred in only 7 months!
4:58 – Chuck: Let’s talk about you! How did you get into programming?
5:12 – Guest: Frustration is how I got into programming.
The guest talks in-detail about how he got into programming. What frameworks and languages he’s learned along the way.
31:24 – Chuck: I want to call out the fact that you said: I’ve failed. That’s good for people to hear.
31:40 – Guest.
31:49 – Chuck: If I’m not failing then I’m not pushing myself. How did you get into Ruby?
32:04 – Guest: Andrew Smith is how I got into Ruby. We met through Twitter! I was looking for croissants b/c I was homesick. His handler is @fullsailor! Check him out on Twitter here!
34:56 – Chuck talks about variables.
35:00 – Guest talks about Ruby and how he got into it.
36:50 – The guest talks about starting up a business with his friend (Chris) called Clever Code.
39:38 – Chuck: How did you get into Code School?
39:40 – Guest talks about his time in Orlando, FL.
40:05 – Guest mentions Rails for Zombies.
47:15 – Chuck: Nice! It’s interesting to see how you’ve gotten into it!
47:25 – Guest: Check out Pluralsight.
50:08 – Chuck: Some of the background I was there but there is so much more!
50:20 – Guest: There are so many lessons that I’ve learned a lot the way. There is so much luck involved, too. There are so many parts of this that is jumping onto an opportunity.
51:09 – Chuck: You showed up, so it wasn’t fully all luck, though!
51:20 – Guest: Yes, I agree. Finding accountability partners. It’s like going to the gym. Yes, self-motivation is a thing.
52:17 – Chuck: How can people find you?
52:20 – Guest: Twitter, GitHub, and my website!
53:00 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
END – CacheFly
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- PHP
- Bio for Olivier through PluralSight
- Twitter for Olivier Lacan
- GitHub for Olivier Lacan
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Olivier
- Ruby Conf.
- AutoLoad Reloder
Charles
- Tile
- Last Man Standing
- World Cup
- Sling TV
- Fox Sports
- CES
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Mark Bates
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Mark Bates who is a consultant, trainer, entrepreneur, co-founder of PaperCall, and an author! Chuck and Mark talk about PaperCall, GO, Ruby, JavaScript, and helping others within the community. Check out today’s episode to hear more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
0:59 – Chuck: Hi! I saw we were on Episode 198! We talked about Ruby and different communities.
1:25 – Guest: Yes, we were talking about the conference we were trying to start, which never took-off!
1:50 – Chuck: You talked about how you are working with GO now. You are an author, too!
2:06 – Guest: That came out in 2009. My 2nd son was born the day before that went to print.
2:42 – Chuck: How many kids do you have?
2:47 – Guest: I have 2 kids.
3:00 – Chuck: Happy Birthday buddy! Let’s talk about your journey into and out of Ruby!
3:15 – Guest: I will be happy to.
3:23 – Chuck:
3:27 – Guest: I have a degree in music and studied guitar in England. I came back in 1999 and needed a job. If you could spell HTML then it was good – then if you could work with it then it was even better!
The guest mentions Liverpool, England.
4:20 – Guest: I got a job and transitioned into other things. Fell in-love with Java at the time – and then moved into straight development. I needed money, I had skills into it, and then I fell in-love with
5:10 – Chuck: What aspect in music are you into?
5:14 – Guest: I am a singer/songwriter, and yes into guitar.
5:57 – Chuck: Yeah, they used to have jam sections at conferences.
6:37 – Chuck: I find in interesting how much crossover there is between music and programming/coding. I hear them say: I found I needed to build a site for the band and whatnot.
7:25 – Guest: Yeah, I can do view source and I can figure out that I am missing a tag. That put me ahead in 1997 and 1998! I had done some work that.
8:57 – Chuck: You don’t even have to generate a JavaScript project with that – can I find the template and can I go?
9:14 – Guest: Yes programming has come a long way.
9:22 – Chuck: It is interesting, though. When we talk about those things – it was a different time but I don’t know if it was easier/harder for people to come into the career field now.
9:52 – Guest: Yes, I am into the educational side of it, too. There was a lack of books on the subject back-in-the-day. There is almost too much material now.
Guest: I do a Google search that will give me something that is most recent. There is no reason to have to dig through material that isn’t relevant anymore.
Guest: I used NOTEPAD to write websites.
11:29 – Chuck: Yes, and then Notepad plus, plus!
11:39 – Guest: Those days are gone. If you want to build a website you go to a company that does that now.
The guest refers to Kubernetes,Ruby, HTML, Sequel and much more!
12:55 – Guest: I see the new developers getting overwhelmed in the beginning they need to learn 10 languages at once. I am fortunate to have come into the industry when I did. I don’t envy them.
13:56 – Chuck: Talking about how complicated the Web is getting. What led you to Ruby on Rails?
14:12 – Guest: In 2004 – I just finished a Java project that had roughly 100,000 lines of configuration!! Everything in Java at that point was XML configuration.
I didn’t like debugging XML – and it wasn’t fun. I was refiguring out my career. Everything at the time was XML and more XML! I didn’t want to be in that world. I quit developing completely for 2 years. I worked as an internship in a recording studio for a while. I got to work with a lot of great people, but there was a lack of money and lack of general employment. We wanted to have kids and at the end of 2005 a friend mentioned Ruby on Rails. He told me that it’s NOT Java and that I would love it. I installed it and found an old cookbook tutorial and immediately I said: THAT’s what I want programming to be. When did you pick up Ruby on Rails?
18:14 – Chuck: I picked it up when I worked for...and I was doing Q&A customer service.
19:05 – Guest: Yeah, he hooked me for sure – that jerk! I really got into this book! Check it out! It changed my career and web development entirely. For all the grief we give Rails it did change the world.
20:40 – Chuck: What have you done in Ruby that you are particularly proud of?
20:50 – Guest: Most proud running Boston RB. We had so many people show up!
22:49 – Chuck: You talk about those things and that’s why I ask the question in the first place. And it turns out that: I did THIS thing in the community! I like talking to people and helping people.
23:31 – Guest: Yes, I get to work and help people all around the world. Sweet! I get to go in and help people. It gives me the time to contribute to open source and go to Slack. I have a career based around: Helping People! I like the code that I created, but I like the community stuff I have done over the years.
24:31 – Chuck: Yep my career coach wanted me to create a vision/mission statement for DevChat T.V. We make a difference and people make career changes b/c they are getting help and information
25:23 – Guest: Making a living off of helping people is a great feeling!
25:44 – Guest: The contents of the book are wildly out-of-date, but the origin story is hysterical. I went to a conference in 2008 and was just laid-off in October 2008. I got into a hot tub in Orlando and someone started talking to me about my recent talk. By the way, never write a book – don’t do it!
28:18 – Chuck: Sounds like a movie plot to me!
28:25 – Guest: Oh no – that’s not a good movie idea!
28:50 – Chuck and Guest go back-and-forth with a pretend movie: who would play you?
29:15 – Chuck: Let’s talk about PaperCall?
29:23 – Guest: I hated that (for conferences) you had to enter in a lot of different forms (2-3 proposals) for one conference. This bothered me and was very time-consuming.
31:45 – Guest & Chuck talking about saving time.
32:37 – Chuck: What are you doing now?
32:42 – Guest: Yeah, I get to go around and help engineers and open source exclusively.
33:48 – Chuck: How did you get into GO?
33:53 – Guest: In about 2012 I started looking into GO.
The guest talks about the benefits and why he likes GO!
36:28 – Guest: What you see is what you get in GO, which is what I like!
39:13 – Chuck: It is an interesting language, and I haven’t played around with it as much as I would like to. I love trying new things, and see how it solves problems.
40:30 – Guest.
42:00 – Chuck: Picks!
42:06 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
END – CacheFly
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- PHP
- Kubernetes
- React Native
- Ruby Motion
- Mark’s GitHub
- Mark’s Twitter
- PaperCall.io
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Chuck
- Book: Ultra Marathon Man
Mark
- GO!
- GoBuffalo.io Boston RB
- Jim Weirich – In Memory of...
- Jim’s Bio
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Michael King
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Michael King who is a developer, an enthusiast for natural languages, developing, and mathematics. Charles and Michael talk about his background, and past/current projects that Michael is working on right now. Other topics of discussion include Ruby, Rails, Audacity, PHP, RubyMotion, and React Native. Check it out!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
0:58 – Chuck: Say “hi” Michael! Introduce yourself.
1:12 – Michael: I am a big language learner: Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. I learned through T.V. and music. I decided to build an app that helped with languages. I started doing it.
1:50 – Chuck: You hired a developer and had no idea what the developer what was doing. How do you make that transition? They just go with it – right? How did you decide: no, I have to understand THIS.
2:25 – Guest: It’s either I am really into it or I am NOT into it. I have been always very good with mathematics. The computer broke when I was in school and the only option we had were these...He was writing all these variables and I loved variables.
The guest talks about Ruby, Rails, and Audacity!
4:08 – Chuck: You talk about natural languages – I see the correlation sometimes and sometimes I don’t. I learned French in school, and then I became fluent in Italian during my Mormon missionary trips.
4:56 – Guest: I am reading this book right now and you have to understand the technicians’ role in order to help lead him.
The guest talks about the differences between coding, natural languages, and mathematics.
5:50 – Chuck: Did you let your developer go? Or did you keep him around?
6:03 – Guest: I let him go actually b/c he was on for a part-time basis. I started coding myself. I got help from friends and I got help from a lot of other people. I would ask them tons of questions and form a friendly relationship with them. From there, it snowed-ball from there!
6:57 – Guest: From that experience, I learned a lot. If I had to REDO what I did originally, then I would have done the following things differently...
7:44 – Chuck: I can identify with that – I was a freelancer for 8-9 years. I would build something and then they say: that’s not what we hired you to build.
8:10 – Guest: They wonder why they are getting this feedback?
8:22- Chuck: Why Ruby on Rails?
8:27 – Guest: I didn’t know the difference between mobile frameworks and web frameworks.
9:01 – Chuck: Yeah I don’t like the word “dumb” either.
9:09 – Guest: Ruby was very smooth and I liked it. I got addicted to the process through the Rails way and the Ruby syntax.
9:46 – Chuck: Same for me. I have done PHP before but when I got into Rails it naturally flowed into the way I wanted to work on stuff. I get it.
10:12 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
10:19 – Guest: This project that I have been working on now for 1.5 years.
11:41 – Chuck: You talked about how you picked up React Native.
11:52 – Guest: Yes, yes.
12:39 – Chuck: How did you settle on React Native?
12:50 – Guest talks about the Spanish and English languages.
13:25 – Chuck: I am curious – why didn’t you go with RubyMotion?
13:34 – Guest: I didn’t know anyone that could help me honestly. Also, I didn’t think it was going to be EASY to learn for me.
14:02 – Chuck: Is Reactive Native your main focus?
14:08 – Guest: No building just designing and putting it in front of people. I want to get a prototype to get more funding. I want to know EXACTLY what we are building.
14:40 – Chuck: For entrepreneurs, any advice for anything to get this rolling?
14:56 – Guest: If I had to do it again I would draw it out on paper and figure out how to get to MVP right away. I would try to get validation right away from not building too much
15:47 – Chuck: I am working on a service to help podcasters. They see that that I run 15 shows through DevChat.TV. If I can solve those three problems then I am golden: monetization and/or production. For scheduling guests it’s a pain point for most podcasters.
17:36 – Chuck: Some of the validation for me is talking to people through conferences and other venues. Main question is: What are you doing for scheduling? It takes a bunch of time.
Post to where people will get your content.
Have your guests promote it, too!
20:05 – Guest: Inviting people to the show.
20:13 – Chuck: This is the 16th interview this week so far! To give you an idea!
21:16 – Guest: You lost me along the way only b/c I don’t do podcasting. You know the problem b/c you are doing it, and you are within the field.
21:42 – Chuck: The more I talk to people the more I get ideas and such.
22:00 – Guest.
22:06 – Chuck: They are worried that their ideas are going to get stolen.
22:15 – Chuck: It’s interesting to see where it goes. I have 2 more interviews after this.
Michael, you see and say: what solutions can I provide?
23:03 – Chuck: Did we get into your mobile app then?
23:14 – Guest: It was really hard for me, but now I love coding. Getting it in front of people and testing it. I am trying to keep my education going. I learn by doing and learning by being thrown in to the fire. I am doing a free code camp now. Any suggestions, Chuck that you could offer?
24:35 – Chuck: Learning how to prioritize. What are you aiming at, and what goal are you trying to achieve? I want to make a video course on HOW to stay current?
25:12 – Chuck: Where can people find you?
25:18 – Guest: Twitter! There really isn’t an easy way to find me online – something I should probably fix.
25:28 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
END – CacheFly
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- PHP
- React Native
- Ruby Motion
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Chuck
- Vue.js – frontend framework
- John Papa – Slots in Google Calendar (saying goodbye to Schedule Once)
Michael
- Michael’s Prototype
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Paweł Dąbrowski
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Paweł Dąbrowski who is a coder and author who resides in Poland. He is a blogger and writes about the Ruby language, Ruby on Rails, and related technologies. To read more about Paweł, please visit his ABOUT ME via his blog. Today, Chuck and Paweł talk about Ruby, Paweł’s background, and much more! Check it out.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
0:55 – Chuck: This week I am talking with Paweł Dąbrowski who was on episode 366. Give us a brief description of who you are, please.
1:25 – Guest: I run a company and I am here b/c of the article I wrote. It was a nice introduction to...programming. I write in my blog and have written a few gems. I created a course how to build Ruby Flow. Also, I create Ruby code every day. I think that’s it.
2:19 – Chuck: I am curious, how did you get into programming?
2:30 – Guest: It all started in school when he asked me to create a website using HTML code. I fell in-love with it.
I didn’t want to give up and figured it all boils down to: “how bad do you want it?”
4:33 – Chuck: Yeah it was PHP for me, too. I could do dynamic things with this. I was a computer science major, and to build something REAL was amazing.
5:04 – Guest: Yes, when something works it’s amazing.
5:25 – Chuck: Yeah, when you realize you left out a semi-colon – oh no! In some ways, PHP was a friendly-way to do web development.
6:05 – Guest.
6:22 – Chuck: How old were you when you got paid for web development?
6:32 – Guest: I think I was sixteen years old and $50.00 was a fortune for me. I felt like a millionaire. It felt great to make money for something you love to do. It wasn’t work; I just enjoyed doing it.
7:07 – Chuck: That’s the magic!
7:14 – Guest: If you are doing something you love, then it’s great!
7:24 – Chuck: How did you go from PHP to one-page apps to Ruby?
7:35 – Guest: I didn’t like PHP at some point. I fell in-love with Ruby’s syntax. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to find a job. I wrote a programmer and told him that I have “no experience and no technical training...” I didn’t think it was possible, and he said that it was possible based on the work that I put in. I remember writing code in Ruby.
9:42 – Chuck: What drew you to Ruby?
9:48 – Guest: The community and the syntax. I love writing in Ruby, and I don’t know if I will switch my languages in the future. I want to create a more active Ruby community in Poland. I want to get junior developers involved.
10:29 – Chuck: Tell us about your blog!
10:40 – Guest: I started writing every day. I started in January and kept going for three months. I thought that was crazy, and so I wrote less frequently. I thought it was a game-changing decision for me b/c it took me to a new level. I wrote more, learned more, and it has given me visibility.
11:47 – Chuck: I have talked to people in various parts of the world. People say that it could be a barrier of only English-written blogs.
12:15 – Guest: I learned English once I got serious about coding/programming. I think it’s a disadvantage if you don’t know English.
12:35 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
12:40 – Guest: I am starting this project and decided to turn-it-up b/c at first it was experimental. I wanted to move people more in the Polish community. I write about soft skills and that developers should have those skills, too.
13:22 – Chuck: This episode won’t come out for a few months. If you want to plug that – you can if you are comfortable with it.
13:44 – Guest: I want to set-up interviews, and create a dictionary so people can check single words and their meaning and see what it looks like in another language. Also, working on the content of blogs, and maybe recording a video on HOW to code. I was involved in a webinar and starting my first conference. Give the
14:56 – Chuck: Where can people find you? How about your blog?
15:05 – Guest: Twitter! GitHub! Blog! LinkedIn!
15:27 – Chuck: Any recommendations for people who are getting into programming?
15:42 – Guest answers the question.
Guest: DOING and creating the stuff, and ultimately getting the experience. You can eventually find your dream job!
16:30 – Picks!
16:35 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
END – CacheFly
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- ButterCMS
- Solnic.Codes
- Guest’s Blog
- Guest’s Twitter
- Guest’s GitHub
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Paweł
- Butter CMS Blog
- Solnic.Codes
Chuck
- Book: Get A Coder Job
- Video Course: Get A Coder Job
- PodWrench – Tool
- Self-Publishing Tool
- Developer Freedom
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Jérémie Bonal
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Jérémie Bonal who works at Ekylibre. He is a web developer and he has been using Ruby for the past few years now. They talk about Jérémie’s background, Ruby, Ekylibre, past/current projects, and so much more! Check it out!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:00 – Get A Coder Job!
1:05 – Chuck: We are talking with Jérémie Bonal today. Tell us who you are!
1:21 – Guest: I am a web developer and I’ve been writing Ruby for about 2 ½ years now. I’ve been writing code now for 5 – 6 years.
1:54 – Chuck: I love writing in Ruby, too. Let’s get into your story. What’s the Ruby community like in France?
2:23 – Guest: It’s pretty dispersed in the town that I am living in right now (Bordeaux). We meet up through Meetups and chatting about everything and drinking beer. There are more Ruby communities in Paris.
3:23 – Chuck: Maybe one day I will make it out to Bordeaux. My grandmother was French and I thought it would be cool to see the different parts of France.
3:45 – Guest: Cycle through France.
3:53 – Chuck: My grandmother grew-up near Lyon.
4:02 – Guest: France is pretty small compared to the U.S. You can fit several towns in a single trip.
4:21 – Chuck: I do have a funny connection. When I lived in Italy for a few years I would show them a map of Utah and they thought CA was close to UT.
5:03 – Guest: Yes, it’s hard to conceptualize. From what I’ve heard it could be a road trip for Americans. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that.
5:40 – Chuck talks about Disneyland and family topics.
Chuck: Let’s talk about you and your Ruby story. Are you hiring and where can they go?
6:20 – Guest: Yes we are! You can find us on our website.
6:57 – Chuck: Let’s talk about you – how did you get into programming?
7:00 – Guest: When I was young with calculators. My friends made games with it and it blew my mind. I tried to make sense of what the key words meant. Nothing worked and I got real puzzled. I went to college and in the first semester you didn’t choose a major – you just do a bit of everything. You learn some engineering, chemistry, math, etc. so people could find what they really wanted to do. I worked in Python and worked with graphs and all of those concepts. This is when I got into it. I planned on going into chemistry, but all my friends were getting into programming. They kept saying: keep doing programming. I caved-in and the rest is history.
9:02 – Chuck: What languages have you worked with?
9:09 – Guest lists the different languages. Guest started with Python 2.
9:30 – Chuck: We started with Java and C++. It’s interesting to compare the differences there. As we are talking about this – a lot of people think they NEED a computer science degree and others say: nah! I am curious what advantages did it give you?
10:12 – Guest: I was disillusioned about the whole thing. They taught me a lot but I didn’t know anything valuable. I learned Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I started building web apps and I got joy out of it. I thought I didn’t have any purpose with my new degree. I noticed in the conversations with my colleagues (who don’t have computer science background) I saw that I could solve patterns and I had a better vocabulary. I saw that I could apply it and that felt good.
12:37 – Chuck: Interesting. I found my degree helped with the low-level stuff and helped me to solve problems. I learned on the job, though, too. I feel like if you need the structured environment of a college environment – go for it! Or do a boot camp, etc.
13:21 – Guest: I learned Ruby and Ruby on Rails through a boot camp. I wished there were boot camps for my computer science courses. To solve MP this and that; getting into the basics and building a sold foundation in computer science in a short period of time.
14:06 – Chuck: I’ve thought about creating that curriculum.
14:36 – Chuck: It’s an interesting conversation to have. I think the boot camps will force the universities to adapt.
15:01 – Guest: Yes, the disconnect is pretty staggering. It must be kind of similar.
15:20 – Chuck: You graduated and you learned Ruby through boot camps?
15:29 – Guest: I felt like I didn’t know how to do anything constructive or valuable. I meld around for a while – I went to be an English teacher and other jobs. I found out about a boot camp in Bordeaux and I went to that. It was going to teach Web apps. I thought taking it would make my CV stronger. It was 9 weeks of Ruby, Ruby, and Ruby! Then the last 2 weeks building an actual app. I fell in-love and found my passion.
16:55 – Chuck: That mirrors my experience well. A friend introduced me to the Lamp Stack and then it clicked that this stuff is “cool.” Sounds like you made the same connect that I did.
17:46 – Guest: Yes, that’s how it went for me, too. The last few weeks we made an app and it was a travel app. It blew my mind that we made it in only 2 weeks and that people could use it!
19:05 – Chuck: Same thing for me. We were answering emails out of Thunder Bird, and we kept stepping on each other.
20:18 – Guest: I think my favorite is: I have a problem right now, and I can solve it myself. I can build a basic tool that will make my life easier.
20:40 – Chuck: Yep, that’s what I am doing right now. I am building in scheduling and all sort of stuff. The app is awesome and it feels like you have a super power.
21:10 – Guest: Yeah, it does whatever you want it to do.
21:20 – Chuck: What projects have you worked on?
21:22 – Guest: The project I mentioned about the travel itineraries. Then I worked with some classmates on another project around pharmaceuticals. It was cool to solve a problem. Then I played a small web player. I tried Raspberry and Raspberry Pi, and I was trying to build...
Since then I have been working with my current company. I was missing some parts of college b/c one of my projects was a graph gem.
I tried other things, too.
24:45 – Chuck: I know that Hanaumi is popular in the European market vs. U.S. market.
25:00 – Guest.
26:00 – Chuck: I have some theories as to WHY that is.
25:26 – Guest: I have a friend who moved to Elixir and never tried Hanaumi.
26:42 – Chuck: I have been playing with Elixir somewhat. I wanted to understand what people were experiencing.
27:02 – Guest: I liked the idea that...
27:48 – Chuck: What are you working on these days?
28:01 – Guest.
29:53 – Chuck: When you find the position of CEO or my job you learn a lot about that stuff. When you are running a business you learn about marketing and other business topics. You talked about replicating a gem. What did you learn through that process?
30:30 – Guest.
32:20 – Chuck: You are learning more about management? What resources do you use?
32:26 – Guest: I read a lot of Medium articles. I am a huge fan of management articles, and Basecamp. Also, your newsletter, Chuck!
33:30 – Chuck: Anything else?
33:33 – Guest: Social Platforms – Medium.
33:58 – Chuck: Where can we find you?
34:00 – Guest answers the question.
34:50 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Python
- Basecamp
- Raspberry Pi
- Ekylibre
- Guest’s Medium
- Guest’s Hacker Noon
- Guest’s GitHub
- Guest’s LinkedIn
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Jérémie
- Article
- DHH
Chuck
- Podcast: Launch
- CodeBadge.Org
- Get A Coder Job
- My Ruby Stories! – DevChat.Tv
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Daniel P. Clark
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Daniel Clark who is a Ruby and Rust enthusiast, blogger, and freelancer. Daniel and Chuck talk about Daniel’s background, and his past/current projects. Check out today’s episode!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0.00 – Advertisement – GET A CODER JOB!
0:58 – Guest: Hi!
1:01 – Chuck: Introduce yourself real quick, please, and what are you known for?
1:08 – Guest: My blog posts – I write about about Ruby. I have a few projects that are well known: Faster Path among others.
1:35 – Chuck: We had you on a past episode, 368 Ruby Rogues. Where do you write?
1:49 – Guest: I am a contractor and I write blog posts for them.
1:58 – Chuck: Let’s talk about you! How did you get into programming?
2:07 – Guest: My dad is a programmer and before 5th grade I got a computer and no Internet. I tried things to see how things worked. I wrote from the top down – recipe style. I really enjoyed programming back then. Later in life, Java was the next big thing and for me to get into it was harder. I got a book and figured out how to compile it. I stopped programming when I wrote HELLO WORLD! I came across Python at some time. At the same style I wrote my Q basic programs, things were more functional. That’s my entry into programming.
4:05 – Chuck: What got you into Python?
4:13 – Guest: The syntax in Java hurt in writing. With Python when I first started out it felt like it wasn’t asking me more than what I needed to do. It was very simple for me.
4:38 – Chuck: What did you build with Python?
4:43 – Guest: Connect 4 in Python and command line tools. Simple things. I wrote one time a sales website in Django with Python and use with Google Pay. I wrote it and it got to launch point and then I was done.
5:30 – Chuck: How Did you get into Ruby?
5:35 – Guest: A childhood friend who loved Pearl and at the time I loved Python. We would friendly argue about which one was better. He talked to companies for me, and he edified my abilities in their eyes. I’ve been with Ruby since and I have a passion with it.
7:02 – Chuck: Why Ruby?
7:06 – Guest: With Python I never learned object oriented design and I never got into a community with Python. I didn’t connect with a broader community. I was constantly learning new things with Ruby. I connected a lot with people and shared with them the things that I’ve learned.
8:11 – Chuck: What have you done in Ruby?
8:15 – Guest: Almost you name it – I haven’t done graphics with gaming. I have done tons with the web side of things. I’ve done command line game and flashcards for learning language characters. That specific project was one of my favorite projects. I designed an entire...
9:14 – Chuck: Model view graphics for command line - how does that work?
9:23 – Guest: Rails has model view controller I followed that same schema.
10:00 – Chuck: Is it open source somewhere?
10:05 – Guest: Yes. Language Cards through GitHub. There are 2 languages that you can start learning with.
10:28 – Chuck: Performance on Ruby – how did you get into that angle?
10:51 – Guest: I agreed to work with shares in a startup company and I worked a year on it. It was heavy on features. One thing I noticed was that the load time for the front page was unacceptable (loading time). I wanted to figure out where the bottlenecks were. I wrote my first bit of code and linked it up with Ruby and I got my website to run 30% faster. Seeing that – that was exciting. It seemed like I accomplished something and I wanted to share it with the community. It drew a lot of attention. I thought it was a cool novel idea and I became well known for it. I put more time into it b/c I wanted it to look better since it got so much attention. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve dove into the C code b/c I am improving the libraries.
13:39 – Chuck: Getting those C libraries up?
13:45 – Guest: That is the most recent thing I am working with. My project RU RU hasn’t been worked on in a while, so I created an official fork for it – you can call it: RUTIE. So much work has been put into it. I am very excited about this project. It’s very active right now.
14:56 – Chuck: How do people find you online?
15:05 – Guest: GitHub, my website, and Twitter!
15:27 – Chuck: What if people want to contract you?
15:34 – Guest: Check out my résumé, which will show my areas of expertise. They can find ways to reach me, and my contact information is mentioned there. I like working on full-stack Ruby and/or Rust and anything performance.
16:16 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
Links
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Past Episode 368
- Daniel’s LinkedIn
- 6ftdan.com
- Daniel’s GitHub
- Daniel’s Twitter
Sponsors
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks
Daniel
- Running 3x a week, 45 minutes minimum is my recommendation
- Aerobics
- Improvement of your health and circulation!
Chuck
- “Parked out by the Lake” – Song – Dean Summerwind
- Get a Coder Job! “How do I find a job or a find a better job?”
- DevChat.TV
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Nassredean Nasseri
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Dean who is a senior software engineer at VTS, Inc. in New York City. Dean uses Ruby and is an advocate for the software. He and Chuck discuss his background, current projects, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
1:00 – Dean: Hi, Everyone!
2:07 – Chuck: E363 of Ruby Rogues is your past episode.
1:13 – Dean: I am a Ruby developer and out in NY City. I have been developing Ruby for the past 6 years now.
1:42 – Chuck: What made you want to do something like Fir?
1:50 – Dean: I love developing developer tools and using something that I can use in my day-to-day work – I like that. I am constantly debugging and trying new things. That’s how I operate. I wanted to build a tool that would take the concepts that were missing from IRB and...put in a shell like FITCH. That was the motivation to that project.
2:42 – Chuck: Check out his past episode to get into the nitty gritty. Let’s roll back – how did you get into programming?
3:10 – Dean: I started programming in 2009/2010. I was a senior in High School and I wanted to make a social media website. I knew about HTML and other things but databases and servers I had no idea about. I downloaded WAMP – you familiar? It stands for: WINDOWS APACHE, MYSQL, and PHP.
4:19 – Chuck: What about programming that got you started?
4:27 – Dean: To build the thing that was in my head. My motivation was I wanted to see this THING to get built. I had a UI and I used jQuery. I got further and further; I realized that I was enjoying it. I liked the feeling and I spent 6 hours and I felt rewarded.
5:12 – Chuck: I played with programming as a younger person but in college I was introduced to...and I liked something coming together. Programming felt like a toy for me. I built a platform for people to find an apartment with their amenities that they wanted. It never came to light but it was fun to build.
6:00 – Dean.
6:12 – Chuck: I was a software consultant for a while. They spent 10’s of thousands of dollars on this project and me. You get into PHP and how did you come to Ruby?
6:40 – Dean: I didn’t study computer science in college. My friends who had a “background” and they said that I needed to use Python. Python held me back b/c of the 2 to 3 split and the server getting up on my machine b/c certain tendencies needed x, y, and z. That drove me away from Python but I did like the language. My friend told me to try Ruby and I read a book (Ruby on Rails by Michael, 2nd ed.) and I got Ruby. That was really cool to me. I went through the tutorial and that was powerful for me. Motto: Keep things fun and simple and then build on things later.
8:59 – Chuck: I hear people complain about Ruby. Can you still do that?
9:13 – Dean: Yes, I think so. The thing that stands out to me is action cable. Maybe a beginner doesn’t want to have to think about. Rails is the best way to get up and running with minimum friction.
9:45 – Chuck: I worked through a company and I was their tech support – so I can relate to that. Other things that people worry about: Action Cable, etc. you don’t have to worry about that until later. That makes sense. What have you done that your proud of?
10:24 – Dean: I worked at a company and proud of the certain features I have built and shipped. I am proud of learning more and more about Ruby internals. I am proud of FIR, too.
11:43 – Chuck: Yeah, FIR does sound interesting. I hear people say that often: I built this thing and it makes a difference in this way. What are you working on now?
12:11 – Dean: Tech Ops; it’s a hybrid between DevOps and...
We have worked on projects like migrating CAM CAM CAM to PUNDIT. That was the last huge Ruby project we’ve worked on.
Our ongoing mission is to make sure things are up to date.
I have been migrating from our former CI provider to Circle CI. It’s been a challenge. It requires DOCKER and it was important for us to use...
(Dean goes into more detail.)
Dean: We have been working on flaky tests, which was more Ruby focused.
(Dean goes into more detail.)
15:42 – Chuck: I am curious to see what those tips are?
15:49 – Charlie McMillan – check out his blog post: Tips to Fixing Flaky Feature Specs. There is a real art to it.
16:06 – Chuck: Anything else?
16:16 – Dean: That’s pretty much the good stuff.
16:24 – Chuck: Over the course of your career what is an overarching theme?
16:42 – Dean: From the technological side – not really – but important to my development is empathy. Develop empathy for your colleagues, and customers. I love the tech stuff, but I made mistakes. I was so tech focused that maybe at the expense of my team. The soft skills are really important to this business. Being empathetic in this field and this is equally as important to being a really good empathetic person.
18:03 – Chuck: As we continue to see things grow – you can build small applications on your own. But when you are building a Facebook or something complex – then at that point your ability to work with people trumps your technical abilities. Once your past that can you work with other people?
19:06 – Picks!
19:14 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Dean’s Medium
- Dean’s Website
- Dean’s GitHub
- Dean’s Flickr
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Charles
- Get A Coder Job
- Book: Scourged by Kevin Hearne
- Down? Depressed? Try taking care of other people!
Dean
- VTS b/c we are hiring
- Book: Iran Awakening – By Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Nell Shamrell-Harrington
This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Nell who is a principle engineer at Chef. Check them out at Chef.Io. She also works with Operation Code. This organization helps veterans to learn code, and helps them get a technical job. Check out today’s episode where Chuck and Nell discuss Ruby, Rust, and much more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
2:00 – Chuck: Episode 105 is another episode you’ve been on before.
2:25 – Chuck: I want to spotlight you and talk about what you are working on. How did you get into programming?
2:38 – Nell: I was a theater major in college. I graduated in 2007 and the big financial crisis hit in 2008. I found work at the Physics Department in Seattle. Once they found out that I knew how to code, they gave me more coding to do.
When you are doing just the mathematics portion – you don’t see how this applies to real life. I didn’t pursue it because I didn’t see how it worked in the real world. Then I saw eventually how my theater background really helped me with coding because you have to be super creative.
After that (this is when I got into Ruby) my roommate in college sent me a message. She was working with Ruby, too, and she wanted to bring me on as a junior developer.
5:55 – Chuck: It’s interesting, too, to see what you just said. Not seeing the real-world application with some of that stuff. I can relate to that. I wanted to get into IT after college. The other thing is that it was someone you KNEW to get you into Ruby. People get into a specific framework because of someone that they knew/know.
6:54 – Nell: Yes, it’s the personal testimonies that help people make those decisions.
7:13 – Chuck: It was someone that you KNEW that helped you get X job.
7:24 – Nell: Yes, in Operation Code, too. Take a look at this candidate (normally you wouldn’t look at them b/c of their CV) and take a chance on them.
8:09 – Chuck: One thing that I am curious about what’s been your favorite thing to work on with Ruby?
8:38 – Nell: I worked on the supermarket product. Cookbook is a chef recipe for infrastructure...
We weren’t just running a site that people were using. They were saying: we love it, but we are behind a firewall. They couldn’t use the public one and they wanted a private one. The answer was: Yes! That was the first time I worked on software – packaged and distributed. I loved the breadth of the industries that it had an affect on. It was cool to see different industries use my work through a Ruby on Rails application. Ruby does scale!
10:42 – Chuck: Let’s talk about your work at Chef. You worked on Supermarket and then what was the distributed part to it?
11:05 – Nell: Chef Omnibus was the tool we used. You could take that package and install it on the infrastructure...
11:33 – Chuck: I worked at a university for a while. The work I did was that the access to the Internet was limited. Chef would have been nice!
11:58 – Chuck: What did you do at Blue Box?
11:59 – Nell: Software engineer there and we were a hosting company. We had a Rails application...
I helped write the code.
12:29 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
12:32 – Nell: I am working on a project called Habitat.
Nell talks about what THIS project is and how it functions. Check it out!
14:20 – Chuck: How did you get into Operation Code?
14:26 – Nell: Both my parents were air force operators. I wanted to but I had a physical limitation so I couldn’t. I grew up in military culture from 0-14 years old. After that I realized in my 20’s I really missed it. After the military it’s scary because you don’t have (maybe) a sense of purpose like you did in the military.
She asked how she could help and someone referred her to Operation Code. She realized she could be an asset and help these veterans. She works with close to 3,000 veterans to help them give a purpose after military life. They learn code and then hopefully find a technical job.
17:13 – Chuck: I spent some years around that life, too, when I was a missionary overseas. My brother-in-law was medically discharged. You see this change and it can be scary for them. You wind up in this position and you want to help. I admire this. These folks have sacrificed for us so let’s make a difference for them, too.
18:35 – Nell: My friend said that she didn’t like it when people thanked her for her service. She said that so many warzones it seems empty. When she heard this it was powerful to her.
19:40 – Chuck: How can people get involved?
19:43 – Nell: Operation Code – Hit the JOIN link. You can sign-up to be a volunteer. The slack community is where all the magic happens.
20:24 – Chuck: Anything else?
20:28 – Nell: Habitat is written in Rust. I haven’t done tons in Ruby right now. But what I am known in Ruby is for regular expressions. People have told me that it has helped them a lot.
22:14 – Nell: Regular expressions can be a lot of fun but they are mind numbing at first. Seeing an example can help.
22:33 – Chuck: Habitat is written in Rust. What’s that transition like from Ruby to Rust?
22:49 – Nell: I took a Latin course. Learning Rust was like learning Latin in that it’s a HUGE learning curve. However, in both that I stopped fighting with the language. And stepped back to see why it was doing what it’s doing. In Rust there is no Garbage Collector.
My Ruby experience did give me a leg-up.
Nell continues to talk about the differences between Rust and Ruby.
24:30 – Chuck: Which language do you like better?
24:34 – Nell: Personally, Ruby but for this project Rust!
24:45 – Chuck: We were talking about the tradeoffs between...
25:01 – Nell: Yes, choose the language that works for THAT project and for your team.
25:17 – Chuck: How can people find you?
25:23 – Nell: Twitter. I check it throughout the day, so feel free to DM me. GitHub, too.
I have gotten back to voice acting so check that out!
26:11 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Rust
- Operation Code
- Nell Shamrell-Harrington's LinkedIn
- Nell Shamrell’s Twitter
- Nell Shamrell’s GitHub
- Chef.Io
Sponsors:
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
- Fresh Books
Picks:
Charles
- Frameworks Summit
- Podcast Conference
- Home Depot Tool Rental
Nell
- New speed eradicator for Facebook
- The Daiso Store!
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Nathan Kontny
This week on My Ruby Story, the panel talks with Nathan Kontny who has been in the Ruby community since 2005. He once was a chemical engineer, and then got into programming after a broken ankle incident; after that...the rest is history! Today, Nathan and Chuck talk about Ruby, how to begin a startup company, Rockstar Coders, balancing life, and much more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
1:05 – Chuck: E365 is the past episode you’ve been featured on.
1:14 – Nathan comments.
1:20 – Chuck.
1:56 – Nathan: Been in the community since 2005. I am a developer and entrepreneur. I do a lot of YouTube and videos nowadays.
2:50 – Chuck: How did you get into this field?
2:55 – Guest: It’s weird. I was a chemical engineer in the past. Back in the day 1996 I was learning...
My love for it started through an internship. It was kind of a scary place dealing with harmful materials. Make sure you aren’t carrying uranium with you, and wear multiple gas masks at all times. There was an acid leak through someone’s shoulder. I didn’t love it, but something fortunate happened. I broke my ankle in one summer, and when I showed-up they made me go to this trail where I couldn’t be near the chemicals. Well, the director had computer problems and asked him to help with him. I put in code and out came results. In the chemical industry it was/is: “Maybe the chemicals will react to this chemical in this way...?” It was this dopamine rush for me. After that summer, I wanted to do programming.
7:16 – Chuck: Same thing for me. This will manifest and then boom. I had a friend change to computer major – and this led me to the field.
8:45 – Guest: Yeah, I had a different career shown to me and then I had a choice.
9:02 – Chuck: How did you find Ruby?
9:05 – Guest: I got a job but they wouldn’t let me program because I didn’t have enough experience. I had to teach myself. I taught myself Java – 9 CDs back in the day. I stayed up late, and did anything I could to teach myself. I taught myself Java. I got promoted in the business and became a Java developer. After 5 years of that I started doing freelance work.
I love Ruby’s language and how simple it was to me. I have flirted with other languages, but I keep coming back to Ruby.
13:00 – Chuck: The same for me, too. Oh, and this makes this so much easier, and it extends so much easier. I have questions about being an entrepreneur. Anyways, you get into Ruby and Rails, you’ve done a bunch of things. What are you proud of and/or interested in with Rails? How do you feel like Rails helps with building things?
14:00 – Guest shares his past projects.
I was proud of just hosting Rails, because there were so many changes back in the day. I have helped with open source contributions back in 2009. There was a security problem and I discovered this. Nothing happened and I just went in and fixed the bug; an infamous contribution. I am proud of my performance work. I made a plug-in for that, etc. Also, work with Highrise.
17:23 – Chuck: Yep, Highrise people will know. I’ve used Highrise in the past.
17:38 – Nathan: Yeah.
17:50 – Chuck and Nathan go back and forth.
17:58 – Chuck: You’ve done all these different things. So for a start-up what advice would you give? People are doing their own thing – what’s your advice on an incubator, or doing it alone or raising capitol?
18:41 – Nathan: I take a middle road approach. You do what makes sense with your business. What works for you? I would do that. It’s hard to pick-on what incubators could be.
Ownership is everything – once you don’t own it – you loose that control. Don’t loose your equity. I wanted more control over my box. I would be careful raising money – do that as a last effort. Keep your ownership as far as you can. But if you are up against the wall – then go there.
22:29 – Chuck: Now I have 2 jobs: podcasting and developing this course. I guess my issue is how do you find the balance there between your fulltime job and your new fulltime job?
23:01 – Nathan: Yeah it’s tough. I do, too, now I am building something and trying to balance between that and Rockstar Coders. Clients have meetings and there are fires. There is no magic to it. I thought bunching your days into clusters would help me with focus, but it’s not good for the business. I don’t think the batch thing isn’t working for me. A little bit on, a little bit off. I think MT on Rockstar. Wednesday I take a half-day. Thursday all start-up, etc. It’s just balance. It can’t be lopsided one way or the other. Just living with my girlfriend and now wife was easy, but having a kid in the evening is tricky. I create nice walls that don’t interfere. I don’t know that’s it.
25:55 – Chuck: It sounds like they are completely separate. What I am building affects my people at work. I find the balance hard, too.
26:21 – Nathan: It’s also good to have partners who support you.
27:19 – Chuck: Do you start looking for help with marketing, or...?
27:27 – Nathan: Yeah that’s hard, too. Maybe? Some people aren’t in the US and they might be more affordable. My friend found someone in Europe who is awesome and their fees are cheaper. Their cost of living is cheaper than the U.S. There are talented folks out there.
28:50 – Chuck: Yeah, I had help with a guy from Argentina. I am in Utah and he was an hour ahead. So scheduling was easy.
29:27 – Nathan: I have a hard time giving that up, too. It’s hard to hire someone through startup work. Startup work needs to be done quickly, etc. BUT when things solidify then get help.
30:28 – Chuck: They see it as risky proposition. It seems like the cost is getting better so the risk is there.
30:48 – Nathan: There is tons of stops and goes if I look back into my career. In the moment they feel like failures, but really it was just a stepping-stone. It was just a source for good ideas, and writings, and things to talk at podcasters about, etc. I just feel like short-term they feel risky but in the long-term you can really squeeze out value from it. I am having trouble, right now, finding customers, it could be risky, and there might not be a market for this. But I am learning about x, y, and z. Everything is a stepping-stone for me now. I don’t feel like it’s a failure anymore to me.
32:50 – Chuck: What are you doing now?
32:55 – Guest: Rockstar.
3 / 4 teenagers want to be YouTubers! That’s just crazy and that will keep going. I want to be apart of that. I am making programs so people can make their own videos. That’s what I am fooling around with now.
35:06 – Chuck: Yeah we will have a channel. There is album art. I’m working on it. I will start recording this week.
35:43 – Nathan: It is hard to get traction there. I don’t know why? Maybe video watchers need quicker transitions to keep interested.
36:12 – Chuck: I could supply some theories but I don’t know. I think with YouTube you actually have to watch it. Podcasts are gaining traction because you can go wherever with it.
36:51 – Nathan: Right now commuting can only be an auditory experience. When we get self-driving cars then videos will take off.
37:14 – Chuck: Picks!
37:19 – Advertisement!
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Rails
- Highrise
- Rockstar Coders
- Nathan’s Medium
- Nathan’s Twitter
- Nathan’s LinkedIn
- Nathan’s YouTube
- Past Episode with Nathan – DevChat.TV
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
Picks:
Charles
- Board Games: Bubble Talk
- Shadow Hunters
- Apples to Apples
- The Resistance
- Airbnb
- Zion National Park
Nathan
- Writing is important.
- Masterclass!
- Book: Living with a Seal
- Book: Living with the Monks
- Sara Blakely – Spanx
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Victor Shepelev
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks with Victor Shepelev who is a Ruby programmer and also a poet. He works for Verbit.ai and lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Chuck and Victor talk about his background, how Victor got into Ruby, and his latest projects.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
1:13 – Chuck: Episode 367 – check it out!
1:37 – Background?
1:42 – Living in Ukraine.
2:08 – Chuck: How did you get into programming?
2:18 – Victor: I broke my leg and very bored. In ‘85-‘86 and I was gaming. Since then I got into programming and have been in it for 20 years.
3:20 – Chuck: Prince of Persia.
3:26 – Chuck: What made you stick with programming?
3:34 – Victor: I think it was magically and exotic. It still fascinates me.
4:03 – Chuck: How did you get into Ruby?
4:15 – Victor: There are great several programming attitudes – but I belong to the one that just write texts that expose the meanings. I like the text. I am a poet. When I write in Ruby (not like poetry), I write texts and that is what I’m thinking about. I loved C-Plus, Plus in the early 2000’s. For me it wasn’t fully expressive enough. I tried other things and searched other options. I met Ruby and it was love at the first sight.
7:09 – Chuck: What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of?
7:18 – Victor: The project takes my time is data integrated into itself: countries, planets, famous paintings, and so on. It’s really cool.
9:49 – Chuck: Where can you find this project?
9:54: Victor – GitHub and some conferences.
10:27 – Chuck: You mentioned being in a company that does translation?
10:33 – Victor: Yes. It is written in Python.
11:11 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
11:18 – Victor: Yes, this project and last year I got into development of Ruby itself. I wasn’t that proficient. I am not contributing to the language itself but creating documentation (program language reference) and new features of Ruby.
12:40 – Chuck: What is the Ruby community like in Ukraine?
12:46 – Victor: It is pretty large. Don’t know if it is large to U.S. standards.
Meetups happens every once to twice a month in my city.
Recent years it has gotten smaller, because I don’t know if they are going to the new “hip” technology.
14:16 – Chuck: We’d have Meetups like 30-40-50 people and now it’s only 10-20.
Different companies are moving to different things that they need.
14:43 – Victor: In Ukraine I think a lot of people are doing a lot of opensource. I think it will still grow to some extent.
15:29 – Chuck: It’s not that Ruby is dying per se. Ruby hit a stride when web was hot. Now we are seeing growth in AI or IOT. For example people are reaching to Python for the mathematics and scientific side to it.
16:17 – Victor adds in his comments.
Victor: I had some high hopes for Rails.
18:14 – Chuck comments.
Chuck: It would be interesting to see bindings. See these other options come forward.
18:39 – Victor.
19:10 – Chuck: Picks!
19:14 – Advertisement.
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Episode 367 – check it out!
- Victor’s GitHub
- Victor – Zverok with Ruby
- Victor’s Facebook
- Victor’s Talk on Tech Talk – The Functional Style in Ruby
- The Ruby Reference
- Book: Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan
- Book: Words for War
- New Poems from Ukraine
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
Picks:
Charles
- Elixir Mix – check-out future Episodes
- Game – Play Bloons Tower Defense 6
Victor
- The Ruby Reference
- Book: Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan
- Book: Words for War
- New Poems from Ukraine
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Dr. Neil Brown
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks with Dr. Neil Brown who is a researcher. He helps people teach “how to program” more effectively and efficiently. Check out his social media pages and his research via the web. Chuck and Neil talk about his research among other topics.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:52 – Chuck: We are talking with Neil Brown.
1:05 – Chuck: I’ve always wanted to go to London! Let’s dive in and talk about you and how you got into all of this stuff.
1:40 – Neil: I was in primary/elementary school and sometime there I went to my dad and I asked him how are these games made? He gave me a book.
3:12 – Chuck: What are some things that you are researching?
3:24 – Neil answers the question.
5:24 – Chuck: How do you know what to look into and how do you test your hypotheses? There is some science there.
5:45 – Neil: We have a large data collection.
6:07 – Chuck: You have your own ideas linked to Java?
6:15 – Neil: Yep.
6:20 – Chuck: Do people know that they are test subjects?
6:31 – Neil: Oh yeah.
6:39 – Chuck comments.
6:45 – Chuck: What do programmers see?
6:55 – Neil: It is interesting to see the code that they are writing. You are not sure what they are trying to do. Programming is a very frustrating experience for most people. I want to reach back in time and tell them that the problem is there. You watch people do it and they kind of in the right area, and then they go somewhere else. It’s frustrating for beginners.
8:06 – Chuck: How long have you been doing the research?
8:05 – Neil: Five Years.
8:22 – Chuck: How would I get into something like that?
8:32 – Neil answers the question.
9:35 – Chuck: What are you most proud of?
9:42 – Neil answers the question.
11:34 – How do you communicate that to people in the “real world” in a professional setting?
11:45 – Neil answers the question.
Neil: Be careful of your own expectations.
12:32 – Chuck: What are you doing now?
12:35 – Neil answers the question.
12:58 – Neil: Research is focused on the “new.” Making something “new.” We are doing essential work, but work that doesn’t get a lot of recognition.
13:37 – Chuck: That’s interesting. What else should we dive into? I would love to have you back.
13:57 – Chuck: Any advice for someone who wants to get into this area?
14:00 – Neil: Study and get a Ph.D. to help you with research.
14:40 – Chuck: There are a lot of universities who do this type of research?
14:52 – Neil answers the question.
15:35 – Picks!
15:41 – Advertisement
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Dr. Neil Brown – Podcast
- Dr. Neil Brown – Article
- Dr. Neil Brown – Twitter
- Tips for Teaching Programming with Dr. Neil Brown
- BlueJ
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
- Cache Fly
Picks:
Charles
- Audible
- If you are exhausted / depressed / down...go and take some time for yourself!
- Having a side project
- Book: Crucial Conversations
Neil
- Michael Lewis – Flash Boys
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Erik Dietrich
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Erik Dietrich who is a consultant and a business owner. After he left the IT life, he is a partner for a content marketing company among others.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:52 – Greetings! It’s another story on Ruby Stories.
1:04 – We have had you on Episode 296.
1:28 – Guest: I did in my blogger days, but over the course of time but I ran into management roles and then left. That definitely skewed my topics that I talked about.
1:59 – Chuck: Introduce yourself for people.
2:53 – Chuck: Let’s talk about your career or even further back. How did you get into programming?
3:24 – Guest: My father introduced me into my project. Into my educational background I do remember banging away at my computer because there weren’t any courses offered (at the time).
4:13 – Chuck: Let’s talk about computer science.
4:22 – guest: I had to apply to the computer science program to the college I went to. I knew I wanted to do something cutting-edge.
4:42 – Chuck: After college where did you end up?
4:55 – Guest: I graduated in 2001 from college. I did some odd jobs. Thankfully, the economy was stronger for me to be a software engineer title. Then from there...
5:57 – Chuck: When I graduated I started off with Tech Support then Q/A.
6:12 – Chuck: It sounds like you worked all over the place? Is it deliberate when you chance course within your career?
6:36 – Guest: Actually, it was full circle for me. At some point, I did get more career-minded.
8:01 – Chuck: How did you end up there – the programming job?
8:13 – Guest: My mom left, but worked at X company. The co. knew that she had a son that finished a computer science degree.
9:10 – Chuck: The recruiters should be use to that at some point.
9:23 – Guest added some more thoughts.
9:50 – Chuck: Talk about the progression you’ve made. I know Ruby is not your primary focus of your background. Take people on a tour. I’m curious if we can talk about how you got into the consulting and marketing roles that you fill these days.
10:28 – Guest: Whistle stop of my career, here we go. The first 10 years, it was pretty standard. Across a few different companies went from one position to another up to the architectural role. Then, I went through job-hopping. I ended up doing independent consulting and freelance works. I didn’t know really, though, what I wanted to do. Coaching people is what I did for a while. There I discovered something – I enjoyed that coaching work. More opportunities that I had, and then I realized it was a good fit. Over the course of time, I had the blog, which was reflecting anything I was doing. If I am writing about x, y, z, I was blogging about it.
14:28 – Chuck: How do you know which opportunity to pursue?
14:38 – Guest: General, I was say...
15:52 – Chuck: What are you most proud of?
16:04 – Guest: The blog.
17:28 – Guest: My book. Check it out. Amazon and Leanpub.
17:47 – Chuck: What are you working on now?
17:58 – Guest answers this question.
21:12 – Chuck: Any other thing you’d like to talk about?
21:27 – Guest chimes in with his ideas.
24:25 – Guest: Whatever adds to your happiness.
24:36 – Chuck: I get to choose what I want to work on. I find that the freer that I am to make my own decisions the happier I am.
25:09 – Guest: I had a hard time being told to do things from senior roles in the job.
25:42 – Chuck: I think more companies will be willing to bring some people in for a specific project/job.
26:39 – Guest: I get into trend projection into my book.
28:04 – Chuck: One more question that I have. As people are coming into this pool – what do you advise those people to see where the industry is going? Where to get a job? Long-term?
28:35 – Guest: To get a job in the entry level is kind of hustling. If you are struggling then write about a blog. Get there a social profile that makes you different from all the others. Does the company have the faintest idea of who you are and what you can do? Position yourself as an expert. If you can show that you are standing out from your peers then your career will advance much more quickly. Not necessarily being “better then them.” How are you different?
30:23 – Chuck: Yep, these things I push people toward in my new course. Meet the right people; build those relationships. They probably get dozens or dozens of applications. They can find someone to write code but it’s the underlining stuff that they are looking for.
31:44 – Advertisement
32:26 – Picks!
Links:
- Ruby
- Elixir
- Chuck’s Twitter
- Ribbon Farm
- Hit Subscribe
- Erik Dietrich’s Book on Amazon
- Erik Dietrich’s Book on Leanpub
- Erik Dietrich’s Twitter
- Erik Dietrich’s GitHub
- DaedTech
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
Picks:
Charles
- Audible
- AirPods
- Ketogenic
Jamie
- 4-Hour Work Week
- Ribbon Farm
- Hit Subscribe – Apply to be an Author!
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Jamie Wright
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Jamie Wright about his background and current projects that he is working on. Ruby Rogue interviewed Jamie on Episode 326 – check out that episode for more information. Chuck and Jamie discuss many topics, but one in particular is truly inspiring and that is Jamie’s impact within his community: teaching! Jamie is enthused to help students with designing games and helping them with programming. Check-out today’s episode to hear more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
0:53 – Introduction. Episode 326 of Ruby Rogues is a past episode with Jamie as a guest.
1:50 – Chuck was at Microsoft Build. It’s interesting to see where all of this stuff comes out. Interesting to see where it will be in the next few years.
2:31 – There is a lot of room for improvement – Google Dispatch. It is their AI, which is insane. Compare that to last year, it’s leap and bounds different.
2:59 – Let’s talk about your story, Jamie.
3:10 – Jamie started programming in high school, which was offered through an introduction course. It was in Basic. His cousin who was a programmer, too, influenced him. Jamie took this course, and he made a tic-tac-toe game. Went he went to college he took computer science, and fell in love with it there. Jamie loves the idea of creating things from nothing to something. It is art to me. It’s pretty neat. It’s not like you are investing hundreds of thousands into a fashion line, it’s just your time into a computer.
4:48 – Chuck makes some comments.
4:57 – Jamie mentors children from 7 – 17 years old. Works with a program, which is worldwide. Jamie helps the kids build their own games.
5:29 – Chuck: That sounds like fun!
5:35 – Seeing a side of programming where there aren’t any deadlines.
5:45 – Chuck reflects on Jamie’s previous comment.
6:03 – Jamie: It’s fun to put all of that stuff aside and watch people tinker. And hearing all of the “Oh’s and Ah’s!”
6:22 – Chuck: How did you get into Ruby?
6:31 – Jamie: Code Mash (local). Leon, in 2006/2007, was doing a workshop for Ruby, and Jamie fell in love with it. He tinkered around with it in Rails, and he was hooked ever since.
7:25 – What got you excited about it?
7:36 – A.) You had to be on Windows B.) You needed Microsoft Tooling.
Just the ease of opening up a terminal, and that there was less friction – it was just easy!
Jamie continues to talk about the other reasons why he fell in love with Ruby. He also enjoys the community. For him it was a good decision and it is fun for me. The fun factor is still there for me. Jamie loves Ruby.
9:22 – Chuck: What have you done in Ruby? We talked about Chatbots earlier.
9:30 – Jamie’s first project was a To Do List app. He wanted to do a task list from just one sentence. Jamie created MORALE, and it did okay for a while. That was his first app in Ruby’s. As far as open source work, Jamie hasn’t done anything that hasn’t really taken off. He created LAZINESS. Listen to this timestamp for other of Jamie’s projects and creations that he has been apart of.
11:12 – Chuck to Jamie: What are you most proud of?
11:14 – Jamie: I am most proud of teaching. I have created workshops. I see the same excitement that I had about Ruby’s.
11:49 – Chuck: It’s interesting to see what people really care about. Something I did helped someone else and their future, which is really cool.
12:29 – I am playing with Elixir now, because of Ruby, among other projects. Other projects: Pomodoro’s App and integration.
14:49 – Jamie: “Elixir is awesome. I feel like it is a perfect language for Chatbots.”
15:31 – Chuck: We will have to dive into that a little more.
16:06 – Chuck: Do you have some picks for us?
16:09 – Advertisement: Chuck’s Get A Coder Job!
Links:
- Episode 326 of Ruby Rogues
- Microsoft Build
- Ruby
- Chatbot
- Elixir
- Jamie Wright’s GitHub
- Jamie Wright’s Twitter
- Chuck’s Twitter
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
Picks:
Charles
- Disney Emoji Blitz
- Skitch – Evernote
Jamie
- Book: Deep Work
- Go play paintball!
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Rob Miller
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Rob Miller. Rob is a return guess from Ruby Rogues 235. Rob shares his journey into programming, starting with creating HTML and CSS and website building. Rob talks about his book Text Processing with Ruby and projects and he is currently working on.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on
1:15 - Rob shares about getting into programming starting with Geocities and website building
4:00 - Rob and Charles talks about the old ways of working with websites building
5:20 - Rob talks about when he go into Ruby, and along with PHP and Rails.
6:09 - Rod share on what he like most about Ruby. The Community and people who were ambassadors for the language. Charles share that this is similar to his experience with getting into Ruby. The community is amazing and very helpful.
8:00 - Charles ask Rob about his book about “Text Processing with Ruby.” Rob shares his reason for writing this book about text wrangling.
11:00 - Rob share more on Dev Ops and other connecting tools to Ruby.
12:00 - Charles ask about other thing Rob is doing with Ruby. Rob says it is mostly web development materials and things that have to with web.
13:00 - Rob mentions that nowadays he is working on marketing, data and working with companies with their products on the backend of marketing and programming.
15:00 - Rob says this is a way for him to help him promote his book. Rob shares a bit on The 3 Virtues of a Programmer: Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris.
16:00 - Charles ask Rob about writing a book. Charles asks about the process with Pragmatic Book Shelf. Rob shares the dos and don’ts of his experience with his book.
19:00 - Shares information on where you connect find out more about him and his book.
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 235
- Rob's Blog
- Robs’s GitHub
- Rob’s Twitter
- Text Processing with Ruby
- Pragmatic Book Shelf
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
Picks:
Charles
- Writing a book in Markdown
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Aaron Sumner
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Aaron Sumner. Aaron is a senior software engineer at O’Reilly Media as well as runs the blog Everyday Rails and wrote a book entitled Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec. He first got into programming when his school got a computer and he took a computer class at a local community college that he took in order to learn how to write games. They talk about how he got into Ruby, what he is proud of contributing to the community, why he decided to write his book, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 353
- Aaron intro
- Writer of Everyday Rails blog and the book Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec
- How did you first get into programming?
- University of Kansas – Links browser
- Web development in college
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Perl and PHP
- Got to decide which stack to use at new job – tried out Rails and Django
- Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
- What are the things that you get excited about?
- What have you done in the community that you’re proud of?
- Why did you write the book about testing in Rails?
- Saw that very few books were available
- Deliberate about how to learn testing
- Writing the book based off of his popular blog posts
- Self-published on LeanPub
- Writing a book was a good next step for him at the time
- Where has most of your contribution to the community been?
- Speaks at conferences
- Active in meetups
- What are you working on currently?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 353
- O’Reilly Media
- Everyday Rails
- Everyday Rails Testing with RSpec
- Links
- Ruby
- Perl
- Rails
- Django
- Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
- LeanPub
- aaronsumner.com
- @ruralocity
- Aaron’s GitHub
- @everydayrails
Sponsors:
- Code Badges
- Get a Coder Job
Picks:
Charles
- Sous Vide
- Amazon Smile
Aaron
- Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto by Aaron Franklin
- BBQ with Franklin
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Justin Collins
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Justin Collins. Justin is most well known in the Ruby community for Brakeman and he was previously on Ruby Rogues Episode 219. Justin first got into programming when he was about 11 or 12 when his uncle handed down to him his TRS-80 Model 100 computer. They talk about his experience with event-driven programming, how he got into Ruby, what it was about Ruby that really got him excited, how Brakeman came to be, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 219
- Known for Brakeman
- How did you first get into programming?
- Interested in computers around 11 or 12
- TRS-80 Model 100
- Started off with Basic
- Event driven programming
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Computer Science major in college
- C++, Java, and C in college
- Perl, Python, and Ruby
- His first real experience with Ruby
- Rails was “too cool” at the beginning
- What was it about Ruby that really got you excited?
- Really liked Ruby’s aesthetics
- Very much a “feel” kind of person
- Fun, new, and welcoming community with Ruby
- How starting off with Basic has affected him now
- How did you get into security, Rails, and Brakeman?
- Needed an internship
- Internship with security department
- AT&T interactive
- Is there anything else that you’ve done in the Ruby community that you’re prod of?
- Rails-sqli.org
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 219
- Brakeman
- Ruby
- Perl
- Python
- Rails
- Rails-sqli.org
- @presidentbeef
- presidentbeef.com
- Justin’s GitHub
- JavaScript Jabber Episode 201
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Loot Crate
Picks:
Charles
- Brave
Justin
- Authy
- haveibeenpwned.com
- Ale
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Sean Fioritto
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Sean Fioritto. Sean is a developer that five years ago quit his job to do his own thing and work on different projects such as Sketching with CSS, Angular Escape Plan training, and consulting. He first got into programming when he had an idea to create things such as rooms and spells in his MOO game. They talk about how he got into professional style programming, how he got into drawing with CSS, why he created the Angular Escape Plan, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 203
- Sean intro
- Works with Angular, React, Vue, and many other frameworks
- Focus on front-end
- How did you first get into programming?
- Dad got him a book on Python – how he got into Python
- Playing on a “MOO”
- CodeWarrior
- How did you get into professional style programming?
- Studied Computer Science and Piano in college
- Got started with Python
- Not a Ruby developer, but has worked with Rails
- Artificial Intelligence by Peter Norvig
- Having fun with coding
- How did you come around to the drawing with CSS stuff?
- Had no clue as to what he was going to do after graduation
- Being the only trained programmer on the team
- Working with prototypes
- Where did the idea to create the Angular Escape Plan come from?
- Angular was very up and coming
- Helping others to understand Angular 1
- jQuery
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 203
- Sketching with CSS
- Angular Escape Plan
- Angular
- React
- Vue
- Python
- Ruby
- Rails
- Artificial Intelligence by Peter Norvig
- jQuery
- @sfioritto
- Work with Sean
- Sean’s Website
- Sean’s GitHub
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Loot Crate
Picks:
Charles
- Trello
Sean
- Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes
- Nourish Balance Thrive
- Fly.io
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Nadia Odunayo
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Nadia Odunayo. Nadia was previously on Ruby Rogues Episode 264 and she used to have her own podcast called Ruby Book Club. She first got into programming because when she was in college she launched a creative writing publication and she was frustrated that she had to keep asking others for help. This was when she started researching coding and how it all worked so that she could put her ideas into action. They talk about Ruby being the first programming language she learned, the importance of learning both the frontend and the backend, her desire to run her own thing, her need to find a company that would support her learning, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 264
- Ruby Book Club
- How did you first get into programming?
- Hated having to ask other for help
- Studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at University
- Code First: Girls
- Have you done much with your degree?
- Her first talk as a junior Ruby developer
- Economics is about how people behave
- Was Ruby your first programming language?
- Learning HTML, CSS and the Ruby and Rails
- Frontend VS backend
- How long was the program?
- Learning Ruby first and the pros to that
- Sinatra
- Do you feel like the boot camp prepared you to be a full-time Ruby developer?
- Wanting to run her own thing
- Doing these courses only scratches the surface
- How did you find a company that supported your learning?
- Pivotal Labs
- TDD and pairing
- When she joined Pivotal VS now
- What are you doing currently?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 264
- Ruby Book Club
- Code First: Girls
- Ruby
- Rails
- Sinatra
- Pivotal Labs
- @nodunayo
- nadiaodunayo.com
- Nadia’s GitHub
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Loot Crate
Picks:
Charles
- Being willing to get some help
- Kiwi Crate
Nadia
- Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg
- The Evolution of Trust
- Work Life Podcast
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Mark Locklear
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mark Locklear. Mark first got into programming when there wasn’t a lot of opportunities for him to continue to work in quality assurance and he decided he wanted a change of career, so he went to community college to learn programming. They talk about how he was first exposed to Rails, where he is working currently, and what was it about Rails that got him excited. They also touch on what made him want to move from quality assurance, how he mentors his students at the community college, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 316
- How did you first get into programming?
- Has only been programming for about 10 years
- Went into IT during the internet boom
- Used to work in IT quality assurance
- Went back to school for programming
- Java, PHP, and C++ classes
- Red Hat contracting in Raleigh
- How did you get into Rails?
- Taught himself Rails at his local library
- Currently working at Extension.org
- What is the cooperative extension service?
- What do you do at Extension.org?
- ask.extension.org
- What was it with Ruby and Rails that made you want to move from QA?
- Masters in Information Science
- You’re never too old to learn
- Get an idea for an app and try and make that
- Ruby is very intuitive, friendly, and the syntax is easy to understand
- Mentors students in Rails at the community college he went to
- Expose yourself to as many frameworks as you can
- It’s never too late to pursue a career in programming
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 316
- Red Hat
- Rails
- Extension.org
- ask.extension.org
- Ruby
- @marklocklear
- Mark’s Medium
- locklear.me
- Mark’s GitHub
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Loot Crate
Picks:
Charles
- Zig Ziglar
- The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews
- Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves
- Life Promises for Leaders by Zig Ziglar
- Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni
- Audible
- The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman
- The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Mark
- Wicked Weed Brewing
- The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Jerome Hardaway
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Jerome Hardaway. Jerome used to be a panelist on Ruby Rogues and loved the ability to share his knowledge and interact with so many people from the community. He first got into programming by accident when he couldn’t find a job after becoming a veteran. He saw a commercial about job opportunities in coding, ended up finding a book on SQL and taught himself how to program. They talk about where he ran across Ruby on Rails, what he has worked on that he is particularly proud of, what he is doing currently, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Jerome’s experience being a panelist on Ruby Rogues
- Loves being able to reach his goals in a speedy manner
- Ruby Rogues Episode 279
- JavaScript Jabber Episode 239
- How did you first get into programming?
- In the military during the recession and had trouble finding a job
- Saw a commercial about coding
- Taught himself SQL
- Wordpress
- Focusing on making Vets Who Code better
- People would go for products over projects any day
- Chose Ruby on Rails
- Setting himself apart by picking to focus on Ruby on Rails
- Where did you come across Ruby on Rails?
- From PHP to Ruby on Rails
- Ruby
- Have you found the learning curve has gotten steeper for Rails?
- Keeping up with the JavaScript community
- What have you done on Ruby in Rails that you are proud of?
- Being the right person for the job when you don’t look like it on paper
- What are you working on now?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 279
- JavaScript Jabber Episode 239
- Vets Who Code
- Ruby Rogues
- Wordpress
- Ruby on Rails
- Ruby
- JavaScript
- @JeromeHardaway
- Vets Who Code blog
- Jerome’s GitHub
Sponsors:
- Loot Crate
- FreshBooks
Picks
Charles
- Take some time with the people you care about
- Mattermost
Jerome
- Brian Holt Frontend Masters
- Pragmatic Studio
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Takashi Kokubun
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Takashi Kokubun. Takashi is a template engine hobbyist, is currently working on the JIT Compiler for Ruby 2.6, and is a Ruby on Rails application engineer at Treasure Data. He first got into programming in his first year at university where he learned C in his first part-time job. They talk about why he decided to work with Ruby, the first thing he built with it, and how you would write a templating system. They also touch on what he is working on now, what his plans are for the future, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Takashi intro
- Ruby Rogues Episode 357
- How did you first get into programming?
- Learned C in his first part-time job
- Creating iOS puzzle games
- Starting to work with Ruby on Rails
- What makes you decide to work with Ruby?
- Ruby was cleaner and simpler
- JIT compiler to make Ruby faster
- How did you find Ruby?
- Friends tweeting about Ruby
- What was the first thing you built with Ruby?
- What was it about Ruby that you really liked?
- Simple syntax
- Did you do anything in open source with Ruby before working on the JIT compiler?
- His JIT Compiler
- What goes into writing a templating system?
- Haml
- What are you working on now?
- No longer working for Cookpad
- How do you spend your time?
- What’s your favorite thing about working on all of this?
- Barbeque
- Speakerdeck slides on Barbeque
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 357
- Ruby on Rails
- Ruby
- Treasure Data
- JIT Compiler
- Haml
- Cookpad
- Barbeque
- Speakerdeck slides on Barbeque
- Takashi’s GitHub
- Takashi’s Medium
- @k0kubun
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Digital Ocean
Picks:
Charles
- Dedicate show to Father
- Camping
- Utah Backyard Homesteading
Takashi
- Takoyaki
- Ruby Kaigi 2018
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Andy Hunt
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Andy Hunt. Andy has previously been on Ruby Rogues for Episode 277, and is known for his book The Pragmatic Programmer, his company The Pragmatic Bookshelf, and much more. He first got into programming because of his interest in electronic music and his first RadioShack project he created, which led him to finding a book on the future of integrated circuits. They talk about how he found Ruby, why he wrote Programming Ruby, what he is working on now, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 277
- His book The Pragmatic Programmer
- His company The Pragmatic Bookshelf
- How did you first get into programming?
- Interest in electronic music
- RadioShack project
- Book on the future of integrated circuits
- Fire in the Valley by Michael Swaine
- Exposure to the programming as it was being born
- How did you find Ruby?
- Time as a consultant
- Needed a flexible and fast language
- Couldn’t use C++ or Java
- Using Perl
- Amazed by the Unix shell
- Loved that he could write pages of code that would actually work
- Lacked documentation in the beginning
- Writing his Programming Rubybook
- Been messing around with Elixir recently
- Ruby is still his number one language
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 277
- The Pragmatic Programmer
- The Pragmatic Bookshelf
- Fire in the Valley by Michael Swaine
- Ruby
- Perl
- Programming Ruby
- Elixir
- Andy’s GitHub
- @PragmaticAndy
- Andy’s Website
- @pragprog
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
Picks:
Charles
- Google Drive
- ScanSnap S1300i
Andy
- PragProg.com
MRS 050: Jacob Stoebel
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Jacob Stoebel
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Jacob Stoebel. Jacob is a Ruby and JavaScript developer and he works for a small company that works with publishers. Jacob first got into programming in high school when he took a computer science class where he messed around with Pascal and C++. He got back into programming after college when he went back to school for programming to try to make his data entry job easier. They talk about his journey pushing the boundaries with technology, how he went about starting his programming career, and more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Jacob intro
- Ruby Rogues episode 355
- Honesty, Kindness and Inspiration: Pick Three blog post
- His RubyConf 2017 talk
- Encourage people to talk about what they are passionate about
- How did you first get into programming?
- Computer science class in High School
- Pascal and C++
- Went on to pursue other things besides programming after high school
- Job involved data processing
- Python class
- Setting limits as to what you can and cannot do with technology
- Pushing the boundaries
- Don’t be afraid to change your career
- Learning and taking more computer science class through his job
- Ruby and Rails
- Real world project that other people hold you accountable for
- Web apps
- Why Rails?
- Django
- What have you done in Rails that you’re proud of?
- Wiki Edu Dashboard
- Legacy projects
- What are you working on now?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues episode 355
- Honesty, Kindness and Inspiration: Pick Three blog post
- RubyConf 2017 talk
- Pascal
- Python
- Ruby
- Rails
- JavaScript
- Django
- Wiki Edu Dashboard
- Jacob’s GitHub
- jstoebel.com
- @jstoebel
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Digital Ocean
Picks:
Charles
- RubyKaigi 2018
- Elixir Mix Podcast
- DevChat.tv YouTube
- DevChat.tv/15minutes
Jacob
- RubyConf 2017 talk - Git Driven Refactoring by Ashley Ellis Pierce
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Amit Choudhary
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Amit Choudhary. Amit was previously on Ruby Rogues in January 2018 on episode 345 discussing app failures. Amit is a software developer at Big Binary, where he is a full-stack Ruby developer. He first got into programming when he learned C for a computer engineering course. They talk about how he got into Ruby, what he has done with Ruby, what the Ruby community is like in India, and what he is working on now.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 345
- Amit intro
- Currently works at Big Binary
- Family language is Ruby
- Interested in front-end languages
- How did you first get into programming?
- From Delhi, India
- First language was C
- Loved the logic behind how a piece of code works
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Vinsol
- What have you done with Ruby?
- Working with Ruby for the last four years
- Using Rails to create APIs
- eCommerce platforms
- His switch to working in the back-end
- Meta-programming
- Comparing languages to Ruby
- What is the Ruby community like in India?
- Start-up culture in India
- RubyConf India
- What are you working on now?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 345
- Big Binary
- Ruby
- Vinsol
- Rails
- RubyConf India
- Selenium
- Amit’s GitHub
- Amit on Big Binary Blog
- @amit_1992
Sponsors:
- FreshBooks
- Digital Ocean
Picks:
Charles
- DevChat.tv/YouTube
- Ruby Rants coming soon on DevChat.tv/YouTube
- Facebook Marketplace
- DeLorean Motor Company
Amit
- Ruby 2.6
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: James Shore
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to James Shore about his background, how he got into programming, pitfalls that happened along the way, and his Agile story. James Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write, and consult on Agile development processes.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- James Shore’s background:
- Consultant, practitioner, and coauthor of “The Art of Agile.”
- How did you get into programming?
- Began an interest at 15 years old.
- How did you go from hobbyist to a professional?
- Modem background.
- FidoNet
- Software and technical design to the agile field.
- Agile field & development
- Waterfall
- Rational Rose
- “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler
- “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad
- WikiWikiWeb
- A lot of time we don’t look for these solutions unless we go through the pain.
- This is so true.
- In many ways the best learning comes through failure.
- Design standards.
- JavaScript
- If you see a different style – and you can’t get past X, Y, Z – that’s a real sign of immaturity.
- See past the different styles and find what you could “steal.”
- Intellectual laziness.
- Human condition is to not feel inferior.
- Of course, not every idea is good, but try and see what is the root.
- What do you feel like you’ve contributed to the programming industry?
- And much more!
Links:
- James Shore’s LinkedIn
- James Shore’s Website
- James Shore’s Twitter
- James Shore’s GitHub
- James Shore’s Book, “The Art of Agile Development...”
- FreshBooks
- FidoNet
- Waterfall
- Rational Rose
- “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler
- “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad
- WikiWikiWeb
- Digital Ocean, LLC
- JavaScript
- CacheFly
Sponsor:
- Digital Ocean, LLC
Picks:
Charles
- Ready Player One – Movie
- NG Conf
- Interviews
James
- Neil Killick
- Vihart – Mathematics Videos
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: David Hemmat
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to David Hemmat about his educational background, career choices, and suggestions for developers. David is a web developer who works mainly with Ruby on Rails. In the past few years, David has done work for a number of clients including Condé Nast, Six Red Marbles, ShopKeep, and Couplewise. Currently, David is working on a number of personal and professional development projects.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
-
David’s background
- How did you get into programming?
- David’s first job was being a software developer in the Dominican Republic.
-
Ruby on Rails
-
Consulting and referrals
-
Contract work and being a freelancer
- Upwork
- Freelancer
-
Is there anything that you have done with Ruby or in the community that you are particularly proud of?
- Talks about Ruby on Rails
-
What are you working on now?
- The company and Blue Coding.
- They are interested in hiring a Ruby on Rails developer. If you are interested in this position e-mail at: hr@bluecoding.com or info@bluecoding.com.
-
Hiring
- Finding someone you can trust to lead the charge.
Links:
- Fresh Books
- Upwork
- Freelancer
- Digital Ocean
- CacheFly
- Blue Coding
- David R. Hemmat’s Website
- David’s E-mail: david@davidhemmat.com
- Medium Account for David Hemmat
Sponsors:
- Digital Ocean
Picks:
David
- Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl
- Codecademy
- Rails Casts
- Platzi
Charles
- Framework Summit
- Ruby Hack
- Microsoft Build
- Podcast Movement
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Benjamin Wood
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Benjamin Wood. Ben and his brother Josh own a consultancy company together called Hint, where they specialize in upgrading Rails apps and run UpgradeRails.com. He first got into programming because he was interested in computer hardware and built a computer out of spare parts for fun as a child. They talk about what led him to Ruby and Rails, what he has learned in throughout his life, especially with running a business, and much more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 288
- Hint and UpgradeRails.com
- How did you first get into programming?
- Interested in computer hardware
- Built a computer as a kid
- Grew up in time of dial up internet
- Discovered his house had two phone lines
- Snook extra fax line into his room to get internet
- Fell in love with the internet as a child
- PHP and DSL
- Built forums to keep in touch with friends
- Created content management systems with PHP
- WordPress
- Started a career in audio engineering
- Ran a recording studio for 6 years
- Built a website for the studio
- Started with JavaScript
- How did you find Rails?
- Wanted a change of career
- Self-taught
- Sub-contracting with his brother
- HoneyBadger
- What have you learned?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 288
- Hint
- UpgradeRails.com
- Rails
- WordPress
- Ruby
- JavaScript
- HoneyBadger
- Ben’s GitHub
- @benjaminwood
- BenjaminWood.org
Picks:
Charles
- Serverless
- Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
- Delegation Roadmap
- New Ruby podcast on YouTube and Amazon Alexa to come
Benjamin
- Tiny Desk Concerts
- Robin Olson Tiny Desk Concert
- Serverless
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Catherine Meyers
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Catherine Meyers. Catherine first got into programming after a significant career change from being an opera singer to being a developer. Friends of hers suggested that she begin a programming career and she hasn’t looked back since. They talk about boot camps, such as Flatiron School, the importance of life-long learning, how she got into Ruby, and why she loves the language so much.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 354
- Newest member on the Ruby Rogues Panel
- How did you first get into programming?
- Relatively new to programming
- Career change from opera singer to programmer
- Didn’t grow up thinking she would be a programmer
- Friends pushed her to programming
- Taught herself HTML
- Used Codeacademy, Team Treehouse, and Code School
- Boot camps
- Rejected from Flatiron School originally
- Not everyone gets into code the same way, and that’s okay
- Coding takes hard work
- No successful programming career is automatic
- The importance of life-long learning
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Ruby is such a fun and great language to start with
- High-level language
- Full-stack developer
- Red Antler
- Bias towards front-end development
- 2 types of front-end development
- Talk to people of different backgrounds
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 354
- Codeacademy
- Team Treehouse
- Code School
- Flatiron School
- Ruby
- Red Antler
- @CCMeyers324
- CatherineMeyers.com
Picks:
Charles
- Running With the Demon by Terry Brooks
- 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson
- S.W.E.A.T. Pledge
Catherine
- Schubert - Unfinished Symphony No. 8
- GeoGuessr
- Sharing the Work by Myra Strober
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Sam Aaron
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Sam Aaron. Sam is a programmer who likes to try to get other programmers involved and programming in creative ways. Currently, he has been making music with programming with Sonic Pi and teaching children how to do so as well. He first really got into programming when he picked up a graphing calculator when he was in school and would program games and pictures on it. They talk about what led him to Ruby and what led him to create Sonic Pi.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Episode 215 of Ruby Rogues
- Sam intro
- Sonic Pi
- How did you fist get into programming?
- Programming on graph calculators
- Went to university to study programming
- Self-taught
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Ph.D. in CS
- Hated programming
- Saw first DHH screencast on Rails
- Liked that he could tinker with and get immediate results back with Ruby
- How did you wind up doing something like Sonic Pi?
- Monode
- Played piano as a kid
- Max Msp
- Over a million users on Sonic Pi
- What have you learned from creating Sonic Pi?
- Concurrent programming
- Interested in TDD
- Clojure
- Brought a lot from Clojure into the Ruby community
- How do you make systems simple?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Episode 215 of Ruby Rogues
- Sonic Pi
- Ruby
- Rails
- Clojure
- Sam.Aaron.name
- @samaaron
- Sam’s Github
- @Sonic_Pi
Picks:
Charles
- Vail, Colorado
Sam
- Sonic Pi
- Synthesizers
- Monodes
- Walking in the Hills
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Noah Gibbs
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Noah Gibbs. Noah works currently at AppFolio as their Ruby Fellow, where he does a lot of measuring and writing about Ruby performance. He also writes a lot for Ruby Weekly about Ruby performance. He first got into programming when was in the third grade and he got to use an Apple II in class. In class, they had to draw on graph paper and then “program” what they drew on their computer, and this fascinated him. They also touch on what led him to Ruby, why he fell in love with it, and what he is most proud of contributing to the Ruby community.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Noah intro
- What does AppFolio do?
- Works a lot on Ruby and open source
- How did you first get into programming?
- Has always been fascinated with computers
- Apple IIe
- Nothing beats complete boredom when it comes to programming
- How did you get into writing professional Ruby code?
- Went to college for computers
- C and C++
- Web browsers
- Looked into web programming
- Ruby on Rails 15-minute blog video
- Ruby on Rails
- Learned databases
- What was it about Ruby that got you excited?
- Why he began to hate systems programming
- Programming to make a useful application
- Building deep device software
- Making stuff for people that aren’t programmers is hard, but gratifying
- What are you most proud of contributing to the Ruby community?
- Rebuilding Rails
- And much, much more!
Links:
- AppFolio
- Ruby
- Ruby Weekly
- Ruby on Rails
- Ruby on Rails 15-minute blog video
- Rebuilding Rails
- @codefolio
- Noah’s GitHub
- Engineering.AppFolio.com
- @AppfolioEng
Picks:
Charles
- Sling TV
- Timeless
- Amazing Race
- Black Mirror
Noah
- Aaron Rutten Art Tutorials
- Parslet
- Fondant Potatoes
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Josh Greenwood
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Josh Greenwood. Josh was recently on Ruby Rogues and he works for a consulting company called Test Double, where he works remotely with clients all across the country. He first got into programming because he was always around computers because of his Dad, and he always loved playing video games. His first real exposure to programming was when he found an HTML book on his Dad’s bookshelf and he used it to build a website. They talk about what led him to Ruby, what made him fall in love with programming, and much more!
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Josh intro
- Ruby Rogues Episode 347
- Test Double
- How did you first get into programming?
- Grew up around computers
- Built a website based off a HTML book
- Scripting for video games
- Geocities
- Exposure to the programming world
- International Business degree
- Didn’t always want to program as a career
- Apriss
- Ruby and Rails
- Freelancing job
- Learned Ruby at internships in college
- What made you find a love for programming?
- What drew you in to Ruby?
- Ruby’s general approachability
- Loved the Ruby community
- What are you proud of contributing to the community?
- What are you workn on now?
- Recent talk at Code PaLOUsa
- Learning Elm
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby Rogues Episode 347
- Test Double
- Apriss
- Ruby
- Rails
- Code PaLOUsa
- Elm
- Josh’s GitHub
- @JoshTGreenwood
- Test Double blog
Picks:
Charles
- Ruby Hack
- Airbrake
- Rollbar
- DevChat.tv YouTube
- ScreenFlow
Josh
- The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg
- The Bullet Journal
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Marla Brizel
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Marla Brizel. Marla works at Test Double and has been programming full time for the past four years. She first got into programming when she got a job at a startup where they helped her learn how to program for herself and she fell in love with it. They talk about her background as a project manager and the importance of empathy for the user. They then touch on how she got into Ruby and things that she is particularly proud of contributing to the Ruby community.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Marla intro
- How did you first get into programming?
- Has been working in tech for the past decade
- Working at a startup
- What was it about coding made you want to make the switch?
- Likes that there are always more puzzles to solve
- You can always be learning new things in the programming world
- Get a Coder Job Course
- Code is the easy part of the job
- How programming has progressed over the years
- Test Double
- Project management background
- How did you wind up as a project manager?
- Building empathy for the user
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Girl Develop It
- Why Ruby?
- Ruby reads like English
- How did you wind up at Test Double?
- The value of conferences
- What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of?
- Denver Startup Week
- Ruby on Rails
- Elections
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Test Double
- Get a Coder Job Course
- Ruby
- Girl Develop It
- Denver Startup Week
- @MarlaBrizel
- Marla’s GitHub
- MarlaBrizel.com
Picks:
Charles
- TripIt
- NG conf
- MicroConf
- RubyHack
- Microsoft Build
- Podcast Movement
- Get a Job Course
- “Ruby Rants” coming soon
Marla
- Vokl Aura Skis
- dry-rb
- GitX
- Silvercar
- Denver Airport Train
- Denver Startup Week
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Mindaugas Mozūras
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mindaugas Mozūras. Mindaugas is from Lithuania and currently works at Vinted. He started about 5 ½ years ago as a software developer writing Ruby and now he the head of engineering at Vinted. He also has written an open source project called Pronto. He first got into programming when he was mesmerized by his father’s work computer and always grew up playing games that had to do with building things. They also touch on how he got into Ruby, what made him fall in love it, how he got his first Ruby job, and what he is working on now.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Mindaugas intro
- Pronto open source project
- Always focused on the best way to solve problems
- Communication is key
- How did you first get into programming?
- His father’s computer at work got him into computers
- Class in school that taught Pascal
- How have things changed since you first started?
- Didn’t see programming as a career at first
- Programming didn’t seem like a “serious” career choice
- Studied software engineering in college
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Listened to podcasts and blogs and heard about Ruby
- Ruby looked to be where all the fun things were happening
- Nancy open source project
- What was it about Ruby that inspired you?
- Loved Ruby’s succinctness
- How he got his first Ruby job
- What are you proud of doing in the Ruby community?
- What are you doing now?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Vinted
- Ruby
- Pronto
- Pascal
- Nancy
- Mindaugas’s GitHub
- @mmozuras
- CodingFearlessly.com
Picks:
Charles
- Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
- The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran
- Get a Coder Job Course
Mindaugas
- The Expanse (8 Book Series) by James S. A. Corey
- The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt
- The Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Justin Gordon
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Justin Gordon. Justin first got introduced to programming when he was a kid playing video games and in Jr. High when he took some Basic programming classes. By the time he was in High School, he was learning Pascal. He has always been interested in pursuing programming except for a small time in college when he thought he wanted to pursue investment banking. He first got into Ruby when he went to a meetup and found a startup who were using Ruby on Rails. They also talk about working remotely as well as ShakaCode.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you first get into programming?
- Basic and Pascal
- Fell out of programming in college
- 4th dimension
- Never took an official computer class after High School until after college
- Studied Applied Math at Harvard
- Harvard taught him the skills he never learned as a child
- What was is that made you come back to programming?
- Getting a Mac got him back into programming
- Have to love programming to want to do it for the rest of your life
- How did you find Ruby?
- Rails was more intuitive
- Rails is what brought him into the community
- Found it to be easier to use
- How did you end up in Hawaii?
- The ability to telecommute
- Windsurfing
- Great place to work and live
- Ruby history
- Used articles and videos to leanr Ruby
- GORUCO
- ShakaCode
- Doing remote work
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby on Rails
- Ruby
- ShakaCode
- @ShakaCode
- ShakaCode GitHub
- GORUKO
- Justin’s GitHub
- @RailsonMaui
- Forum.ShakaCode.com
Picks:
Charles
- Views on Vue
- React Round Up
- Forum.DevChat.tv
Justin
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD
- The Kevin Rose Show Episode
- Zoom
- Mast.ly
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Trae Robrock
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Trae Robrock. Trae founded and is currently the CTO of Green Bits which builds POS software for the legal cannabis industry. They have been in business for about 4 years now and are growing as the cannabis industry does. He first got into programming started when he was growing up and was always around computers. He started off writing clients for mIRC where he would write chat bots and code. He got into Ruby when he found that Twitter was written in Rails and noticed that he should probably learn about it so he could get a job after college. Now, he’s focusing on Green Bits and growing his team so that he can make it a successful business.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Trae intro
- How did you first get into programming?
- Grew up around computers
- mIRC Chat client
- How did you get into web development and Ruby?
- Web development was the only free version of programming available
- HTML and PHP
- Got into Ruby in college
- CakePHP
- Ruby on Rails
- Job at Outright
- CakePHP vs Rails
- What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of?
- Building DSLs
- Making code more accessible to people
- Automation in coding
- DSL use case
- What are you working on now
- Tries to get into the code
- What resources have you found that help you?
- Relationship management
- How do you learn how to hire the right people?
- A lot of trial and error
- Philosophy of hire quickly and fire quickly
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby
- Green Bits
- mIRC
- PHP
- CakePHP
- Ruby on Rails
- Outright
- @TRobrock
- Trae’s YouTube Channel
- Trae’s Instagram
Picks:
Charles
- Hunting Hitler
- Podcast Blog
- React Dev Summit
- Ruby Dev Summit
- Have well-reasoned and calm conversations
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Trae
- Interactor Gem
- Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Trae’s YouTube Channel
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Derek Prior
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Derek Prior. Derek speaks at conferences more often and is now a development director at Thought Bot. He first got into programming when was 7 or 8 when he got an Apple IIGS for Christmas and he started messing around with writing basic code. This really got him interested in how video games and systems worked behind the scenes and led to his interest in programming. In high school, he took programming classes and found he was actually good at it and decided to pursue programming in college. Once he was hired at Thought Bot, his developing skills really took off and he has been there for almost five years now.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Derek intro
- Being a good developer doesn’t mean you’re a good developer manager
- How did you first get into programming?
- Apple IIGS as first computer
- Prodigy and AOL
- Visual Basic
- Basic and Pascal
- How did you get into being a full-time developer?
- IBM and Microsoft internships in college
- Learned Java in college
- How did you find Ruby?
- Ruby on Rails
- How he found Thought Bot
- Development skills took off at Thought Bot
- Likes to stay at a job for a long time
- How do you evaluate companies to see if you want to work there?
- How do you create the right environment at work?
- The importance of empowering employees
- Use company values to decide upon tough decisions
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Ruby
- Thought Bot
- Visual Basic
- Pascal
- Java
- Rails
- @DerekPrior
- Derek’s GitHub
Picks:
Charles
- Ruby Dev Summit
- Ruby Hack
Derek
- Base.cs podcast
- Lucky Framework
- The Weekend Woodworker
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Ben Orenstein
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Ben Orenstein. Ben recently just got a new job refactoring Rails apps, runs a podcast, called The Art of Product, and just finished up The Code Quality Challenge. He first got into programming when he was a Senior in high school and took a computing class at the local college where they taught him C, and he really fell in love with programming. He is really proud of his contribution to the education side of the programming world and enjoys being able to teach really complicated concepts.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- The Art of Product Podcast
- The Code Quality Challenge
- How did you first get into to programming?
- Gorilla.bas
- Cue Basic
- First taught C
- How did you get into programming with Ruby?
- Studied Computer Science in college
- IT consulting
- Worked with Ruby at Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- Ruby Pragmatic Programmers book
- What have you done with Ruby that you’re proud of?
- Rails apps
- Thought Bot
- Really enjoys teaching programming
- Giant Robots Podcast
- What are you working on now?
- Refractory Rails Course
- Mackey
- Haskell
- His newsletter
- You learn so much when you watch someone work and see the process live
- And much, much more!
Links:
- The Art of Product Podcast
- The Code Quality Challenge
- Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- Ruby
- Ruby Pragmatic Programmers Book
- Rails
- Thought bot
- Giant Robots Podcast
- Refactoring Rails Course
- Mackey
- Haskell
- Ben’s Newsletter
- @R00K
Picks:
Charles
- Creating a Blockchain with JavaScript
- Stimulus
- Dave Thomas Elixir Course
Ben
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
- An Outsider's Guide to Statically Typed Functional Programming by Bryan Marick
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Mike Gehard
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mike Gehard. Mike currently works for Pivotal working in the Platform Acceleration Lab. He first got into programming when he was 10 working with his Commodore 64, but really stepped up his interest after he graduated with his Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and started working at a petrochemical refining research company, where it was very computer based. They discuss how he found his way to Ruby and how easy it is to create things with it, as well as the things that he has contributed to the Ruby community that he is proud of.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Pivotal
- Platform Acceleration Lab
- How did you first get into to programming?
- Commodore 64
- C++ in Undergrad
- Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering
- Master’s in Software Engineering
- Consulting in Chicago using C++
- What is your take on the state of CS education?
- CS degree is not necessary, but offers many benefits
- It’s important to have the ability to be analytical as a programmer
- Scala
- Figure out how you learn best, and leverage that going forward
- Get a Coder Job Course
- Rails
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Rails doesn’t take a lot of “banging” to get something to fall out the other end being useful
- What have you contributed to the Ruby community that you’re proud of?
- What are you working on now?
- Kotlin Language
- IntelliJ IDEA
- Giving conference talks
- Microservices
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Pivotal
- Platform Acceleration Lab
- Scala
- Get a Coder Job Course
- Rails
- Ruby
- Kotlin
- IntelliJ IDEA
- DevChat.tv YouTube
- @MikeGehard
Picks:
Charles
- Masterbuilt Smoker
- SlowCooker
- Elixir Mix Podcast coming soon
Mike
- Kotlin Programming Language
- Building Microservices by Sam Newman
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Mikel Lindsaar
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Mikel Lindsaar. Mikel started a Ruby on Rails consultancy in 2010 and is most well known for being the original author of Mail gem. He first got into programming working as a volunteer for a church where he built a Rails parishioner management system. This experience led him to create the Mail gem, which has really made him well-known in the community. He always like the idea of being able to control and create something, and this has definitely influenced his programming career.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you first get introduced into programming?
- Mail gem
- Coders are humans too
- Rails
- Issues with his e-mail system
- Don’t have to be a seasoned coder to create something amazing
- Blocks
- Taught himself Ruby
- PHP
- How did you get into coding?
- DOS Manual
- Coding webpages for the ISP
- Rails is a very mature ecosystem now
- You don’t need a lot of different frameworks to create a business app
- The versatility of Rails
- Customers don’t care what things are built in
- Rails with a sprinkle of JavaScript
- Stimulus
- Use the appropriate technology
- And much, much more!
Links:
- DevChat.Tv YouTube
- ReIneractive
- @Lindsaar
- Lindsaar.net
Picks:
Charles
- AstroReality
Mikel
- Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
- Marble Machine by Wintergatan
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Aurynn Shaw
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Aurynn Shaw. Aurynn got into programming when she was helping clients at a contracting company deploy early web things using Perl. Programming really clicked for her when she was fascinated by how programs really work when she created her own language. Currently, she works with Python for Lambdas and is doing a lot of client work. This includes building deployment pipelines and helping them ask information security questions. She also discusses programming culture and her views on it.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you first get introduced into programming?
- GameDove
- Matt’s Script Archive
- Perl
- What made programming click for you?
- Writing her own language
- Python, Java, and JavaScript
- Do you work a lot with Ruby?
- Writing software is less relevant to what she is doing now
- What are you most proud of in your career?
- Contempt culture
- OpenStack Cloud in New Zealand
- SaltStack
- DevOps
- StartUp Weekend
- Her Blog Post
- Changed perspective on coding
- Hacker Culture
- Her Ruby Rogues Episode
- What are you working on now?
- Information security
- Programming Culture
- And much, much more!
Links:
- LootCrate
- StartUp Weekend
- Contempt Culture Blog Post
- Ruby Rogues Episode 273
- EIARA.nz
- Linode
- @Aurynn
- Aurynn’s GitHub
- Blog.Aurynn.com
Picks:
Charles
- Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- Keep your mind open to what’s out there
Aurynn
- Unwritten Laws of Engineering by W.J. King and James G. Skakoon
- Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Corey Haines
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Corey Haines. Corey first got into programming because when his father shifted over into programming in the late 70’s, that meant that there was always a computer in the house when he was growing up. He grew up playing games on his father’s computer, and from there gained interest in code and programming. He talks about his love for Ruby and Rails as well as his proudest contributions to the Ruby community, such as the different communities of learning that he has impacted over the years.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you first get introduced into programming?
- TRS 80 and WordStar
- Games
- C and C++
- Getting a job as a web developer
- HTML
- Microsoft IAS
- Visual Basic and C#
- Java to Ruby
- How do you become a good mentor?
- Background in Math and English
- Was it hard to get back to programming?
- Excel and VBA in Hungary
- Index files
- The importance of learning from others
- Not having a CS degree didn’t hold him back
- Programming as a creative outlet
- Widgets
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Switching over to Ruby and Rails
- Heroku
- Really sticks to Rails and Ruby now
- Learn how to cash
- What are the highlights of your Ruby career?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- Linode
- @CoreyHaines
- Corey’s GitHub
- CoreyHaines.com
- FreshBooks
Picks:
Charles
- Food Smoker
- Keto diet
Corey
- Elm language
- The Beyond Burger
Panel: Charles Max Wood
Guest: Jeremy Evans
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Jeremy Evans. Jeremy has been programming Ruby since 2004, and is best known for working on Roda and Sequel. He talks about his journey into programming, starting when he was in college and took an introduction to programming class that focused on C++, which he found interesting and then took the next courses in the series. This was just the beginning for his programming journey, though. Jeremy continues to talk about his present and future endeavors and how he is adding value to the Ruby community.
In particular, We dive pretty deep on:
- How did you first get introduced into programming?
- Roda and Sequel
- Rails and Sinatra
- C++
- Java Outlets
- Static sites to PHP
- Python
- How did you get into Ruby?
- Ruby was more enjoyable to use
- Over time, how has your view on code and Ruby changed?
- Avoid aliases
- Automated tests
- Took over Sequel
- Open-Source projects
- Sinatra is not as good with good cases, Roda is better
- What’s it like to create a framework?
- Cuba
- Plug in system
- Extendable and over-ridable framework in Roda and Sequel
- Rodauth
- eRuby
- Currently working on changes to Ruby itself
- Do you have any advice for people wanting to get into Open-Source?
- And much, much more!
Links:
- FreshBooks
- Roda
- Sequel
- Rodauth
- @JeremyEvans0
- Jeremy’s GitHub
- Linode
Picks:
Jeremy
- The Trails Series
- OpenBSD
Charles
- GlassDoor.com
- MeetUp.com
- GetaCoderJob.com
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Cameron Dutro
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Cameron Dutro. Cameron is a return guest from Ruby Rogues. Currently, Cameron works at Lumosity, a company that creates brain games & brain training application for web and mobile. Cameron mention working on the platform team working with internationalization.
Cameron talks about his journey into programming, starting at the age of 4 and being fascinated an IBM 85XT computer and flight simulator games. Cameron describes is early interactions with programming in elementary and high school. Then moving into a professional field after college at Twitter and eventually at Lumosity. Cameron talks about his next projects and his contributions to the Ruby community.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get introduced to programming?
- At the age of 4, Cameron was fascinated with computers and games
- In elementary started writing games with Basic and Visual Basic 6
- Wrote a prank program
- In high school moved to C# and.Net
- Windows and PC
- Got a computer science degree
- Work at Flutter and Twitter
- Then joined Lumosity
- 2011 - Twitter as a startup
- Ruby Projects
- Ruby Gem - Arrow Helpers
- Turbo Sprocket Rails 4
- Games at Lumosity
- What are you working on these days?
- Password and Login app
- Pron PDF - TTFunk
- Masters in Computer Science in the works
- Should I get a degree? Advantages? - NO
- Getting a job in tech?
- When you might need a degree - AI, Machine Learning
- and much, much more!
Links:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/camerondutro
- https://github.com/camertron
- http://camerondutro.com
- @camertron
- https://www.lumosity.com
- https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/267-rr-internationalization-with-cameron-dutro
- Platform Engineer and Dev Ops Opening at Lumosity!
Picks
Cameron
- The Far Side Comic Strips
- The Fox Trot
- Sunday Comics
- Amazon Lightsail
- Mental Health - Preventing Burnout
Charles
- Recording interviews with speakers at conferences
- Sponsorship for conferences
- Video Recording Kit
- Zoom H6
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Sudhindra Rao
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Sudhindra Rao, Sudhindra has been a Ruby developer for over 10 years. Sudhindra talks about working on media platforms, e-commerce type sights, campaign platforms, and healthcare applications. Sudhindra talks about working in Ruby still but has moved into many platforms and technologies.
Sudhindra talks about his journey into programming, starting with electrical engineering, control systems, and has a Masters degree in Control System, switch interest him into learning more about how the software is created and functioning. Sudhindra talks about learning more about operating systems and digging deeper into the guts of software. Sudhindra talks about his next project and his contributions to the Ruby community
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get introduced to programming?
- Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering
- Operating Systems
- Debugging form memory
- How did you get back to working in Ruby?
- Application Programming
- Thought Works
- What have you done with Ruby that you are proud of?
- Providing solution and building apps
- What is it about building apps that appeal to you?
- What are you working on now?
- Problems in data
- Machine Learning and Data Science is done with Python
- and much, much more!
Links:
- https://github.com/sudhindrarao
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1UD9ZI_gwg
- https://medium.com/@sudheendrarao66
- @suhindrarao
Picks
Sudhindra
- Release It
- Remote
- React Tool Chain
- Runaway Species
- BBC Earth
- Eggless Apple Carrot Cake
Charles
- Sling TV
- Roku Express
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Reuven Lerner
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Reuven Lerner, Reuven was a guest on Ruby Rouges Episode 260 and is a regular panelist on The Freelancer Show on the Dev Chat TV network. Reuven talks about his background in Ruby development, from programming on an Atari to discovering computer science in his college years. Reuven mentions getting a bachelors in programming and eventually getting a Ph.D. in education/learning sciences. Reuven talks about doing consulting and his entrepreneurial journey as a programmer. Lastly, Reuven shares his contributions with Ruby and current training projects.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get introduced to programming?
- Atari game console and programming cartridge
- Programming class at computer store at the age of 8
- Discover programming in college
- Educational background from Bachelors to PhD
- Education and education in programming
- Being a little better than the rest
- Consulting
- Time Warner
- How did you get into Ruby? Thesis
- What have you done with Ruby
- Book Buy Back program
- Dissertation
- What are you working on now? Training, coursed and products
- Weekly Python exercise
- Ruby on Rails, Big Data,…Etc.
- Python talk
- and much, much more!
Links:
- https://lerner.co.il
- http://blog.lerner.co.il
- Ruby Rouges Episode 260
- revue@lerner.co.il
- @revuemlerner
Picks
Reuven
- Better Developer Newsletter
- Trainer Weekly
- Weapons of Math Destruction
Charles
- CES Videos for Product Lines at DEV Chat TV Youtube Channel
- Primo
- Merge Cube
- Crazies Babies
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Thom Parkin
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Thom Parkin, Thom is a return guest and interviewer on Ruby Rogues Episode 245. Thom describes the early days in his career of programming, starting with mechanical computing devices and early computers. Thom talks about working with Cobalt and other early technologies. Thom talks about his journey in programming and the developing world. As well as his contributions to the Ruby community throughout his career
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get introduced to programming?
- Old computers
- Cobalt
- Compuserve
- AOL
- When the internet was young
- Learning Ruby
- Learning Sinatra
- Site Point
- Git
- Git Cheatsheet
- Remote work on Rail Project - for Non-Profit
- Vim
- A Ruby method a day
- Software development, Cyber Security, etc
- Comparison to board games
- Ghost in the Wires
- Hacking
- and much, much more!
Links:
- http://ParaHacker.com
- https://github.com/ParkinT
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomparkin
- https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/245-rr-the-charles-max-wood-interview-with-thom-parkin
- Git
- wishfulthinking.com
Picks
Thom
- evernote.com
- Uppercase Box
- Business Spew
Charles
- Take some time to spend with family
- Learn about your family background
- Set up a board game group
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Michael DiBernardo
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Michael DiBernardo. Michael is a return guest, previously on Ruby Rogues Episode 256. Micheal talks about his journey into programming via building a PC with an uncle and learning about programming games. Micheal mentions teaching programming at a university and learned that most students interests in programming began with gaming. Micheal continues to talks about the many different paths in his development career, including teaching and going back to college to learn other programming languages.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get introduced to programming?
- Games
- Flags, bit flip.
- Building complex games
- Gaming
- Web Development
- Mindset to approaching problems with gaming
- Have you worked in Rudy extensively
- How do you wind up picking a language?
- C++
- When back to College to learn other languages
- Communities and languages
- What do you like about the communities you’ve been in?
- Going to events - new and old Microsoft
- What are you doing with Python these days?
- VIP of Engineering
- Book writing for 2018
- When started this project, how do you approach it?
- and much, much more!
Links:
- https://twitter.com/mdibernardo
- http://mikedebo.ca
- https://github.com/MichaelDiBernardo
- https://www.waveapps.com/payments/
- @mdbernardo
Picks
Micheal
- Wardly Maps
- Poetry
Charles
- CES
- E Myth Revisited
- zappier.com
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Tyler Renelle
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Tyler Renelle. Tyler is a contractor and developer who has worked in many web technologies like Angular, Rails, React and much more! Tyler is a return guest, previously on Adventure in Angular and JavaScript Jabber talking Ionic and Machine learning.
Tyler has recently expanded his work beyond JavaScript and is on the show to talk his interest in AI or Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning. Furthermore, Tyler talks about his early journey as a game developer, web developer, and work with some content management systems, and more recently, his development in various technologies.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Writing games out of college, studies computer science.
- Did web development to pay for college working with PHP and ASP
- Content managements
- Working with various technologies
- Working with React, is this it?
- Problems React has solved with web apps
- What is the next big innovation?
- View
- Creating Podcasts
- Machine Learning
- Specialized application of AI
- NLP
- Never use his computer science degree as a web developer
- You don’t study code to be a developer
- AI and machine learn is based on Computer Science
- Tensor Flow
- Data Skeptic - podcast
- Performance
- Graphics cards
- Philosophy of Consciousness
- The subjective experience
- Job displacement phenomenon
- and much, much more!
Links:
- http://ocdevel.com
- http://ocdevel.com/podcasts/machine-learning
- Tensor Flow
- Data Skeptic - podcast
- https://devchat.tv/js-jabber/jsj-278-machine-learning-tyler-renelle
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lefnire
Picks
Tyler
- The Great Courses
Charles
- CES
- Email beforehand and setup an appointment
- VRBO.com
- Autonomous.ai
Panel:
Charles Max Wood
Guest: Peter Cooper
This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Peter Cooper. Peter was one the original panelist on Ruby Rogues and JavaScript Jabber. Currently, Peter runs several weekly new letters on JS, Ruby, Go, React, etc. Peter talks about he journey as a programmer started at an early age tinkering with his father’s computer at home. Peter describes the beginning as a hobby until he learned the skills to being programming on many platforms. Peter talks about how he learn Ruby and JavaScript, and in early stages of noodling or learning code. Lastly, Peter talks about his contributions to the community and giving back.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- How did you get into programming?
- Playing with computers at an early age
- Computers were a hobby, rather than a career builder then
- Being heavily into to anything can become your career, age does not matter
- Finding the skill or passion in programming
- Natural ability to see and make sense of code
- UseNet
- AJax
- Directness
- Blogging
- New Letters
- rubyflow.com
- What is the ultimate goal of the new letters?
- Contributions
- Helping host podcasts
- Current work?
- and much, much more!
Links:
- http://peterc.org
- https://rubyweekly.com
- https://github.com/peterc/
- Cooper Press
Picks:
Peter
- Litmus
- Cheap Gaming consoles on eBay
- Jason Scott of archive.org
Charles
- Hyper Drive
- J5
- Dash Pro In-Ear Headphones
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Adam Cuppy. Adam is the co-founder at Zeal, a software consultancy that specializes in web and mobile applications. Adam describes his journey as an actor in theater and fine arts, then made his way into tech. Adam has been working and contributing to the Ruby community for at least the last decade.
In this episode, we learn more about how Adam got into programming. Adam talks about having to learn JavaScript and HTML to build a contact page, this was Adam's the initial spark into programming. Adam talks about how he got into Ruby and the swiftness in building amazing programs and tools. Adam talks about his contributions, favorite things to do in Ruby, and what is coming up next.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Adam journey from the theater arts, marketing, creative director, website design, PHP, Rails, etc.
- What qualifications do you need to be a programmer?
- Building something amazing in a short amount of time.
- Growing and deep contribution to the Ruby community
- Speaking at conferences, teaching and sharing ideas.
- Getting board without a purpose
- Technical and product vision, while including everyone to serve a deeper purpose
- Speaking contributions at conferences.
- and much more!
Links:
- @AdamCuppy
- Git Hub - acuppy
- What if Shakespeare wrote Ruby?
- RubyDevSummit.com
- Ego Is The Enemy
- Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
- Miracle Morning
- The Obstacle Is the Way
Picks:
Adam
- Ruby Dev Summit and Conferences
Charles
- Ketogenic Diet - Sugar free cheese cake
- Fat Head movie
- Keto Charity
- 2 Keto Dudes
This week on My Ruby Story, Charles speaks with Allison McMillan. Allison is a software developer at Collective Idea, a software consulting company that solves real-world software problems. Allison is very excited about working on a number of projects and learning new things in the development world. Allison was a recent guest on Ruby Rogues and will be a speaker at Ruby Dev Summit coming up on October 16-21, 2017.
In this episode we learn more about Allison’s journey as a startup founder, to make a career change to a developer, all while and making a name in the dev community and gaining a dev job. Allison talks about her involvement and contributions to the Ruby community.
In particular, we dive pretty deep on:
- Allison got into programming working as a non-profit executive and dealing with change in the organization.
- Getting in involve in the DC Tech Community
- Joining the Rails Girls Workshop
- Got her first job by attending the Ruby Conf. at the Scholar Guide Program
- Working Remotely as a junior developer
- Doing light talks at Ruby Conf. to gain authority
- Allison mentions doing conference speaking and organizing as apart of contributing to the Ruby community
- Allison’s favorite thing to speak about at conferences involves writing interactive workshops.
Links:
- DC Tech Community
- Rails Girls
- http://rubyconf.org/scholarships
- Blog site - DayDreams In Ruby
- @allie_p
- Ruby Dev Summit - Free
Picks:
Allison
- Hello Ruby by Linda Liukas
- Baking - SmittenKitchen
Charles
- GitLab Server
- MatterMost
Tweet this Episode Jason Swett is a former Ruby Rogues panelist and the author of Angular on Rails. He's also a contractor and corporate trainer.
Jason and Chuck dive into Jason's story getting into programming, Ruby, and talk about his current and past ventures in entrepreneurship. We also talk about writing courses and ebooks and blog posts.
Links:
- Pascal
- Geocities
- Angelfire
- Perl
- Symfony framework
- PHP
- CodeIgniter
- Drupal
- Laravel
- Lisp
- Clojure
- Python
- Django
- Ruby
- Rails
- Amir Rajan's My Ruby Story
- Angular on Rails
- Basecamp
- Microconf
- JasonSwett.net
- Amazon AWS
- Indie Hackers Post
- Justin Gordon
- Justin Gordon's episode on Ruby Rogues
- Phoenix
- Elixir
- React
- Vue
- Webpacker
- Prototype.js
- JQuery
- Todd Motto
- Green Bits
- Email Jason
- @jasonswett
Picks
Jason:
- Amazon Web Services in Action
- awsrails.com
Chuck
- Gitlab
- Mattermost
- The Daily Lasagna
- Entreprogrammers
- Ruby Dev Summit
Tweet this Episode MRS 020: Ruberto Paulo Today’s episode is a My Ruby Story with Ruberto Paulo. He is going to be speaking in the Ruby Dev Summit in October. Listen to learn more about Rub!
[01:10] – Introduction to Ruberto Paulo
Rob is a programmer in Cape Town, South Africa. He’s been programming in Ruby for the last 6 years. He has also been quite in different areas of business from sales, manufacturing, to teaching. He has also spoken on one of the Ruby conferences in South Africa this year. And he’s going to be speaking in Ruby Dev Summit in October.
At one stage, programming for Rob was quite a painful experience. You can get stuck in doing normal projects, eventually, you’d lose the light that you found. The talk is about Date Night with Ruby. That’s the title of the talk. It’s really about what can we do to re-ignite that fire with Ruby? We’re going to take a look at the language as if it’s a person.
[05:15] – How did you get into programming?
Rob’s dad had a laptop that was running MS-DOS. At the time, it was navigating using a keyboard. There was no mouse. Eventually, he was teaching the whole family how to use it. His uncle also had an old Intel 80486. He set up every component and reconnected them. Eventually, the box started working. He always had this fascination with technology.
During high school, Rob used the language Delphi. He also learned Excel and Word. A couple of his friends, would spend their weekends in his friend’s garage and hack out programs. The final project for their final year, they have to bring in a project and then explain to the class its value. He and his friends used to go to internet cafes and play computer games. So, they ended up doing writing software and tutorials for these internet cafes. After 6 months of hacking up this project, the internet café used their software. Those applications became 16,000 lines long because they didn’t have the good practice that we have today.
Rob also started teaching. When he was teaching one night, a friend came up and said, “Hey, have you heard about Ruby?” That’s his journey into Ruby actually started. He said that they're looking for a couple brand new developers and if you can write two programs just to test and give them back to him on Monday, they'll see if they have a position for him. He went home and typed into Google: “How to Learn Ruby”. He found a book and read it. He did the 2 tests. The first test was the Animal Test. It was more around design. How do you create new animals if you want to do different things? It’s about inheritance. How could you give abilities to the other objects? The second one was a technical question about the relation, how to sort this array. He passed these tests and started the next Friday. That was probably around late 2010.
[15:45] – What is it about Ruby?
Rub thinks that you can make Ruby as complicated or as easy. In the most recent Ruby Weekly, there was somebody that rewrote portions of Ruby so that it can look like JavaScript. You can mold it to whatever you want. Write it as close as a natural language as you can because you’re going to be looking at a language a lot more than you’re going to be writing it. If you can pick up what’s going on in this step, that’s going to be a big leap forward. So, the big part of it is that Ruby is very natural. It reads like English. You can pick up what it’s going to be doing.
Picks
Ruberto Paulo
- Magic: The Gathering
- RubyDCamp
- Blog: Spaceship Science
- Twitter: @legend_rob
Charles Max Wood
- Vue.js
MRS 019: Eric Berry Today's episode of My Ruby Story is an interview with Eric Berry, who is our newest panelist on Ruby Rogues.
[01:10] Introduction to Eric Eric is one of Chuck's friends from early in his programming career.
Eric is @coderberry on Twitter. He's been a Ruby developer for about 9 years and doing software for about 19 years.
[02:15] How Eric got into programming He was hired to do HTML for a company called vLender. Eric worked in Photoshop 2 (pre-layers).
He, then, went on an LDS mission and while on his mission, he built a system to track the cars and assets for the mission.
Then, his brother moved out to Switzerland to join an eCommerce company. Eric bought a PHP book, read it, got a passport, and started showing up at his work. Eventually they hired him.
They started shifting over to Java. They coded Java with VIM.
While in Switzerland, Eric and his brother had created an app that allowed them to share photos with family back home.
His brother raised funds and they moved to England to build up the photo sharing app.
They eventually sold shareaphoto.com to HP. Eric jokes that this was his "college."
9/11 hit and Eric's brother moved back to the states. Eric stayed for another 2 years, then moved to Las Vegas.
He was a residential appraiser for about 4 years. While there, he built some software to help the company.
Eric took a pay cut from $180,000 to $65,000 per year to go back to software.
He and his wife eventually moved back to Utah and got a job working for AtTask (now Workfront)
[10:43] Eric finds Ruby Eric and one of his co-workers went out and created projects with Django and Rails. They both loved Rails.
Eric was using Rails at AtTask in the marketing department and spent a ton of time figuring out how to deploy Rails with mongrel.
Eric has also worked for Omniture (acquired by Adobe), Instructure, and One-on-One Marketing.
[14:12] Teach Me to Code screencasts and Chuck's story Initially, Eric created Teach Me to Code as an homage to Ryan Bates from RailsCasts.
Eric left his mistakes and fumbling in. He got feedback from people that liked that it showed how to debug and figure out issues.
Chuck came in to create content for Teach Me to Code.
Eric's company and focus moved to Groovy on Grails which prompted him to hand the series off to Chuck.
Eric mentions Chuck's tenacity.
Teach Me to Code is a large part of Chuck's journey into podcasting.
[19:11] Codesponsor Eric has been building other people's businesses for about 20 years. He's done all kinds of projects at all levels.
He doesn't want to continue on a path where he doesn't participate in the end result of the project.
Eric tried out AdWords. It'll pay off in 2-5 years, but he has not passion for it.
Eric loves programming and developers and wanted to do something that served them.
Open Source is starting to have problems with sustainability.
People are building their businesses on top of software that's maintained by 1-2 developers. These folks have a day job and aren't paid to write their open source software.
The get a bunch of requests for help and that workload doesn't go away. Then they get burned out.
Then you have the "no longer maintained" notices on projects that you're using.
Codesponsor solves this problem by bringing marketing into the picture to put some money into the developers' pockets and gives them some validation for what they did.
Eric talks about a pay me button that Kent C. Dodds put on some of his repos. He didn't get any contributions.
The problem with corporate sponsors is that the developer feels obligated to provide unpaid support when their sponsor has a problem.
OpenCollective explained. Their biggest problem is money is not coming in.
Open Design Collective
CodeSponsor allows companies that want to get in front of developers to put non-obtrusive, subtle text ads in the README's and websites of the projects without creating the issues that come with direct sponsorship.
Mention of ReadTheDocs.org
[37:02] Eric's current work situation and Nate Hopkins Eric talks about Nate Hopkins and Chuck mentions that Nate Hopkins was his first mentor as a professional developer.
Eric shares a funny story about Chuck and Nate working together.
Picks Eric
- Carbonads.com
- Timber.io
- Rework podcast by Basecamp
- React Table
Chuck
- Ruby Dev Summit
- React Podcast Plans - TBA
- Elixir Podcast Plans - TBA
- Dave Thomas' Elixir Course
MRS 018: Kinsey Ann Durham Today's episode is a My Ruby Story with Kinsey Ann Durham. She is one of the speakers for the Ruby Dev Summit. Listen to learn more about Kinsey!
[01:15] – Introduction to Kinsey Ann Durham Kinsey was on episode 180 of the Ruby Rogues podcast. They talked about Barriers to New Developers. It’s been 3 years. She is also one of the speakers for the Ruby Dev Summit, which is coming up in October.
[02:55] – How did you get into programming? RailsBridge workshop
Kinsey got into programming, not through the traditional Computer Science route or boot camp / code school route. She actually did a RailsBridge workshop 4 or 5 years ago in Denver. RailsBridge is part of the larger organization called Bridge Foundry. It’s a weekend workshop where you have mentors and teachers who teach you how to build an app in whatever language or framework from scratch. Food is provided. It’s mainly for women but men are welcome as well as long as you accompany a female.
Brother
Kinsey’s step brother, Sean Griffin, is really big in the Rails community and Rasp community. She saw him and what he was doing.
Networking and building relationships
Kinsey was lucky enough to meet Desi McAdam at the RailsBridge event. Eventually, she was able to get a job as an apprentice in Denver that had just opened and where Desi was the managing director.
Kinsey did a lot of self-taught work using books. There are online tutorials, mentorship, and networking with people. She thinks it’s relevant for developers who are new in the industry given how saturated the market is. It’s important to network and build relationships, and not just applying blindly to Java applications that you see online.
[06:20] – What do you recommend to people? Luckily, there are tons of online resources where you can learn and get the basics. Kinsey thinks that it’s a lot harder nowadays to do that because you will be competing for head to head with students who are coming out of these schools, or do have Computer Science backgrounds. But she also thinks that it’s doable to be self-taught as long as you are willing to put in the time. And then, not only use the free online resources but also find a mentor that is willing to work with you and guide you because there are times where you’ll hit a bug or problem or even when getting Rails setup on your machine. Sometimes, Stack Overflow and those online resources aren’t enough.
[08:20] – How did Ruby shaped your experience coming in as a new programmer? Kinsey started going to conferences right away and she fell in love with the community. Back then, there were a lot of stories going around in the industry on how hard it is for females, etc. But she found that the Ruby community was welcoming and receptive.
[10:00] – Sexism Kinsey had experiences and has seen it firsthand. She thinks that it is still an issue but she also thinks that it’s getting better. She thinks that the programming communities are becoming more and more diverse with the influx of people coming out of code schools. They have different backgrounds. They also have stereotypical developers.
Picks Kinsey Ann Durham
- RubyConf
- Organization: Bridge Foundry
- Twitter: @KinseyAnnDurham
- Website: kinseyanndurham.com
Charles Max Woods
- RubyRogues Parley
- RubyConf
- RailsConf
MRS 017: Hal Fulton Today's episode is a My Ruby Story with Hal Fulton. Hal talked about his contributions to the Ruby community. He is the author of The Ruby Way. Listen to learn more about Hal!
[01:20] – Introduction to Hal Fulton
Hal is the author of the Ruby Way, which was one of the books that Charles picked up when he started programming in Ruby. It’s still being published and still up to date. Hal still loves computers and programming but he admitted that he can’t keep up with it anymore.
[03:50] – How did you get into programming?
Hal didn’t really have the opportunity to get into programming at a young age. So, the first chance he had was when he just turned 17, he went to a summer program, which was a 6-week program at a college. It was dealing with Genetics and Population Genetics. He had lab work and learned some mathematical models. He also learned BASIC and a couple of primitive microcomputers with different versions of BASIC. His first BASIC programs were the hello world and followed by Population Genetics.
[06:20] – How did you get into Ruby?
Hal went to college and majored in Physics. But he was taking Computer Science courses along the way. He dropped Thermodynamics and made a C in Differential Equations. Then, he had to change his degree. He always wanted to major in Physics but he thought that Computer Science is easier and more fun. For him, it will be 10 times easier to find a job and it will be 10 times easier to make money.
Hal worked for a community college for a while. Then, he went to IBM in Houston for a series of contracts. He ended up 7 contracts at IBM, making some 6 months to 2 years. He knew more about their internal processes and procedures. One of the last contracts he ever had in IBM was in October 1999. Someone at IBM told him that he should know Ruby and pointed him to the website.
According to Hal, he was busy learning Ruby. He didn’t know Ruby yet but he knew that he can write.
Picks
Hal Fulton
- Ruby Comms
- Novel: Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Novel: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- TV Series: The Man in the High Castle
- Musical: Hamilton
Charles Max Woods
- Book: The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton
- Editor: Obie Fernandez of The Ruby Way
- Ruby Dev Summit
MRS 016 Marc-Andre Cournoyer Today's episode is a My Ruby Story with Marc-Andre Cournoyer. He was the creator of the Thin web server and he will be speaking at the Ruby Dev Summit. On this episode, Marc talked about how he got into programming and Ruby. Listen to learn more about Marc!
[01:05] – Introduction to Marc
Marc is the creator of the Thin web server, one of the most popular Ruby server. He also had some minor contributions to Ruby. One of them is called Tinyrb, which is a small Ruby VM. Then, he wrote a book about creating your own programming language. He will be speaking at Ruby Dev Summit.
[02:45] – How did you get into programming?
Marc’s first experience with a computer was when he’s around 8 or 9 years old. It was on the early 1990s. His parents won a Commodore 64 at the grocery store. He got bored really fast with the games so he looked at other things. One of them is the Commodore Basic. You could not save on a Commodore 64 if you didn’t add the tape recorder so he would have to start again each time. He also went to a library and got some books about Commodore 64 programming. Eventually, he started creating his own simple programs.
A few years later, Marc got a Pentium 2. It was around 1995. He saved money and bought himself Microsoft Visual Basic 4. It has the UI with the drags and drops where you drop buttons and timers on a page. You would double click the buttons and you would open a window where you can put your code. He had about hundred projects on that machine.
[05:35] – How old were you when you got into VB?
Marc was 14 or 15 years old when he got into VB.
[06:05] – How did you get into Ruby?
After that, it has become Marc’s career choice to become a programmer. He went to university. After that, he got his first job in 2002 doing Visual Basic 4 application that runs inside Microsoft Office suite. He also did a little bit of Java and .NET. He didn’t enjoy programming, he started losing my passion, and he stopped doing projects on the side. But he still kept on reading some books about programming.
One of them is a book by Joel Spolsky, The Best Software Writing. It was published in 2005. The last chapter is an extract of Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, which was an introductory book about Ruby. Marc liked the syntax so he started practicing Ruby more. He started doing side projects again because it was fun programming Ruby. And then, he discovered Rails about a year later. Because of that, he created many other projects and got a job at a startup in Montreal.
Picks
Marc-Andre Cournoyer
- Cooperpress
- Framework: Torch
Charles Max Wood
- Eventual Millionaire
- Coursera course on Machine Learning by Andrew Ng
- Ruby Dev Summit
MRS 015 Amir Rajan Today's episode is a My Ruby Story with Amir Rajan. He was on Episode 272 of Ruby Rogues. Amir talked about where he used Ruby and how he got into RubyMotion. Listen to learn more about Amir!
[01:40] – Introduction to Amir Rajan
He was on episode 272 of Ruby Rogues and he talked about Game Development and RubyMotion. That was in August 2016.
[06:35] – How did you get into programming?
Amir had his Intel 80386 and was trying to install Win Commander on it. It came with this green booklet that says “cd C: /…”. He installed that exe command but he didn’t have enough space on the computer. He ended up deleting the operating system – Windows 3.1. He reinstalled it myself and he thought that was programming.
His first exploration in programming was actually a business development course like a business programming course. They’ve built applications using Visual Basic 4 and 5 but he didn’t understand the concept of variables.
After that, StarCraft 2 came out. That was around 1998. It has a map editor so you can actually create your own campaigns. You have to use a scripting event-based quasi-DSL to get that working. That was when Amir started looking at C, C++ and Visual Studio 6.0. He had to go to the library because a lot of information wasn’t readily available online. He also got some dummies book and random C++ books but he still didn’t understand programming. He already figured out variables but he didn’t understand functions. What he was doing is output a void method, throw an exception, and catch it in the parent code to get the return value.
Amir went to college and got a degree in Software Engineering in Computer Science. He entered the work force doing Visual Basic 6.0 and SQL server. His SQL jobs involve taking forms over data and everything was stored and back-end processed. It was a payroll company, payroll insurance so there was an immense amount of time card tracking, clock in, clock out, all done in SQL. Visual Basic was used to get the data, store them in record sets, send them into the database, and do all their processing there. He stayed on the .NET stack. His career was built on converting legacy applications to the next version of Microsoft tech.
It was not until 2010 that Amir actually started using Ruby. In 2010, the way he ended up using Ruby was actually built automation for .NET projects. All his Ruby-isms came from trying to codify build automation in Rake. He also did Rails for 8 months. He looked at Rails to see how they handled some of their attributes for shoveling across JSON from different areas or things out of the database.
[22:00] – Did you continue working on .NET and just use Ruby where it made sense?
Where Ruby fit in was basically when Amir wanted to build automation or he wanted to test his REST API. Trying to use HTTP client requires a strong type DTO to map to. He had a ton of Rake scripts that would make tons of HTTP calls do link from hypermedia and get additional information. He used Ruby to cut all that up and potentially make changes just over an HTTP endpoint. He has an endpoint that could reset himself as an administrator or open up some management studio to execute some stuff. It ended up an efficiency tool.
[24:15] – How did you get into RubyMotion?
Around 2013 is where Amir started getting this identity crisis about the languages he’s used. He started getting into Ruby and that means getting into Shell scripts, more Linux environments. Linux and Ruby are better than any of the .NET he’s done. There seems to be a more open mentality to approach and solve problems that aren't specifically related to some higher governing authority telling him how to write software. At that point, he needed to take a break and reflect on where he wanted his career to go. That’s when he stepped back from doing .NET. He bought a Mac and did things that are not .NET. During that first three-month period, he was in an exploration of Ruby.
Picks
Amir Rajan
- Twitter: @amirrajan
- community.rubymotion.com
- Mobile game: Mini Metro
- Mobile game: Alto’s Adventure
- Mobile game: Doug dug.
Charles Max Wood
- Quora
- Ionic framework
- Udemy
MRS 014 Noel Rappin Today's episode is a My Ruby Story with Noel Rappin. Noel talked about his contributions to the Ruby community and how they explore new technologies like Elixir. Listen to learn more about Noel!
[00:01:40] – Introduction to Noel Rappin
Noel is in episodes 30, which was about Software Craftsmanship. He was also on episode 185, which was about Rails 4 Test Prescriptions. And then, the latest one was 281, which was about Take My Money.
[00:02:45] – How did you get into programming?
Noel is a stereotypical nerdy kid so he started programming when he was young. He had afterschool classes in Applesoft BASIC at a place near their house. He had TRS-80 and Texas Instruments, and a couple of other things.
[00:03:35] – Computer Science degree
Noel has a Computer Science degree and a Ph.D. from the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, which was in the intersection of user interface design and Ed tech. He was designing interfaces for teaching, specifically for teaching engineers and developers.
[00:04:15] – How did you get into Ruby?
Noel came out of grad school immediately and went to a small web development company. He started hearing about Rails in about 2005. Having been one of the people who have done a lot of the Java-Struts web development that Rails was created in opposition to, Noel searched it up pretty quickly. But he started using it in 2005 or 2006 for some internal tools for his team.
He built a test tracker and other things that his team is using internally. He built a couple of web apps for them to collaborate because they were working with some developers in Poland. And as he got comfortable with it, he contracted to do a Ruby on Rails book and got a full-time professional Ruby job.
[00:06:30] – What is it about Ruby that got you excited?
Noel has always like scripting languages and dynamic languages. He did a lot of work on Python for a while. It was extraordinary how quickly you do things in Rails compared to Java tools, even compared to Django, which was more or less contemporaneous. Ruby emphasized testing and Rails was very similar to some of the tools that he was building in Python.
[00:08:50] – Books and contributions to the Ruby community
Noel had a book which was out of date, 30 to 40 seconds after it was published. It’s normal in this industry. Sometime after that, he started publishing Rails Test Prescriptions and submitted it to the Pragmatic Bookshelf, and they purchased it. They published Rails Test Prescription 6 years. After that, he did a series of self-published JavaScript books called Master Space and Time with JavaScript.
They are also out of date but they’re free now. He also did a self-published book about projects called Trust-Driven Development that you can still get. He did a book about purchasing, handling money and web purchases, and mostly this API called Take My Money, which came out last summer.
Noel is currently working on a Rails 5 Test Prescriptions, which will include all the new Rails 5.1. It will come out this fall.
[00:10:35] – Table XI
Noel works at Table XI, which is a web consulting firm in Chicago with about 35 people. They do Rails development, websites, mobile development and a lot of React Native development. They build websites for companies that are not web software companies but companies that need web pages like non-profit or start-ups. They like to focus on solid business problems in software, rather than technology problems in software.
[00:11:15] – What are you working on these days?
Noel has his own podcast called Tech Done Right. The latest episode was with Michael Feathers. There is also an episode with somebody who is in charge of the Medicare Program under President Obama, who was actually the person who was called in to fix healthcare.gov and had some interesting stories about what that was like from a software manager perspective.
From the development side, Noel has been doing a lot of Rails development, some JavaScript development, building purchase-sides for nonprofit, and doing a lot of upgrade work recently.
[00:12:40] – Rails upgrades story
This upgrade was for a Rails 2 application that was still in active development. The Rails community, at one point, was so bad at managing upgrades. And now, it does seem like the community has gotten better at managing new tools without breaking old ones. The security needs have pushed people towards the best practices.
[00:14:15] – Ruby and Elixir
Like a lot of Ruby companies, they’ve been exploring what the next tools are. They ran an Elixir project. It’s originally an internal prototype, which is a great way to get new technologies into the company. They wound up building a small project that was largely API focused. That’s the kind of thing that Rails is not super great at. They’re exploring what to do with front-end because there’s a sharp understanding of what Ruby on Rails is good for and what might be the purview of other tools. Elixir does a couple of things that Ruby doesn’t do very well. A lot of people who start with Ruby can learn a lot from going off to a functional language like Elixir or something that has a pattern-matching type of language like Elixir.
Picks Noel Rappin
- R programming
- Podcast: Tech Done Right
- Author: Martha Wells
- The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Well
- Atom Editor
- Audio Hijack
- Bear
- Twitter @noelrap
- noelrappin.com
Charles Max Wood
- Mighty Mug
- Phrase Express
MRS 013 – Dave Thomas This episode is a My Ruby Story with Dave Thomas. Dave has spoken about Elixir at two Ruby Remote Confs. He challenges the way people think about the way they do code. Listen to learn more about Dave!
[00:02:42] How did you get into programming?
Dave first got into programming when he was attending school in England. At the age of sixteen everyone takes national tests. A group of friends and Dave took these tests early so they did not have classes to take spring semester. Their school decided to send them to take a computer science class at a nearby technical college. There he fell in love with programming and decided to switch his focus in college. He went to Imperial College, where computer science was a brand new degree: it was only in the second year of being offered.
[00:05:45] How did you get into Ruby?
Dave has always been a language nerd. In the 90s you had to be determined to work with computer languages. People posted their compilers on usenet in parts. He downloaded files from this site to play with these languages. In 1997 or 1998, he downloaded Ruby overnight, started playing with it, and fell in love. It was similar to Pearl, which he was using at the time. Dave thought Ruby was easier to work with and it became his language of choice. He wrote a book with Andy Hunt and it became the pickaxe. Dave and some friends set up the first Ruby conference in Florida after the book was released.
[00:13:50] Do you feel like we get as many of “breath of fresh air” talks these days in Ruby as we used to?
No but that is to be expected. The problems, people, and interest have changed. Ruby has matured and there are fewer people in the community than there used to be.
[00:15:23] In terms of this cycle that you're seeing, where would you put Elixir?
Elixir is brand new, whereas Ruby had been around a long time. Elixir caught on fast, which was a surprise. People were doing large-scale commercial work in it within eighteen months. There are elements of homesteading going on; a lot of people are coming from Ruby to Elixir trying to tell people how to do it. Dave has been through thing similar to this in the past where he can recognize things that will be potentially harmful to the community and try to stop some of those things happening.
[00:22:06] How did you discover Elixir?
He came across it twice. The first time was five years ago but he did not really find a use for it. Then a year ago he was doing a Rails course in Virginia with Cory Haynes. He wanted a functional language so that people could better understand functional programming. Cory suggested Elixir and Dave tried it out again that night. He fell in love with the potential of Elixir. It wasn’t an opinionated language, just transparent. Elixir is fast and reliable.
[00:29:18] Contributions to the community
Dave became one of the people that everyone came to ask about Ruby, which he is proud of because it spread a new way of thinking about programming. He evangelized Ruby and Rails to more than 10,000 people. He has done evangelism just to make programmers happier.
[00:36:11] What are you up to now?
He is still trying to help people write code with Elixir in order to help their lives become easier. Dave has created a course on how to write Elixir “Dave Thomas style.”
Picks: Dave:
He wants people to do their own picks. Think of 3 things that make you proud to be a human being.
Links: https://pragdave.me/
MRS: 012 Simon Moro This episode is a My Ruby Story with Simon Moro. Simon is an Australian record producer and mixer. He has been teaching himself Ruby for the last 18 months, Rails framework, and is a frustrated aspiring entrepreneur. Through negative experiences with outsourcing and finding tech co-founders, he wanted to empower and educate himself.
How did you get into programming?
He remembers that the first computer in his home was actually called a dinosaur. His first experience with a computer made him intrigued. He was a lot of gaming consoles when he was young. Personally liked Sega and his best friend liked Nintendo. It was like an early Apple vs. Android rivalry.
He was introduced to visual basic in an InfoTech class in high school. His high school didn’t have a strong tech department so it was a very simple class. There was a button that you would click which would display a dialogue box with a calculator. He was fascinated by the way you could write instructions. He had always been full of ideas. The idea that you could create a digital product just by writing text fascinated him. He started borrowing books from the library and even bought a few. He tried to teach himself.
When he got older he used HTML and found WordPress useful as a music programmer and for the digital products he created. It wasn’t until 18 months ago that he thought he would try to learn a language and build something.
Connection Between Music and Programming
There are a lot of programmers that are also musicians. People don’t often acknowledge that there is creativity in code. Music and code may be appealing to people for the same reasons: because there is both science and creativity in both areas. Music is about agreements within a culture. Musicians agree that certain notes blended with each other either do or do not work. This is how they program symphonies and refactor sheet music to make it easier to read. Music is a process of solving problems creatively using a structure where if you go outside of that structure it won’t work. This is similar to front-end frameworks. In musical theory a lot of things are mathematical. There is a science of music and what makes it sound good. This is foundational in the same way math is the foundation in computer science.
Did you start programming in WordPress or did your interest in programming come from something else?
Simon did little in WordPress in terms of learning to program. He delved into CSS and changed themes using Envarto. He outsourced those tweaks to people from freelancing websites. He did try to learn PHP for his wife’s product but realized he didn’t do it correctly.
He was involved in Melbourne startup world and heard about Ruby on Rails through that. He researched it after he heard about it and read about the philosophy behind it. He raised capital to build a product production management tool for music producers. He built it in Ruby on Rails, and a company in Deli built that for him. He had to fire them and start again.
Because he’d been exposed to it, decided he’d delve into it and teach himself because if he’d started his learning at the same time he’d hired the company he could have taken over once he fired that company. He tells people that they can teach themselves if they have time and has people they can ask for help if they get stuck.
Are you building the mbp for your own product?
Simon built it himself. He had found a tech co-founder 18 months ago but it went south. Five weeks ago he finally decided to do it himself. He focused on one particular feature for receiving client feedback on a work in progress for music. A band that’s sending demos to each other can upload a song and add comments of change requests within the site.
How did you come to Ruby? What was it about Ruby and how did you find it that made you decide to want to do this type of work in Ruby as opposed to PHP or something else?
Simon started reading the philosophy around Ruby; then looked at the code. He thought the Ruby language and the Rails code made sense compared to PHP. He believed that PHP had too much code. He also likes the elegance of Ruby and the Rails framework, the organization, and the syntax.
What kinds of things have you done with Ruby? Is this your first and only product/project? Have you done other things? Ways to learn?
He believes that the way he is learning is most useful to beginners. The first thing that he did is to jump into a Ruby on Rails course through Treehouse. He found it confusing but he completed the course. A friend told him he thought it’d be helpful to learn Ruby through lynda.com. After that, he could separate Rails and Ruby. He started making quick prototypes to help learn and putting together budgets for projects apps, which he used for himself.
Do you find that the courses were enough or did you have to find groups of people who were coding or find a mentor?
It has helped by having people he could reach out to. He hasn’t had formal meetings with mentors. He had a problem with Track Bits and his friend Rahj helped find a solution to a problem one day. He has had moments where he’s been stuck like that and had someone help him. It is difficult to know what questions to ask Google to get the answers. Having someone to point the things out he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know is helpful.
What was it that made you get to the point that you said, “I’m pretty comfortable with this, and I think I can do a good job with it.”
He graduated from audio production in 2000. He has generally been the opposite of confident. He always assumes that he can always learn more, when he started out he was more confident than he is now in his craft. He now knows how important his role is in his client’s potential for connecting with an audience and his client’s potential for going further in their career. When he was younger he thought he could do things because he was trained so he could do things.
Picks
Simon:
- Kevin Skoglund Lynda.com https://www.lynda.com/Ruby-training-tutorials/303-0.html
- Official documentation: http://ruby-doc.org/
- Cycling
- Zwift: www.zwift.com
Charles:
- Envarto: www.envato.com
- Free Music Archive: www.freemusicarchive.org
- YouTube: www.youtube.com
Links:
- Track Bits: www.trackbits.com
MRS O11 Greg Baugues This episode of My Ruby Story features Greg Baugues. Greg has been on two previous episodes, episode 142 where he discussed mental illness, and episode 258 where he discussed Twilio. Greg has been at Twilio for three and a half years. He worked on the developer/evangelism team for three years. A couple of months ago he became the lead developer of the community team. He lived in Chicago for eleven years, where he first started using Ruby. He moved to Brooklyn, New York a year ago.
How did you get into programming?
When he was five or six his parents owned a TRS-80 when he was five or six. It had a cassette drive and when turned on it booted into basic. He wrote programs in basic on this computer and it was an instant gratification to him. On a back cover of a magazine, he read there would be a code printed in basic that he would copy line by line. Later, his family bought a PC that had MS-DOS with QBasic, and his friends introduced him to Pascal, C, and C++. When he graduated high school he started PHP and got into web stuff.
How did you get from PHP and web stuff to Ruby?
In 1999 Greg used PHP to start a dot-com company with which they sold eight months later for all equity. He jokes that he “started and sold a company and all I got was a polo shirt out of it.” This reinforced that he always wanted to work in programming but that he would never be happy just programming. He wanted to be involved working on the people side of things, too. He got a job at a consulting agency at Table XI where he was a sales guy. He claims that he wasn’t good at sales, so stopped programming for one and a half to two years in order to become better. Then he traveled with his wife in Europe for a while. This showed him that he spent his free time programming. After this he picked up Ruby for the first time. Ruby was his first language of choice because Table XI and most of Chicago was using Ruby at the time. He also fell in love with it.
What was it about Ruby that you thought was cool?
Greg finds Ruby beautiful and expressive. He believes that it makes more sense than for loop and believes that you can explain it to someone who’s never done coding before and it makes sense to them. Writing Ruby is the closest you can come to writing pseudo code that actually runs. Ruby doesn’t look much different from pseudo code. He thinks it is a joy to write in Ruby.
What contributions do you feel like you’ve made to the Ruby community?
Greg believes that his biggest contribution would be in the vein of mental health. He has Bipolar Disorder and was on a Ruby Rogues podcast where he spoke about it. Because of his disorder, he failed out of college, had trouble with relationships, getting out of bed, paying bills, and a lot of guilt. He finally got treatment in 2007 where medication slowly helped. Four years ago he had a coworker who overdosed that had been showing symptoms of the same disorder. The next day instead of doing a lightening talk he had scheduled about fantasy football, he gave a talk about mental illness and started giving talks about mental illnesses everywhere in the Ruby community.
Charles tells Greg that he heard someone speak about him and said he’d decided to go get help and have a relationship with his family again. He said that Greg’s episode of the podcast had helped him, and others have emailed him about it too. He explains that changing the way someone lives is just as important as writing source code. Greg says that he has learned that we are not alone in this community. There is a value of sharing your story and being vulnerable. It is easy to underestimate the compassion and empathy people have in the Ruby community.
What are you working on now?
Greg just had a conference called Signal for Twilio two weeks ago. There were 2,000 developers and 100 speakers at the conference. He was part of the team that organized speakers. Two months ago he started a leadership role with the developer community team for the first time. He’s trying to learn how to be in a management role for the first time. There were a million developers that signed up for Twilio so he is trying to figure out how to organize a community of developers instead of just having customers.
Picks
Greg:
- Phil Nash: https://philna.sh/
- The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056843.do
- The Tim Ferriss Podcast with Jamie Foxx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGnnEfmP8K4
- The Ezra Klein Show: https://www.vox.com/ezra-klein-show-podcast
Charles:
- Ruby Dev Summit: https://rubydevsummit.com/
Links:
- Email: gb@twilio.com
- Twilio Voices: https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/say
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/greggyb
My Ruby Story Dave Kimura On this episode Charles talks to Ruby Rouges panelist Dave Kimura, the creator of Drifting Ruby, the popular Ruby on Rails Screencast and Blog. Find out more about how Dave got interested in programming and first introduced to the world of Ruby. Dave also talks about how and when he started Drifting Ruby.
How did you get into programming? Dave discusses living in Germany during middle school in the 90s. During this time, he owned a simple Mac LC II. He found a floppy disc that contained a program called Chipmunk Basic, which was his very first exposure into the world of programming. His interest with programming was further sparked by computers at school. These computers were loaded with three different programs: Fortran, Pascal, and C compiler. All of these peaked his interest in programming further.
Charles and Dave discuss the impact technology made. Dave tells Charles that anything that pre-dates the Internet feels like a different world; one in which learning was more complicated. He talks about how technology has come a long way in the past 20 years. He discusses the creativity that people have displayed and how amazed he is by the progression of different applications.
How did you make the transition from different programs such as PHP and ActionScript into Ruby? Dave discusses his work as a Systems Administrator at an engineering firm for the past 6 years after college. He talks about being at his current job at Sage Software for almost 8 years and that he does not believe in job hopping, although many do today. He states that he has no valid reasoning that he went with Ruby over Python or another program. He says that he did not like PHP or asp.net. Instead he wanted something new. Dave wanted to do things the way he wanted to do, which can’t be done in Python. A big part of his decision was made when he looked at Matz’s twitter. Matz seemed happy which led Dave to pick Ruby, which he thinks is mainly a good “dumb luck” decision.
What kinds of things have you done with Ruby? Dave says that the coolest thing he’s done is with a Raspberry Pi his brother gifted him in 2013–2014 for Christmas. He built a CNC machine and a Ruby Gem called a Router out of it. He explains that he wrote an interpreter to read and control the machine. He adds that he has built a bunch of hardware as well.
How did Drifting Ruby come about? Dave says that his inspiration is Ryan Bates, who created RailsCast and went off the grid in 2013. He strives to fill in the high bar that Ryan left by producing quality material.
When did you start Drifting Ruby? Dave started Drifting Ruby in 2015, which is a couple years after RailsCast. He explains that he was not entirely committed to the program at first. He explains that he has revamped the audio setup two or three times.
So where are you hoping to get to with it? Are you just trying to put good content out or monetize as well? Dave is currently focused on releasing good content. He wants to give back to the Ruby community and feels good that people are able to use the content he produces. Eventually he states that it will go to a subscription base, but does not have a definite date as to when. He is very dedicated to his work, as he spends 10 to 15 hours of his weekend working on episodes.
Are there things that you feel that you have contributed to the Ruby community? Dave feels like his commitment to Ruby Rogues has been consistent but is not a hassle. He doesn’t look at it as something he wants to get paid for because he enjoys the time he dedicates weekly. He doesn’t feel like he’s had anything big other than Drifting Ruby.
So what are you working on now? Dave is currently working on a money manager that he uses with his wife. He built this Ruby on Rails application in 2011–2012 off of the premise he learned at a Dave Ramsey conference. He states that he recently rewrote it and cleaned up so that it uses the latest Rails 5.1.1. The application helps budget money for bills, groceries, spending money, etc. using a digital envelope system. He states that anyone is able to use the program, and it has made a difference in his life.
Picks Dave Harbor Freight
Charles Ketogenic diet Spaghetti Squash
Links Dave’s Twitter
Drfting Ruby Twitter
Drifting Ruby
My Ruby Story 009 Brian Hogan On this episode we have another My Ruby Story and there is a good chance you might recognize him, he is one of Devchat.tv’s panelists Brian Hogan. Aside from being a panelists on Ruby Rouges, he also has a couple other projects like codecaster.io as well as Railsmentors.org.
How did you get into programming? Brain talks about how his Dad has an old Apple 2 computer. His father was a teacher for the blind and the computer had a box on it that would talk. His Dad taught him that computers can have programs written for them and make them do things. Brain talks about having math issues one evening and his Dad helped by making a math program that would quiz him. His Dad wasn’t a programmer but he had picked up some of it from being around it. Brain talks about how the library had games you could get for the Apple 2 but you had to write code into the computer to make it work. He started tweaking the code to learn that it adjusted things in the game like the speed of the spaceship or the damage of the bomb.
Brian’s First Program Brian’s first program was in fourth grade. He had an assignment on the topic of the seas and instead of doing a typical handwritten assignment he created a program for it. He learned that he could make the computer do things. Over time Brian got interested in other things, planning to go to school for law. His Dad lost his job making his plans for law school unreachable without student loan debt. He started making money on the side repairing and building computers.
Computers solving problems He talks about how he never really got into the computer science level of things, but he was always excited about being able to solve people’s problems with computers. He remembers getting internet for the first time. It was Netscape and it came with a book on how to setup the internet and then in the last chapter it had a section teaching how to make a webpage with HTML. He loved making websites and so he made pages for businesses and made money on the side. He went to college aiming for computer science and then when he got into classes like computational theory, he found that it was boring to him still. He changed his major to business. He then got a job working for the college working with website stuff. The developer for the pages ended up quitting and so they asked Brian to help out. So he learned Microsoft server SQL and ASP. He adds that essentially he fell into web development by accident. He talks about his code being bad until he learned Ruby, crediting Ruby with making object oriented programming easier to understand. Charles mentions that he felt the same way in school, it wasn’t until he needed to fix a real problem that programming really started to seem useful and fun. Brian talks about how he isn’t really the best programmer, but his strengths are helping other people to program. He has trained many people to program since then.
Learning with Context He talks about in school how they throw JavaScript at you and teach you the higher concepts before understanding it. He tells about how doing something like teaching Git on the first day doesn’t make sense because the students don’t understand why they need it. He suggests that the thing that is missing from the curriculum is the real work connection. Majority of adults need to be able to connect what they are learning to something they have already learned. Context is important for learning.
How did you get into Ruby? Brian talks about doing PHP for a while as well as ASP. He was working with a project as an Oracle DBA. They were moving from Java to an Oracle Database. But no one there knew what Java was and a person there named Bruce suggested that the work they were doing would be better written in Ruby. The team disagreed but afterward one day Brian was talking to Bruce about a side project he was working on and how he wasn’t accomplishing it the way he wanted to. Bruce asked him to get lunch with him. Brian then talks about how in life if someone very smart asks you to get lunch that you should drop everything and do it. In a single night he was able to accomplish everything he was trying to. He took his project to work the next day and they said they wouldn’t be able to use it on Windows. Brian started working on finding ways to deploy it, and that has been the starting point of Ruby for Brian. He went to Rails full time after that. Publishing an article on how to get it deployed. His work with Ruby led to him teaching and writing books. When he needs to make something heavily data driven he always reaches for Ruby. He isn’t interested in scalability because usually he is working on a small business process behind the firewall used by less than 100 people.
Framework Peer Pressure Brian talks about the fear and pressure to use the latest and greatest frameworks in the development community. He talks about how the only people who know what framework a person uses is the developer and the peers. You don’t get paid to impress peers in the community. A developer gets paid to solve peoples problems. Charles and Brian add that using new frameworks are great and can teach you new ways to solve problems, but no matter how a person solves a problem, it should be celebrated. Learn new things but don’t make people feel bad for not doing things the same way you do them. Brian adds that another reason he likes Rails is that it has a lot of things that came from basecamp and it is a well developed and tested and the framework is strong. He talks about how sometimes frameworks come out and they weren’t well thought out. Rails is not an academic framework but it is easier to integrate or upgrade to by design.
What contributions have you made to the Ruby community? Brian talks about getting the Rails deploy working for Windows is one of his proudest moments. Other than that his contribution has been mainly helping people find mentors at Railsmentors.org. On Railsmentors.org, most of the work is done by volunteers and help a lot of people. Charles adds that sometimes open source project contributions tend to get glorified but things like Railsmentors.org are really what make the community great.
What are you working on now? Brian talks about how he is working on a book but he can’t tell much about it at the moment. He also works on the content team on Digital Ocean. He helps other community authors with their writing and to get it published and out. He also handles some system admin background to test that each article works and he finds it a good way to keep his skills tuned. He is also working on a project in Elixir for teachers to work in the classroom better. For a teacher teaching development they can use the program, CodeCaster, to display code to the screens and the students can do things like flag things they don’t understand or let the teacher know that it’s moving too fast. It allows the students send up code for the teacher to check as well as the teacher get a snapshot of what’s on the students screen to check on them.
Picks
Brian
Exercises for Programmers
Tmux 2 Productive Mouse-Free Development
Charles
Coursera on AI
Artificial Intelligence in Python
Links Twitter
bphogan.com
My Ruby Story 315 Jordan Hudgens In this episode it’s another My Ruby Story and this week’s story is Jordan Hudgens’. Jordan is lead instructor of Bottega, a code school based in Lehi, Utah but also located in Phoenix and Salt Lake City. You’ll hear a bit about how Decamp.com came to be as well as what makes it stand out from the rest. You’ll also catch a couple tangents including one on artificial intelligence, augmented reality, an IoT. Don’t miss this one!
How did you get intro programming? Jordan talks about how at the age of 12 his father had a business and with their budget couldn’t afford a web designer. His father offers Jordan to buy him a computer if he can build the website. He muddles his way through HTML documentation to create his first, and particularly ugly website 20 years ago. When he turned 16, he started working on better applications as well as learned PHP.
How did you go from PHP to Ruby? As Jordan got further and further, he worked a lot in the energy sector, including Chevron and Oxy. This sort of work became dull and boring for him. He knew that there were other things out there that would be better. He started learning Ruby and fell in love with it. He mentions that working with Ruby helped him to love coming into work. Jordan now works almost exclusively in Ruby on Rails now.
What have you done in Ruby? Jordan talks about switching all of his work over to Ruby, including doing work for Quip, the toothbrush service. He has also done work for EventBrite on one of their Micro Services. He soon after quit his work to start devcamp.com and launch his own learning platform. He says that he learns best by teaching so he started to create courses, usually for himself. He self-published on platforms like Udemy, but was also hired to create courses for FlatIron School in New York. His time was spent less in development and more in creating courses.
What makes the DevCamp.com different? What was your inspiration? As a developer and having his own consulting shop, he recognized that camps weren’t teaching certain things like algorithms and even soft skills like project management and estimation. He also wanted to include other things like machine learning. Jordan felt strong on what he felt a true job centric curriculum should be focused on. Uniquely, Jordan has created a strong network to hiring partners. Instead of just building a course, they build outlines for a certain topic and then has the hiring partners and network to help create a profile for the best candidate for hire. Then creating the workshop around those requests. A major element that makes Jordan’s Devcamp.com stand out is that they are one of the only accredited bootcamps out there. Devcamp also uniquely has a 2 year pathway mapped out similar to a university computer science curriculum. Universities have partnered with devcamp.com because the curriculum lose a little bit faster than the traditional taught curriculum. Students are getting hired a bit faster because they are learning more relevant information. Jordan states that the student’s success is also Devcamp.com’s success.
What are the skills people need to actually get a job? What makes a great developer is problem solving. Problem solving is the most important. If a person can dissect a challenge and come up with a plan, it’s very valuable. There is a problem solving course that presents a number of challenges where students learn to problem solve, not even using code. Taking a practical approach to give a sense a real world relevance and a mental framework for problem solving.
Do you feel like your main contribution was teaching? Jordan mentions that he tries to contribute to open source and that he has made a few Ruby Gems but his time is limited. He discovered that even when he was making good money developing, he didn’t feel like he was making a huge difference in the world. He talks about watching students who came from working minimum wage jobs leave the camp they started working very hard and making 50 to 60 grand a year. The camp changed their lives. Charles talks about how he relates with the podcast. People have come to him with similar stories of having enough confidence to change their careers after listening to the podcasts.
What are you working on now? Anything new? Jordan talks about how most of his time is developing new ‘Products’ for Devcamp. Each day he tries to add a few new features. One of the big plans is to start including machine learning into the curriculum. He talks about how when he adds features, he tries to use those features to teach and to create a relevant real world example. He finds that most students don’t like abstract thought patterns.
Are you doing that with Ruby? Jordan lets us know that yes some of the machine learning stuff he is working on is with Ruby. Interestingly enough, he spent time at the Rails Conf and went to every machine learning talk there. Every single machine learning talk was on Python. He mentions that “H.H’s” (David Heinemeier Hansson) keynote talk was on using the right tools. It’s hard to compete with the large number of libraries that Python has on machine learning.
Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Iot Charles suggests that artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and Iot are really where technology is heading. Jordan and Charles talk about how they all three interplay together to enhance our lives. adjunctSensors from an Iot device uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to make decisions that then tie into how we experience reality. Charles mentions that he often tries to convince people that their phones are already supplementing our lives in a way that makes it augmented reality. Machine learning seems to be the glue that holds it all together.
Picks Jordan Devcamp
Bottega
Tim and Ruby Topaz
Charles Ruby Dev Summit
Wordpress theme - Summit
Ruby Rogues Parley
Meetup.com
Links Bottega
Devcamp.com
GitHub
Crondose blog
My Ruby Story with Charles Max Wood
This week’s episode is a bit different. Charles Max Wood interviews… Charles Max Wood! Hear a bit about how Charles’ grandfather inspired him towards his career in programing, how handling technical support for Mozy somehow led him to writing Ruby code, and hear a bit about what he is working on now! Stay tuned.
How did you get into Programming?
Charles talks about remembering some of his first programming exposure as far back as second grade. He talks about programming the iconic turtle to move around on the screen and draw shapes. Later on he had more experience in a particular Math class in high school, this time Pascal, then of course the TI-85.
Inspired by his Grandfather
Charles gives a bit of a background story on his inspiration for taking electronics classes in school, his Grandfather. His Grandfather was an inventor that created various inventions, including tools used in the manufacturing of rocket boosters for the NASA Space Shuttle. Charles became very interested in electronics and took his first electronic class.
Electrical engineering in College
Charles then attended Brigam Young University majoring in Electrical Engineering, giving him even further chances to experience programming. To Charles, programming seemed fun but didn’t feel serious enough to hold weight as his career. His interest grew in computers. He eventually switches to Computer Engineering and graduates, also picking up a job in the office of information technology at BYU.
Programming gets more serious
Charles talks about how programming in college tended to lean towards games and fun projects, and it wasn’t until after college that the projects that he got involved with felt as if the work he was doing meant something. From building a system to help college students find apartments that fit their needs, to Bash scripts that made some of the IT updates at BYU faster and safer.
His first job with Ruby on Rails
Charles then lands a job with Mozy, the popular online backup service. Mozy’s systems were all running with Ruby on Rails and Charles worked as Technical Support. Mozy gets publicity in The Wall Street Journal, increasing the Technical Support workload. Charles then writes a Ruby on Rails system that created a smoother flow when cycling through emails. He soon added extra features like canned responses and a way to measure how often canned responses were sent as a way to highlight any particular issues Mozy was having.
Shifting into Podcasting
Charles talks about switching from a Management position to a developer track and working with a man name Don, who had an original iPod and listened to podcasts. Introducing him to Rails Envy, a podcast by Jason Seifer and Gregg Pollack. After emailing Gregg, to Charles’ surprise he responds and encourages him to start his own podcast. Charles talks about how he feels his main contribution to the Ruby community is his podcast. Since then he has had a chance to interview some really influential people, including David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails. Outside of the podcast, Charles adds that he has also taken over Teach Me To Code and has contributed a few open source libraries, one connecting to project HoneyPot, as well as contributing indirectly through his other podcast work including JavaScript Jabber, and Adventures in Angular.
What are you working on now?
Charles talks about hoping to get back into writing open source code and even starting a project. Charles spends most of his time doing ‘businessy’ stuff for the podcast as well as the conferences, currently working on putting together a Ruby Dev Summit. Charles talks about a few new podcast shows he is working on, including bringing some requested content like web application security, React, and Elixir. Charles talks a bit about other things he is involved in at home and creating systems to help him manage his busy workload.
Picks
Electro-Voice RE20 Microphone
Behringer Xenyx 802
Roland EDIROL R-09
ZOOM H6
Audio Technica 2100
GetACoderJob.com
Charles’ Links
Devchat.tv
Charles’ Twitter
Devchat.tv’s Twitter
Charles GitHub
Chuck@devchat.tv
Today's episode features the Ruby Story of Jamis Buck. James guested on episode 268, where he talked about Mazes for Programmers. For 9 years, he worked at 37Signals as Software Developer. How did he get into programming, and what is he currently up to? Tune in!
Tune in as Charles Max Wood interviews Fabio Akita! Fabio has been working on Ruby for more than 10 years. He also blogs about it, and participates in Ruby Conf and in the programming community in Brazil. He appeared on episode 285, where talked about the conference and the community. Learn more about his journey and contributions in programming.
On today's episode, Charles Max Wood interviews Derrick Reimer. Derrick is the co-founder of Drip, an email marketing automation platform that's designed for startups and consultants. He appeared on episode 254, and talked about Building/Scaling a Rails Saas App. It's interesting to know how Derrick got into programming. Tune in!
On today's episode, Charles Max Wood interviews Devon C Estes. Devon was also on the show on episode 295 and talked about The European Ruby Community. How did he cross paths with programming? Tune in to find out!
On today's episode, Charles Max Wood interviews Brandon Hilkert. Brandon currently works at Bark, a company that builds software to help protect kids online. He was also on the show on episode 291 and talked about Building Ruby Gems. Tune in to learn more about what he's up to these days and know how he got into programming!
On this first episode of My Ruby Story, Charles Max Wood interviews Brad Urani. About a year and a half ago, Brad talked about Rails, JavaScript, and Functional Programming in episode 237 of the show. Get to know more about him and his journey in programming. Tune in!