Elixir Outlaws is an informal discussion about interesting things happening in Elixir. Our goal is to capture the spirit of a conference hallway discussion in a podcast.
Episode 44: Put a Paxos on it
This week kicks off with an explanation of Chris’s so called grooming habits. Amos explains how to properly cook fried eggs. The guys remember the early days of the show and comment on how their audio quality was somehow even worse back then. Amos is trying to figure out the best way to give back to the community. The discussion moves towards the social contracts of open source which Chris thinks is a thorny topic. Chris encourages people to contribute in whatever way they feel is best even if it means not writing code. Chris rails against the programming communities obsession with hero culture and the toxicity of “rockstar programmers”. The guys discuss ways to try to build successful teams. Spoilers: the first step is not to hire a bunch of people who want to build RPC when all you need is a blog.
Episode 43: The longest monday
The hosts this week are coming in cold. Amos and Chris are drinking Starbucks, although Amos seems much more upset about it than Chris. Anna has finally returned from her vacation in Japan only to find that her microphone stand no longer works correctly. Anna describes her longest Monday ever and Amos explains why he can’t sleep on planes. Chris has been doing nothing exciting besides not sleeping and keeping his children alive. The conversation moves to design by contract and data specification layers. Chris discusses the libraries he’s been working on and also does a pretty great internet voice. Chris and Anna talk about their upcoming elixirconf talks and how they’re happy to see more diversity in the speaker lineup for elixirconf. This leads to a discussion of other conferences and how they pick speakers. Finally the hosts wrap up with a pitch for LazyRiverConf occurring simultaneously with ElixirConf.
Episode 42: Carriage Return Line Feed
This week Elixir has been uninstalled from Amos’s laptop and Chris is reading books and writing C. Chris explains why he still chooses to write C and why most people don’t need to manually manage memory. During the main topic Amos describes a problem he’s having with Tesla and Hackney. This leads to a discussion about how to build systems that can handle failure. Amos brings up Let It Crash and where it applies. Chris provides some insights into building stable systems and how supervisors influence design.
Episode 41: Write code and read books and stuff
This week Amos is back from his yearly vision quest and Chris faces the problem of being interested in too many things at once. Amos discusses some experiences using Broadway and GenStage which gives Chris an excuse to bring up Little’s Law (as if he needed one). The main topic this week is observability. This topic is motivated by Amos’s latest book: Behind Human Error. Amos provides a brief rundown and Chris talks with authority about things he really doesn't understand. The guys discuss the importance of setting goals for your services and how those goals will inform your metrics gathering and alerting strategies. The show wraps up with some tips on benchmarking and profiling.
Episode 40: Diversity
The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show.
Episode 39: The Cuteness Factor has Worn Off
As nerds we like to systematize the things we do. What do we do to think through our problems? The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show.
Episode 38: Break it down like a fraction
4th wall break Hey everyone, we're still wrestling with audio gremlins. This week is based on the raw audio from our call so you'll hear some artifacts in there. I just wanted you to be aware in case you're sensitive to that kind of thing. We've solved this problem so going forward this shouldn't happen again. -Keathley Notes This week starts with some serious discussion about the nature of hammocks, podcasts, and the Coriolis effect. The main topic this week is implicit vs. explicit. Chris argues that an implicit apis tend to be better apis. The hosts discuss where the lines should be drawn between making an operation explicit and hiding the internal complexity of the system. Chris describes how we should think about building a system in layers and how to avoid breaking changes.
Episode 37: Why is it called an everything bagel?
This week kicks off with Chris chastising Amos about always being late. The hosts discuss the value of time and recent conference trips. The discussion shifts towards talk preparation techniques, the value of speaking at conferences, and some tips for new speakers. Chris takes control of the show and does a hard pivot towards the main topic this week; the overuse of processes and state management. Chris explains that most people can get by with a lot less OTP then they think. He and Amos discuss ways that they see OTP misused or overused, the nature of scaling systems and the dangers of building stateful services.
Episode 36: Please Tuck your Van Der Graaf Generator Under the Seat in Front of You
The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show. Special Guest: Bruce Tate.
Episode 35: An Easy Baby
The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show. Conference rundown and teaching distributed systems with Chris and Anna.
Episode 34: American problem solving
4th wall break: Hey y'all audio from this week is a little worse then usual. We needed to use the backup audio file for technical reasons. Just wanted to provide a heads up. -keathley Show notes This weeks starts with a discussion of how to have meaningful conversations about design decisions. Chris asks whether programming best practices are for individuals or for teams. This leads to a discussion about team dynamics and how to facilitate productive conversations in teams. The hosts end with some tips on facilitating better communication and openness in team environments.
Episode 33: Highfalutin design techniques
This week kicks off with some standard dad-cast about kids, eye glasses, and problems with being dizzy. Chris tries to steer the conversation towards the main topic of the week: Umbrella apps. Chris and Amos provide some context for umbrella apps and explain the ways that people tend to use them. Chris talks about his experience building phoenix applications and what he values when designing systems. Anna joins half-way through and provides an impromptu opinion on umbrella applications. She provides a status update on the goings on of San Francisco and its current weather patterns. Chris and Amos finish up with a recap of their discussions and some ways that they grow systems over time.
Episode 32: The First Friend of the Show
This week the original friend of the show, Fred Hebert, joins the hosts for a wandering discussion, ostensibly about his fantastic new book Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir: Find Bugs Before Your Users Do by Fred Hebert | The Pragmatic Bookshelf (https://pragprog.com/book/fhproper/property-based-testing-with-proper-erlang-and-elixir) Fred discusses his motivations for writing, maven plugins, and how to write better property based tests. He also shares some opinions on code coverage, test driven development, and elixir’s pipe operators. The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show. Special Guest: Fred Hebert.
Episode 31: There's too much yaml in the world
This week the hosts are joined by special guest, friend of the show, and author of Elixir in Action Saša Jurić. The conversation kicks off with a discussion of protein poisoning before quickly turning to Elixir in Action. Saša explains his motivation and process for writing. After this the conversation moves towards Saša’s custom CI service he’s been building. Saša explains the major benefits of using elixir and erlang for these sorts of tasks. He talks about his dream of being able to utilize erlang with no other dependencies. The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way to help us pay for the costs for the show. Special Guest: Saša Jurić.
Episode 30: Does this forum bring me joy?
This week we dive into Amos’s frustrations with emacs. Chris talks about the nature of optimizers and how addictive micro-optimizing can be. There's a lot of bird trailing before the main topic kicks off around 18:25. The main topic this week is Private Modules. Chris doesn’t think his opinion matters but Amos wants to talk about it anyway. Amos doesn’t know why we need this so Chris tries to provide some context. This eventually leads to a conversation on warnings and how they get surfaced in Elixir. Chris maintains that he’s ambivalent and Amos wants to think about it more. At the end of the show Chris provides some pretty great tips for getting over stage fright before a talk. The Elixir Outlaws now have a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5332239). If you’re enjoying the show then please consider throwing a few bucks our way.