Elixir Wizards is an interview-format podcast, focused on engineers who use the Elixir programming language. Initially launched in early 2019, each season focuses on a specific topic or topics, with each interview focusing on the guest's experience and opinions on the topic. Elixir Wizards is hosted by Eric Oestrich and Sundi Myint of SmartLogic, a dev shop that’s been building custom software since 2005 and running Elixir applications in production since 2015. Learn more about how SmartLogic uses Phoenix and Elixir. (https://smartlogic.io/phoenix-and-elixir?utm_source=podcast)
Devon Estes on The Power of Functional Programming
Today’s guest is Devon Estes, who leads the third-party integration team at Remote, a company that uses technology to make it easier for other companies to hire remote employees (not contractors, actual employees) from over 100 countries across the world. Prior to working at Remote (which he loves, as you'll hear today), Devon was a freelancer and avid public speaker, and some of his talks from many years ago are still relevant today. In this conversation, Devon explains why functional programming is easier to use than any other programming type, and how the only thing holding you back from becoming a master is your desire to learn!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Guest host Dan Ivovich explains what prompted him to come up with the theme for this season; Elixir in a Polyglot Environment.
- A brief rundown of Devon’s daily life.
- Content that Devon covers in the talks that he gives these days.
- Devon explains what his role at Remote (where he has worked since November 2021) involves.
- A challenge that Devon has noticed other people facing when learning Elixir.
- An overview of what Remote does, and the specific area that Devon’s team focuses on.
- Functional programming versus object-oriented programming.
- Devon shares an example of the power of Elixir.
- The importance of libraries in making Elixir a viable language for data scientists.
- Devon’s thoughts on mutation testing.
- Why Devon doesn’t do a lot of open-source work anymore.
- How Remote has grown over the past year and a half.
- One of the things that Devon loves about working at Remote.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Devon Estes on Twitter — https://twitter.com/devoncestes
Devon Estes — https://devonestes.com/
Refactoring Elixir — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJJMrtJEK1A
Going Multi-Node with ExUnit— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elC_8PhWRTg
Designing Elixir Systems with OTP — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45159167-designing-elixir-systems-with-otp
ElixirConf EU — https://www.elixirconf.eu/
Remote — http://remote.com/
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Jobs at SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/jobs
Special Guest: Devon Estes.