Welcome to The Rabbit Hole, the definitive developers podcast. If you are a software developer or technology leader looking to stay on top of the latest news in the software development world, or just want to learn actionable tactics to improve your day-to-day job performance, this podcast is for you.
180. Acronyms for Fun and Profit
BaaS, FaaS, and ASS. The tech world is inundated with acronyms that often make communication more frustrating. There’s even an acronym for ‘Things Without an Interesting Name,’ or TWAIN. Today we talk about the convenience and cost of acronyms, an important topic considering that software developers spend a lot of energy naming things. We open our conversation by touching on the awkwardness of the ever-present ‘As a Service’ acronyms before focusing on niche companies that create acronyms to differentiate themselves.
179. Django vs Rails, why python won
There’s a perception that web development using Ruby on Rails has already peaked, with more damning critics shouting that “Rails is a dying language.” Conversely, Python, and Django by extension, seem to be ever-increasing in popularity. Today we’ve set up a grudge match — it’s Django versus Rails, with the winner declared the better language. We open our conversation by exploring perceptions of Rails and Django, along with why Python’s many libraries give it a leading edge.
178. Code Formatting - Friend or Foe
Is code formatting a blessing or is it killing the art of writing beautiful code? Today we weigh in on the arguments for and against formatting and how this might affect your coding process. An early point against formatters, we talk about how they limit nuance and some of your ability to communicate through your code. Following this, we chat about how projects can be held up because of someone’s “opinion on how code should look.” A problem that’s solved by formatters.
177. Remote Collaboration & Screen Sharing
As remote work gains more traction, we have to find the best ways to communicate from a distance, so today on the show we discuss our favorite screen sharing and remote collaboration apps. From pair programming and code sharing software to video chat applications boasting drawing functionality and cool screen widgets, you’ll hear our take on the landscape of tools that allow you to connect with your friends and co-workers from the comfort of your home. We talk about how our beloved Screenhero got butchered by Slack and whether its predecessor, Screen.so is doing a good job of carrying the baton. Zoom, Slack and Google Meet all support video conferencing and a limited degree of extra features, but there is some bias as to what people prefer. We move on to discuss more programmer-centric apps that allow remote control and code sharing and which work best for your preferred IDE.
176. Kubernetes VS Serverless
Kubernetes versus serverless – the battle of the decade! Both deserve their status as exciting and powerful platforms that offer organizations tremendous boosts in agility, scalability, and computing performance, but it is easy to forget that Kubernetes offers advantages that serverless alternatives don’t — and vice versa. In this episode, Michael Nunez, Dave Anderson, and William Jeffries discuss the pros and cons of each platform, what it is like working with Kubernetes versus serverless on a project, and compare the complexity, load, function call and time cost, as well as comparing different cloud hosting services. Tune in today for all this and so much more!
175. Awesome Podcasts!
After discovering that we made it on to a list of awesome podcasts about tech, we decided to use this episode to look at that list and share some of our favorite podcast content and what we are currently listening to! To start off we share different ways and times to consume podcast content, from the shower to the car! We run through the best tech media out there, with Dave talking about Python Bytes and Michael sharing his love for the Ladybug Podcast. Following that we move onto non-tech shows, highlighting The Legion on Zoom and the ever-popular, topical and informative 99% Invisible. To finish off we talk about some funny shows we enjoy, Underunderstood, and how Michael has improved this very show by listening to Your Podcast Coach!
174. XP vs Scrum
“Agile is a devastated wasteland. The life has been sucked out of it.” Those are the words of Kent Beck, creator of Extreme Programming, and co-signer of the Agile Manifesto. According to Kent, many development teams have adopted Agile methodologies without understanding their purpose. In today’s episode, we’ve recruited Aaron Foster Braylin and Steve Solomon for a deep dive into Agile, with a special focus on comparing Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum. We begin by exploring what stand-ups mean for each guest before discussing Scrum’s openness to incorporate processes, so long as they work.
173. Job Descriptions
“We’re stoked to hire a 10x Software Ninja with a coffee obsession who loves to work hard and play harder.” Looking for an engineering job requires you to wade through cringy job descriptions. Inspired by changes in the market, in this episode we explore good, bad, and ugly job descriptions. We start by looking at a recent posting by Tuple, who presents a masterclass in writing good job postings.
172. Accessibility 2
Imagine you’re browsing a web page using only a keyboard. A loud and looping video pops up that’s impossible to close without a mouse. Now you’re trapped there. Forever. This horror story is commonly experienced on websites that haven’t been designed with accessibility in mind. This episode continues our discussion on what you should do to improve your accessibility. After talking about using tools like voice-over commands to understand what’s needed from the user’s perspective, we touch on the challenge of learning the right commands to navigate the web with your eyes closed. We then tackle the rest of UC Berkeley’s list on making accessible websites, highlighting key considerations including color choice, how you should design forms, not using tables in place of styling, ensuring that everything can be accessed through a keyboard, and making dynamic content accessible. We also chat about ARIA roles and landmarks and why creating accessible websites leads to a better experience for able-bodied users. Tune in for more insights on making great and accessible websites. Not only will it expand your user-base but it’ll help ensure that no one ends up within the dreaded carousel of modals.
171. Accessibility
We’ve all been there. You’re trying to close an ad on your browser, but the button is too small and you’ve accidentally opened it instead. Poor web design can easily frustrate even the most agile-fingered, able-bodied techies. Imagine what it’s like for users with challenges that can range from visual impairment to limited motor function. On today’s episode, we explore how and why you should build accessible websites. We start by talking about alt text and how the show’s hosts have, to their shame, often neglected to create informative alt text. We then touch on the work that W3C is doing to establish guidelines on making accessible websites.
170. 4 day workweek
More workers are calling for a four-day workweek, with many claiming that it increases productivity, revenue, and workplace satisfaction. In today’s episode, we dive into the subject with show producer William Jeffries who is in the enviable position of having the mythic four-day workweek. While it didn’t seem impactful to him from the outset, William lays down the math showing that moving to a four-day workweek shifts the workday to the weekend ratio from 2.5 to one to 1.3 to one. We talk about William’s other atypical work arrangement, which is that he works in South Korea while his team is in California.
169. SOLID - Dependency inversion principle
Today’s show marks our reaching of the final letter in our discussion of SOLID, the D, which stands for the Dependency Inversion principle! We kick things off with a bit of research on exactly what the Dependency Inversion principle states, and from there we unpack what implementing it in the real world might look like. Our conversation is all about the idea that pieces of your code should be decoupled and you can do this using interfaces. We discuss how the Dependency Inversion principle might be applied when you are connecting to databases, how it relates to inversion of control and ways of implementing it other than dependency injection.
168. SOLID - Interface specificity principle
We’re back on SOLID ground. Today we explore the ‘I’ in SOLID, A.K.A the interface segregation principle or ISP. After debating how inappropriately the principle is named, we dive into what it means, that “no client should be forced to depend on methods it does not use.” We drill even further into what this means by using the metaphor of a Swiss Army knife and what it would take to code an athlete in Java. We discuss why you should apply the ISP and later share experiences where we’ve abandoned the principle, intentionally or not.
167. Pandemic Job Market Shifts
Around the globe, tens of millions of students are using Codecademy to learn programming during the pandemic. Just ask MLB pitcher Jared Hughes who learned Python to analyze his performance. This episode, we talk with Zach Sims, co-founder of Codecademy, all about the shifting job market and how people are going online to learn how to code. Early in the conversation, Zach provides his insights into how coding skills can give you a competitive advantage, regardless of your field. Unfortunately, not everyone has equal access to Codecademy though. We speak about the digital divide and how many people don’t have the tech or broadband needed to learn online.
166. SOLID - Liskov Substitution Principle
For those of you who have been waiting for the next letter of the SOLID series, we are happy to finally discuss the 'L' in SOLID, which is the Liskov substitution principle, or as we like to call it, the LSP. If you’re like us and the LSP conjures up an image of a long-gone mathematician, think again. It is actually a principle developed by Barbara Liskov, an American computer scientist. In this episode, we get into a simple definition of the LSP, which is that objects should be replaceable with their sub-types, and this should not alter the functioning of the program. To clarify, we use an example of shapes in a program and how the principle would be applied. We also look at how the LSP relates to inheritance, and why inheritance should only be used in certain circumstances. Along with this, we touch on our feelings about interfaces and learn more about William’s experience with TypeScript. Tune in today!