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.
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151. Interfaces + Design Patterns
Dave recently used Golang for a project he was working on, and today he shares his experience of interfaces and design patterns in the language. We kick off the show by talking about the Gang of Four, where Mike reveals what we have long suspected – he’s not a real developer after all! We then talk about how Go is different from other languages in that you have to explicitly define the interface and then you have a file with an interface in it. This means that when you write the code that implements the interface, you don’t explicitly say what it’s doing. It's all a big secret!
150. Serverless - Where did it go?
You don’t need servers, you don’t need roads, but you still need pants though, even though everybody is working from home now. You probably need roads too. Really though, serverless is the future and so today we’ll be talking about serverless architecture, what it is and why you would want to use it! Michael has been spending a lot of time developing in AWS recently and speaks about all of the cool things that can be done in Lambda.
149. Go!
We all get stuck in ruts sometimes and now and then learning a new language can help switch things up. Or maybe we have to just learn one so that we can keep our jobs. Either way, there are some cool languages out there, one of which is Go Lang, which is the topic of today’s episode. Dave recently had to learn Go for a job, so he’s here giving the low down. In this show, we find out more about Go’s history and why it’s still a baby in the language landscape. Dave also sheds light on what the Go community is like.
Bonus: COVID-19 hideout in the rabbit hole
Welcome back to the Rabbit Hole Podcast where we are practicing our social distancing. We have been working from home for about a week now since COVID-19 started spreading. In this episode, we check in from our homes with the latest facts we’ve learned, how we’ve been adjusting to remote work, and what our best tips and tricks are for keeping a level head while working remotely. To hear all about how we are experiencing the COVID-19 and give us your feedback!
REMIX - Pragmatic Folks Part 1 - Feedback Loops
Today's episode is the first of a three-part Pragmatic Folks series and we are joined by Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt to talk about the 20th-anniversary edition of The Pragmatic Programmer. This new edition was not only an opportunity for them to revise the material but also to revisit their thinking and see how ideas have changed over the course of twenty years. Their seminal publication codified processes that people had been doing without having a vocabulary for it. An example of this is what they call rubber ducking, which is a useful technique to use for problem-solving.
148. Managing and deleting your dead code
Today we’re talking about the Zombies of the developer’s world — dead code and how to get rid of it once and for all. What happens to dead code is that it dies and then rises again to wreak havoc on your codebase! In this episode, we get into why you should attack your dead code with a vengeance and talk about the tools you need to find the Zombie code living in your codebase.
147. Client Side Caching
Caching is notoriously difficult. In fact, according to Dave, it might be one of the two (or three) hardest problems in computer science. In this episode, dedicated to all the cache money millionaires, we are talking about client-side caching. We look at how it’s different from server-side caching and why, if you want to improve user experience, it’s the way to go. While client-side caching only helps the client currently using the machine, there are some definite benefits that we walk through, particularly on larger websites.
Remix - Remote Pair Programming with Ben Orenstein
On today’s episode, we are joined by special guest, Ben Orenstein, to talk about remote pair programming. Ben is a developer, who after many years of working for other people decided to strike out on his own. He is the co-founder of an app called Tuple, which is specifically for remote pair programming. After Screenhero got shut down, Ben saw that there was a gap in the pairing market which had not been filled.
146. Physical Boards and Informative Workspaces
Working in the hyper-collaborative but dispersed way we tend to as developers, we know it important to track progress both for ourselves and for our teams. There are many ways to do this. We can either make use of physical boards or virtual ones, of which Informative Workspaces are XP’s newest iteration. The idea of these boards and workspaces is to get as much information as fast as possible from the piece of data you’re looking so. So, for instance, if your project manager sees you’re lagging on your sprint, they can crack the whip and make you speed up. In this episode, we will look at some of the common virtual boards and their shortcomings. We know that some software (not mentioning names, Jira) is tailor-made for developers but it is too complicated and can even slow the project down.
145. Shadow of a Deadline
No matter how organized you are or how well a project is going, an impending deadline always get hearts racing. While we could argue and say that all projects could do with more time, some deadlines are objectively unreasonable. One app that certainly didn't have enough time or money is the IowaReporterApp, which has been splashed across the headlines. The app, which was developed to help with voters in the Iowa Caucus was riddled with problems.
144. Ballmer Peak: Has drinking ever helped you program better?
Today on the show we’ll be talking about Ballmer Peak, the blood alcohol level between 0.129% and 0.138% that gives you superhuman programming ability, and whether or not this has helped us to get better at programming. Ballmer Peak was discovered by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and is certainly a topic of interest to most programmers out there. The concept was made popular by webcomic xkcd who imagined programmers being driven to alcohol by the frustrating task of coding.
Remix - 9 Roles for Creating Results or Growing a Team with Esther Derby
Today we’re throwing it back again, this time to our 100th episode where Esther Derby joined us. Esther is an esteemed guide and consultant, specializing in teamwork optimization. She is on a mission to change work environments so that teams and individuals can flourish. In this episode, we discuss responsibility for results versus responsibility for improvement, in terms of management and team style.
Remix: The DRY Principle is Misunderstood with Steven Solomon
Today on The Rabbit Hole, we are doing another remix, this time going back to an episode with Steven Solomon on how the DRY principle is misunderstood. Steven has been a programmer since 2007 and has been fortunate to work in many contexts. In this episode, Steven unpacks what the DRY principle is and clears up some common misconceptions about it. Commonly when developers see two lines of the same code, they are tempted to extract that into a method based on their understanding of DRY-ing.
Remix: Open Source Sustainability and Ethical Advertising with Eric Holscher
In the world of open source, finding the cash to stay afloat while still being able to look at yourself in the mirror can be rough. Individual donations are pretty much a non-option and the ethical tradeoffs of paid advertising at the other end of the scale are hard to stomach. Our guest on the show today is Eric Holscher and as one of the co-founders of Read the Docs, sustaining an open-source project is a daily concern for him.
143. Pets in the Office
We all know a dog person and some of these dog people happen to be our colleagues, our bosses, our pairing partners, or maybe that dog person is even you! Although it may seem trivial, having pets in the office can be a touchy topic, as they can have a huge impact on your well-being, productivity, and the overall atmosphere of your workspace. Today on the show, we talk about bringing your pets to work: Is it a distraction, is it helpful, how does it make you feel?