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Tech Done Right
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Tech Done Right
Author: Table XI
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© 2023 Table XI
Description
The Tech Done Right podcast is a show by and for people who care about what they build. We don't just build software, we build teams, companies, careers, and communities.
Each episode features host Noel Rappin talking to interesting people in the tech community about building something the right way. We’re not just going to give you our thoughts on the topic, but tools, processes, or references that you can use immediately to build better software and communities.
Each episode features host Noel Rappin talking to interesting people in the tech community about building something the right way. We’re not just going to give you our thoughts on the topic, but tools, processes, or references that you can use immediately to build better software and communities.
74 Episodes
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Teaching Testing and Design
Guests
Betsy Haibel (https://twitter.com/betsythemuffin): CTO at Cohere (https://twitter.com/wecohere). Blogs at betsyhaibel.com (https://betsyhaibel.com/).
Avdi Grimm (https://twitter.com/avdi): Head Chef at RubyTapas (https://www.rubytapas.com/). Blogs at avdi.codes (https://avdi.codes/).
Penelope Phippen (https://twitter.com/penelope_zone): Works at Google, makes Rubyfmt (https://github.com/samphippen/rubyfmt), helps make RSpec (https://rspec.info/), and is on the board of Ruby Central (https://www.rubycentral.org/). Blog (https://penelope.zone).
Summary
After the discussions on testing and design in episodes 68 and 69, I had so much I still wanted to talk about in testing, design, and teaching testing and design. So I convened a panel with previous Tech Done Right Guests Avdi Grimm, Betsy Haibel, and Penelope Phippen to help me think through all these topics. I was very happy to have all of them on the show, and I think it's a great conversation. Stay tuned until the very end for an update about the show.
Related Episodes with These Guests
Avdi: 20 Years of Web Development (https://www.techdoneright.io/46), Ruby Tapas and Avoiding Code (https://www.techdoneright.io/24)
Betsy: Diverse Agile Teams (https://www.techdoneright.io/38), How Set Design Can Inform Software Architecture (https://www.techdoneright.io/21)
Penelope: Code Style and Community (https://www.techdoneright.io/54), Back in the Testing Weeds (https://www.techdoneright.io/33), In The Testing Weeds (https://www.techdoneright.io/004-testing-with-sam-and-justin)
Notes
00:50 - Previously On: Re: Testing
* Pragmatic Programmer at 20 with Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt (https://www.techdoneright.io/68)
* Teaching and Learning with Sandi Metz (https://www.techdoneright.io/69)
02:53 - Testing and Design
* 99 Bottles of OOP (https://www.sandimetz.com/99bottles)
05:43 - TDD
Test Driven Development (https://technologyconversations.com/2013/12/20/test-driven-development-tdd-example-walkthrough/)
Do We Need Constants (http://www.virtuouscode.com/2011/08/18/do-we-need-constants/)
09:36 - Testing, But Not Developer Testing + Sliming The Test
* WikiWikiWeb (http://wiki.c2.com)
13:41 - Why + How Did You Learn TDD?
20:24 - TDD: Not a Robust Process
24:19 - Rails + Unit Testing
27:41 - Is TDD really dead?
35:06 - Keeping Code In Your Head
37:32 - Approaching the Testing and Design of Code
38:59 - What would convince you to stop doing TDD?
Special Guests: Avdi Grimm, Betsy Haibel, and Penelope Phippen.
Supporting Innovation With Mike Todasco
Guest
Mike Todasco (https://twitter.com/Todasco): Senior Director of Innovation at PayPal (https://paypal.com)
Summary
Today on the show we have Mike Todasco, the Senior Director of Innovation at PayPal. We talk about what innovation means at a company, and how to encourage innovation both if you are a PayPal sized company and if you aren’t. Mike also shares some information about PayPal’s internal innovation tournament and how they offer incentives for innovation.
Notes
01:38 - What does the Senior Director of Innovation at PayPal do?
02:32 - Why should companies innovate?
04:29 - Who should be innovating?
08:26 - Assisting and Guiding in Innovation
11:15 - Introducing Innovation to Companies and Teams: Vulnerability
16:06 - Encouraging Innovation
18:44 - The Concept of Global Innovation Tournaments
24:34 - Giving People Opportunity and Exposure
28:40 - Innovation Tokens
30:59 - Innovation For Small Companies
32:39 - Interesting Innovations Special Guest: Mike Todasco.
How To Buy Software With Ashley Quinto Powell
Guest
Ashley Quinto Powell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyquinto/): Director of Business Development at Table XI (https://www.tablexi.com/).
Summary
Today on the show, we have Ashley Quinto Powell. Ashley and I have run a workshop together called How to Buy Software aimed at people who want to buy custom software but aren't sure what the process will be like. In this episode, we try to compress a four-hour workshop into a 45-minute podcast. Ashley will talk about what to expect from the sales process and then Ashley will interview me about what it's like to work with a development team. I hope you like it.
Notes
01:40 - How do you buy software?
02:47 - Common Misconceptions When Starting the Process
04:20 - Preparing for a Conversation About Buying Software
06:42 - Terminology To Know
Offshore / Nearshore
- Agile / Waterfall
- Time and Materials Contract / Fixed Contract
16:08 - Interacting with a Development Team
18:28 - Estimation
28:16 - Signs Things Are Going Well / Red Flags Special Guest: Ashley Quinto Powell.
Teaching and Learning with Sandi Metz
Guest
Sandi Metz: (https://twitter.com/sandimetz): Author of Practical Object-Oriented Development in Ruby (http://www.informit.com/store/practical-object-oriented-design-an-agile-primer-using-9780134456478?ranMID=24808) and 99 Bottles of OOP (https://www.sandimetz.com/99bottles). sandimetz.com (https://www.sandimetz.com/)
Summary
Today on the show we have Sandi Metz, author of Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby and co-author of 99 bottles of OOP. I’ve literally been trying to get Sandi as a guest since we started recording the show and I’m thrilled that we’ve finally been able to connect. We talk about OOP and TDD, maybe going down a test-driven rabbit hole for a while, and also talk about what it’s like to teach and coach about OOP and TDD. I enjoyed this talk very much and I think you will, too.
Notes
02:46 - Keeping Up With Tech
04:58 - Object-Oriented Design
09:53 - Why do we write tests?
17:53 - Teaching Yourself TDD
22:11 - Procedures and Patterns
34:07 - CI
Jim Weirich (https://weirichinstitute.com/about)
39:23 - Approaching TDD
44:49 - What should we be doing as a community to share knowledge?
The Magic Tricks of Testing (http://confreaks.tv/videos/railsconf2013-the-magic-tricks-of-testing) Special Guest: Sandi Metz.
Pragmatic Programmer at 20 with Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt
Guests
Dave Thomas (https://twitter.com/pragdave) and Andy Hunt (https://twitter.com/PragmaticAndy): Authors of The Pragmatic Programmer (https://pragprog.com/book/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition) and publishers of The Pragmatic Bookshelf (https://pragprog.com/).
Summary
I’m very excited to have Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt on the show today. Dave and Andy are the authors of the Pragmatic Programmer, which has a 20th anniversary edition that is out now, and they are the publishers of the Pragmatic Bookshelf, where they have (full disclosure) published my books a time or two. We talk about what’s changed in the new version, what being a Pragmatic Programmer means, whether there’s still a role for tech books, and how to make automated testing pragmatic. Somehow I avoid telling the slightly embarrassing story about the bad impression I made the first time I met Dave. Enjoy.
Notes
02:52 - Revisiting the Book 20 Years Later and What Has Changed/Hasn’t Changed
06:41 - What it Means to be a Pragmatic Programmer
08:39 - Software Development as a Team Sport
12:56 - Extreme Programming Explained and The Pragmatic Programmer; Similarities and Differences
Extreme Programming Explained (https://amzn.to/31xukpR)
Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org)
22:09 - Finding The Pragmatic Programmer Voice/Tone
24:55 - Roles for Dead-Tree Technical Books
30:36 - How To Make Automatic Testing Pragmatic Special Guests: Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas.
Civic Software with Alex Pedersen and Abhi Nemani
Guests
Alex Pedersen: Co-founder of Polco (https://info.polco.us/).
Abhi Nemani (https://twitter.com/abhinemani) Founder of EthosLabs (https://ethoslabs.us/).
Summary
This week, we have Alex Pedersen of Polco and Abhi Nemani of EthosLabs. They're both involved in various uses of technology to increase civic engagement. We'll talk about how technology can improve the public sector and why technologists should be interested in public sector work.
Notes
02:09 - Technology and Civic + Political Engagement
06:14 - Risks of Making the Government More Technological
10:01 - Balancing Conversations Amongst Citizens
12:18 - Building and Designing Software for Government vs Commercial Use
14:39 - Getting Involved in Government, Civic Engagement, and the Public Sector
- Code For America (https://www.codeforamerica.org/)
- Chi Hack Night (https://chihacknight.org/)
- Abhi's Course Notes in Civic Tech (https://abhinemani.com/civictechcourse/lectures/) Special Guests: Abhi Nemani and Alex Pederson.
Stories and Community with Ariel Caplan
Guest
Ariel Caplan (https://twitter.com/amcaplan): Co-Host of Dev Empathy Book Club (https://devempathybook.club/), Backend Developer at Cloudinary (https://cloudinary.com/), and Flatiron School (https://flatironschool.com/) Alum. Personal Site (https://amcaplan.ninja)
Summary
Our guest this week is Ariel Caplan. Ariel is a developer at Cloudinary and the Founder of the Dev Empathy Book Club. At RailsConf this year, Ariel gave a keynote about culture and stories using examples from Israeli and American children's literature. In our conversation, we focus on the stories that developers tell ourselves about who is successful, what it takes to be successful, and what people and skills are left out of those stories, and how we might be able to change them.
Notes
02:18 - Stories We Tell New Members of the Community
- RailsConf 2019 - Keynote: The Stories We Tell Our Children by Ariel Caplan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKqvtAxGQOs)
04:17 - The Myth of the Lone Genius
06:28 - How Stories Affect Day-to-Day Expectations on Teams
* The Passion Gospel - Avdi Grimm (http://www.virtuouscode.com/2014/02/10/the-passion-gospel/)
* Passion | David Mitchell's SoapBox (https://youtu.be/Bz2-49q6DOI)
* Tim Cook Thanks Apple Devs (https://youtu.be/psL_5RIBqnY?t=8150)
12:36 - Stories That Benefit Our Employers
16:11 - How We Treat New Developers
* Don't Ask Us Questions. We'll Just Ignore You. (https://blog.codinghorror.com/dont-ask-us-questions-well-just-ignore-you/)
21:11 - “Real Programmers”
* Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World (https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp/0735220565)
26:30 - Computer Science Education
31:07 - People Skills and Community Special Guest: Ariel Caplan.
Managing Pain and Suffering at Work with Amy Newell
Guest
Amy Newell: (https://twitter.com/amynewell): Director of Engineering at Wistia. Previous Director of Engineering at PatientsLikeMe (https://www.patientslikeme.com/). RailsConf 2019 - Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching Suffering at Work by Amy Newell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRG6uIkHH8c)
Summary
Our guest this week is Amy Newell. Amy is the Director of Engineering at Wistia, and she gave a talk at RailsConf this year entitled “Failure, Risk, and Shame: Approaching pain and suffering at work”. We have what I hope is an uplifting conversation about failure and pain, how to recognize it, and how to skillfully manage those feelings to be more resilient, prevent additional pain, and ultimately be more satisfied with your job.
Notes
01:56 - Why Use Words Like “Pain” and “Shame” When Talking About Work Experience
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555)
04:21 - Specific Kinds of Pain and Suffering at Work
07:31 - Mistakes People Make When They’re Dealing with Failure, Anxiety, and Shame
10:28 - Skillful Responses
17:37 - Mitigating Pain
21:57 - Skillful Responses (Cont’d)
25:04 - Mindfulness
- RAIN: Tara Brach (https://www.tarabrach.com/rain/)
30:34 - Feedback and Identity
- Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen (https://www.amazon.com/Thanks-Feedback-Science-Receiving-Well/dp/0670014664)
- Paul Graham: Keep Your Identity Small (http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html) Special Guest: Amy Newell.
AI and Privacy with Bärí A. Williams
Guest
Bärí A. Williams (https://twitter.com/BariAWilliams): VP of Legal, Business, and Policy Affairs at All Turtles (https://www.all-turtles.com/), a startup advisor in the tech industry, and a published author in the New York Times, WIRED, Fortune, and Fast Company. Bärí writes at bariawilliams.com (https://www.bariawilliams.com/).
Summary
Our guest this week is Bärí A. Williams, the VP of Legal, Business, and Policy Affairs at All Turtles. She provides legal guidance to startups working with Artificial Intelligence. Bärí was a keynote speaker at RailsConf this year, you can see the video at https://youtu.be/HBAra5J5c90. She and I talk about writing ethical terms of service, and how to collect and use data properly. We talk about facial recognition and other data mining and machine learning topics in the news, and how having a diverse user and testing base can prevent damaging mistakes.
Notes
01:48 - The Intersection of Law and Tech
Bärí's RailsConf keynote: Ethical Issues in the Law and Tech with Production Ideation, Creation & Shipping (https://youtu.be/HBAra5J5c90)
03:16 - Writing Ethical and Clear Terms of Service
05:48 - Legal and Ethical Collection of Data
09:01 - Principles That Should Be in Ethical Codes of Conduct
10:38 - Combatting Algorithmic Bias in AI
Conference Speaking and Diverse Perspectives with Carina C. Zona and Mark Yoon (https://www.techdoneright.io/9)
Carina Zona: Consequences of an Insightful Algorithm (https://vimeo.com/191256443)
14:15 - Facial Recognition Technology and The Importance of Diverse Testing
18:07 - Facial Recognition Technology and Preventing the Selling of Information
* Facial recognition creeps up on a JetBlue passenger and she hates it (https://www.zdnet.com/article/facial-recognition-creeps-up-on-a-jetblue-passenger-and-she-hates-it/)
* HUD Is Suing Facebook For Housing Discrimination (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kennethcorbin/2019/03/28/hud-suing-facebook-for-housing-discrimination/#314704ef7547)
26:39 - Facial Recognition Technology, DNA and the Government
* San Francisco Bans Facial Recognition Technology (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/us/facial-recognition-ban-san-francisco.html)
* The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181)
31:18 - Opting In and Out of Things Due to Privacy Concerns
GDPR: Right to be Forgotten (https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/right-to-be-forgotten/) Special Guest: Bärí A. Williams.
Software Consulting With Chad Pytel
Guest
Chad Pytel (https://twitter.com/cpytel): CEO, Co-Founder, and Developer of thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/).
Summary
Our guest this week is Chad Pytel. Chad is the CEO of thoughtbot, which is a design and development firm known in the world for its support of open source projects like paperclip and shoulda. Chad and I talk about how to make short consulting projects work, the importance of hiring, why thoughtbot makes their internal guides public, and how they continue to be able to support open source. It's a great conversation about how thoughtbot approaches the world.
Notes
02:09 - How thoughtbot Works as an Integrated Design and Development Team
06:50 - Handling Discovery Phases and Product Design Sprints
11:40 - When Clients Aren’t a Good Fit and Setting Expectations
14:12 - Hiring for Values
- Beyond the Whiteboard Interview (https://youtu.be/8FkkMkeJKU8)
21:05 - The thoughtbot Playbook (https://thoughtbot.com/playbook)
26:43 - Client Communication During Projects
30:48 - Investment Days and Supporting Open Source Projects
36:49 - Using Rails and Not Using Rails Special Guest: Chad Pytel.
Food and Design Thinking
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guests
Rex Chekal (https://twitter.com/rexerr): Director of Digital Strategy and Product Designer at Table XI (https://www.tablexi.com/).
Jessie Shternshus (https://twitter.com/TheImprovEffect): Founder and Owner of the Improv Effect (https://improveffect.com/).
Chemia Davis: Innovation Methods Conductor and Member of the Tyson Foods Innovation Lab (https://www.tysonfoods.com/innovation/food-innovation/innovation-lab).
Santi Proano: Experimental Brand Dreamer for Yappah Foods (https://www.yappah.com/) and Member of the Tyson Foods Innovation Lab (https://www.tysonfoods.com/innovation/food-innovation/innovation-lab).
Summary
In this episode, we have a slightly different topic for Tech Done Right - food. Table XI has been working to adapt our design sprint process out of the realm of custom software and into more general product design. In particular, we've worked with Tyson Foods Innovation Lab on a few different projects including the creation of their Yappah brand which is designed to prevent food waste. In this episode, you'll hear from Chemia Davis and Santi Proano from Tyson, Rex Chekal from Table XI and Jessie Shternshus from the Improv Effect and we'll show you how we adapted design thinking and Agile process from software to food products.
Notes
02:58 - The Scope of Work Between Table XI and Tyson Foods Innovation Lab
04:08 - The Goal of the Innovation Lab
- Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpg.asp)
06:51 - Bringing Design Thinking to Product Development and CPGs
11:13 - Design Steps
- Nduja (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Nduja)
- YAPPAH! Chicken Crisps (https://www.yappah.com/the-menu.html)
17:14 - Facilitating Communication
22:05 - The Sprint Week Experience
- The Three-Hour Brand Sprint (https://library.gv.com/the-three-hour-brand-sprint-3ccabf4b768a)
26:40 - Next Steps After Sprint Week
- Yappah on Indiegogo (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/yappah-protein-crisps-rethinking-snacks-for-good#/)
29:32 - Learning From the Design and Coaching Process Special Guests: Chemia Davis, Jesse Shternshus, Rex Chekal, and Santi Proano.
Tech For Good With Andrew Means and Sean Marcia
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guests
Andrew Means (https://twitter.com/meansandrew): Data Analysts 4 Social Good (https://t.co/dWOGuNxRiP), The Good Tech Fest (https://www.goodtechfest.com/), Big Elephant Studios (https://www.bigelephant.io/).
Sean Marcia (https://twitter.com/seanmarcia): Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/), Code For Good (http://codeforgood.io/).
Summary
Our guests this week are Andrew Means of Data Analysts for Social Good and Sean Marcia of Ruby for Good. Both of them run organizations that are involved with using technology to helping non-profits that could use even some simple software or data assistance. We’ll talk about what kinds of work their organizations do, how non-profits differ from for-profit work, how they try to keep projects running over time, and how you can get involved working with technology for good.
Notes
02:01 - The Shared Mission of Tech For Good Events
- Uptake.org (https://www.uptake.org/)
04:04 - The History and The Why
06:30 - Working with Nonprofits and Vetting Projects
- National Diaper Bank Network (https://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/)
- 412 Food Rescue (https://412foodrescue.org/)
- BrightHive (https://brighthive.io/)
- Salesforce (https://www.salesforce.com/)
13:20 - Managing and Maintaining Projects
16:26 - Understanding Nonprofit Problems and Issues
18:54 - For Profit vs Nonprofit
- The Overhead Ratio (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/overhead-ratio.asp)
- Tech Literacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_literacy)
25:12 - Getting Involved / Recruiting Technologists
- DataKind (https://www.datakind.org/)
26:51 - Using Open Source
- Ruby for Good on GitHub (https://github.com/rubyforgood)
27:34 - Growing and Maturing the Tech For Good Space Special Guests: Andrew Means and Sean Marcia.
Jumpstarting Your Side Project With Dicko Sow
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guest
Dicko Sow (https://www.yodinaturals.com/): Founder of Yodi Naturals (https://www.yodinaturals.com/).
Summary
Our guest this week is Dicko Sow. Dicko is a software developer at a technical consultancy, but recently she has been spending her time building out a side project called Yodi Naturals. We talk about how she chose the project, how important it was to plan the project, the technical decisions, and what Dicko learned putting together the launch page. If you’re trying to decide whether to try a side project, this episode has some good information about how to put that together.
Notes
01:58 - Wanting to do a Side Project; Deciding on Said Side Project
- Jumpstart your sideproject! -- Dicko Sow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTSN3TbmDrE)
- PearConf (https://twitter.com/PearConf)
03:59 - Yodi Naturals (https://www.yodinaturals.com/)
05:56 - Getting Started (Mentally)
07:50 - Planning and Prioritization of Minimum Viable Product Features
13:25 - Name Origin
16:08 - Getting Started (Technically)
18:45 - Using React (https://reactjs.org/)
20:26 - Working with AWS (https://aws.amazon.com/)
22:24 - Decoupling React and Rails and Releasing Features
23:51 - Design
- MailChimp (https://mailchimp.com/)
- Google Analytics (https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/)
26:31 - Learning as the Project Comes Together
27:29 - Managing Search and Tag Functionality
- Elasticsearch (https://www.elastic.co/)
31:18 - Recipe Curation
31:52 - Launching the Launch Page; Shipping Things Special Guest: Dicko Sow.
Building Git With James Coglan
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guest
James Coglan (https://twitter.com/mountain_ghosts): Author of Building Git (https://shop.jcoglan.com/building-git/) and JavaScript Testing Recipes (https://shop.jcoglan.com/javascript-testing-recipes/). More at jcoglan.com/ (http://jcoglan.com/).
Summary
Our guest today is James Coglan. James has written an extraordinary programming book called Building Git. In it, he describes the inner workings of the Git source control tool by re-implementing a substantial part it in Ruby, including commits, diffs, branching, and networking. Along the way he shows not just how Git works, but also details of some of the algorithms it uses. There’s also a lot about building complex systems generally. And it has some great examples of test-driven development. James and I also talk about implementing in a high-level language like Ruby, versus a lower-level language like C. It’s a unique book, and I’ve been looking forward to talking to James about it for some time.
Notes
01:58 - Reimplementing Git
04:17 - Examples and Understanding Git Internals
06:32 - Building Complex Systems in General
09:10 - How the Design of the Code Emerges
11:51 - Test-Driven Development
15:16 - Implementing Git and Ruby
22:37 - Surprises
26:29 - Making UI Changes
29:30 - Gaps Remaining in Functionality and Performance
32:04 - Contribution and Implementations in Other Languages
- Gary Bernhardt's Screencasts (https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts)
34:25 - Lower-level Language vs Higher-level Language Implementation Special Guest: James Coglan.
Agriculture And Technology with Orlando Saez
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guest
Orlando Saez (https://twitter.com/saezmatter): Co-founder and CEO of Aker Technologies (https://www.aker.ag/).
Summary
Our guest today is Orlando Saez. Orlando is the co-founder and CEO of Aker, a precision crop diagnostic data and service company. We're going to talk about what that means and more generally, about how technology and agriculture intersect. We'll talk about how Orlando got into the agriculture and technology space and who his customers are and what they learn from using specialized drones to monitor their crops. It's an interesting deep dive into a part of the technology world that I, for one, did not know very much about and I hope you enjoy it.
Notes
01:44 - What Aker Does; The Tech/Agriculture Sector
- Becoming a Senior Engineer with Jamey Hampton (https://www.techdoneright.io/51)
03:30 - Technology: IoT, Drones, and Machine Learning
08:55 - Aggregating Information + Shared Data
11:09 - Working with the Agriculture Sector and The Way Growers Work
- Precision Agriculture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_agriculture)
17:14 - Differences Between Purchases and Users: Ways Products Are Used in the Field
20:40 - Aker as a Service Provider
21:53 - Drone Technology and Training Pilots
- GIS: Geographic Information System Mapping Technology (https://www.esri.com/en-us/what-is-gis/overview)
- Shapefiles (https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/reference/shapefiles.htm)
24:10 - Using General Machine Learning Techniques
25:51 - Looking Forward
28:21 - Orlando’s Background in Getting Involved in This Space
- Michael Pollan: In Defense of Food (http://www.pbs.org/food/shows/in-defense-of-food/)
- Food Evolution (https://www.foodevolutionmovie.com/)
31:18 - More Resources for People Interested in AgTech
- Thrive (https://thriveagtech.com/)
- Salinas Valley Agricultural Technical Summit (https://svagtechsummit.com/)
- The Yield Lab (https://www.theyieldlab.com/)
- Pro Farmer (http://www.profarmer.com/)
- PrecisionAg (https://www.precisionag.com/)
- Commodity Classic (http://www.commodityclassic.com/home)
- Farm Progress Show (https://www.farmprogressshow.com/en/home.html) Special Guest: Orlando Saez.
Unlearn With Barry O'Reilly
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Summary
Our guest today is Barry O’Reilly, author of the book “Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results”. In it, he sets out a process for defining outcomes, identifying behaviors that might help or hinder reaching the outcomes, and then unlearning existing behaviors and relearning new ones. We talk about how that process works, how to use it yourself, how it might fail, and what Barry unlearned for himself in the process of writing the book. We’d like to hear from you. What’s something you’ve needed to unlearn to reach success? Let us know at techdoneright.io/57 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right
Guest
Barry O’Reilly (https://twitter.com/barryoreilly): Author of Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results (https://amzn.to/2EJtfBy). Unlearn website (http://www.unlearn.online). Author of Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale with Jez Humble and Joanne Molesky (https://amzn.to/2NOoSsX), barryoreilly.com (https://barryoreilly.com/).
Summary
03:15 - Letting Go and Unlearning Past Behavior
07:17 - How to Achieve and Define Positive Outcomes
BJ Fogg (https://www.bjfogg.com)
Behavior Design (https://www.behaviormodel.org)
15:25 - Unlearning as a Continuous Cycle
20:25 - Think Big, Smart Small, and Learn Fast
26:14 - When People Don’t Succeed
29:03 - Being Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
31:30 - Learning to Unlearn
33:00 - Focusing on Deliberate Reflection
34:55 - Unlearning and Leadership Roles
36:56 - Getting Started with Unlearning Special Guest: Barry O'Reilly.
Developer Hiring
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com or find us at http://tablexi.com.workshops
Today on the show, we're talking about hiring with Jennifer Tu and Zee Spencer of Cohere, Thayer Prime of Team Prime, and software consultant Matt Patterson. We talk about the entire developer hiring process from how to advertise your company to potential candidates, through coding tests and interviews, and all the way to the final decision process. It's a great conversation with a lot of different perspectives and a lot of good advice. We’d like to hear from you. What do you look for when hiring developers? Let us know at http://techdoneright.io/56 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right
Guests
Jennifer Tu (https://twitter.com/jtu): Cofounder of Cohere (http://wecohere.com).
Zee Spencer (https://twitter.com/zspencer): Cofounder of Cohere (http://wecohere.com).
Thayer Prime (https://twitter.com/Thayer): Founder of Team Prime (https://team-prime.com/).
Matt Patterson (https://twitter.com/fidothe): Software Consultant.
Notes
02:55 - Common Mistakes When Hiring Developers
05:17 - Effective Hiring Procedures and Interview Processes
10:31 - Getting Your Company’s Name Out There
15:30 - Recruitment, Onboarding, and Reviews
18:52 - Sending Take-Home Exercises and the Problems They Present; Pre-Hire Pairing
30:33 - Good and Bad Uses of Interview Time
33:11 - Developing Interview Question and Using Standardization to Remove Biases
35:34 - Making Yes/No Decisions
Related Episodes
Apprenticeship with Megan Tiu, Kara Carrell, and Alyssa Ramsey (https://www.techdoneright.io/41)
Diversity and Inclusion at Small Companies with Meara Charnetzki, Michael Donnelly, and Elena Valentine (https://www.techdoneright.io/40)
Live Panel: Hiring Developers in (and out of) Health Care (https://www.techdoneright.io/23)
Developer Bootcamps and Computing Education with Jeff Casimir and Mark Guzdial (https://www.techdoneright.io/20) Special Guests: Jennifer Tu, Matt Patterson, Thayer Prime, and Zee Spencer.
Engineering Management With Allison McMillan
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com or visit the web at http://tablexi.com/workshops.
Guest
Allison McMillan (https://twitter.com/allie_p): Engineering Manager at GitHub (https://github.com/); Atom (https://atom.io/); Creator of the Parent Driven Development Podcast (https://www.parentdrivendevelopment.com/). Blogs at DayDreams in Ruby (http://daydreamsinruby.com/).
Summary
Today on the show we’re talking about engineering management. Allison McMillan is an engineering manager for the Atom team at GitHub. We talk about what her role is within the team, how she helps her team grow and improve, and how the management role is different from her previous developer jobs. We’d like to hear from you. What makes a great engineering manager? Let us know at techdoneright.io/55 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right
Notes
01:48 - What does an Engineering Manager do?
05:29 - Having Effective and Successful Meetings
12:20 - Goals as a Developer and Teammate
22:56 - Becoming an Engineering Manager
27:34 - Expectations and Challenges
32:01 - Measuring Yourself and Your Progress
35:10 - Plans to Improve / Having Teammates Rate Your Performance as a Manager
Related Episodes
Episode 003: Remote Work with Allison McMillan and Bradley Schaefer (https://www.techdoneright.io/003-remote-work) Special Guest: Allison McMillan.
Code Style and Community with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls
TableXI is now offering training for developers and products teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com or visit http://www.tablexi.com/workshops.
Guests
Sam Phippen (https://twitter.com/samphippen): Developer Advocate at Google and member of the RSpec (https://github.com/rspec) Core Team
Justin Searls (https://twitter.com/searls): Cofounder of Test Double (http://testdouble.com/)
Summary
On this episode, we’ve got Sam Phippen and Justin Searls back for their third round on the show. Both of them have been working on new Ruby tools to better standardize your team’s style and code formatting. We talk about why they’ve decided these tools are important, what their philosophy of coding style is, how coding style relates to the Ruby community, and how they evaluate code when given a code sample to look at.
We’d like to hear from you. How does your team handle differences of opinion in code style? Let us know at techdoneright.io/54 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right
Notes
02:21 - Code Style
Bikeshedding (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding)
Standard JS (https://standardjs.com/)
standard Ruby Gem (https://rubygems.org/gems/standard)
rubocop (https://github.com/rubocop-hq/rubocop)
Hash Rockets are good actually (https://samphippen.com/hash-rockets-are-good-actually/)
Sandi Metz: Why We Argue Style (https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2017/6/1/why-we-argue-style)
09:46 - Choosing Ruby: Community Standards vs Style
14:59 - Evaluating Code Samples for Developer Positions
- Gilded Rose Refactoring Kata (https://github.com/emilybache/GildedRose-Refactoring-Kata)
21:04 - Ruby Format
29:05 - Selecting Rules For Standard
35:38 - Discrepancies in Rails View Template Files
- haml-lint (https://github.com/brigade/haml-lint)
39:10 - What happens if these projects aren’t successful?
- Why's (poignant) Guide To Ruby (https://poignant.guide)
Previous Justin/Sam Episodes:
Part I: Episode 004: In The Testing Weeds (http://www.techdoneright.io/004-testing-with-sam-and-justin)
Part II: Back in the Testing Weeds with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls (https://www.techdoneright.io/33) Special Guests: Justin Searls and Penelope Phippen.
Tribal Knowledge and On-boarding with Annie Sexton
TableXI offers training for developers and product teams! For more info, email workshops@tablexi.com.
Guest
Annie Sexton (https://twitter.com/anniethesexton): Core Support Engineer at Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/). Traveler. Amateur graphic novelist. More at momotarocomic.com/ (http://momotarocomic.com/).
Summary
Developers and teams build up a lot of knowledge about their code and their process which never gets written down and which makes it harder together to get new team members up to speed. Our guest, Annie Sexton, is a support engineer for Heroku and has to deal with not only Heroku’s vast amount of knowledge, but also the unwritten information of many of her support customers. We’ll talk about the practical things Annie recommends to help make this knowledge explicit, and how your team can improve its group memory and team on-boarding. We’d also like to hear from you. Is there something your team has done to write down the things everybody knows? Let us know at http://techdoneright.io/53 (http://techdoneright.io/53) or on Twitter at @techdoneright (http://twitter.com/tech_done_right).
Notes
01:51 - Why Tribal Knowledge is a Bad Thing
Annie’s RubyConf Talk: The Dangers of Tribal Knowledge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-JL-so5Gm8)
04:50 - Legacy Code
Noel Rappin: The Road To Legacy Is Paved With Good Intentions -- WindyCityRails, Sept 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIhW3nREac&list=PLP0HXAd1Anx3xVPvdnKXtlsqJhoZHBFF_&index=1)
06:38 - Capturing Tribal Knowledge
12:55 - Keeping Things Up-To-Date
15:57 - When the “Why” and the “Overview” Get Lost
17:49 - Becoming Immune to Complexity
20:39 - Tools for Documentation
28:50 - Convincing Others that Documentation is Important
33:31 - Planning for Succession
Related Episodes
Your First 100 Days Onboarding A New Employee With Shay Howe and John Gore (https://www.techdoneright.io/37)
Your First 100 Days at a New Company with Katie Gore and Elizabeth Trepkowski Hodos (https://www.techdoneright.io/36)
Avoiding Legacy Code with Michael Feathers (https://www.techdoneright.io/11) Special Guest: Annie Sexton.
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