This Developer's Life

Life is long. A series of chapters as you move from one scene to the next. Childhood, becoming a young adult, possibly a parent at some point, and more. But how much more? We talk to two people who are well into their later chapters. Scott talks to Lawrence Lockhart about reinventing yourself well into midlife. Rob talks to his mom, who, in her early 80s, was far from her final chapter. Lawrence L...

What do you do when your voice gains an audience? Do you rattle cages or open doors? That's what we talk about in this episode. Scott talks to Anjuan Simmons about the power of lending your privilege , lifting people up by getting out of the way. Rob talks to April Edwards about being an ally, listening, and shutting up. April's blog post about her health battle can be found here . Music The music...

How does our Faith drive us? Do you have Faith in yourself and your abilities, and how do you know you're on the right path? In this episode of This Developer's Life we offer you two stories.  Rob has packed up his family and is travelling the world. He talks about his Faith in his children, recorded in a small town in Greece.  Then we talk to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, aka Sammus, about he...

In this episode of This Developer's Life we ask the hard questions about space. Why aren't we on Mars? Why haven't we gone back to the moon? We talk to Paul Lutus, Dan Bricklin, Tamar Cohen, and hear from Ray Bradbury. Scott and Rob have not yet gone to space and don't understand why. In this episode of This Developer's Life we ask the hard questions about space. Why aren't we on Mars? Why haven't...

Big thanks from both my wife and myself for the outpouring of support after our Cancer announcement . Last year was a long year and the Cancer part of the year was particularly long. We were very private about the whole thing and waited to tell anyone until we knew we were mostly OK. However, to my surprise, the day of the diagnosis my wife, who has never shown much interested in podcasting announ...

Where does drama come from? How do we react to it? How much drama can be created by simple semicolon? This week we explore The Great Semicolon Affair. Peter Cooper Friendly publisher, programmer and author Derick Bailey Consultant and aspiring microprenuer H. Alan Stevens Father, Geek & Speaker Dave Ward Software developer focusing on jQuery and web application usability. Sara Chipps Just a gi...

How many empty brain cells do you have in your head? How capable are you of learning something completely new, and retaining what you already know? Scott and Rob talk to two developers this week who flex their ability to learn to both have fun, and succeed at their career. Patrick Cauldwell Liberal Arts Major and Author of Code Leader Zach Johnson 17-year old home-school kid who has an internship...

You're so old! What a dinosaur! You're using old software and old languages to do old things! Or are you? Scott and Rob talk to David Sokol, Sean Bamforth and Pete Brown about Fortran, DataFlex and the Commodore 64. All these dinosaurs are doing useful work. Or, are they? David Sokol Fortran Programmer and dude with an AWESOME hover state on his home page Sean Bamforth Former Dataflex programmer a...

What do you do when you're not staring at your computer screen? What obsession grips you as you drive home? In this episode we ask David Heinemeier Hansson and Pete Brown this very question. David Heinemeier Hansson Creator of Rails and budding Racer X Pete Brown Senior Project Manager, Microsoft and budding Thomas Edison Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free...

Who cares about typefaces and why should you? Well, these guys do and you should start caring. Rob and Scott explore the world of reading online with one of the godfathers in the world of typeface and fonts. Bill Hill Lover of reading, of typefaces, and co-creator of ClearType Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free...

What is taste? What is style? Do you have it? Scott and Rob have no idea what it is or how to get it - but they know it's important. In this show they talk to a designer who flexes his good taste for a living - and a developer who is committed to spreading good taste where he can. Michael Bach Designer at Microsoft Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode Music The music tracks this week are...

Scott and Rob discuss the value of a degree - and talk to two developers who used their passion to pull them through school and into their careers. Aqueelah Grant QA Specialist at Trimmer Media Seth Juarez Developer Evangelist at DevExpress Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find...

Scott and Rob talk to a group of Top Gun developers: the StackOverflow team, about the day their database melted - and how the team responded. Geoff Dalgas - developer on StackOverflow Sam Saffron - developer and data geek at StackOverflow Jeff Atwood ,Mr. CodingHorror and co-founder of StackOverflow Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with...

In this episode we talk to three developers about criticism - some they've given and some they've received. In addition we talk to a very vocal critic of this podcast. Ayende Rahien - a prominent developer in the .NET community and a force of nature G. Andrew Duthie - a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Boris Pavlović , a Serbian developer living with his wife and family in Switzerland Music The m...

In this special episode we explore the Egyptian revolution. We talk to Remon Zakaria about his experience writing software for a day job and overthrowing the government at night. Big thanks to Ahmed Remy and Reem Ahmed for their help. We recorded hours and hours of content to bring you this show. We wish we could have used everyone's story - there were so many. Remon Zakaria works at DashSoft, a s...

Rob Sullivan talks about his obsessiveness and how it helps him, and hinders him in his job. Rory Blythe and Scott then talk openly about Rory's compulsion to keep learning - which he has embraced completely. Rob Sullivan submitted our very first listener story about what drives him as a DBA - sometimes a bit too far Rory Blyth - the smartest man in the world talks openly and candidly about his ob...

In this episode we talk to competitors who are also programmers. Or, programmers who also compete. Are coders pre-wired for this? Jon Skeet, David Fowler, Aaron Jensen and Danielle Banks share their stories. Jon Skeet shares how he stays at the top of the Stack Overflow points pile David Fowler talks about TopCode and flying to DisneyWorld to watch coders code Aaron Jensen quits his job to play po...

In this episode Scott and Rob talk to 4 entrepreneurs about the risks they take, and what's happened as a result. Dave Nielsen, Tom Preston-Werner, and Nate and Niki Kohari. Dave Nielsen tells us about working only for himself and what sleeping on a couch in a basement storeroom feels like Tom Preston-Werner talks to us about founding Github and turning down $300,000 from Microsoft Nate and Niki K...

In this episode Scott and Rob talk to Chad Myers, Chad Fowler, and Doug Rohrer about the scars they've received from dead end projects they've been on. In addition - Sara Chipps contributes her first story for us - interviewing Scott Reynolds. Chad Myers tells us about one of the first lead positions he had working for a sleazy business guy. Chad Fowler talks to us about being an imposter Sara Chi...

This week it's just Scott and me - Scott gets to go off to Disneyland with his wife and 2 boys, and I get to hang out with my girls for a week as their mom goes on a retreat in California. Music The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts General Fuzz - A Spy in the House of Love General Fuzz - Walking Home John Williams - Days End Melissa Pol...

In this episode Scott and I talk to technical folks who have moved on up to Management - and what it means to them. Mark Freedman shares his story about clawing his way out of a successful career as a manager at a rather large, growing company. A good job, lots of respect, and he hates it. Bertrand LeRoy talks about charting his own path right at Microsoft after graduating with a PhD in Physics an...

In this episode Scott and I talk to 2 people with fairly different stories, about what motivates them Scott talks to Brad Wilson , Senior Developer on the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC team about what motivates him to get out of bed and come to work every day at a high-intensity company, surrounded by brilliant people. Rob talks to Rob Sullivan , a database administrator at a large company, about what mot...

In this episode Scott and I talk to 3 developers who have pulled off some pretty audacious maneuvers. John Resig , Creator of jQuery, decided to write yet another javascript framework when there were already quite a few to choose from. Not only did he succeed, he changed web development forever. Alex Payne , former API Developer Lead at Twitter, talks about the (somewhat insane) move to leave Twit...

In this episode Scott and I discuss "what you need to know as a software developer". How many layers of abstraction do you need to understand? How many geek trading cards should you have in your collection? To find out more, we talked to 3 prominent, living-history developers. Ward Cunningham - creator of the Wiki and major figure in Agile/XP programming Charles Petzold - author of many books abou...

In the first story, I talk to David Heinemeier Hansson creator of Ruby on Rails, partner at 37Signals and author of Rework about the inspiration and shepherding of Ruby on Rails. In the second story, Scott talks to Dan Bricklin who in the late 70s and early 80s helped to usher in the computer age, as well as a new industry. Dan is the creator of Visicalc - the first spreadsheet program. Music Maki...