no dogma podcast

Summary Andrew and Bobby Brennan, and I discuss Lucybot and why good API design and documentation lead to good developer experience. Details Who they are; what Lucybot is, more than simple documentation; API economy, easier to work with is more important; easier to use API wins with developers; good vs bad API, good documentation, sandbox, example code; what Lucybot does, auto doc generation, auto...

Summary Eric Bloom of Manger Mechanics and I discussing how to get promoted in IT and what to expect as a manager. Details Who he is, new book, a productivity cocktail; getting promoted, what got you here won't get you there, staying or going, accidental managers, management is a skill; what if you don't want to manage; advice on getting promoted, get management experience outside the office, nepo...

Summary Deb Biggar of Boston Human Factors and I discuss what UX is and why it is important. Details Who she is; a story of why is UX important; what is UX, disciplines in UX - experience design, interaction design, information architect, user researcher, UX unicorns; phases of UX work - concept, design, prototype, validate, implement; what if a company can't afford UX; should you copy from big co...

Summary Peter Welch, code monkey, blogger and author, and I talk about the software industry and the people in it. Details Peter's background; his books; programming sucks, problems in the interview process; utilitarian programming; complexity in software; how bad are things in the industry, business doesn't understand complexity; Bryan rants about C level people in companies, Peter tells a story...

Summary Jeff Glennon of Software Delivery Labs and I talk about how to improve the software delivery process. Details Jeff's background and company, what is software delivery vs project management; getting all teams working together, deathmarch towards a release date; blame always lands on engineering; other problems, forcing new processes on teams, disputes, transparency is the best approach; pow...

Summary Bob Familiar and I discuss how to bring the principles of lean engineering to the enterprise. Details About Bob and BlueMetal Inc; time at Microsoft; what is lean engineering, origins, just in time, small batches, failing fast, continuous improvement, applicability to software; batching and automation of the software process, continuous delivery, failing fast "common sense is hard to...

Summary Igor Moochnick of Constant Contact and I discuss dev ops, deployment pipelines and other architectural concerns. Details What Constant Contact does, Igor's role; what is dev ops, moving towards dev ops, provisioning servers, changes to dev cycles; from code to production deployment, source control, tracking code/sql and deployment pipelines; human intervention in the process; how the proce...

Summary Todd Gardner tells me about Track:js, a JavaScript error tracking tool and how to get a three month free trial. Details Todd and I discuss his background; what is Track:js, client side errors, stack trace; when to use Track:js in the life-cycle of an app, challenges of production JavaScript apps; installing and using Track:js, turning it on and off for periods or for particular browsers; o...

Summary Henry Cipolla of Localytics and I discuss analytics, its real time uses and how Localytics tools work. Details Henry's background, what Localytics does; SDK; analytics and app marketing; recording user behavior; how customers use data from Localytics; figuring out what customers do and want; acting on data; competitors; how it works, AWS, real time processing, Scala, Angular, Mongo, Hadoop...

Summary Gus Warren of Disconnect discusses their tools, privacy, tracking and acceptable advertising. Details Gus’ background, what is Disconnect; how ads track us, cookies, fingerprinting; why is the information gathered, tying online behavior to offline identities; privacy matters even if you have nothing to hide, incognito/private browser mode is not enough; what Disconnect does, blocking, sear...

Summary Michael O Church and I discuss whether software engineers have become the manual laborers of the 21st century, open allocation, agile development and how companies could be better. Details Michael’s background; being an engineer vs a manager; poor perception of engineers, value of engineers, makers vs takers, engineers as a commodity; not everyone with an MBA is a bad person; engineers are...

Summary Jason Haley talks about the good, bad and ugly of life as a software consultant. Details Background, why go independent, working and hustling; getting the first customer; liability and setting up a company, being self employed vs an entrepreneur , get a lawyer and an accountant, networking, business bank account, branding, contractor vs consultant, confidence in presenting yourself; gettin...

Summary Robert Hurlbut and I discuss various aspects of software security. Details Background, why security isn’t thought about enough, out of the box security with MVC, XSS, CSRF, model binding and parameter tampering; https everything or just on parts of a site; Microsoft improving security, open source issues, inclusion of open source in hardware security devices; unmanaged code in web apps; ty...

Summary Dennis Mortensen and I discuss x.ai, an AI personal assistant for scheduling meetings. Details Dennis and I discuss his background, traditional analytics products, predictive analytics; x.ai, it “schedules meetings”, how it works, invisible software, people don’t have control panels or sliders, tuning Amy multiple calendars; humanizing Amy, pain does not have a syntax, democratizing having...

Summary Linus Olsson of the Hemlis project discusses what Hemlis is, why they are building it and how it works. Details Linus I and discuss his background, what is Hemlis, why build it; open source; need for security and privacy, does encryption make you a target, good encryption vs bad encryption; why trust Hemlis, legal requests for data, would he go to jail to protect users; how it works, publi...

Summary Piero Toffanin is a software engineer and user experience designer who left his job this year to travel around North America, coding as he goes. Details Why give up the day job, inspired by Live on the Margin, preparation to travel, selling stuff and buying necessities, camper van vs hostels/hotels; practicalities of working on the road, charging laptops, getting internet, working offline;...

Summary Christopher Marston is the founder and CEO of Exemplar Companies, Inc, we discuss the legal aspects of going out as a consultant and getting a startup running. Details Christopher and I discuss what Exemplar Law does, fixed pricing; going out as a consultant, protecting against personal liability, LLC’s, SCorp, CCorp; startups, vesting, roles and responsibilities; equity in startups, dilut...

Summary Part two of my two part conversation with Sean Blanchfield of Page Fair. Details Sean and I discuss how adblockers work, easylist block list, how Page Fair works, cooperation with easy list, using Page Fair on a site; backend technology, python, Redis, twisted, Linux, Amazon Web Services, server load and traffic patterns; serving ads, bids, speed, Page Fair auction, no tracking of users, p...

Summary Part one of my two part conversation with Sean Blanchfield of Page Fair. Details Sean and I discuss his past at Demonware, multiplayer networking layer; Scalefront startup incubator, cycling through startup ideas; Page Fair beginnings; innovation life cycle, finding the good idea, determining the size of the market, Sean and I are old!; Destructoid and going viral during a bachelor party(!...

Summary Discussion with Alex Robbio and Silvana Gaia of Belatrix Software about outsourcing software development. Details Who they are, what they do, and what the company does, why they focus on software product development and qa; outsourcing vs offshoring, nearshoring; choosing an outsourcing partner, location, type of project, technology, collaboration; skills of devs in outsourced team; contra...

Summary Grant Fritchey and I discuss database dev op and how it can anything to anyone. Details what he does; origin of scary DBA nickname; what is dev ops, day to day dev ops tasks; DBA and developer interactions, communications, DBA’s favorite word is “no”; dev ops and source control, putting a DB in source control, integration with dev, auditing; moving DB from production to source control, ssd...

Summary Designer Brian O'Neill tells me what it takes to make a well designed piece of software. Details who he is and what he does; role as a designer vs developer; how to find out what is needed, getting feedback, including engineers in feedback process; what is great design, invisible interface, task flow, google as an example of good design, good task flow example, db tables should not dictate...

Summary Rebecca O'Dette of RunKeeper talks to me about their Agile development process. Details We cover Rebecca's role, company growth over the past few years, development structure, introduction of agile processes, moving from waterfall, choice of scrum over other agile options, first steps in agile, team size, current team structure, changes over past few years, scaling and syncing teams, scrum...

Summary Part 2 of my discussion with Nicolas Dorier in which we discuss NBitcoin. Details what it is and why Nicolas wrote it, features of NBitcoin, how to contribute; other development work, bitcoin as a payment mechanism for consultants; colored coins as a way of replacing shares for funding companies, dividends and distribution of profit, dilution of investment; regulation, taxation, legal back...

Summary Part one of my two part conversation with Nicolas Dorier on bitcoin and NBitcoin. Details what a bitcoin is; why Nicolas became interested in bitcoin; decentralized currency; distributed ledger; escrow; mining, variance problem, computing power needed, mining pools, democracy, 51% problem, changing rules; mining as way of making money; commission on payments, loss of value of bitcoin; stor...