• 171: From Tactics to Strategy

    Tim just completed his quarterly strategy review meeting at work. As such, he's in the perfect head space to teach Adam and Ben what strategy is; how strategy differs from tactics; and, how OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) can be used in order to ensure that the work to be done actually rolls-up to one of the company's core strategies. In the end, Ben still has no idea what's going on (as per usual); but, Adam is down to clown.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    59m | Mar 27, 2024
  • 170: Thinking in UX with Thelma Van

    On today's show, we talk to Thelma Van about integrating design into the product development workflow. This includes User Experience (UX) design, User Interface (UI) design, scope negotiation, and user validation through interviews. It turns out, even if you can only talk to five of your customers, having this amount of feedback can have a massively out-sized impact on your overall design and development trajectory.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 11m | Mar 20, 2024
  • 169: Buffer Overflow, Tabs vs Spaces

    Several years ago, Stack Overflow noticed a small but surprising trend within their 2017 Developer Survey data. Even when attempting to adjust for several factors, it seems that the programmers who indent their code with spaces (as opposed to with tabs) have a higher earning potential. As an example of programmers who love using tabs, the hosts of the show offer up theories about this strange finding.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 0m | Mar 14, 2024
  • 168: Memory Safety Mandate

    On today's show, we talk about two major announcements relating to the technology world. First, the government released a report calling on programmers to start using memory safe languages (see: Future Software Should Be Memory Safe). Second, Apple announced that it will halt work on Titan, its autonomous electric vehicle project. We also talk about the pros-and-cons of a Computer Science degree in relation to the web development industry.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    55m | Mar 6, 2024
  • 167: Everyone Likes Their Own Brand
    The first duty in life is to assume a pose. What the second is, no one has yet discovered. - Oscar Wilde

    You may never think about it or even be aware of it; but, you have a personal brand. A brand is not something you can opt into or out of. It simply exists. The only choice that you have is how you manage - or choose not to manage - your brand in relation to other people. On today's show, we talk about our own personal brands; how they can help us; how they sometimes hurt us; and, how the goals of brand-building can change over time.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    54m | Feb 28, 2024
  • 166: What's "Onboarded" to You?

    On today's show, we respond to a listener question from Kamil Maraz:

    I have started a Developer experience initiative in our company. We started with a survey, which led to many 1-on-1 meetings; and, one thing that came up a few times was onboarding. Long story short: it's not ideal. I was wondering if this topic could be an inspiration for one of the episodes. For example what is an onboarded colleague to you?; do you care about time to first commit?; what does the onboarding process in your company look like? And so on. As I say often, in our company we love our users, and our developers should get the same treatment. Often the journey starts with onboarding. Thank you for hearing me out.

    We love the fact that Kamil is taking an iterative product mindset; and, is trying to apply those same principles to the company, treating engineers as the recipients of the product experience.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    58m | Feb 21, 2024
  • 165: Agile Methodology with Brian Sadler

    For the most part, software engineers like the concept of Agile methodology; and, they have a sense that agile development practices are the best way of getting work done. But, that doesn't mean we know how to put these agile practices in place (especially at scale). Today, we talk to Brian Sadler (@brian_sadler) - a seasoned software developer and Agile coach - about what Agile is, what parts of it work the best, and where teams often go wrong in their interpretation of best practices.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 6m | Feb 7, 2024
  • 164: Solo Programming, Chrome Monoculture and More - Potluck

    On this week's show, we explore a variety of topics. Ben wants to perform a mini retrospective on his desire to support the legacy platform at work. Carol is feeling isolated as the only engineer on her team - her dog is a good listener, but isn't very helpful when it comes to brainstorming. And, Adam wants to talk about the browser landscape; and see which browser(s) everyone is currently using.

    Also, Ben offers up some high praise for Lenny's Podcast - a show in which Lenny Rachitsky interviews top Product and Marketing leaders in our industry. This show is absolutely dripping in value!

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 6m | Jan 31, 2024
  • 163: Exposing Yourself, to New Tech

    In web development, we tend to hold learning as a virtuous activity that's worthy of our spare time. In fact, there can be a lot of pressure on us to always be learning; and, to some degree, those of us who don't ride the wave of cutting-edge tech are "othered". But, is dabbling in new technology really moving the needle? Does learning a little of this and little of that really make for a more robust engineer? Or, is there more value to be gained from depth of understanding? And, at the end of the day, does the biggest impact on what we know actually come from switching jobs and joining new teams?

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 5m | Jan 24, 2024
  • 162: A Question of Time

    Ben never has enough time to accomplish everything that he wants to accomplish. On its own, this isn't necessarily a "bad thing". But, it can quickly lead to feelings of guilt: is he not good enough, is he not effective enough, is he letting everyone down? So much of this angst is emotional. And he knows this. But, he doesn't have the wherewithal that he needs to evolve his own perspective. The crew tries to help him out.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    43m | Jan 17, 2024
  • 161: 2024 Goals

    As we jump into the new year, the crew talks about their new year's goals—both for the podcast and for themselves. We strongly believe in the power of "learning in public". And, to that end, we've created a Google Form in which you can submit suggestions on how to improve the show: what do you like, what do you not like, what can we be doing better? No suggestion is off limits, so long as no people or animals are harmed!

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 1m | Jan 10, 2024
  • 160: Design Systems and Coding Philosophy

    Happy New Year! This week, we ease into 2024 with a variety of topics. Adam is building a new design system at work using Svelte and Tailwind CSS. Ben wonders if there's any way to create an "Overview Effect" in the world of programming. And Tim discusses a few philosophical fallacies in a work context: planning fallacy, overconfidence effect, automation bias, and plan continuation bias (aka, the sunk cost fallacy).

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 3m | Jan 3, 2024
  • 159: No Effort December Returns

    After a stressful year, we happily ease into another round of "No Effort December" in which the conversations flow without concern or constraint. Carol is excited to go ice skating for the first time in her life. Tim is trying to teach his kids about financial literacy. Ben shares his limited ability to fantasize. And Adam wonders why his computer gets so sticky.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    58m | Dec 27, 2023
  • 158: The Premortem Premortem

    In episode 154, we discussed the concept of a project premortem. That discussion inspired Carol to schedule her own premortem for a new 2-year project that her company is about to undertake. Given the fact that her team's work won't be sharable for at least 18-months, she's wants to make sure that her premortem is as effective as it can be. As such, we're going to have ourselves a little premortem premortem discussion on the show.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    49m | Dec 20, 2023
  • 157: Dead Man's Snitch Deep Dive with Adam Cameron

    On this week's show, Adam Tuttle and friend-of-the-show, Adam Cameron, go in depth on Dead Man's Snitch - a software service that triggers an alarm if your application doesn't "check in" with high enough frequency.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 1m | Dec 13, 2023
  • 156: JSON, StackOverflow, Testing - Hot Takes

    On today's show, we cast off the social filters and lay down some hot takes! This journey of spice serves up the separation of concerns, the future of StackOverflow, the value of comments, the necessity of testing, the role of extracurricular coding, the beauty of clean code, the meh of JSON, and the challenge of building truly great products.

    Some of these hot takes are clearly wrong; but, I'll never tell!

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    54m | Dec 6, 2023
  • 155: Software We're Thankful For

    Coming out of the Thanksgiving holiday (and still recovering from our food comas), we wanted to have some fun today and talk about all of the software that we're thankful to have in our lives. These aren't sponsors of the show (yet); but, we love them so much that we wanted to share them with the rest of the world. Topics include Dead Man's SnitchOvercast podcast playergit source control, GitHubSnagit and Skitch screen capture tools, 1Password for password management, PlexTV for media management, video chat, IDEs and code editors, and basically everything that enhances the day-to-day lives of us developers.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    54m | Nov 29, 2023
  • 154: What Could Go Wrong? Pre-Mortems and Log Levels

    On today's show, we continue reflecting on the 4-part series on "Failure" produced by the Freakanomics radio podcast. This time, we talk about Premortems; and, about how important it is for a company to create a safe space in which people can talk about failure and about the reasons failure might occur. We also dig into Logging strategies, structured logging, and role of different log levels. And, how we can best consume logs in a way that makes them valuable without being too noisy.

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 6m | Nov 22, 2023
  • 153: Our Biggest Failures

    Inspired by a 4-part series on "Failure" produced by the Freakanomics radio podcast, we went around the table and talked about our own failures. This helps to remove the social stigma associated with failure; and, helps other people process internal conflicts of emotion. Tim talks about failing to sell websites in the early dot-com boom; Adam talks about failing to create a ColdFusion package manager; and, Ben talks about the years he lost trying to learn Object Oriented Programming (OOP).

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    53m | Nov 15, 2023
  • 152: Cron Heatmaps, Harvard AI, and Ben's Book - What's On Your Workbench

    This week on the show, the hosts talk about what they have going on. Adam is trying to better understand the cadence with which his scheduled tasks are executing; and, has built a visualization tool using Svelte and D3. Tim has signed up for CS50 at Harvard - an online course introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Python. And, Ben has a working draft for the first half of his Feature Flags book; and, is now considering some sort of pre-sale (if he can figure out how to turn his Markdown files into something consumable).

    Follow the show and be sure to join the discussion on Discord! Our website is workingcode.dev and we're @WorkingCodePod on Twitter and Instagram. New episodes drop weekly on Wednesday.

    And, if you're feeling the lovesupport us on Patreon.

    With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

    Full show notes and transcript here.

    1h 0m | Nov 8, 2023
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