Programming Throwdown

Latest Episodes:

149: Workflow Engines with Sanjay Siddhanti Jan 09, 2023

Show notes

At scale, anything we build is going to involve people. Many of us have personal schedules and to-do lists, but how can we scale that to hundreds or even thousands of people? When you file a help ticket at a massive company like Google or Facebook, ever wonder how that ticket is processed? Sanjay Siddhanti, Akasa’s Director of Engineering, is no slouch when it comes to navigating massive workflow engines – and in today’s episode, he shares his experiences in bioinformatics, workflows, and more with us.

00:00:39 Workflow engine definitions

00:01:40 Introductions

00:02:24 Sanjay’s 8th grade programming experience

00:05:28 Bioinformatics

00:10:29 The academics-vs-industry dilemma

00:16:52 Small company challenges

00:18:18 Correctly identifying when to scale

00:24:04 The solution Akasa provides

00:31:38 Workflow engines in detail

00:36:02 ETL frameworks

00:45:06 The intent of integration construction

00:47:13 Delivering a platform vs delivering a solution

00:50:04 Working within US medico-legal frameworks

00:53:28 Inadvertent uses of API calls

00:55:47 Working in Akasa

00:57:09 Interning in Akasa

00:58:35 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sanjay:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/siddhantis
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjaysiddhanti/

Akasa:

Website: https://www.akasa.com
Sanjay’s Q&A https://akasa.com/blog/10-questions-for-sanjay-siddhanti-director-of-engineering-at-akasa/
Careers: https://akasa.com/careers/
Interning: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/research-intern-ai-spring-summer-2023-at-akasa-3206403183/

References:

Episode 33: Design Patterns:
- https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/episodes/149-workflow-engines-with-sanjay
The Mythical Man-Month:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

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S1: Holiday 2022 Special Dec 26, 2022

Show notes

S1: Holiday 2022 Special

Today we field questions from Programming Throwdown’s listeners about AI, machine learning, and more practical matters as developers in our annual holiday special!

00:00:24 Introductions

00:00:43 Programming Showdown merch

00:02:13 Paul S

00:03:28 Dealing with ergonomics

00:10:39 On AI coding assistant tools

00:16:43 Warren Y

00:20:24 Ben inquires about performance testing

00:27:39 Wild coding story

00:29:37 AI coding’s disruption potential

00:34:20 Jason’s Turing riddle

00:35:50 ChatGPT

00:43:59 Christian B

00:45:13 Collection-of-Letters asks on documentation

00:49:07 Zeh F

00:50:51 Coding books that weren’t that great

00:54:40 James K

00:57:32 Jeremy S wonders about ML

01:00:45 Virtual and live hangouts

01:02:09 A retrospective

01:07:49 Xu L

01:09:22 Showing off the shirts

01:11:31 Farewells

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

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Happy holidays from Programming Throwdown to everyone!

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148: Package Management with Max Howell Dec 12, 2022

Show notes

Package managers are an often-overlooked aspect of any operating system, but their importance is not to be underestimated – especially in today’s development environment. As both creator of Homebrew and CEO of tea.xyz, Max Howell is intimately familiar with the ins and outs of open-source development, software engineering, and balancing passion with practicality. He shares these experiences and more with us in today’s deep dive into the subject!

00:01:00 Introductions

00:01:29 When Max started Tea.XYZ

00:03:51 British plugs

00:08:10 Literally rolling out of bed to work

00:11:49 The value of meetups

00:13:14 Getting into open-source

00:23:00 Mandrake

00:25:02 Turning frustration into action

00:30:47 Deno

00:40:28 OSX’s relationship with Unix

00:55:33 Trying out Ruby

01:01:13 April Fools prank ideas

01:04:13 The cause of sleepless nights with Homebrew

01:14:41 What got Max inspired to do Tea

01:19:53 From startup to company

01:41:55 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Links:

Tea.XYZ:
- Website: https://tea.xyz/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/teaxyz_
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tea.xyz/
- Github: https://github.com/teaxyz
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/teaxyz
- Discord: https://discord.com/invite/KCZsXfJphn

References:

101 on Package Management:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_manager
Deno:
- https://deno.land/

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

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147: Quantum Computing with Yonatan Cohen Nov 28, 2022

Show notes

Yonatan Cohen – Co-Founder & CTO of Quantum Machines – joins us in this episode to tackle quantum computing! Did you know anyone can run quantum programs on Amazon Web Services for mere dollars? Learn about this field early to take pole superposition in the race to understand and use quantum computers!

00:00:45 Introductions

00:01:20 Yonatan’s beginnings

00:03:49 The simulation question

00:05:51 How physics led to quantum computing

00:14:56 Richard Feynman

00:16:44 On the irreversibility of normal computers

00:21:25 Logic gates

00:25:04 Qubits

00:30:11 An example of qubits

00:38:19 Why simulating a quantum computer matters

00:42:23 NP-complete problems

00:48:57 More people at a higher development level are needed

00:54:16 Quantum machines in the middle layer

01:02:56 Working at Quantum Machines

01:05:05 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Links:

Quantum Machines:
- Website: https://www.quantum-machines.co/
- Careers: https://www.quantum-machines.co/careers/
Yonatan Cohen:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yonatan-cohen-10076b113/

References:

Getting Started with Quantum Computing
- https://builtin.com/software-engineering-perspectives/how-to-learn-quantum-computing

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

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146: RubyShield, Ruby Central, and Shopify with Mike Dalessio and Evan Phoenix Nov 14, 2022

Show notes

In this tour-de-force, Mike Dalessio – Engineering Director at Shopify – and Evan Phoenix – self-described “long-time Rubyist” – join us for a practical discussion of all things Ruby! Ruby is a beautiful language, and we're really excited to cover the history and present of this language with two experts.

00:01:03 Introductions

00:01:49 Mike’s Ruby journey

00:12:28 Evan’s own Ruby experience

00:18:20 The pickaxe book

00:20:34 Weird programming interests

00:25:11 MINASWAN

00:30:33 Language conferences

00:36:38 Wrong answers on StackOverflow

00:41:53 RubyCentral

00:44:50 In-depth examination of Ruby

00:47:57 How Shopify sticks to vanilla Rails

00:50:28 A tale of two developers

00:59:59 Bringing Ruby up to Python’s level

01:04:48 Shopify’s largest app monolith

01:11:12 Tuning the knobs

01:18:01 How not to learn the hard way

01:18:57 Opportunities at Shopify

01:29:14 Working with the RubyShield program

01:32:07 Rails for API servers

01:33:21 Mike and Evan’s advice for listeners

01:36:00 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Links:

RubyCentral:
- Website: https://rubycentral.org/
- RubyShield: https://rubycentral.org/ruby-shield
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rubycentralorg
Shopify:
- Website: https://www.shopify.com/
- Careers: https://www.shopify.com/careers
- Dev Degree Program: https://devdegree.ca/pages/program
HashiCorp
- Website: https://www.hashicorp.com/
- Careers: https://www.hashicorp.com/jobs
Mike Dalessio:
- Website: http://mike.daless.io/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/flavorjones
Evan Phoenix:
- Website: https://github.com/evanphx
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/evanphx
RubyConf 2022 (Nov. 29 – Dec. 1, 2022):
- Website: https://rubyconf.org/

Other Episodes:

Episode 47: Ruby
- Show Link: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/episodes/146-rubyshield-ruby-central-and-shopify

References:

“The Pickaxe Book” aka Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide 2nd Edition:
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ruby-Pragmatic-Programmers-Second/dp/0974514055

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

Reach out to us via email: programmingthrowdown@gmail.com

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145: Unsupervised Machine Learning Oct 24, 2022

Show notes

Today we discuss adventures, books, tools, and art discoveries before diving into unsupervised machine learning in this duo episode!

00:00:22 Introductions

00:01:28 Email & inbox organization is very important

00:07:28 The Douglas-Peucker algorithm

00:11:48 Starter project selection

00:17:01 Tic-Tac-Toe

00:21:41 Artemis 1

00:26:25 Space slingshots

00:29:47 Flex Seal tape

00:32:38 The Meditations

00:37:58 Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast

00:40:55 Pythagorea

00:46:13 Google Keep

00:48:05 Visual-IF

00:50:49 Data insights

01:03:07 Self-supervised learning

01:10:26 A practical example of clustering

01:15:10 Word embedding

01:24:02 Farewells

Want to learn more? Check out these previous episodes:

Episode 27: Artificial Intelligence Theory
- https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/episodes/145-unsupervised-machine-learning
Episode 28: Applied Artificial Intelligence
- https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/episodes/145-unsupervised-machine-learning
Episode 109: Digital Marketing with Kevin Urrutia
- https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/episodes/145-unsupervised-machine-learning

Resources mentioned in this episode:

News/Links:

Simplify lines with the Douglas-Peucker Algorithm
- https://ilya.puchka.me/douglas-peucker-algorithm/
How to pick a starter project
- https://amir.rachum.com/blog/2022/08/07/starter-project/
Tic-Tac-Toe in a single call to printf()
- https://github.com/carlini/printf-tac-toe
Artemis 1
- https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1/
Visual-IF
- https://www.visual-if.com/

Book of the Show:

Jason’s Choice: “The Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
- https://amzn.to/3C3Kg7b
Patrick’s Choice: “Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast” by Ken Forkish
- https://amzn.to/3CqFwKa

Tool of the Show:

Jason’s Choice: Pythagorea
- Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hil_hk.pythagorea&hl=en&gl=US
- iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pythagorea/id994864779
Patrick’s Choice: Google Keep
- https://keep.google.com/

References:

Clustering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_analysis
Autoencoding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoencoder
Contrastive Learning: https://towardsdatascience.com/understanding-contrastive-learning-d5b19fd96607
Matrix Factorization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_factorization_(recommender_systems)
Stochastic factorization: https://link.medium.com/ytuaUAYBjtb
Deep Learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

Reach out to us via email: programmingthrowdown@gmail.com

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144: Kotlin Coroutines with Marcin Moskala Oct 10, 2022

Show notes

Today we go back to our programming language roots with author, KT Academy founder, and Kotlin rockstar Marcin Moskala. We talk about how Kotlin makes itself doubly useful for app and backend development.

00:00:55 Introductions

00:01:38 Java frustrations

00:09:37 Why a well-organized typing system is important

00:11:59 What Kotlin is

00:14:58 Obsidian

00:20:13 Learning new things can be a prudent future investment

00:23:46 A pleasant coding experience

00:26:41 Co-routines in Kotlin

00:34:37 Where co-routines are best in app development

00:44:54 Thread balancing in practice

00:57:39 Kotlin’s integrated cancellation mechanism

01:05:10 Getting started with Kotlin

01:18:16 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Marcin Moskala:

Website: https://marcinmoskala.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcinmoskala
KT Academy: https://kt.academy/

Kotlin Learning Resources

Marcin on KT: https://kt.academy/user/marcinmoskala
Kotlin Coroutines: https://leanpub.com/coroutines
Effective Kotlin: https://leanpub.com/effectivekotlin
Functional Kotlin (Early Access): https://leanpub.com/kotlin_functional
More Kotlin Publications on Leanpub

Information Organization Tools

WorkFlowy: https://workflowy.com/
Obsidian: https://obsidian.md/

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

Reach out to us via email: programmingthrowdown@gmail.com

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143: The Evolution of Search with Marcus Eagan Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

Finding something online might seem easy - but as Marcus Eagan tells it, it’s not easy to get it right. In today’s episode, MongoDB’s Staff Product Manager on Atlas Search speaks with Jason and Patrick about his own journey in software development and how to best use search engines to capture user intent.

00:00:34 Introductions

00:01:30 Marcus’s unusual origin story

00:05:10 Unsecured IoT devices

00:09:56 How security groupthink can compromise matters

00:12:48 The Target HVAC incident

00:17:32 Business challenges with home networks

00:21:51 Damerau-Levenshtein edit distance factor ≤ 2

00:23:58 How do people who do search talk about search

00:30:35 Inferring human intent before they intend it

00:46:13 Ben Horowitz

00:47:32 Seinfeld as an association exercise

00:52:27 What Marcus is doing at MongoDB

00:58:30 How MongoDB can help at any level

01:01:00 Working at MongoDB

01:08:14 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Marcus Eagan:

Website: https://marcussorealheis.medium.com
The Future of Search Is Semantic & Lexical: https://marcussorealheis.medium.com/the-future-of-search-is-semantic-and-lexical-e55cc9973b63
13 Hard Things I Do To Be A Dope Product Manager: https://marcussorealheis.medium.com/13-hard-things-i-do-to-be-a-dope-database-product-manager-7064768505f8
Github: https://github.com/MarcusSorealheis
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcusforpeace

MongoDB:

Website: https://www.mongodb.com/
Atlas: https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/register
Careers: https://www.mongodb.com/careers

Others:

Damerau-Levenshtein distance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damerau%E2%80%93Levenshtein_distance
Lucene: https://lucene.apache.org/core/
Target HVAC Incident (2014, Archive Link): https://archive.is/Wnwob

Mergify:

Website: https://mergify.com/

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

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142: Data Ops with Douwe Maan Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

Douwe Maan’s journey sounds too fantastic to be true, yet the tale that Meltano’s founder shares with Jason and Patrick today is very, very real. Whether it’s about doing software development by 11, joining Gitlab while juggling college responsibilities, or building his own company during today’s challenging times, he has quite the story to tell. In today’s episode, he speaks on Twitter, his perspective on remote work, and why data operations are a critical part of developer stacks in today’s world.

00:01:00 Introductions

00:03:44 Hustling online at 11

00:08:08 From iOS to web-based development

00:10:20 How Douwe balanced school and work

00:12:05 Sid Sijbrandij

00:19:13 Why Twitter was integral in Douwe’s journey

00:21:01 What Meltano offers for data teams

00:22:01 Remote work

00:30:59 Gitlab’s data team and what they do

00:44:40 What tools do data engineers use

00:47:40 Singer

00:50:26 Game designer travails

00:58:59 Where data operations come in

01:05:12 Getting started with Meltano

01:12:00 Meltano as a company

01:22:09 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Douwe Maan:

Meltano:

Website: https://meltano.com/
Careers: https://boards.greenhouse.io/meltano

Singer:

Website: https://www.singer.io/

Mergify:

Website: https://mergify.com/

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/

Reach out to us via email: programmingthrowdown@gmail.com

You can also follow Programming Throwdown on

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Join the discussion on our Discord

Help support Programming Throwdown through our Patreon

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141: Social Gaming with Chip Morningstar Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

00:01:03 Introductions

00:04:47 Mojovision

00:06:07 Chips’ storied journey

00:11:06 Project Xanadu

00:18:45 Getting into Lucasfilm

00:31:31 Artificial Intelligence in games

00:39:48 GTA MP

01:00:10 How the game industry drives people

01:08:29 Agoric and its niche in the blockchain

01:20:12 Javascript’s securability

01:22:46 Working with Agoric

01:32:20 What skills Agoric’s team looks for

01:35:31 Chip’s parting thoughts

01:37:00 Farewells

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Chip Morningstar:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/epopt

Agoric:

Website: https://agoric.com/
Careers: https://agoric.com/careers/

Habitat Chronicles:

Website: http://habitatchronicles.com/

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you can listen to more on Programming Throwdown’s website: https://www.programmingthrowdown.com/
Reach out to us via email: programmingthrowdown@gmail.com
You can also follow Programming Throwdown on
Facebook | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Player.FM
Join the discussion on our Discord
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