Tech Done Right

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Software How-To
**Tech Done Right**

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.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 22: Nonviolent Conversation with Nadia Odunayo Oct 18, 2017

Show notes

Nonviolent Communication With Nadia Odunayo

Guest

Nadia Odunayo, nadiaodunayo.com, Co-host of Ruby Book Club, director at Ignition Works.

Summary

Do you have interactions with co-workers where one or both of you get angry and defensive, and everybody ends up frustrated? Today we talk to Nadia Odunayo about "Nonviolent Communication", a way to communicate that honestly addresses issues, explaining how you feel without harming the other person, and getting everybody to the point where they feel better about the situation and have a clear path to move forward. Nadia gives examples of how she uses nonviolent communication in her day-to-day life, and she tries to coach me to improve my own skills. By focusing on communication your needs and not assuming anything about others, you can make difficult discussions less difficult.

Notes

01:47 - Nonviolent Communication

03:16 - A Concrete Example of Violent and Nonviolent Communication: A Code Review

07:08 - How should a manager communicate nonviolently?

11:01 - Judging and Assuming People’s Character Subconsciously

Fundamental Attribution Error

18:11 - How has nonviolent communication affected your day-to-day interactions?

24:14 - Self-Empathy: Being Non-Violent with Yourself

28:32 - Transparency and Vulnerability

32:15 - Nonviolent Communication and Being Nice/Kind

36:17 - Screaming Nonviolently

Masters of Love

Special Guest: Nadia Odunayo.

Episode 21: How Set Design Can Inform Software Architecture With Betsy Haibel Oct 04, 2017

Show notes

How Set Design Can Inform Software Architecture With Betsy Haibel

Guest

Betsy Haibel or betsyhaibel.com, co-founder of Cohere

Summary

Any profession that requires you to hit a budget and a deadline while balancing the project vision with practical logistics has a lot to say to software architects and project managers. Betsy Haibel was a professional theatrical set designer before becoming a software developer and architect, and we talk about how set design is like and not like software design. Not only do we talk about favorite shows, we also give you practical advice for designing your project.

Notes

01:24 - Creative Work as a Set Designer and it’s Relation to Software Architecture

11:13 - Software Architecture Metaphors

Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark

15:11 - Approaching Software Design as Set Design

17:22 - Designing For Flexibility/Keeping Design Open

27:13 - Scalability in a Smaller vs Larger Environments

Tent of Dreams

30:44 - Communication

36:12 - Approaching Purity and Reality

Special Guest: Betsy Haibel.

Episode 20: Developer Bootcamps and Computing Education with Jeff Casimir and Mark Guzdial Sep 20, 2017

Show notes

Developer Bootcamps and Computing Education with Jeff Casimir and Mark Guzdial

Guests

Mark Guzdial: Professor in Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and Computer Science Education Researcher.
Jeff Casimir: Executive Director at The Turing School.

Summary

How do people learn computing? Who learns best from traditional computer science education and who from bootcamps? How can we teach people who are not developers but who need to learn some programming to do their jobs? Jeff Casimir, the founder of Turing academy, and Georgia Tech's Mark Guzdial, one of the founders of the International Computing Education Research conference, join Noel to answer these questions and also explain why Excel is both the best and the worst thing in the world.

Notes

01:45 - “Computing Education”

05:27 - Teaching Developers at The Turing School

09:53 - Measuring the Quality of Education

14:05 - The Graduation Rate of Women and Underrepresented Groups

16:19 - Skills Acquisition

20:20 - Why not Fix Traditional Computer Science?

24:05 - Computing and Contextualized Computer Education

“Cargo Culting”

41:00 - Why Do Bootcamps Close?

46:11 - Success Rates Between People Who Have Had a Career First vs People Who Skip College and Enter Bootcamps

Special Guests: Jeff Casimir and Mark Guzdial.

Episode 19: Navigating the JavaScript World: A Panel Discussion Sep 06, 2017

Show notes

Navigating the JavaScript World

Guests

Summary

How do professional JavaScript programmers choose new tools or evaluate frameworks? What are the most important concepts in JavaScript development these days? This panel discussion was recorded live on Aug 24, 2017 with Zach Briggs, Trek Glowacki, Melanie Sumner, and Marques Woodson. Learn about their biggest JavaScript career battles and what resources they use to keep up to date.

Notes

01:29 - Introductions & Getting Started in JavaScript + Frontend Tools Used

03:51 - Pros of Working in JavaScript

06:09 - Components and Isolation

ARIA

13:30 - State Management

Redux
React

21:55 - Dealing with JavaScript Churn and Choosing New Tools

31:22 - JavaScript Design and Style; HTML & CSS Fundamentals

34:58 - What is exciting right now? What is up and coming? What do we need to focus on in JavaScript?

42:00 - WebAssembly

43:12 - What does “Functional” mean?

JavaScript Allongé

46:56 - Are there libraries that auto generate forms based on a Rust data model?

47:31 - What’s the biggest fight you got in over JavaScript?

53:56 - Is the State Management Pattern settled as a one-object God object store or per component?

57:31 - What do you like to pair frontend JavaScript with on the backend?

59:53 - Resources to Keep Sharp

Special Guests: Marques Woodson, Melanie Sumner, Trek Glowacki, and Zach Briggs.

Episode 18: Agile UX Product Design with Yana Carstens and Jeff Patton Aug 23, 2017

Show notes

Agile UX Product Design with Yana Carstens and Jeff Patton

Guests

Jeff Patton: Author of User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product and owner of Jeff Patton & Associates.

Yana Carstens: Senior User Experience Designer at TableXI.

Summary

Agile practices help you build software. UX design helps you build the right software. Teams often struggle integrating UX design into agile practice. In this episode, Jeff Patton, author of User Story Mapping, and UX Designer Yana Carstens talk about the importance of bringing UX design together with development and how to bring your team from unconscious competence to conscious competence.

Notes

01:47 - Jeff’s Involvement with Company Product Development

03:31 - The History of Agile Software Development

05:37 - The Role and Integration of the UX Designer

09:00 - Creating Products Without a Design Process

FUBU

12:21 - Consciousness and Competency

The Four Stages of Competence

16:08 - Advice for Newbies Striving to Reach the Competence Level in UX

The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley

19:11 - Deciding Design Cadences Within Cycles

23:20 - When Designers are Sprinting Ahead of Developers; Lean User Experience

Implementing Lean UX In Large Organizations

28:48 - Inceptions and Product Strategy Workshops to Integrate Design Into Agile Development

31:16 - Team Development: The Benefits of Hiring Experienced Professionals and Upscaling the People You’ve Got

34:38 - UX Practices in the 90's vs 2010's

Agile 2017 Conference

Special Guests: Jeff Patton and Yana Carstens.

Episode 17: The Elm Programming Language With Corey Haines Aug 09, 2017

Show notes

The Elm Programming Language With Corey Haines

Guest

Corey Haines: CTO of Hearken, creator of code retreats, and author of Understanding the Four Rules of Simple Design.

Summary

Want to build great front-end apps without having to deal with the entire JavaScript ecosystem? Corey Haines joins the show to talk about Elm, a front-end language and framework that is type safe, has great build tools, and a full-fledged MVC framework to create client interactions with less hassle. Corey has been using Elm to build the site for his company, Hearken, and talks about why he picked it, and what has made Elm a success for them.

For More Info

We've got a blog post relating to the code examples in this episode, you can find it at https://medium.com/table-xi/union-types-in-elm-fb6a974ec427.

Notes

02:25 - What is Hearken?

05:14 - The Elm Programming Language

08:06 - The Type System and The Compiler

Editable
F#
If you want a really detailed overview of types in programming languages, here's one from Gary Bernhardt
Maybe type in Elm
Union Types

21:27 - Elm as a Framework

26:16 - Deciding to use Elm

28:37 - Elm: Gotchas and Technical Limitations?

Uploading files with Elm

32:37 - Styling and Working with Designers

elm-css

35:45 - The Elm Community

Join Elm on Slack

37:14 - Getting Started with Elm

Special Guest: Corey Haines.

Open Source: The Big Picture with Nadia Eghbal

Guest

Nadia Eghbal: Works on Open Source Initiatives at GitHub, Author of Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure; Read her essays on Open Source on Medium

Summary

The Internet runs on Open Source. Open Source runs on maintainers and contributors. Is that sustainable? We talk to Nadia Eghbal about her work documenting and analyzing the Open Source ecosystem. How did we get here, and how did GitHub change Open Source? Nadia answers why Open Source makes economic sense, and discusses what can make projects more sustainable (hint: it's not just money).

Notes

01:22 - Researching the Open Source Community

03:14 - How the Relationship Between Open Source and the Rest of Technology Changed in the Mid-2000s

07:22 - Where is Open Source going? How will it evolve?

09:28 - What do successful projects do that others can learn from?

12:34 - Standardization of Funding

13:33 - As Projects Mature

17:26 - The Open Source Ecosystem: Excludable and Non-Excludable

21:42 - The Reputational Economy

25:20 - “Worse is Better”: Sharing Between Ecosystems; Fragmentation

30:03 - Diversity and Being New in the Open Source Community

34:16 - Hopes for the Future: Better Tooling for Maintainers, Shared Understanding of Best Practices, Supporting Open Source

Episode 15: Agile Teams and Escaping Velocity with Doc Norton and Claire Podulka Jul 12, 2017

Show notes

Agile Teams and Escaping Velocity with Doc Norton and Claire Podulka

Guests

Doc Norton: Co-Founder and CEO of CTO2.

Claire Podulka: Project Manager at Table XI.

Summary

How can you tell whether an agile software team is successful? Many teams use a single measure: velocity. Doc Norton, author of Escape Velocity, and Claire Podulka join the show to discuss why velocity is not a useful measure: it doesn't explain the problems with an unsuccessful team, and successful teams probably don't need it. We discuss the problems with velocity, what to use instead, and get on soapboxes for our least favorite agile anti-patterns.

Notes

02:48 - Metrics for Agile Teams: Velocity

06:15 - Using Velocity

07:49 - Problems When Relying Solely on Velocity and Estimation

12:35 - Theory of Flow

15:17 - Body Weight Analogy

17:17 - Assessing Team Health

18:37 - Team Temperature (Joy)

21:51 - Lead Time and Cycle Time

30:04 - Managing Estimation and Team Metrics When Teams and Scope Change

33:17 - Using Metrics: Large Organizations vs Small Organizations

39:18 - Breaking Down Team Velocity at the Individual Level

Special Guests: Claire Podulka and Doc Norton.

Episode 14: From Idea To Company With Maci Peterson and Alicia Drucker Jun 28, 2017

Show notes

From Idea To Company With Maci Peterson and Alicia Drucker

Guests

Maci Peterson: Co-founder and CEO of On Second Thought.

Alicia Drucker: Director of Software Delivery at Table XI

Summary

How does an idea become a pitch become a company? Join Maci Peterson, founder of the startup On Second Thought, and Alicia Drucker, from Table XI, to discuss how a bad text can lead to a good pitch and then a funded startup. How hard is it to break into Silicon Valley if you don't match the expected image of an entrepreneur? Maci discusses how diversity and inclusivity improved her startup business.

Notes

We had an unusually high number of audio quality issues this time around, we're sorry.

01:39 - Starting On Second Thought

03:26 - Pitch Competitions

04:53 - From Idea To Company

07:04 - Sending a Bad Text To Getting To SXSW

09:05 - Taking a Leap of Faith and Starting a Tech Company

10:46 - Funding the Company

12:30 - Breaking Into Silicon Valley

18:46 - Diversity and Inclusivity

27:05 - Encouraging Inclusivity While Leveraging a Product

31:14 - Speaking Up and Sharing Stories

36:39 - Taking Action After Speaking Up

Quick note that this was recorded June 7th, and the Uber story has taken some twists and turns since them.

We got cut off before we could give Maci's contact information, you can find her on Twitter at @macipeterson and On Second Thought at https://www.onsecondthought.co and @onsecondthought

Special Guests: Alicia Drucker and Maci Patterson.

Livable Code With Sarah Mei

Guest

Sarah Mei: Founder of RailsBridge, Director of Ruby Central, Chief Consultant at DevMynd Software.

Summary

Is your code the kind of cluttered house you might find on a reality TV show? Or the kind of sleek, minimalist house you might find in a architectural magazine. Neither one sounds like a place you could comfortably live. Sarah Mei joins the podcast to talk about Livable Code, what makes a codebase livable, how to negotiate tension between junior and senior developers and how Rails deals with developer happiness.

Notes

01:33 - What is meant by “Livable Code”?

04:25 - Where does codebase abstraction go wrong?

05:41 - What makes a codebase livable?

Code Climate

09:16 - Calibrating the Right Level for Your Team: Retrospective Meetings

12:22 - Principles of a Codebase

18:21 - Alleviating Tension Between Junior and Senior Developers

22:57 - The Goal of Career Development

26:42 - Guiding Architecture Choices on a Team

30:37 - Does testing help?

34:23 - Programmer Happiness

37:42 - The Attitude Toward JavaScript

39:01 - The Right Design For Your Codebase is Subjective

Special Guest: Sarah Mei.

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Nonviolent Communication With Nadia Odunayo

Guest

Summary

Notes

How Set Design Can Inform Software Architecture With Betsy Haibel

Guest

Summary

Notes

Developer Bootcamps and Computing Education with Jeff Casimir and Mark Guzdial

Guests

Summary

Notes

Navigating the JavaScript World

Guests

Summary

Notes

Agile UX Product Design with Yana Carstens and Jeff Patton

Guests

Summary

Notes

The Elm Programming Language With Corey Haines

Guest

Summary

For More Info

Notes

Open Source: The Big Picture with Nadia Eghbal

Guest

Summary

Notes

Agile Teams and Escaping Velocity with Doc Norton and Claire Podulka

Guests

Summary

Notes

From Idea To Company With Maci Peterson and Alicia Drucker

Guests

Summary

Notes

Livable Code With Sarah Mei

Guest

Summary

Notes

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