The Bike Shed

Latest Episodes:

489: What makes a codebase welcoming Jan 13, 2026

Show notes

Joël and Sally tidy up the place as they discuss the different ways a new codebase and team can feel welcoming to them.

Together they break down the things that help them ingrate into a new project more easily, explain why the lore of a project can be sacred to some, what you can do in the present to make things easier for a developer down the road, and why communication is crucial for keeping everyone on the same page even long after you’ve moved on.

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Check out these resources for a deeper dive into some of the topics mentioned in this week’s episode - Fixtures - Hierarchy of Documentation - Domain Modelling 1 - Domain Modelling 2

Thanks to our sponsor for this episode Scout Monitoring.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
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488: The Playful Portland Programming Paradigm Jan 06, 2026

Show notes

Aji and Joël talk all things hackerthons and why taking the time to have a little having fun with your work every now and then is important for developers.

Our hosts reflect on their shared experience at a previous RailsConf where they entered a mini hackerthon, why playing around in a creative sandbox is crucial to honing your skills as a dev, and how programming on the fly can teach you a lot about your own strengths and weaknesses.

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Read more about Joël’s entry in Rails Rumble, as well as their participation in the RailsConf 2022 mini Hackerthon.

Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

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487: ActiveModel custom attributes Dec 30, 2025

Show notes

Joël contributes some thoughts on working with custom attributes as he follows up on last week’s discussion about ActiveModels with Sally.

Joël breaks down how he transforms various strings and objects when working with ActiveModels to simplify more advance workloads, as Sally queries their different use cases and how best to utilise them for her own workflow.

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Catch up on Sally and Aji’s episode from last week on ActiveModels before diving into this discussion!

If you’d like to give some of the gems mentioned in this episode a try for yourself they can be found here - phonelib - money-rails - astronoby

Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

486: ActiveModel Everywhere Dec 23, 2025

Show notes

Aji and Sally join forces to discuss the different ways they utilise active models in their workflows.

Aji describes a new system for working with active models they’ve been using recently, Sally recalls a project where active models could have saved her a lot of time, before putting their heads together to think of new creative ways to utilise rails’ tools toolset to build other active models.

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Discover more of The Magic of Rails through Eileen Uchitelle’s Keynote, or check out the GitHub repo mentioned in this episode.

Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Sally Hall and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

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485: HTTP Basic Auth Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

Joël and Aji kick oﬀ a new season by discussing the best use cases for HTTP basic auth and talking all things security.

The pair ask when and why you would use basic auth over standard HTTPS, it’s pros, cons and vulnerabilities over other forms of security, and provide some advice to help decide on what form of security you could implement on your site.

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Check out these links for more information on some of the topics covered in today’s episode - Cross-Origin Resource Sharing - Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) - The Universe is Hostile to Computers

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Aji Slater.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

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484: The Season 1 Recap Nov 25, 2025

Show notes

Our Bike Shed trio check back in with one another to follow up on some topics that caught their attention over the course of season 1.

Sally covers her time working with React over the last few months and the challenges it still presents to her workflow, Joël goes back over typescripts and the benefits he’s found when debugging, and the cast reflect on the first season as a whole, what they liked, what went well and what they’d like to improve on for season 2.

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

You can read up on some of the topics mentioned in this episode here - Constructive vs Predictive Data - Aji’s Keynote - Aji’s Recommended Keynote from 2022

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville, Sally Hall and Aji Slater

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

483: Comparing notes on note-taking Nov 19, 2025

Show notes

Joël and Sally compare various note taking styles as they set out to find which ones work best for them.

The pair break down the different ways of formatting their notes and what they’re used for, Sally explains her struggles with note taking in general and the work arounds she’s found to achieve similar results instead, and Joël provides a small update on his book as he examines the different use cases for all his notes.

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Read about Joël’s note taking in depth through his thoughtbot blog posts - Blog 1 - Blog 2

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

482: Labels for our job Nov 11, 2025

Show notes

Joël and Sally analyse their job titles as they try to figure out exactly which borrowed labels best define their work at thoughtbot.

Together they break down the components of commonly used titles such as engineer, architect and consultant to see which element reflects their work best, how they would describe their roles at thoughtbot, which industries they’d draw from if they came up with their own titles, and what does Lil Wayne have to do with all this?

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For a deeper dive into today’s episode consider checking out Hillel Wayne’s post “Are we really engineers?” and Henrik Kniberg’s article on Minimal Viable Products.

Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

481: Dev Horror Stories Nov 04, 2025

Show notes

Joël and Sally grab a flashlight to share some scary dev stories with each other to celebrate spooky season.

Sally tales the tale of the missing production database, Joël flees from some corrupted data, and each recall instances of haunted code and heart stopping moments from projects gone wrong.

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

If you’re ever in Amsterdam consider checking out Joël’s museum recommendation.

Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Joël Quenneville and Sally Hall.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

480: The President's Doctor with Jared Turner Oct 28, 2025

Show notes

Aji gets their priorities straight as they talks with fellow thoughtboter Jared Turner about his recent article titled The President’s Doctor.

Jared breaks down the thought process behind the president’s doctor and the wasted time we accrue when working on a project, where we can minimise pauses and delays in our workflows, and why watching cat videos while you wait may actually be the most productive thing you can do!

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode Judoscale - Autoscale the Right Way (check the link for your free gift!), and Scout Monitoring.

Read Jared’s article to get a full breakdown of The President’s Doctor theory.

Your host for this episode has been Aji Slater and was joined by fellow thoughtboter Jared Turner.

If you would like to support the show, head over to our GitHub page, or check out our website.

Got a question or comment about the show? Why not write to our hosts: hosts@bikeshed.fm

This has been a thoughtbot podcast.
Stay up to date by following us on social media - YouTube - LinkedIn - Mastodon - BlueSky

Support The Bike Shed

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