The Stack Overflow Podcast

Latest Episodes:

A Conversation with the Author of Black Software Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

We discuss how a demand for more diverse clip art helped lay the foundation for some of the first black owned and operated software companies in the United States, and the ways in which social media has helped to empower a new generation of voices to demand change in the tech industry and beyond.

You can check out some of the pioneering work on building digital community at Afrolink, NetNoir, and UBP.

McIlwain also draws attention to the history of computer technology as a tool of police surveillance, going all the way back to the Police Beat algorithm in 1968.

You can find out more about Prof McIlwain here. You can purchase his book here.

We also spend some time this week talking about our new community initiatives.

Sara, along with Juan Garza from our community team, wrote a big post outlining all the work we’re hoping to do in 2020 and how we’re using data to inform the changes we are making.

Keep an eye out for future posts in this series, The Loop, and let us know what you want to see by lending your voice to our Through The Loop survey.

TFW You Accidentally Delete Your Database Nov 25, 2019

Show notes

Brian shares a delightful tale of the time one of his co-workers accidentally deleted the company's database, and how they recovered it through binary transaction logs. No better way to learn than a trial by fire.

Juan explains why typing is taking over frontend development. First off, we discovered unit tests, and learned types can take care of it.

Paul dreams of a day when object-oriented PHP runs in the browsers. Sara has had nightmares about similar scenarios.

Splice has lots of interesting products for musicians and technologists and they're hiring.

Brian helped to build the amazing Brooklyn JS, so if you're in the NYC area, be sure to check it out.

Juan helps to run an amazing community of developers in Colombia, as well as the Bogota JS meetup.

Dylan TallChief made a drum machine in Excel and it's something special.

How Would You React? Nov 19, 2019

Show notes

Part 1

The crew chats about how Paul and Sara made the transition from individual contributors to managers overseeing teams of engineers. Sara used to see this transition as a form of selling out, but has a new perspective after having made the shift. Paul admits he still doesn’t feel like a “CEO” and how he approaches his role as the co-founder who focuses on creating signal instead of operations. OF course, we argue about Bitcoin, and finally we examine the role luck plays in life, especially for The Rock.

Interview - Kent C Dodds

Kent admits that when he first tried programming, he just couldn’t understand strings, and decided the career path wasn’t for him. He ended up on a track that would have made him an accountant or business intelligence analyst. From that perch, however, he began to find ways to automate and improve his workflows. Not only did this help him stand out at work, it reawakened his interest in coding, which is now his full time career.

Part 2

Sara talks about the difference between writing code for software applications, and writing firmware, which she got into while helping to launch and run Jewelbots. Paul and Sara recall what it was like working in tech during the 90s, when they had to constantly worry about how to conserve RAM. We also talk about the days before Git, when folks passed a hard drive around from hand to hand. The kids today have no idea how good they have it.

Too DEV.to Quit Nov 12, 2019

Show notes

Part 1

Paul and Sara chat about what language is best to choose as your first when you're just getting started on your journey as a programmer. Probably not Mathmatica, but it's a neat one.

Jupyter Notebooks - an in-browser notebook for working with Python. You can write your words, have your code right next to it, and see how things play out. Or as Tom Butterworth put it on DEV.

"Jupyter Notebook is an interactive web application that interfaces with the iPython repl, allowing you to run structured but iterative Python scripts. It is the de facto choice for data scientists to rapidly prototype pipelines, visualise data, or perform ad hoc analysis."

Interview: Jess Lee

Jess Lee had some great perspectives to share on what it means to balance being an entrepreneur and a coder.

Issac Lyman kicked off a community project on DEV to create a book that would help guide readers through their first year in code. 15 contributors ended up writing chapters for the book, which is available for free here.

DEV is open source, and they have decided it can be a software platform other organizations can use to build their own communities. As Ben Halpern writes, "The future of our company will be based on delivering the DEV open-source software to power new standalone communities. We will work with a network of partners both inside and outside of the software ecosystem."

Part 2

We dig into D3.JS. Stack Overflow has a lot to teach folks on this subject.

What's the best way to make a d3.js visualization layout responsive?

Just don't ask about a good book for learning the subject!

And finally, what's the difference between d3.js and jQuery? It's a silly question with some interesting answers and a nice history of the web in the background.

Buggin Out Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

SHOW NOTES

Part 1 (0:00-9:58)

the crew discusses Google's declaration of Quantum Supremacy and tries to wrap their mind around qubits and superpositions. Ben mangles the pronunciation of ASP.net, Sara finds a name for her new pet snake, and Paul wonders how JFK would have pronounced quantum. Also, updates on the Stack Overflow helicopter.
From our Physics and Quantum Computing Stack Exchanges:
Is Quantum Computing just pie in the sky?

Why is Google Quantum Supremacy experiment impressive?

What does Google's claim of Quantum Supremacy mean?

Interview (9:59-26:05)

Clive Thompson. When it comes to bugs, Thompson says the best book on the subject is The Bug by Ellen Ulman. Got a different recommendation? Let us know in the comments below.

You can check out Clive's band, the Dolorean Sisters, here. He is currently writing software to help optimize the group's set lists. Clive, you own me a blog post on this.

Part 2 (26:52-fin)

We chat about the wonderful Ian Allen and his introduction to programming.

Paul declares CSS is a plate of scrambled eggs.

Sara hips us to a wonderful talk - Cascading S**t Show. As you might have guessed from the title, the language in the video is NSFW.

Later, Sara declares that CSS Grid is, in fact, just tables, mostly to troll her good friend Brenda Storer.

Paul protests, but then remembers an old tweet.

Projectile Productivity Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

Chloe Condon has a great post about how she created her medication reminder app and an official endorsement from Smash Mouth.

You can find some writing from Iheanyi Ekechukwu on our blog here and you can find his podcast here.

Learn about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. It’s not funny so don’t laugh.

Decades old code is putting millions of critical devices at risk. Should we be regulating software more closely?

Ben Popper is the worst coder in the world

Do You Believe in Life After Keyboards? Oct 22, 2019

Show notes

Tilde Club: It’s your chance to LARP as a 70s sys admin!

What you do on your computer is your business. Don’t be tricked by scammers.

Paul makes the mistake of sharing his Anxiety Box on This American Life

Sara’s favorite Kanye tweet is available, beautifully framed, for only $75.

cKeys is an amazing Seattle non-profit that teaches folks how to make their own keyboards!

When we recorded this episode Cassidy worked at CodePen, but not she works at React Training, so check them out.

We’re Back: compilers, turtles, and a brand new crew Oct 15, 2019

Show notes

Is it legal for source code containing undefined behavior to crash the compiler?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57652799/is-it-legal-for-source-code-containing-undefined-behavior-to-crash-the-compiler

True, you’re the boss, and the compiler works for you. But that doesn’t mean it always behaves just as you instructed. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56802645/understanding-the-as-if-rule-the-program-was-executed-as-written

What is Logo, you ask?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

And what about Netlogo?

https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/docs/programming.html

William Chipps’ golden years - so close, and yet so far

http://wacretiring.com/

Podcast #123 - Jon Skeet Wants You to Be a Feminist Mar 12, 2018

Show notes

In this episode, Host Jon Skeet takes the reins along with Jay, Jess, Ilana, and special guests Casey Ashenhurst (SO Inclusion Manager & Senior People Ops Partner) and Cassie Montrose (SO Executive Assistant) to chat about hitting a million rep on Stack Overflow; Jon's thoughts on feminism and inclusion and how those have evolved over the years; and a rant about a regrettable Applebee's experience in Times Square. You should'a known better, Jon...

Podcast #122 - Hold Me Closer Tiny Dancer, and Dasher, and Prancer, and Vixen Dec 18, 2017

Show notes

Happy Holidays from The Stack Overflow Podcast! On today's episode: Winter Bash 2017 details are revealed, Abby Reads Nice Tweets, and we ponder the questionable morality behind Santa's favorite narc, The Elf on the Shelf.