On YouTube
200 JSJ EPISODE 200!!!

02:52 - What’s up Merrick Christensen?

03:43 - Favorite Episodes

08:58 - How have ideas about JavaScript changed since being a panelist on the show?

15:01 - Off the Air Experiences        

20:23 - Work/Job Changes

23:54 - JS Jabber = Newbie-Friendly

24:58 - Work/Job Changes (Cont’d)

35:25 - Organizing Conferences and Name Recognition 

40:55 - Spinoff Shows

45:08 - Podcast Administration and Organization; Episode Release Timeline

Picks

JavaScript Jabber (Joe)
The Harry Potter Audiobooks (Joe)
Calamity by Brandon Sanderson (Joe)
AngularConnect (Joe)
Dennis Overbye: Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory (AJ)
The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life by Terryl Givens (AJ)
Julia Evans: Have high expectations for your computers (Jamison)
January 28th GitHub Incident Report (Aimee)
Denzel Brade: Front End Dev — Running before you can walk (Aimee)
Captivating Revised and Updated: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul by John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge (Aimee)
drone (Merrick)
Haskell Book (Merrick)
Amazon Prime (Chuck)
nexxt Maine Wall Shelf/Floating Ledge (Chuck)
Read the presidential candidate’s books (Chuck) 

Special Guest: Merrick Christensen.

 JOE:

You all ready for this?

I've never been more ready for anything in my life.

Oh no, they were ready for that.

Hey everybody and welcome to episode 200 of the JavaScript Jabber Show. This week on our panel we have Joe Eames.

That's me.

Aimee Knight.

Hello.

AJ O'Neal.

Yo, yo, yo, coming at you live from sunny Pleasant Grove.

Jamison Dance.

Hello.

I'm Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. We also have a blast from the past, Merrick Christensen.

Hey, guys.

So, it's been a while, Merrick. You want… oh, did I forget Dave? I thought I said Dave.

Oh no. [Chuckles]

Dave who?

Oh, it's okay.

Messed up.

Just go on without me. It's not like my last name is Christensen or something, or first name Merrick. [Laughter]

I had this big long list of names to read. I thought I got them all. So Merrick, what  have you been up to since we last heard from you?

Man, just all the same pursuit as everybody else. Just trying to master this craft. Nothing new in particular but still working in the same place.

So, you're in Pleasant Grove as well?

Yeah, yeah. Well, American Fork, but same thing.

I can never tell over there.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Does anyone call American Fork Am-Fo?

I've never heard that before but I'm going to start today.

[Inaudible] California way to say it?

We're [inaudible] right now

Isn't ANFO like some kind of napalm or something?

Yeah, it's basically an explosive. Just like American Fork explodes on the tech scene. Am-Fo! [Laughter]

Awesome. Cool, well 200 episodes. It's been kind of an interesting ride. I'm wondering. Does anyone have any instances or episodes that stand out to them as favorites?

This one.

I was going to say this one, too.

Me too. [Laughter]

What a bunch of smart alecks. That's all we got, is wisecracks.

I'm a dumb aleck and I make dumb-cracks.

Dumb-cracks. [Chuckles]

Nice.

I really liked when we had Brendan Eich on the show. That was one of my favorite episodes for sure.

I liked substack and who's the other guy?

Tom Dale.

Yeah. That one was a good one for me. I'm actually really disappointed that in 200 episodes, I think I've been on about 160 of them or something like that, but in all that time we haven't had anybody rage-quit.

But we did come close with Scott Hanselman.

You mean in the middle of the interview?

Yeah, in the middle of the interview.

Keep trying.

I don't think I was on that one. What happened?

we didn't really get close to him rage quitting. He just, well he thought I was trying to say something that I really wasn't trying to say. And so, he was kind of blunt like, “I feel like you're trying to get me to say something specific,” and I felt very, very embarrassed and chagrined because Scott Hanselman is, I have a Microsoft background, he's a Microsoft guy. So, he was definitely one of those people that I've known of and highly respect. So, I apologized to him afterwards in private and hoped it didn't come off sounding too bad. But that for me was, I don't know if that's a highlight.

That's a lowlight for me.

I loved talking to Dave Herman about the book 'Effective JS'. I don't know if you guys remember that. But that was amazing.

Yeah, that was pretty darn good.

Oh yeah. Dude, Dave Herman is so amazing.

Yeah, we've had him on a couple of times and he's… he just kind of blows my mind every time. Because didn't we have him on talking about ASTs and parsing or something?

Yeah.

I think so, yeah.

Yeah. Every time we have him talking about stuff that makes me feel so stupid. I feel like I'm making dumb-cracks.

Welcome to my world. I think that would make him feel sad to hear. It shouldn't make you feel dumb to talk to smart people. It should make you feel like you're getting smarter.

Yeah. Oh, we also had him on to talk about Rust.

I was going to say that was one of my more favorite episodes.

Was Rust?

As far as the ones that I've been able to be a panelist on, yeah.

I still remember Dave Smith's analogy about memory from that episode, when he was talking about memory is just a giant array.

Like the physical memory on your machine. I thought that was a really cool way to explain it.

Way to go, Dave Smith.

I guess I…

That was my favorite episode, too. [Chuckles]

When I made that comment.

That was just the highlight of the whole experience for you?

[Chuckles] It's the pinnacle of my career. [Laughter]

That time that I said something smart, that was awesome. [Laughter]

I actually was thinking my favorite episode was when we had Mike Tyson on, but he bit off part of Jamison's ear so we never put it on the ear. [Laughter]

That one was a good one. Okay, has anybody watched the show Community?

No.

Yes.

It's this hilarious sitcom. They have an episode. You know every sitcom always does the flashback episode? So, they had their flashback episode and it was full of flashbacks that actually never happened.

Which was awesome.

That would be awesome. I hate those flashback episodes.

Yeah.

It's like, I've already seen this season. Come on.

Yeah.

I think we need to do some more flashback episodes on this show. [Laughter]

Save us some time.

Dream sound effects. [Makes dream sound effects]

Yeah, that.

So, I was also a big fan of the V8 episode, when they talked about the internals in nitty-gritty details. That was really good.

Yeah, that was really interesting. Didn't we also have those same guys on to talk about Dart?

I believe that we did.

So, was it the Rust or the Elm episode where the author of the language said, “If there's ever a runtime error, it's a bug in the language or the compiler?”

That was Elm.

Sounds like an Elm thing to say.

It was Elm.

I really enjoyed that episode.

Yeah.

Anytime someone comes on the show and says, “When your code sucks, it's my fault,” I'm [just] all over that. [Laughter]

Yeah, I'll tell you that we've done Elm episodes on Ruby Rogues and JavaScript Jabber. And they've both been in the top 20 popular episodes. And it just blows people's minds. It's like, “Whoa! That's awesome.”

Why did Elm come on the Ruby show?

Because we had talked about it at one point.

I just wondered if maybe it compiled to Ruby or something.

No.

Why did Rust come on the JavaScript show?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah.

Just to make [inaudible].

Because it was made by Mozilla?

Fair point.

Hey, we just had Aurelia on the Adventures in Angular show.

Oh, was that cool?

Oh yeah. Rob's a smart guy, man.

Yeah.

He does so much stuff.

That's Rob Eisenberg?

Rob Eisenberg. He's like the framework guy. He's done… I think he wrote every framework that actually ever existed. In fact, if it wasn't for him…

Yeah, whatever happened to Durandal?

He got bored of it I guess.

So, he's causing framework fatigue single-handedly? [Laughter]

Yeah, he's single-handedly causing framework… if it wasn't for him, there would only be Knockout. That's all there would be.

So, I have a deep question. Maybe not deep. I have a question for you all. How do you think your ideas about JavaScript have changed since you started on this show?

Well, I can answer that with a slightly funny story. Have you ever seen that Stack Overflow question that says, “I have two numbers and I want to add them with jQuery. How do I do that?” [Laughter]

Yes.

Yes.

It's one of the best Stack Overflows of all time.

We need a link to that. [Laughter]

And this is how I felt about JavaScript when I started, which was always use it at arm's length and only use a framework or a library that abstracts the language from you because it's unreliable on the different browsers, platforms where you want to run it. My mentality has gone from that to completely discarding any framework or library that abstracts the language and embracing the core language and then only using frameworks and tools that encourage me to embrace the core. So, I've had a complete 180 on that.

So, if you're embracing the language, I know AJ wants to ask. Then why are you using ES 6? [Chuckles]

What, the telepathy?

The sixth sense is real.

Oh, is that what the sixth means in ES 6? [Laughter]

No, no, no, no, no. I have a sick sense.

Got it.

Oh.

ES sick.

We've all been pronouncing it wrong. I just looked at when the first episode was. It was January 20th 2012. I think how my attitudes have changed is I had no idea what I was talking about back then and I have a small idea of some things that I'm talking about.

Oh, so you've got some…

Before I was a giant [inaudible].

You've gone from unknown unknowns to known unknowns.

Yeah.

I think that basically describes my journey.

In a lot of ways, that really describes where I was, too. You all were way ahead of me when we started the show. I just dabbled because I was doing web development and started the show because Jamison asked me a bunch of questions and I said, “Why don't we just do this?” or it went something like that.

Yeah.

Maybe he said, “Why don't we just do this?” Anyway, it was one of those. But yeah, for me it was like yeah, I was doing jQuery and then occasionally I'll copy and paste something off the internet and make my page do what I want. And it's come a long way since then to really having it shape the way that I do a lot of my web development.

We had Yehuda Katz on as a panelist in the very first episodes. And he is so smart and so articulate and so knowledgeable that I think he kind of got fed up that we couldn't really keep up with him.

He didn't… in a nice way. He didn't yell at us or anything. But…

You call this a JavaScript show?

Yeah, that's what I feel like his internal monologue was like.

Are you sure this isn't a Ruby Rogues?

You can't quote the spec chapter in verse and like, I don't know. But I feel like he really helped me realize how much more there was to learn in programming in general and then in JavaScript specifically. So, that was really cool for me to have him on early on.

So, as long as we're talking about our own ignorance, back in 2012 I did not know what a prototype was.

Prototypes are the monads of JavaScript.

Everyone [inaudible] blog post explaining what they are and people love to talk about them.

You guys four years ago are describing how I feel a little bit this past year and still. [Chuckles]

I'm kind of curious Aimee, since I think you're the newest person to join the show. How was being on the show different from what you expected?

Well, I will say kind of like most things in my life I typically think I do a horrible job. And then I'm told otherwise. So, actually, after I first did my episode I think I came home and told my husband, “Oh my gosh, I was just a babbling idiot on the show and I'm so embarrassed.” Anyway, but apparently everyone really liked me. So…

We still do.

And we already have a babbling idiot. [Chuckles]

And it's not you. [Laughter]

We're full up on babbling idiots.

For me I guess doing this show the past year, I think in some ways maybe at times people would kind of tell me, “Why are you reading about this stuff?” because I like to prepare for the episodes as much as possible. They're like, “That's silly. That's just the new fad thing.” But in a lot of ways, I think being able to dig into everything just a little bit, obviously I don't have a ton of time, but seeing it at surface value has given me a really, really, really broad view of everything going on right now that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And it's just been man, like so immensely valuable being on here with everyone and I learn so much. [Chuckles]

I agree with that.

Oh, I've really enjoyed your perspective, Aimee. The stuff that you've brought to the show has been really informative for me, too.

[Chuckles] Cool. Thank you. That's awesome.

I agree with the learning so much thing. I feel like it's really nice to have something that forces me to hear about cool new stuff coming up. And it's easy to look around and see how everyone seems like they know more than you because there's something they know that you don't. But it's like a non-overlapping… everyone knows different subsets of stuff. But it's cool to know a little bit about everything. I feel like the show helps me with that.

Yeah.

I think the attitude we all have, too. None of us look down on each other for not knowing something. And I love how all the panelists really try to make topics very approachable like if we're using words that we think newer programmers might not be familiar with, I love that we kind of get an equal playing ground for everyone.

I think it's not just newer programmers though. It could be programmers that are experienced, just not in that field too.

Yeah.

So, I agree that I would like this show to be friendly for beginners. But I think it's also easier for everyone to digest if you don't assume that people know everything you're talking about already, because no one will know everything that you're talking about.

Yeah.

I have another show highlight which I think I've mentioned before, which actually didn't happen on the show.

Okay.

I went to New York to a conference and I saw a guy wearing a JavaScript Jabber t-shirt.

And so, I kind of like saddled up to him and said, “Hey, how's it going?” and he says, “Oh, I'm doing really good.” And I said, “I saw your t-shirt. It's an excellent show.” And he says, “Yeah.” This was like a year ago, so I'd been on…

I was just looking. I was on episode 9 as a guest and I was on episode 20 as a regular panelist, 17 as a regular panelist is when I started. So, I'm like chatting with him and I said, “Yeah, it's a great show,” and he says, “Oh yeah, totally. Those guys are really smart.” And I said, “Oh, they definitely are.” And he says, “Do you know Jamison?” [Laughter]

And then I said, “So, I do know Jamison. He's such a smart guy.” He says, “Yeah. Those guys are so smart.” And he said something about, “Have you ever talked with them before?” And I said, “I've talked with them a couple of time.” [Laughter]

And then at some point he finally figured out that I was the other voice, one of the other voices on there.

You think he would have noticed because your face was on the front of the t-shirt, just one big Joe head. [Laughter]

That's right.

[Inaudible] realized who he was talking to.

Yeah, we sold those shirts and we didn't tell you.

Joe, Joe comes up to some poor guy on the internet and he's like, “Let me sign your shirt for you real quick.” [Laughter]

That's what I should have done. I should have gone over there with a marker, just signed his shirt without him asking. [Laughter]

Let me sign that for you.

I'm a value [creator].

Yeah.

This is what I do. I just created value right there.

So, as another aside here, another of my favorite experiences again happened off the show. And that was the very first episode that I was going to be a panelist on, not the guest but a panelist, Chuck had invited me to come and be a panelist. And so, I remember I worked downtown and I couldn't record. There's no place to go and be part of the show. So, I knew I had to drive home which is like a 30-minute drive. And that was fine. I could take a two-hour lunch. No big deal. Well somehow time had gotten away from me and I looked and it was going to start in 10 minutes and I had a 30-minute drive. And I was freaked out like, “Oh my gosh. Chuck's going to think I'm like this flake and loser.” I texted, tried to call or send an email and I'm on the freeway doing 85 or something trying to get back in time. And I got there and then it turned out I had looked at the wrong time zone or something. And it wasn't even going on then. It was going to go on in like another hour.

But I was so freaked out. And then being on as a panelist I realized, Chuck doesn't even care if I show up. Because he can just talk and talk and talk the entire time. [Chuckles]

Sure.

I remember when Dave called and you can hear his turn signal. I think it was Dave.

That was pretty funny.

Yeah, that was me. [Laughter]

I remember AJ…

[Inaudible] Salt Lake Police Department about that one. [Laughter]

I remember AJ calling a few times from his car, at least once from the airport.

Didn't AJ call with a robe on or something at one point? Or like the shower was going, if I remember.

No, no. I think it was the garage door was opening and closing.

That's a lot less interesting, AJ.

Maybe it was the…

There you go.

I'm pretty sure it was the shower that was going. [Laughs]

Go with the shower.

Maybe I did call from the shower. I was in the shower on my computer.

Hello, this is AJ on my shower phone. [Laughter]

There was like running water in the background, if I remember.

Didn't somebody keep calling in from their car though? Was it Frosty?

We one time had such a bad connection with AJ calling in from his car that we're like, “Yeah bro, we can't even understand you. Sorry,” you know?

I called in from a McDonald's' once. Or twice.

Did you really?

Yeah, yeah I did. Because it was one of the call times or the car times and I went to the McDonald's instead.

You actually… I actually did record from my car quite a few times, five or 10 times.

Yeah, it was you.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. There was no place at work so I went out in the parking lot, still on the company Wi-Fi in my car.

And what really sucked is it was right next to the airport. Or sorry, not the airport, the interstate. And so, it was really loud. You had to have the doors closed and I couldn't turn on the car because that would also put a bunch of background noise. So, I would un-mute myself, talk for a minute, mute myself then crack open my door to let some air in because it was getting really hot. [Laughter]

And let some cool air come in. It was like, I don't know, it was like 70 degrees outside or something like that. Hot enough that if you're just sitting in your car in the sun, it's baking and it's 90 degrees. And so, I'm literally sweating in there talking. And then I had to stop talking, mute myself…

Open up the door, stick my head out, and breathe. I'm [gasping].

I got to let our listeners in after 200 episodes, you guys need to know. We have a really high standard for quality when it comes to production quality. [Laughter]

It's really serious.

Well, that's what's fun too, is you have on one hand you have like Aimee and Jamison who are preparing for the [inaudible] and studying. And then you have Joe sweating it out in his car calling in.

That's like a metaphor for Joe's life. [Laughter]

I'm sweating around in my car. That should be the title of my autobiography. [Laughter]

So, I'm curious. I know that several of you have changed work situations over the last year. And so, I'm kind of curious. How many of you are still at the same job you were in and how many of you aren't?

And did the podcast get you fired? [Laughter]

Or hired.

Or hired. I would definitely say the podcast got me, helped get me hired when I went to Domo. It was a big selling point for them, that I was a guy on a podcast. But I changed jobs twice since I've been on the podcast.

I've changed jobs twice. I don't know that it helped. It didn't hurt. I think the big thing that it helped with was React Rally. It was really helpful to have people to ask questions about and people to reach out to. Speaking of things like that, it just was really helpful. I don't think I could have… well, I know I couldn't have done it by myself and it helped provide a network of people to help.

Mmhmm.

Did you co-found the company that you're currently at, Jamison?

No. I think I was the third hire or something. But I'm not a [founder] or anything.

I knew you were in early. I just couldn't remember.

Just a lowly engineer and that is how I like it.

Speaking of engineers at Kuali Co, does anybody know any interesting tidbits about new engineers at Kuali Co?

Maybe?

What?

[Chuckles] So, fun story. Remember how Jamison was late the last episode we did and I was not there. And it was because Jamison and I…

AIMEE: were on the phone together.

Oh my goodness.

Ooh, juicy tidbits.

I'm not saying that Aimee is Batman. I'm just saying I've never seen Aimee and Batman in the same room at the same time.

My last name is Knight. [Chuckles]

Oh!

She's the dark knight. I knew it.

Anyway, so…

So, you have an announcement?

I do. So, the 22nd is my first day at Kuali. So, I am working with Jamison now.

Are you moving to Utah?

Not completely. I'll be there one week every month. So, 25% of the time I'll be out there. And 75% of the time I'll be here with my husband.

Hey, 25% Utah is better than 0% Utah.

I agree.

I am just learning that for the first time right now. That's cool.

It might be just the right amount of Utah. [Laughter]

Yeah, given the air quality this week.

Yeah, as long as it's not February.

Right.

Congratulations, Aimee. That's going to be awesome.

Thank you. I am very, very, very excited.

Yeah.

I am also super excited to work with Aimee. I think it'll be fun.

Congratulations to Kuali Co, too.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, definitely. Engineering upgrade.

Unfortunately…

No offense, Jamison.

Unfortunately this show…

No, I agree.

Had nothing to do with Aimee's new job.

Yeah, nothing at all, no. [Chuckles]

So Jamison, does that mean you have to quit? [Laughter]

Were you interviewing your replacement?

Maybe. It depends on how ruthless she is, I guess.

So, the funny part. I think the last show I was on I was mentioning I had done the Frontend Masters React course the weekend before. And I mentioned that and Jamison did a little dance. So, that was kind of funny. [Chuckles]

Is that all it takes to get hired at Kuali Co?

[Chuckles] To mention that?

Yeah.

It was a good interview process.

I might have to go intern over there. [Chuckles]

That's awesome.

You could sneak in.

They really do have an amazing team over there.

Yeah, they do.

Yeah.

I'm really excited. Everyone is so, so, so, so nice. Just like all the panelists here. I did want to say something though. We can get back to the job stuff but really quickly unrelated, this is sort of semirelated. I think one of the coolest parts about being on this show for me not just networking, like we're talking about jobs, but I feel like by having someone who's newer to the field on this show, after talking to my friends who are also newer it's really enabled I feel like the newer developers to feel okay asking questions because they hear me ask questions. And it just brings to the surface, it puts aside any shame that people might have in asking questions because they hear the questions here.

Awesome.

So, that's…

Yeah.

I think that that's one thing the show has opened my eyes to, is that I think there are actually more new people than people who would consider themselves experienced. It's very much a growing industry right now.

Yeah.

I did not mean to circle us away from the job topic though, because I'm curious about everybody else's stories. So, we should circle back.

Well, I know AJ has some interesting stuff going on. And he's talked a little bit about his job move recently. You want to fill us in, AJ?

I've had this idea for a long time that wouldn't it be cool if you could access all your stuff on the internet but instead of it being owned by somebody else's computer it was a computer that you owned. So, what we're doing at Daplie is working on both hardware and software to create a, the goal, the target price we're trying to get out is $99. So, a $99 server you can plug hard drives into, kind of like as if Facebook and an iPad gave birth to a server that you plug into your home internet connection. That's kind of… [Chuckles]

I'm not quite sure how to explain it because there's nothing really to compare it to. But it's the idea of not just… because there are some other devices like this and they call themselves clouds but they're not, like the Western Digital “cloud”. Like all it is, is a hard drive that's connected to the internet. There's no real cloud stuff about it, whereas what we're trying to do is take the actual infrastructure that you get in the cloud, like everything from domain names, so you set this device up with SmithFamily.com or whatever, and that goes to the device in your house.

And then you have an application interface like an iPad where you have distinct apps that manage parts of internet stuff. And of course some of that is just simple files and folders. But we want it to be much more than that to include music radio stations and a movie theater, lots of different aspects. And even eventually be able to get into the small business and medium business where people can take processing and have their backups distributed across offices. That's kind of the direction that we're going.

And we want it to be very JavaScript-focused so that people that are high school students… this is what I want, I want high school students to be able to just pick up some frontend JavaScript, program against our APIs that are being built similar to what you have with Android or iOS with similar permission modeling and data sharing model, and be able to create new and interesting experiences that don't have any sort of legal complications. Because it's something that you own in your home, so no weird privacy policy, no weird terms of service. It's your thing that you own that uses your internet connection. It's all you from end-to-end.

So, is that a good explanation?

Yeah. And mostly, I think it's interesting that you've actually… where some folks have moved on from one job to another, you've moved onto, “This is an idea that I have out there that I wish people had as an option,” and you're actually out there pursuing it.

Yeah, so that's Daplie.com, D-A-P-L-I-E dot com. There's not a lot of information on the website yet because we don't want to put out information that is confusing to the general consumer when we're not quite ready to send that message out there. But there is a little sign-up bar where if what I described is interesting to you, you can put your email address in. We'll let you know as the Kickstarter and all that gets ready.

Cool.

Congratulations.

Thanks.

I want to move through everybody. Dave, did you change jobs after you joined the show? I seem to remember that you may have…

Nope, they haven't fired me yet.

Okay. And at one point Joe, you moved from full-time work at Domo to full-time Pluralsight courses.

Yup, yup, and organizing conferences. So yeah, I made a big, huge change in my career. Went from being a development schlub to being a Pluralsight schlub.

So, you're basically unemployed is what you're saying? That's cool.

I kind of consider myself to be unemployed.

Hey Joe, you know what the difference is between unemployed software developer and a consultant?

Mm.

Business cards. [Laughter]

So true, so true.

That's awesome.

Fun story about Pluralsight. Whenever I talk to my friends and I'll mention Joe because I talk to him sometimes they're like, most of my friends are like, “Oh, I just watched his video on Pluralsight about testing.”

Joe, you're definitely the celebrity start power of this show.

Oh, gosh.

Look at you, everywhere you go you're getting thronged.

I know, right?

Thronged, yup.

Signing people's shirts on the street. [Laughter]

Signing people's shirts without their permission. [Laughs]

Yeah. Yeah, I've had a few changes here over the last year or so as well. The podcast finally took over enough of my life to where I actually couldn't do the full-time contracting anymore. People wanted more of my time than I could give them in a week because I was organizing and running and recording the podcasts. And they would get frustrated because I'd only put in 10 hours a week and I wouldn't get as much done as they wanted. So, things slowed way down for me last summer and I wound up doing Angular Remote Conf. There were other things that went on in my life a little earlier. But anyway, that all led up to basically my house being in foreclosure at the end of the summer last summer.

Whoa. [Inaudible]

And Angular Remote Conf actually made enough money to save my house.

Wow.

Oh, man.

Whoa, I had no idea.

Yeah, a lot of people had no idea. But the conferences really changed things around for me. So, I've been really pushing the conferences. The podcast sponsorships have also really helped. So yeah, so I'm not full-time consulting anymore because between the two I actually make enough to pay my living. So, I didn't really get a new job but the business has taken a different turn.

Cool.

Well, thanks for your sacrifice for these shows, man. Sheesh.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I was pretty…

I was getting pretty close to having to take a full-time job just to keep the house.

Yeah, that sounds about a major change in your career status for sure.

Yeah.

So Chuck, do you miss… for one thing, how much Ruby contracting/consulting are you doing now?

So, I don't do any at this point. I have a few things that I work on that are related to the shows. So, the DevChat.tv website is mostly Rails, a little bit of Angular. And then I've got a few other tools that I've built here and there for it. Those are also in Rails. But I don't do as much programming as I used to. And in some ways, I miss that. And in some ways it's kind of fun to challenge my brain against the business problems instead of necessarily the programming problems.

Right.

So, it's kind of a weird thing as far as any of that goes. There are definitely parts that I miss about programming full-time. I kind of went through this existential dilemma because I have five shows about programming and I don't spend as much time programming as any of the other hosts [chuckles] at this point. So, that was a little bit frustrating. And I worried a little bit about credibility. But at the same time, between the conversations I have and the preparation that I do I am able to still contribute to the shows. And I do take it kind of as my job to make sure that the shows actually happen, which isn't programming but is important.

Right.

So, it's kind of been this weird change in process and job description over the last probably six to eight months.

Well, you definitely failed on Tuesday when we tried to record this the first time.

Yeah, my computer crashed.

I think your computer got foreclosed on.

Yeah.

Yeah, it did. [Chuckles]

I'll have you know, that was my birthday. We were going to record this on my birthday.

Aww.

Aww.

We can pretend.

And it didn't happen.

Happy birthday, Joe!

Only Joe would sit here and guilt-trip Chuck.

For his computer blowing up. Chuck, FYI.

Geez, Chuck.

No pressure. [Laughter]

Really ruined my life. My birthday was a failure because of you. [Laughter]

I'll remember next year. That's funny.

We need to do a live show when I come out there. That would be cool.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, that would be so fun.

Yeah.

That'd be fun.

Let's all go skiing together and record as we all fall.

Oh my gosh.

I was going to say Chuck skiing might be a disaster.

That's why it has to be live.

Yeah, I don't [inaudible] mountains.

Sorry, repeat that.

Or ice skating.

But you have the Olympic here, Aimee. You could come show us some moves.

[Laughs] Oh, it's been too long. [Laughter]

I want to see a triple Salchow.

Yeah, I'm not sure I can do that anymore. [Laughs]

Settle for a quadruple.

Yeah.

I just bet she could skate faster backward than I could forward.

So, my favorite thing whenever I'm on the ice with people who have not skated before is go really, really fast by them and then they get scared. You don't even have to touch them and they fall over. That's really bad of me. [Laughter]

Oh, you like that, don't you?

It's funny though. Come on.

Let me just tell you how it feels on the other end of that, Aimee. [Laughter]

Not great.

I would never have guessed that you had any sort of a mean streak at all. I'm just, I'm shocked [inaudible]. [Laughter]

I only do it to people I know and people who maybe just deserve it, just a little.

Oh, that puts [me] high on the list.

And just the elderly and small children.

No!

I mean like people like my husband. [Chuckles] [Inaudible] even somehow.

She also paints tunnels into cliff faces and then…

[Speeds] by, “Meep meep!” And then runs up the tunnel.

[Laughs] Anyway, sorry.

Oh, that's awesome.

I would never do that to the elderly, ever.

[Laughs] Just small children, huh?

Oh, not small children. [Chuckles]

They bounce back.

See, the difference between you and me Aimee is that I do that on accident.

What, speed by people?

And make them fall?

Well, maybe not speed. Like it feels like speeding because it's like I'm tripping forward.

Okay. It's on. We're definitely doing a JavaScript Jabber ice rink show. [Laughter]

When are you coming out, Aimee? Let's get this [on the] calendar.

Oh, I need to bring my skates then.

Yeah. Or you can rent the really crappy ones at the ice rink.

Uhuh.

Yeah.

Can you take those things on an airplane or is that like a weapon?

You can't. You can't anymore. They are considered a weapon. Because if you ever watched, I think it's Halloween, I'm pretty sure that's how… I won't go into details, but…

I was thinking of Happy Gilmore.

[Chuckles] Yeah. Anyways.

Okay, so what's our show topic for today? 200Th episode, huh guys? [Laughter]

I do want to kind of talk a little bit about the conference organization that's come out of this. Because I don't think it's a direct result of this by any means. But Joe and Merrick and Jamison and I have all been conference organizers. I think Aimee was involved in one as well as an adviser. And I don't remember where I saw that.

Dave and AJ, you're slacking.

She did React Rally, right? Didn't [inaudible]

Oh, is that the one?

I just helped pick…

Speakers?

Yeah. I just helped pick speakers.

Gotcha.

Jamison and Matt were the big ones there.

Thanks by the way Aimee, for letting me sneak past the selection [committee]. [Laughter]

Yeah, when you come out he could slip you another 20.

[Laughs] I couldn't see names.

Although sometimes when people put links in there and it's like you can clearly see who it is, I'm not sure if that's fair or not.

Right.

Yeah.

You shouldn't give anything descriptive about who you are.

Well, I think some conferences publish their selection process. So yeah, so they say, “We hide the names,” and so you put it in the description. But others I don't think do. And so, people don't go out of their way to do that. And then at the same time I think some people go, “Okay, well I put my name on here so I can just reference the blog post that has half my talk in it,” or something.

Yeah.

Right.

Anyway, I'm curious for those of you that do organize conferences, has being on the show affected the way that you choose speakers and talks or topics?

I think so. I think it definitely has. Getting to talk with all these different people about all these various subjects opens your eyes a little bit to all the different ways that you can approach a subject. In some cases it makes you more want to get the experts on a topic and not feel weird about asking somebody who wrote a library to come and speak. But on the other sense, I think it also, when you see as a panelist I've never been exposed to this particular topic and I'm able to have a conversation about it, so somebody submits a talk and they aren't the inventor of it, I could still feel okay that well, this guy could give a good talk.

I think it's affected it. But so does also just attending conferences and seeing that, seeing the people speak and seeing that great people give great talks even if they're not the person that invented the library. There's not… the world isn't full of just Dan Abramovs who are going to invent something life-changing just for your conference.

That's [inaudible].

That's another tangent we could go on, is I feel like speaker selection is a lot like job interviews and that there are some signals you give off but the signals that… the thing that makes a good abstract doesn't necessarily make a good talk.

Mm, quite true.

And it's also a lot more biased towards famous people, kind of. Like name recognition is a huge deal in both hiring and also in conference selection because it lets you avoid risk, I think is why most people do it. Because you know at least they're not going to do a horrible job. Like if you've seen them speak before, it's kind of a known quantity. But that might not get you the best overall talks.

I think the thing that it's been… one way it's been helpful for me is just talking to conference organizers directly. We talked to Chris Williams about JSConf. And that was, I think that was the first time I felt like organizing a conference was something I could actually do. Which is weird because JSConf is not something I could do. [Chuckles] It's kind of like, this is [inaudible] of JavaScript community conferences. But just seeing that he's a human being and yeah, he did an amazing job but there's just a series of problems and you can set out and solve them. And that's… and if you do it, then it'll be a good conference and people will come. That was helpful for me.

Yeah. I would back up what you say. But sometimes it's funny. If you are going to submit a talk to somebody and you haven't spoken before, to someplace, obviously do your best job. But I think what really helps is to go and speak at meetups. So, find a meetup that will record your talks so you can post something up and show that you can get up in front of people and you can articulate.

Yeah.

And present a subject and give them something.

Yeah, and it's really good practice for you, too.

Mmhmm. And another thing, I think another thing that makes the difference between a great talk and an okay talk is giving the talk a few times before the conference. And so, I like to around the meetups and give the talk once or twice or three times before I go to a conference, if it's an important talk. I don't think Dave, you gave… So, Dave Smith… I was actually speaking of conference selection. We just had our office hours for ng-conf. Like an hour before we recorded this where a couple of the organizers held a Hangout for anybody who wanted to join to ask questions about the CFP process and any specific questions that weren't answered in our CFP. And in that I gave a big shout-out to you Dave, not that you were there. But your talk from React Rally which was one of my favorite talks of all time.

Did you give that before at all? Or was that just…

Well, the React Rally organizers were wise enough to arrange for speakers to pair off before the conference and schedule time together to do their talks to each other. And I did my talk for Julia Gao. And I got some great feedback and I realized it was really… the first incarnation of that talk was actually a big pile of crap. And so, I reworked it a lot and that's what you got. But every other talk I've ever given, I do once beforehand, usually at a meetup. That's what meetups are really great for.

The idea was, of asking the speakers to practice, was from React Conference I think. I think they go even further. They actually, the organizers themselves sit down and practice with every speaker. We were lazier than that. [Laughter]

Well, it worked out really well. It was great. I definitely benefited.

This show is the only show involved on DevChat.tv that has two spin-offs.

And the first one…

Oh, can I guess? Can I guess?

Yeah.

Adventures in Angular.

CHUCK: Uhuh.

And that show where AJ just calls in on his shower phone every week for 30 minutes. [Laughter]

You are so good. Web Shower Warriors. Or Security Warriors.

Or Wisdom Time, I think is what it's called. [Laughter]

Oh, I actually forgot about the Web Security Show. You're right. That is AJ's show. I was half right.

Yeah, yeah.

It's actually not my show. It's John Shaver's show.

Blah, blah, blah, so humble. [Chuckles]

Yeah, John kind of took it over for AJ when he got busy with Daplie. But yeah.

Ah, cool.

So, Merrick and Joe came to me and they bugged me a couple of times over several months before I actually said [chuckles] “Okay, let's do Adventures in Angular.”

Right.

Yeah. And then AJ came to me a while later last year and basically said, “I want to do a web security show.” And I said, “I don't have time to be on another show but go for it.” And we put that on DevChat.tv.

I think there's actually a funny thing that happened when we talked about putting together Adventures in Angular. Merrick and I approached you and said, “Chuck, we want to do this,” and we said, “Chuck, you're not really an Angular guy but Merrick and I we're big Angular guys. And listen, if this show makes a whole bunch of money, then we'd like to talk about maybe having us split it.” Then we found out that the shows don't make any money. They cost money. [Laughter]

[Inaudible] the cost.

And were you still interested in splitting the cost?

You know Chuck, you can have all the rewards.

Yeah. Well, they make money now. But yeah at the time, I was shelling out for the shows. And then I was basically, I was supporting them off of what I was making doing the contracting. And now it's the other way around. But anyway.

They make money in the academic sense of the word.

So, and Web Security Warriors, I would love to have people's questions come in. because it's called Web Security Warriors but we're not trying to be the super professional security analyst podcast. Because I think there's already a few of those out there and they're highly technical. What we're really trying to do is bridge that gap between the average developer and the security world and just kind of not give all of the details but talk about topics and ideas and concepts that a lowly, humble developer can take into consideration. So, it's definitely geared towards that audience, not towards the people that are already security professionals. We actually had a negative iTunes comment to that effect which at first it was kind of hurtful. But then I was like, “Well, that's kind of what we're going for.”

Yeah. Yeah, I saw that one. And I was like, “Well, that's not that show.” So anyway, yeah and then we've also had React Native Radio join. And that's been going strong.

Oh! How long has that one been going?

Three or four months?

Oh man, I got to get my subscription up on that.

Yeah. They do a terrific job on it, too. I've listened to several of them and I don't know that I have any intention of learning to do React Native but I was like, “Wow, this is a really well put together show.”

You know, I think it's also worth talking when you're talking about spin-offs that there's actually been other shows not done by DevChat.tv that have been spin-offs of this, namely JavaScript Air and Angular Air have basically been spin-offs of this. They do their own format where they actually do it live on YouTube but those are essentially direct spin-offs, well not direct spin-offs. I don't want to take anything away from [inaudible].

Maybe indirect spin-off?

Yeah, like inspired by. I think people saw that hey, it's okay for a Joe Schmoe to just start up a podcast and people will watch it. And not to take anything away from all the amazing people that are on this podcast, but I think the one thing that makes JavaScript Jabber the most amazing is the fact that it happens every week.

Yeah. That's actually a really big deal, is that it happens every week. Because people put it into their routine. In fact, if the shows come out late I get emails. I don't know if you know this.

Wow.

I get emails. Is it coming out this week? Hey, I missed it this morning on my morning commute. [Chuckles] It's really funny. But yeah.

That is amazing. Dear listeners: thank you for making us part of your day and your week. That is awesome.

Agreed, agreed. I've done so much looking around for podcasts and there are so few that are regular. Even if they're once a month, to actually do it truly every month, so many say, “We're coming out about every two weeks,” then it's about every eight, 10 weeks. They put out six episodes then they've stopped.

Yeah.

Because they realize it's a whole bunch of pain and not much reward.

Yeah.

Sorry Aimee.

[Chuckles] No. I just think…

What you're saying is that they don't have a Chuck.

Yeah, that's right. They don't have Chuck.

Or Mandy.

I think one thing that…

I have to give credit to Mandy.

Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to add. And Mandy, because she makes us all sound wonderful.

I think one thing that I wanted to add that I've learned is how good Chuck is at a lot of the stuff that doesn't show up directly on the air. There's definitely something to be said for having dedication and effort put into the administration of the podcast. And that as guests, we don't do anything. Like we can suggest people, we show up, and that's it.

Right.

And Chuck does a ton of work on wrangling sponsors and managing the website and getting transcripts put up and publishing the podcast all in different places. And he's good at that. And he's good at being consistent at it and not a lot of people can do that like he does.

Yeah, Mandy…

So thanks, Chuck.

Mandy does a lot of that stuff, too.

Yeah, but you… I mean, you found her and you hired her and you pay her money and lots of people…

Yes.

Do not…

But it's not just that as well. Another big thing is the fact that Chuck is actually a really great panelist. There's been so many times when we've had a guest on and I'm out of questions. Everybody's out of questions. Chuck's always got another question. It's amazing that he can come up with all these questions that actually are meaningful when I'm like, “I'm completely out.” I don't know anything else to talk about. The person doesn't have anything to talk about. Chuck's like, “Well, let's talk about…” I don't know if he just got this because he's done this for so long, he's got this huge repertoire. But I think that's another great part of the show is there's been plenty of times when we would have sat for 20 minutes. Of course it gets edited. But it would have been a lot less content if Chuck hadn't been around.

Yeah, without Chuck it would just be me going, “Okay, tell me again what your favorite color is?” [Laughter]

I just want to say thanks to Mandy for editing, because I meet people in real life and they're like, “Wow, you sound terrible in real life but you sound great on the show.” [Laughter]

I didn't want to say anything Dave, but…

The quality is so much worse in real life. You're [inaudible].

That's why it takes like eight days to get an episode out. It's because of all the post-processing to get my nasally voice out of there.

You know, if you're interested, basically the timeline for getting an episode out goes something like this. We finish recording, I put it into Dropbox. Mandy will edit it completely either the day we record it or the day after. And then she sends it over to the transcriptionists and to turn that around it usually happens over the weekend. We record this usually on a Tuesday. So, those transcripts happen Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday-ish. And then it's ready to go up that next week. Now, we used to record the week before it goes live. And now we record two weeks before it goes live which gives us a little bit of a buffer. I've also wound up supplementing some of the shows when we get too far behind with an actual conference talk from the remote conferences. So, you've all benefited from that as well.

But yeah, it's kind of an interesting process there, if you're curious about the timeline. Also, to edit a podcast typically takes, if you're really good it'll take you one and a half to two times the length of the show. So, if it's an hour show she'll spend about an hour and a half to two hours editing. If you're new, when I was new, it took three to four times as long as the show was, when I was editing shows at that point. So, just to put that out there. That's the kind of time commitment that goes into it. And then Mandy still has to listen to it another time so she can get all the timestamps and links and everything else that go into the show notes and then put it up on the website and everything else. So, it is a bit of work to get it out there.

What a job.

I wonder if she's sick of hearing our voices.

I wonder how much JavaScript she's picked up on.

She's picked up some. I know that she's picked up some programming concepts and actually done some Python and Ruby.

I heard she's interviewing at Kuali Co. [Laughter]

All she has to do is watch that Frontend Masters course and she's hired.

Well, thanks to Mandy. Thanks Chuck. And thanks transcriptionist, whatever piece of machinery that is. I guess that's a [chuckles] that's awesome.

That goes through Upwork.

And thanks [inaudible].

Through what?

Upwork. Odesk.

Is that like a crowd-source thing?

No, but it's a place where you can find people to do jobs.

Oh.

Yeah, I need to actually put all that stuff down in a book. I have people ask me about that stuff all the time.

So anyway, I know that we're at a hard stop for some folks, so I'm going to push us to picks. Joe, do you want to start us off with picks?

Yeah, you bet. I've got just two short picks here. Obviously besides just JavaScript Jabber itself. And I think it's okay for us to pick ourselves, especially for the 200th episode.

And then I also want to pick the Harry Potter audio book. Been recently re-listening to those in the car with the family whenever we take a drive that's more than 20 minutes long. And I just keep getting impressed with how awesome Harry Potter is as the series of books.

And so, as a secondary thing in relation to that, there's the new book in the Reckoner series by Brandon Sanderson coming out on the 20th. I've been re-reading books one and two to get ready for that. Absolutely one of my favorite series of books. Just so amazing.

Is that one 'Calamity'?

Yeah, 'Calamity'. It's just coming out. But such an awesome series. And so, I want to pick that as well.

Then just a quick mention for anybody looking for an awesome Angular conference to go to, AngularConnect is going to be happening in September in London. It's the other official Angular conference where the entire team will actually show up and speak. So, ng-conf is sold out but AngularConnect is going to be putting tickets up on sale soon, so keep an eye out for that, if you are into Angular and want to take a, jump out to London whether you be a European or American or wherever you live.

Yeah, I keep forgetting it on Adventures in Angular. I keep saying, “Yes, you should come to ngconf,” and then Joe's always like, “We're sold out,” and I'm like, “Oh, yeah.” [Laughter]

So, those are my picks.

Alright. AJ, what are your picks?

Some of you may have seen today, meaning a week or two weeks ago, that scientists have discovered gravitational waves. And the New York Times has a really cool video on that. And that's not really what I'm picking. But I don't know how to get to the other videos because they just started playing in sequence. But there's a whole bunch of really cool science-y videos that the New York Times has linked to this article.

I'm also going to pick a book that I read recently called 'The God Who Weeps'. I've done a lot of soul searching in the past month or so and a lot of consideration of the life, the universe, and everything. And this book was really interesting and it kind of gave me a reset on religion in some ways. Because there's so many typical things that people believe about one religion or another because someone in some point in history made some creed or some doctrine or some statement and said that this is the way it is. And this book kind of peels that back and says, well let's take a rational approach based on the way that humans are and consider what makes sense based on the natural internal feelings that people have in their search for something greater in the universe. And so, it was just, it was really interesting to me and opened my eyes. And it's written by a member of my church, but it's not something that I think too many members of my church would… the ideas or concepts are necessarily really well acquainted with. So, 'The God Who Weeps'.

Alright. Jamison, what are your picks?

I just have one pick. It's a blog post by Julia Evans. I've picked some of her blog posts before because she has a really clear and approachable writing style to things that can be complicated. And she usually writes more about systems programming type topics which are shrouded in layers of hairy neck beards. So, [chuckles] I really like just how approachable she makes things. It's called 'Have high expectations for computers'. It just talks about what the performance limitations of computers are. And she cites this example of a web server in C that somebody wrote that gets I think 9 million requests per second. This is HTTP requests. And then talks about how we struggle with I don't know, 500 requests per second in some of our web frameworks that do a lot of work to make it easy to program in. But that we should know how high the performance, how fast you can actually make things if you really try, so that we are encouraged to push the boundaries of performance on our everyday web development work.

That's my only pick.

Alright. Aimee, what are your picks?

Okay, I have a couple this week actually. So, the first one I'm sure if you are on Twitter you saw, I think it was maybe two weeks ago now that GitHub went down. So, this is just on their blog. It's like their incident report. And I thought it was an interesting read. So, it goes into a lot of details. So, your mileage may vary on it as far as I go. But still, it was really, really good to read.

The other thing I wanted to pick, this is a super short blog post. But kind of like I mentioned on this show, I feel like by having this show be friendly to all levels, I think it's encouraged some people who are newer to write their own blog posts and things like that. But I felt like this was just a really good short read. It was written by someone, if I'm saying his name correctly, was Denzel Brade. But it's just called 'What to use when and why'. So, I think it had a good perspective if you're learning.

The other thing I wanted to pick, I will give a warning that this is not a secular book so you may or may not be interested. But it is called 'Captivating'. And if you have a daughter or maybe even your wife and you're into this kind of thing, I forgot that I read this book a long time ago. And a friend of mine was going through something and I recommended it to them. And it just reminded me how great this book is. But it's  called 'Captivating' and it's by a woman named Stasi Eldridge. It's S-T-AS-I.

And that is it for me.

Alright. Dave, what are your picks?

Okay. Well, I actually don't have any picks for you today and I was tempted to instead just make a pun and pick my nose, but I won't do that either. So, I'll just have to pass this week.

Oh, I should have skipped you at the end of the show instead of the beginning of the show.

Merrick, do you have some picks for us?

Yeah, I actually do. Two picks. So, one of them is this open source continuous delivery thing called Drone. And it's really sick because it's built on Docker. And so, you're able to version your build agents using a YAML file in your repo. I was able to get it setup in like an hour. And we're getting all sorts of static analysis and code metrics and stuff per commit. It's been really useful for us without slowing down our deployment pipeline.

And the other one is a book called 'Haskell Book'. It's by Christopher Allen and Julie, I'm not sure how to say her last name right. Moronuki. But it's made a lot of these concepts from Haskell a lot more approachable for someone [like] me who comes from a design background. And it's just been helping me learn a lot.

So, those are my two picks.

Alright. I've got a few picks. So, the first one is Amazon Prime. I'm just going to pick it again because I think it's awesome. I love just being able to order stuff and get it within a couple of days.

I also ordered some floating shelves which are just, you basically screw a screw into the wall and you slide it over the screws. And it doesn't really have any supports on it. And that's to put all my knick-knacks up on my wall. I've actually been cleaning up my office and doing a thorough job of it this time. Otherwise, the clutter tends to just come back out from wherever I shoved it. And so, those are just nice because it's just a good place for me to put the stuff that is there kind of for people to look that, not that anyone ever comes in here except for me and my family. But anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and pick those.

And we're kind of in a political season right now. And so, I'm not going to pick the particular books that I've been reading.

Just pick Donald Trump and move on.

Ugh.

Kidding. I'm sorry to interrupt. Continue.

No, it's fine. It's interesting though because a lot of people seem to be choosing their candidates based on the couple of snippets they see on the news or whoever their friends are talking about. And most of the candidates as I found actually have books out where they talk about their viewpoints on the things that they want to do and their viewpoints on what they actually believe. And so, what I'm going to pick is going out and picking up the books that these people have written about their particular point of views on these things. And then as you go out to primary elections or caucuses or things like that, you can actually speak to what they're about and vote for them based on what they're actually going to get done instead of voting for them because of whatever it is that was popular or stupid that they said on TV.

So yeah, so those are my picks. And yeah, we'll go ahead and wrap this show up. But thank you all for coming out, episode 200. We've been doing this for over four years. It's kind of amazing. But yeah, thank you all for coming and we'll catch everyone next week.