Summary Rob is learning Rust, and feels like he's total beginner again. Rust's concept of ownership and its handling of strings are just different than any other language he has worked with, but JD ensures him that this is how everyone feels when starting with Rust... JD spent the last week working on their game, starting with rewriting everything. He explored using a game engine instead of React for the visualization, and really likes the approach. He set up the new game engine Bevy , and hacke...
Sep 16, 2020•34 min•Ep. 32
Summary Rob is back home after a stressful trip to renew a passport. For JD it was the first week after his vacation, and he had to readjust to work again. He also wanted to shape some work after their discussion in the last episode, but didn't manage to get as far as he hoped. JD wonders if it makes more sense to focus on game development, or invest equally in building up a community around the project. Rob's concerned that someone might steal their work, and is not too enthusiastic about the i...
Sep 09, 2020•35 min•Ep. 31
Summary Rob and JD catch up after their last episode on Shape Up . Rob has been studying game engines, and bought a Rust course. JD just watch the talk Bending the Curve from RustConf, in which Esteban Kuber talks about the difficulty teaching Rust to experienced programmers, and shares how it is necessary to unlearn certain assumptions from other programming languages. JD has been thinking a lot about how to really start the project he wants to do with Rob. Both are freaking out a little bit gi...
Sep 02, 2020•32 min•Ep. 30
Summary YEAR 1 ANNIVERSARY! Rob and JD totally forgot that they released their first episode one year ago, and didn't prepare anything special... Rob has been reading Shape Up by Basecamp , and the two start discussing its content. Rob got hooked when he read that Basecamp doesn't keep a backlog. (And he now wonders how the Hey support team passes feature requests to the developers.) For JD, the concept of Fixed Time, Variable Scope resonated the most. Regarding backlogs, he thinks it is really ...
Aug 28, 2020•34 min•Ep. 29
Summary Rob is back after moving to Austin, Texas! And JD survived a heatwave in Europe that made it very tough to be productive. Nonetheless, JD managed to think more about the game he wants to build. And he set up a prototype with some technologies he is interested in exploring. To get Rob up to speed, he introduces the game Screeps , which is an MMO strategy game for programmers and an inspiration. From there, the discussion turns into a general reflection on video games, and what will be imp...
Aug 19, 2020•35 min•Ep. 28
Summary Rob had a busy week and some big news: He's moving next week. JD on the other hand took it a bit easier than usual this week, and has been thinking a lot about a new project. Reflecting on his past projects and why he started them, JD noticed a pattern. He began those projects to learn about a very specific topic, for example Stimulus , and once he did that there was not purpose in continuing with the project. Which led to quite a lot of unfinished work, a feeling of guilt, and the quest...
Jul 26, 2020•35 min•Ep. 27
Summary Rob and JD are back after a week without recording. Rob has been giving hey.com a spin as his email solution, and is enjoying the experience so far. JD is still contemplating how to optimize his own setup, now thinking of adding another email host in the middle as a backup. Other than that, JD has been a bit in a slump. He started a small side project, trying out Basecamp and Shape Up in the process, which has been a lot of fun. Especially the idea behind hill charts resonated with him, ...
Jul 17, 2020•35 min•Ep. 26
Summary Rob is back from a small vacation, while JD is waiting for his. During his vacation, Rob joined the virtual ElixirConf EU and got his invite for hey.com , the new email service by Basecamp . He has been on the fence about paying for email and migrating, and he's curious about JD's opinion on both hey.com and ProtonMail . JD shares his setup with a custom domain, and how he's been using ProtonMail the past few years. Rob has had advertised hey.com to friends, and had to argue why you woul...
Jul 04, 2020•36 min•Ep. 25
Rob is still going in depth with elixir, discussing his progress and learns more about processes, concurrency and parallelism in elixir. JD discusses his struggles in finding the project he wants to pursue, leaning towards gamification for learning to code.
Jun 17, 2020•31 min•Ep. 24
Summary We are back to our normal recording schedule. Rob found a new intermediate programming course about Elixir that he started this weekend. It's by The Pragmatic Studio , and it slowly builds up a web framework from scratch. Rob is super excited about this, as he expects to learn a lot from the course. JD has been thinking about the last episode, and Rob's and his differing opinions on Rails and whether it does too much. Exploring Domain-Driven Design, he wonders how to apply the lessons he...
Jun 10, 2020•33 min•Ep. 23
Summary Rob plans some activities again in a world that slowly opens up, and shares his frustrating experience booking tickets for Universal Studios. JD is thinking about his summer vacation, and has decided to take a full three weeks off to recharge from the stress. It'll probably be a motorcycle vacation in Germany. The two chat about the cultural differences when it comes to holidays, especially between the US and Sweden. Then JD gives an update on his project, reflects on his approach, and d...
Jun 07, 2020•36 min•Ep. 22
Summary Rob and JD go in depth about software architectures, domain driven design and web frameworks. JD is getting a bit overwhelmed at home, but still managing to dive into his side project and deciding and thinking about the architecture around it, while listening to a lot of Alicia Keys. Rob and JD discuss their, strong dislike for JavaScript because hate is a strong word, discussing all the "bugs/features" that the technology offers along with its crazy types. Stay in touch Website: https:/...
Jun 02, 2020•36 min•Ep. 21
Summary Rob and JD catch up again after missing a week. Rob enjoys learning new things, and has focused his attention on new knowledge vs. progress for the sake of progress. His work with GraphQL for the Taskful 3 API rewrite is one example, and rebuilding his portfolio website with nuxt another. Rob is excited about Phoenix LiveView , and its equivalent in Rails called StimulusReflex . JD and Rob geek out hard over the current state of the Rails ecosystem, starting with StimulusReflex and A May...
May 20, 2020•36 min•Ep. 20
Summary JD and Rob check in after another week of quarantine. JD's brain has gone into overdrive looking for problems to solve to distract from the current situation, while Rob has found peace rediscovering music from his past that fuels his coding. The talk of music gets the two sidetracked into discussing Spotify vs. Apple Music... When they recover, JD starts introducing a new project he is working on. Dreaming of a paperless office, but without a good system to organize his digital files, he...
May 06, 2020•31 min•Ep. 19
Summary Rob is enjoying his new life as a freelancer, while JD struggled through another stage of grief. He doesn't expect to be back in an office till autumn or even winter, and doesn't know how to take a vacation to really disconnect and get away from it all. Rob wonders if camping could be an option, and JD shares his dream to do a road trip with friends to the remote countryside of Sweden. While working on Taskful's backend, Rob has started to explore GraphQL. He also got hooked on the probl...
Apr 29, 2020•34 min•Ep. 18
Summary Corona is still a thing that weighs heavily on Rob and JD. They catch up on how they've been dealing with quarantine, and discuss how living in a remote rural area suddenly seems very appealing. Despite the lock down, JD still managed to make a new experience at a McDonald's drive-thru. Rob shares his experience diving deeper into Elixir and Domain Driven Design, and how he's considering GraphQL for the Taskful backend. JD reorganized his Git repositories now that GitHub organizations ar...
Apr 22, 2020•33 min•Ep. 17
Summary At the end of week five of quarantine, JD and Rob catch up. They start being sick of staying home and they miss exercising. JD contemplates buying some exercise equipment, and Rob dreams of a house with an exercise room. Rob shares exciting news about big changes in his work, and how he felt really burned out before. JD bought an upgrade for his hobby, which came with some unexpected exercise. Two weeks into Q2, they finally find the time to reflect on Q1 and the goals they set at the be...
Apr 15, 2020•36 min•Ep. 16
Summary JD and Rob continue where they left off. They check in about how they've adjusted to Corona, and share how they stay sane being at home. Rob shares how the launch of Taskful 3 went, and JD talks about what he did in his side project the last two weeks. Long story short: lots of procrastination playing with Terraform. JD mentions that he is looking for better ways to plan his work, and the two discuss tools and their trade-offs for managing tasks, projects, and ideas. New Format! We are t...
Apr 08, 2020•33 min•Ep. 15
JD and Rob are stuck at home like everyone else. With these unique times they each share their experience, being a different set up for JD and nothing changing for Rob. They both discuss the future and permanent effects they think this pandemic and quarantine may cause to society. Rob and JD also talk about what they have been working on and the process they are making.
Mar 28, 2020•41 min•Ep. 14
For the first time ever, both Rob and JD are formally working remotely. They catch up on COVID-19, routines while working from home, and the risks of walking to your mailbox in Florida, and then they get technical. Rob has some questions around legacy databases and Elixir, and JD shares his experience working with TypeScript. They discuss the pros and cons of React and Vue, and the value of strongly typed languages. At the end, JD provides an update on his work in the sim racing space, and expla...
Mar 12, 2020•51 min•Ep. 13
Rob and JD catch up where they left off two weeks ago. Rob shares stories about his progress working with Elixir, and a new project he is working on. JD is formally on vacation, but finds it hard to relax amidst worries about his home, car, and finances. The topic of relaxation and healthy hobbies eventually leads Rob and JD to discuss the state of the internet, and whether things will get better or worse in the future. Don't worry, though, they end on a kinda optimistic note...
Feb 24, 2020•49 min•Ep. 12
Rob and JD check up on each other's goals and how it is coming along, Rob is having some struggles on one specifically. JD starts working and learning React and they both discuss the way their brain learn new things and and the methods and approaches they use to learn. JD is going strong with his new project and he is facing new challenges.
Feb 17, 2020•46 min•Ep. 11
JD has started working on a side project, and some what poorly explains to Rob what he is doing. They talk about racing simulations, APIs, and the programming language Rust. Rob is back from a company retreat, and feels more excited than ever to dive into Elixir.
Jan 29, 2020•45 min•Ep. 10
First episode of the year. JD and Rob got back from holidays and are motivated to start a great year with their new set of goals. JD and Rob both discuss self improvement goals, meditation, and career paths for the year as well as how they plan to accomplish them.
Jan 23, 2020•55 min•Ep. 9
The last episode of 2019! JD and Rob reflect on their first six months of podcasting, the expectations they had before starting, and the lessons they learned along the way. They end up randomly discussing how their music consumption has changed, especially in relation to work and exercise, and close out the episode with a brief look ahead into 2020. Whoever made it this far, thanks so much for sticking with us. We can't believe we managed to get to eight episodes, and are very excited to continu...
Dec 10, 2019•44 min•Ep. 8
Reaching the end of the year, Rob and JD talk about what they're doing and their tech plans for the holidays. Rob continues learning Elixir, JD is pursuing Rust and plans to organize all his storage into his own in-house server and they're both planning on getting the new MacBook Pro 16 inch.
Nov 24, 2019•44 min•Ep. 7
Scheduling a time to record is tough across continents, and Rob and JD finally catch up again after two weeks. Since last time, JD bought a car, and Rob started to explore the programming language Elixir again. The two chat about their distaste for advertisement in apps, the question of frontend vs. backend, and what hobbies to pick up to be more creative.
Nov 15, 2019•53 min•Ep. 6
Following up on last week's episode about burnout, Rob and JD discuss finding a healthy balance in life. They talk about sleep, new habits, camping and fishing, and buying cars. Rob teases a new project he wants to work on, but emphasis that it's all about the balance.
Oct 25, 2019•51 min•Ep. 5
Burning out is never good, Rob did not have a good week at work. Anxiety and lack of enjoyment at work can lead to unpleasant results. In this episode, Rob and JD discuss possible solutions to move away from a burn out and find enjoyment or a balance again.
Oct 19, 2019•41 min•Ep. 4
It has been 4 weeks since the last episode?! After that long, JD and Rob do some major catching up. Talking about JD's eventful weeks at his new job, finding new routines and adjusting to the unique lifestyle it comes with. They also talk about productivity issues and tools and techniques to try out.
Oct 09, 2019•48 min•Ep. 3
