The Polyglot Developer Podcast - podcast cover

The Polyglot Developer Podcast

Software Engineer and Developer Advocate, Nic Raboy, shares all his tips and tricks to becoming a polyglot developer. Learn about the latest trends in web, mobile, and game development and how you can quickly get ahead in becoming an incredible developer. With a background in programming languages such as Java, Android, Node.js, and Golang and a background with frameworks such as Express, Ionic Framework, NativeScript, Zend Framework, and Apache Cordova, Nic Raboy is a polyglot with a lot to share. Find complex code tutorials on my blog found at https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com and my YouTube channel found at https://www.youtube.com/user/nicraboy
Last refreshed:
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Download Metacast podcast app
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

TPDP038: COBOL Development on the Mainframe

In this episode I'm joined by Elizabeth Joseph from IBM, and we discuss COBOL. I know what you're thinking. Why are we resurrecting a dinosaur of a programming technology for this podcast episode? While the programming language is one of the oldest, it is still very relevant when it comes to modern development, more particularly mainframe development. While the focus point of this episode is around COBOL, Elizabeth and I spend a lot more time discussing mainframe development and where it fits in...

Jul 02, 202037 min

TPDP037: Writing Tests in a Development Project

In this episode I'm joined by repeat guest, and awesome developer, Corbin Crutchley from Unicorn Utterances. The topic of this episode is on testing, and I'm not talking about taking exams, I'm talking about writing tests in your development projects to produce much better final products. If you've ever been curious about the differences between unit tests, integration tests, end to end tests, and all of the other possible types of tests that might exist, this episode is for you. It doesn't matt...

Jun 04, 202037 min

TPDP036: Machine Learning, AI, and Data Science

In this episode I'm joined by Upkar Lidder from IBM, and we're talking about modern machine learning. Do you process a large amount of data and manually make decisions on it? There's a good chance that you could be leveraging machine learning to reduce your workload and make more accurate decisions. Learn about what machine learning is, how it differs from artificial intelligence and data science, and what you need in order to be successful with it. A brief writeup to this episode can be found v...

May 04, 202042 min

TPDP035: Developing on the Blockchain

In this episode I'm joined by Lennart Frantzell from IBM, and we're talking about the blockchain. If you've ever been curious on what the blockchain is, why you should develop on it, or how to even develop on it, this is the episode for you. We clear the air on a lot of misconceptions that people have and show that it is more than just cryptocurrency and hype. A brief writeup to this episode can be found via https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2020/04/tpdp-e35-developing-on-the-blockchain/

Apr 14, 202032 min

TPDP034: Containers, Virtual Machines, and Orchestration, Part 2

This episode is a continuation of the previous episode featuring Marek Sadowski from IBM. In the previous episode, Marek and I discussed the history and use-cases behind virtual machines, containers, and bare metal deployments. We briefly discussed orchestration, but ran out of time when it came to getting into the exciting topics. As part of the continuation, we jump into Kubernetes (K8s), a popular container orchestration tool, and how it differs from popular orchestration services like Red Ha...

Mar 11, 202043 min

TPDP033: Containers, Virtual Machines, and Orchestration, Part 1

In this episode I'm joined by Marek Sadowski from IBM, and we're bringing DevOps into focus. More particularly, we're focusing on virtual machines, containers, and orchestrating them with tools like Kubernetes and RedHat OpenShift. If you've ever had to deploy an application, you've probably asked yourself, what do I choose for deployment? Do I build my own hardware, use a virtual machine, or do I look into containers? What happens when your one application turns into one hundred applications? H...

Feb 18, 202053 min

TPDP032: Getting Familiar with TypeScript for Development

In this episode I'm joined by Corbin Crutchley, a friend and regular on the show, and we set out to talk about TypeScript and how it is used in modern development. If you've never been exposed to TypeScript, it is a strongly typed language that acts as a superset to JavaScript, but compiles to JavaScript in the end. It is a go-to technology for a lot of developers and is becoming increasingly popular every day. Corbin and I take some time to explain all of the benefits and a few of the negatives...

Oct 11, 201934 min

TPDP031: Developer Education through Books, Video Courses, and Conferences

In this episode I'm joined by Adrienne Tacke, author of Coding for Kids: Python, and Alex Ziskind, owner of the NativeScripting course platform. The topic of this episode is broken into two parts. The first is around improving your skills as a developer through different education avenues such as eBooks, video courses, conferences, and other events. The three of us on the show are developers, like many of the listeners. We each have our own methods towards learning new development technologies o...

Sep 12, 201950 min

TPDP030: Building a Developer Community with Meetups

In this episode I'm joined by Vijay Menon, organizer of the JavaScriptLA and JavaScript South Bay Meetup groups in Southern California. The topic of this episode is around the importance of being a part of a developer community and building your own if one doesn't already exist in your local area. In this episode you'll hear success stories that Vijay has had at his very large and successful developer communities and the work that is involved for building and managing your own on Meetup.com. A b...

Aug 09, 201953 min

TPDP029: Asynchronous JavaScript Development

In this episode I'm joined by Corbin Crutchley, a seasoned JavaScript developer with extensive knowledge of various frameworks such as Vue.js, Angular, and React.js. Corbin also operates his own development blog, Unicorn Utterances. The topic of this episode is around asynchronous development using JavaScript and no particular framework. If you're coming from other programming languages, the concept of promises, callbacks, async / await, and similar all might seem daunting when it comes to worki...

Jul 08, 201935 min

TPDP028: Coding Bootcamps vs Traditional Computer Science Degrees

In this episode I'm joined by Ben Nelson, co-founder of Lambda School, an increasingly popular coding bootcamp with a slightly different structure and monetization strategy than the others. Computer Science programs at a university are known to be tough, painful, and exhausting. This is because of the nature of the material, duration of the program, and the fact that you're probably going to be challenged with difficult classes outside the direct scope of software development. This is where codi...

Jun 10, 201948 min

TPDP027: Static Website Generation with Hugo

In this episode I'm joined by Bjørn Erik Pedersen, the core maintainer of Hugo, a popular static site generator built with the Go programming language. Content management systems can be clunky because of all the layers involved in the stack. These systems usually have a database and backend technology in place before the content is ever sent to the browser for rendering. Not to mention, the more layers you are working with, the higher chance you'll be attacked through a bug or exploit. This is w...

May 09, 201952 min

TPDP026: Game Development with Houdini

In this episode I'm joined by Ben Mears who works for SideFX, a visual effects company for the gaming and film industry. The focus of this particular episode is around Houdini, a popular tool used within both industries. However, we're going to put a gaming spin on the episode. Creating visual effects for games can be complicated and time consuming, but they don't have to be. With Houdini, you can use procedural, node-based workflows, for generating game assets and terrains. Ben Mears and I expl...

Apr 10, 201935 min

TPDP025: Securing Applications with a Second Factor of Authentication

In this episode I'm joined by Luke Walker who is a Solutions Architect at Yubico, the company that creates security hardware tokens such as the YubiKey. Security is a big deal in for both end users who are supplying data and developers who are working to keep that data safe. Luke and I spend some time in this episode discussing some of the various two-factor authentication (2FA) mechenisms that can be implemented in web applications and where some of these mechenisms fall short. In addition to t...

Mar 02, 201943 min

TPDP024: Mobile Application Security

In this episode I'm joined by first time guest, Rob Lauer, and repeat guest TJ VanToll, to talk about securing mobile applications from multiple perspectives. Both Rob and TJ work for Progress, the core contributors of the mobile development framework, NativeScript, but NativeScript is by no means the focus of the episode. The focus is around security, and that can mean numerous things ranging from code security, the security of any data on the device at rest, and the security of data being sent...

Feb 12, 201940 min

TPDP023: Being a Freelance Developer Contractor or Consultant

In this episode I'm joined by Nolan Erck who is a freelance developer consultant and is the owner of South of Shasta Consulting, located in Sacramento, California. The focus of this episode is to dive deep into freelance development and some of the things to consider versus working as a full-time employee for a typical organization. This is valuable to anyone looking to transition from their current developer career or to anyone who is just now entering the work force and is looking for options ...

Jan 25, 201944 min

TPDP022: NoSQL Databases and the Flexibility of a Non-Relational Model

In this episode I'm joined by Matt Groves, Senior Developer Advocate at the NoSQL database company, Couchbase. The focus of this episode is to become familiar with NoSQL and where it makes sense to use it in your projects, both new and old. Matt and explore numerous NoSQL database technologies which include Graph, Document, Key-Value, and Columnar, and look at the possible advantages they bring over the RDBMS alternative. I know Matt Groves from my time working with him at Couchbase. While Couch...

Oct 02, 201845 min

TPDP021: Developer Evangelism

In this episode I'm joined by Matthew Revell, founder of the Developer Relations consultancy organization, Hoopy. Developer Relations, Developer Advocacy, and Developer Evangelism, are relatively new roles at many organizations, but are critical for spreading awareness and getting adoption of any product the organization sells. Matthew shares his experience in Developer Relations, more specifically Developer Evangelism, and what those in the role do on a day-to-day as well as how it benefits the...

Sep 10, 201845 min

TPDP020: GraphQL for API Development

In this episode I'm joined by Lee Byron, former Facebook employee, who is one of the co-creators of GraphQL. Coming from RESTful API development, I've run into many pain-points that GraphQL works to alleviate, and is one of the reasons why I've become such an advocate for it for modern development. Lee and I spend a lot of time discussing the fundamentals of GraphQL and how to get started with it in development. Not only are we focusing on the how, but we are also focusing on the why, which is v...

Aug 07, 201856 min

TPDP019: Automated Software Delivery for Cloud Native Applications

In this episode I'm joined by Jim Clark who works as the Chief Architect at Atomist. Jim and I spend a lot of time discussing how the pipeline model to software delivery can be improved by making it a workflow and event driven model instead with a service like Atomist. The pipeline approach can only get you so far and it is limited in how the appropriate teams can get the necessary notifications to function efficiently. Jim and I explore how to get beyond these common problems. A brief writeup t...

Jun 02, 201846 min

TPDP018: Progressive Web Application Development

In this episode I'm joined by Tara Manicsic who works as a Developer Advocate team at Progress Software. Tara and I spend time discussing Progressive Web Applications (PWA) and how you can be effective building them with service workers, among other things, for mobile devices as well as standard desktop-based web browsers. If you're into developing modern web and mobile applications, getting informed on Progressive Web Application (PWA) development is something you should consider. A writeup to ...

May 15, 201842 min

TPDP017: Going FaaS on Serverless with OpenWhisk

In this episode I'm joined by Carlos Santana who works on the Cloud Functions team at IBM. Carlos and I get all your questions answered when it comes to what serverless is and how you can create your own very scalable functions that can be deployed on it. We name drop a few providers such as AWS Lambda and Azure Functions, but the focus is centered around IBM's Cloud Functions service which uses Apache OpenWhisk. If you're into developing web applications, learning about functions as a service (...

Feb 19, 201843 min

TPDP016: Job Hunting as a Software Engineer

In this episode I am joined by Brenda itReverie, a fellow application developer that I met when I was at NativeScript Developer Days 2017. Brenda and I shift the focus away from software development for a moment and focus on hunting down and locking in a job in application development, a subject that is long, stressful, and never pleasant. In this episode we answer all your questions regarding getting called by recruiters and tackling those complicated algorithm and coding challenges given in th...

Jan 30, 201838 min

TPDP015: Authorizing Access with OAuth

In this episode I am joined by Ryan Chenkie, Developer Advocate at the internet safety company, Auth0. Ryan and I discuss OAuth and how it can be used for authorizing third-party access to your data. If you've been keeping up, you'll remember that I wrote the very popular ng-cordova-oauth and ng2-cordova-oauth libraries for Ionic Framework that allowed mobile applications to work with OAuth providers like Google and Facebook. There are a lot of common questions around the protocol such as storin...

Aug 02, 201735 min

TPDP014: Object Storage for Application Developers

In this episode I am joined by Krishna Srinivas, engineer at the open source object storage company, Minio. Krishna and I discuss object storage which is different than database storage or plain filesystem storage. A popular object solution is Amazon S3, but it is not the only solution. Object storage is great for protecting data from corruption or loss as well as providing a great way to work with it via standard HTTP. This makes it great for application development. A writeup to this episode c...

Jun 14, 201732 min

TPDP013: The Go Programming Language and Where it Fits in Modern Development

In this episode I am joined by Matt Holt, creator of the very popular web server known as Caddy. Instead of focusing on Caddy in this particular episode, we focus on the Go programming language, which was used to make Caddy so successful. The Go programming language, sometimes referred to as Golang, is a very popular alternative to languages like PHP and Node.js because it is very fast, efficient, and lightweight in comparison. Both Matt and I explore why this is and how you can use it in your o...

Mar 27, 201732 min

TPDP012: Getting the Help You Need on Stack Overflow, Blogs, and Forum Boards

I record a lot of programming videos and write even more tutorials. With all this content comes a lot of questions from my subscribers, some questions being better than others. This brought be to the topic of explaining how to ask a good question and get the best possible help from the developer community in places like Stack Overflow and other outlets such as The Polyglot Developer. I want to make sure all my subscribers succeed in their careers as developers. Following the simple best practice...

Feb 09, 201713 min

TPDP011: Continuous Integration and Deployment for the Polyglot Developer

In this episode I am joined by Ivan Nemytchenko from the open source company, GitLab. Here we take some time to explain what continuous integration and deployment is and how to get started with it in your development process. GitLab offers a free CI / CD solution called GitLab CI, but there are other solutions such as Jenkins and Travis CI as well. A writeup to this episode can be found via https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2016/11/tpdp-episode-11-continuous-integration-deployment-polyglot-de...

Nov 04, 201625 min

TPDP010: All About the Google App Engine

In this episode I am joined by Terry Ryan, Developer Advocate at Google. Here we discuss the Google App Engine platform, what it is, and when it is a relevant solution to use for a major web application. A writeup to this episode can be found via https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2016/10/tpdp-episode-10-google-app-engine/ If you have questions that you'd like answered in the next episode, visit https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/podcast-questions and fill out the form.

Oct 03, 201639 min

TPDP009: An Ember in the Land of Web Frameworks

In this episode I am joined by Tracy Lee, owner of Modern Web and advocate of Ember.js, as well as Taras Mankovski who runs Ember Sherpa. Here we discuss a very popular JavaScript framework called Ember.js and the conveniences it offers in comparison to other, possibly similar front-end frameworks like React and Angular. This episode includes information on tooling and development best practices as well. A writeup to this episode can be found via https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2016/09/tpdp...

Sep 03, 201646 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android