Life is long. A series of chapters as you move from one scene to the next. Childhood, becoming a young adult, possibly a parent at some point, and more. But how much more? We talk to two people who are well into their later chapters. Scott talks to Lawrence Lockhart about reinventing yourself well into midlife. Rob talks to his mom, who, in her early 80s, was far from her final chapter. Lawrence Lockhart LinkedIn Instagram TikTok Music Whipping the Horse's Eyes - Calexico Yin and Yang (The Flowe...
Dec 25, 2023•51 min
What do you do when your voice gains an audience? Do you rattle cages or open doors? That's what we talk about in this episode. Scott talks to Anjuan Simmons about the power of lending your privilege , lifting people up by getting out of the way. Rob talks to April Edwards about being an ally, listening, and shutting up. April's blog post about her health battle can be found here . Music The music used for this show is shared, kindly, by the following artists - our thanks to them! Zakhar Dziuben...
Nov 06, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 1
How does our Faith drive us? Do you have Faith in yourself and your abilities, and how do you know you're on the right path? In this episode of This Developer's Life we offer you two stories. Rob has packed up his family and is travelling the world. He talks about his Faith in his children, recorded in a small town in Greece. Then we talk to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, aka Sammus, about her crisus of Faith. She's juggling getting a PhD from Cornell while her side career as a musician is starting to ...
Jun 24, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In this episode of This Developer's Life we ask the hard questions about space. Why aren't we on Mars? Why haven't we gone back to the moon? We talk to Paul Lutus, Dan Bricklin, Tamar Cohen, and hear from Ray Bradbury. Scott and Rob have not yet gone to space and don't understand why. In this episode of This Developer's Life we ask the hard questions about space. Why aren't we on Mars? Why haven't we gone back to the moon? We talk to Paul Lutus, Dan Bricklin, Tamar Cohen, and hear from Ray Bradb...
Dec 10, 2013•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Big thanks from both my wife and myself for the outpouring of support after our Cancer announcement . Last year was a long year and the Cancer part of the year was particularly long. We were very private about the whole thing and waited to tell anyone until we knew we were mostly OK. However, to my surprise, the day of the diagnosis my wife, who has never shown much interested in podcasting announced "I want to record an audio Cancer Diary. Can you do that?" So we did. We honestly didn't know if...
Jan 31, 2013•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Where does drama come from? How do we react to it? How much drama can be created by simple semicolon? This week we explore The Great Semicolon Affair. Peter Cooper Friendly publisher, programmer and author Derick Bailey Consultant and aspiring microprenuer H. Alan Stevens Father, Geek & Speaker Dave Ward Software developer focusing on jQuery and web application usability. Sara Chipps Just a girl, standing in front of a compiler, asking it to love her. Tenderlove When I'm not trimming my bear...
Sep 15, 2012•43 min•Season 2Ep. 9
How many empty brain cells do you have in your head? How capable are you of learning something completely new, and retaining what you already know? Scott and Rob talk to two developers this week who flex their ability to learn to both have fun, and succeed at their career. Patrick Cauldwell Liberal Arts Major and Author of Code Leader Zach Johnson 17-year old home-school kid who has an internship building rockets at Microsoft Music The music tracks this week are either Creative Commons from Magn...
Apr 09, 2012•56 min•Season 2Ep. 8
You're so old! What a dinosaur! You're using old software and old languages to do old things! Or are you? Scott and Rob talk to David Sokol, Sean Bamforth and Pete Brown about Fortran, DataFlex and the Commodore 64. All these dinosaurs are doing useful work. Or, are they? David Sokol Fortran Programmer and dude with an AWESOME hover state on his home page Sean Bamforth Former Dataflex programmer and now beginning .NET guru Pete Brown Senior Project Manager, Microsoft and budding Thomas Edison Mu...
Jan 04, 2012•57 min•Season 2Ep. 7
What do you do when you're not staring at your computer screen? What obsession grips you as you drive home? In this episode we ask David Heinemeier Hansson and Pete Brown this very question. David Heinemeier Hansson Creator of Rails and budding Racer X Pete Brown Senior Project Manager, Microsoft and budding Thomas Edison Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any vide...
Nov 15, 2011•49 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Who cares about typefaces and why should you? Well, these guys do and you should start caring. Rob and Scott explore the world of reading online with one of the godfathers in the world of typeface and fonts. Bill Hill Lover of reading, of typefaces, and co-creator of ClearType Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any vide...
Sep 19, 2011•58 min•Season 2Ep. 5
What is taste? What is style? Do you have it? Scott and Rob have no idea what it is or how to get it - but they know it's important. In this show they talk to a designer who flexes his good taste for a living - and a developer who is committed to spreading good taste where he can. Michael Bach Designer at Microsoft Geoffrey Grosenbach Owner/Founder of PeepCode Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the s...
Aug 11, 2011•50 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Scott and Rob discuss the value of a degree - and talk to two developers who used their passion to pull them through school and into their careers. Aqueelah Grant QA Specialist at Trimmer Media Seth Juarez Developer Evangelist at DevExpress Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site. Deftones - Change in the House of Flies - Accoustic Version Music I...
Jul 08, 2011•54 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Scott and Rob talk to a group of Top Gun developers: the StackOverflow team, about the day their database melted - and how the team responded. Geoff Dalgas - developer on StackOverflow Sam Saffron - developer and data geek at StackOverflow Jeff Atwood ,Mr. CodingHorror and co-founder of StackOverflow Music The music tracks this week are a combination of Fair Use, Royalty-free, and Mashups. As with most of our mashups I won't link the source but you can find them on any video serving site. Beasti...
May 13, 2011•47 min•Season 2Ep. 2
In this episode we talk to three developers about criticism - some they've given and some they've received. In addition we talk to a very vocal critic of this podcast. Ayende Rahien - a prominent developer in the .NET community and a force of nature G. Andrew Duthie - a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Boris Pavlović , a Serbian developer living with his wife and family in Switzerland Music The music tracks this week cycle around remixes of a single song: On We March by Trent Reznor and Atticus...
Apr 22, 2011•54 min•Season 2Ep. 1
In this special episode we explore the Egyptian revolution. We talk to Remon Zakaria about his experience writing software for a day job and overthrowing the government at night. Big thanks to Ahmed Remy and Reem Ahmed for their help. We recorded hours and hours of content to bring you this show. We wish we could have used everyone's story - there were so many. Remon Zakaria works at DashSoft, a software consultancy in downtown Cairo specializing in turnkey solutions for offshore companies. Musi...
Mar 22, 2011•45 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Rob Sullivan talks about his obsessiveness and how it helps him, and hinders him in his job. Rory Blythe and Scott then talk openly about Rory's compulsion to keep learning - which he has embraced completely. Rob Sullivan submitted our very first listener story about what drives him as a DBA - sometimes a bit too far Rory Blyth - the smartest man in the world talks openly and candidly about his obsessions - and how he can't just learn something a little bit. Music We featured some remixes this w...
Mar 03, 2011•46 min•Season 1Ep. 14
In this episode we talk to competitors who are also programmers. Or, programmers who also compete. Are coders pre-wired for this? Jon Skeet, David Fowler, Aaron Jensen and Danielle Banks share their stories. Jon Skeet shares how he stays at the top of the Stack Overflow points pile David Fowler talks about TopCode and flying to DisneyWorld to watch coders code Aaron Jensen quits his job to play poker professionally Daniele R. Banks is just getting started but is already building competing robots...
Feb 10, 2011•59 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In this episode Scott and Rob talk to 4 entrepreneurs about the risks they take, and what's happened as a result. Dave Nielsen, Tom Preston-Werner, and Nate and Niki Kohari. Dave Nielsen tells us about working only for himself and what sleeping on a couch in a basement storeroom feels like Tom Preston-Werner talks to us about founding Github and turning down $300,000 from Microsoft Nate and Niki Kohari talks to us about starting up, and then selling, a tech company while being married Music Most...
Jan 28, 2011•58 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In this episode Scott and Rob talk to Chad Myers, Chad Fowler, and Doug Rohrer about the scars they've received from dead end projects they've been on. In addition - Sara Chipps contributes her first story for us - interviewing Scott Reynolds. Chad Myers tells us about one of the first lead positions he had working for a sleazy business guy. Chad Fowler talks to us about being an imposter Sara Chipps contributes her first story to This Developer's Life, interviewing Scott Reynolds about his drea...
Jan 07, 2011•57 min•Season 1Ep. 11
This week it's just Scott and me - Scott gets to go off to Disneyland with his wife and 2 boys, and I get to hang out with my girls for a week as their mom goes on a retreat in California. Music The tracks for this week are used under Creative Commons from Magnatunes: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts General Fuzz - A Spy in the House of Love General Fuzz - Walking Home John Williams - Days End Melissa Polinar - Perfectly Distracted. You can see more of Melissa at http://www.melissapolinar.com. Rildrim -...
Dec 17, 2010•54 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In this episode Scott and I talk to technical folks who have moved on up to Management - and what it means to them. Mark Freedman shares his story about clawing his way out of a successful career as a manager at a rather large, growing company. A good job, lots of respect, and he hates it. Bertrand LeRoy talks about charting his own path right at Microsoft after graduating with a PhD in Physics and how he maintains a career right down in the middle of manager and coder. Todd Baesen talks about m...
Dec 03, 2010•57 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In this episode Scott and I talk to 2 people with fairly different stories, about what motivates them Scott talks to Brad Wilson , Senior Developer on the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC team about what motivates him to get out of bed and come to work every day at a high-intensity company, surrounded by brilliant people. Rob talks to Rob Sullivan , a database administrator at a large company, about what motivates him to make developer's lives miserable in order to keep his job. Music The tracks for this w...
Nov 19, 2010•56 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In this episode Scott and I talk to 3 developers who have pulled off some pretty audacious maneuvers. John Resig , Creator of jQuery, decided to write yet another javascript framework when there were already quite a few to choose from. Not only did he succeed, he changed web development forever. Alex Payne , former API Developer Lead at Twitter, talks about the (somewhat insane) move to leave Twitter, and (somewhat more insane) choice to 'reinvent banking' with BankSimple . Miguel de Icaza , fou...
Nov 03, 2010•55 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In this episode Scott and I discuss "what you need to know as a software developer". How many layers of abstraction do you need to understand? How many geek trading cards should you have in your collection? To find out more, we talked to 3 prominent, living-history developers. Ward Cunningham - creator of the Wiki and major figure in Agile/XP programming Charles Petzold - author of many books about Windows and prominent speaker Dan Bricklin - 'Superman' according to Scott. Creator of the spreads...
Oct 20, 2010•51 min
In the first story, I talk to David Heinemeier Hansson creator of Ruby on Rails, partner at 37Signals and author of Rework about the inspiration and shepherding of Ruby on Rails. In the second story, Scott talks to Dan Bricklin who in the late 70s and early 80s helped to usher in the computer age, as well as a new industry. Dan is the creator of Visicalc - the first spreadsheet program. Music Making me Nervous: Brad Sucks Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts Willamson John Williams: Acoustic Country Blues Gu...
Oct 11, 2010•45 min•Season 1Ep. 5
In the first story Scott shares his experience on being 'outted' at a former company, where his name sat beside 7 of the 10 top entries on a list of 'what not to do to code'. Scott then interviews Cyra Richardson - a program manager at Microsoft with a rather strong opinion about the changes she's seen in the company over the last 20 years. Finally, I spend some time talking to Giles Bowkett and his various ' 'interesting' interactions with the Ruby community.
Oct 02, 2010•42 min
image from XKCD In this week's This Developer's Life that's what I take a look at, from 3 perspectives: Mike Moore (Ruby developer) talks about personal skills for solving problems, including the ability to ask a different question. Javier Lozano (Microsoft developer) talks about teams coming together as a 'band of brothers', solving problems that may, or may not, exist. Tamar Cohen (Java developer) shares her story of the unsolvable bug - something she *had to solve* as the exploration of other...
Sep 18, 2010•44 min•Season 1Ep. 3
In the first story I talk to John Sheehan , a developer who's active on Twitter and is establishing himself in the Open Source community. The second story comes from Scott Hanselman - one of the biggest names (if not *the* biggest) in the Microsoft community. Technical Note: You'll notice that the first story's audio isn't ideal. John was using an analog mic that picked up some EM hum that I needed to filter out. I'm committed to spotless audio - but I have to work with what my guests have' Musi...
Sep 02, 2010•39 min•Season 1Ep. 2
I talk to 2 developers in this episode, and toss in a story from myself at the end: The first story comes from Sara J Chipps a Microsoft developer who lives on the East Coast. The second story comes from Oren Eine (Ayende Rahien) about what life as a prison commander in Israel taught him about his career. And finally there's me (Rob) - talking about the "Coyote Contract" that was doomed to fail. So I gnawed off my own reputation to get out of it. Music Air - Sexxy Boy Nine Inch Nails - #6 (Ghost...
Aug 18, 2010•41 min•Season 1Ep. 1
