He knew how to code, but when he graduated school, Andrew Chen decided to go into venture capital. Since then, he’s used his technical background to become an advisor and investor in many tech startups, including Dropbox, Product Hunt, and AngelList. He talks with us about how he leveraged his coding skills to being a tech advisor, how he’s maintained a solid blog for over eight years, and why you don’t have to be a great coder to build something great. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewb...
Jun 08, 2015•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast When developer Aidan Feldman had a line of people waiting for their turn to get coding help from him, he decided to try a different format. Instead of one-on-one tutoring, how about open office hours for anyone coding to come together and work on their skills? And that was the beginning of Hacker Hours. Aidan tells us how he’s built Hacker Hours over the past few years, and how he manages to keep the community accessible and incredibly welcoming. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sp...
Jun 01, 2015•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast She used to be a professional figure skater. And a few years ago, she decided to hang up her skates and trade them in for some code. Software developer Aimee Knight tells us what it was like to transition into tech, how she got her first dev job, and how being a professional athlete has affected her coding journey. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Nashville Software School Treehouse Scholarship Message Systems Baltimore Node School Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
May 25, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast John Resig, creator of jQuery, talks about what it was like to build the most popular javascript library and then walk away from it five years later to follow his passion for education. We unpack what it’s like to maintain such a popular toolkit, how he feels about books, how he takes on his own learning, and why he made the Women Who Code twitter list. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) jQuery Pamela Fox jQuery Foundation Khan Academy Labs Women Who Code Twitter List Jenn S...
May 18, 2015•2 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Mazières, Chief Scientist at Stellar, talks to us about his work at the Stellar foundation building software to expand financial access. We also talk about how he uses temporary email addresses to ward off spammers, how he started coding in the fourth grade, and why he doesn’t think you need a computer science degree to make an impact in tech. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Byzantine agreement Proof of work algorithm Bitcoin Bitcoin mining Bitcoin Mining and its En...
May 11, 2015•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast For our first Newbie Story, we talk to LaToya Allen, junior software engineer at Avant, a fast-growing Chicago startup. She tells us how she went from bartending to becoming an apprentice, and got her first full-time engineering job in just three weeks. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) 1871 Chicago Women Developers 8th Light Sue Kim Doug Bradbarry Minimax algorithm Repository Pattern Cracking The Interview Code Mike Ebert Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
May 04, 2015•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast When developer Tiffani Bell first heard about the water crisis in Detroit from a news article in the Atlantic, she was shocked. So she rolled up her developer sleeves and put up a page to help people who’s water had been shut off. Now, that page has become a full Y Combinator backed non-profit, and she’s the executive director. We talk about civic hacking, the technical challenges she had to overcome to make it work, and the impact her project has made to the lives of many in Detroit. Show Links...
Apr 27, 2015•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast You probably know her as rockbot, the username that captures her passion for robotics. In this episode, developer Raquel Velez shares that passion with us, telling us all about competing in the DARPA Grand Challenge, how she feels about self-driving cars, and gives us a beginner-friendly walkthrough of how a robot works. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) DARPA Grand Challenge Javascript the good parts Sensor Fusion Rubber Duck Problem Solving Version Control Mechanical Engi...
Apr 20, 2015•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Corinne Warnshuis sat in a Girl Develop It workshop to learn to code. Her love for the community and her community-building skills propelled her from coding newbie to Executive Director of Girl Develop It. She talks to us about her mission to make coding more accessible to women, how to be a good ally, and how the diversity movement in tech has impacted her work. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Sara Chipp's episode Vanessa Hurst's episode Girl Develop It Fetch Softworks i...
Apr 13, 2015•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast At a time when people are lining up to get accepted by a programming bootcamp, Jeff Casimir decided to start one that is non-profit. But he doesn't like the term bootcamp -- he prefers "program." We talk about why he decided to make the Turing School non-profit, the complications of quantifying students' skills, and how Turing School approaches its programming curriculum. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Teach for America Hungry Academy Turing School Github APIs Ruby Objec...
Apr 06, 2015•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gokul Krishnan started the first makerspace in a children's hospital. Working with kids who have chronic illnesses like cystic fibrosis, he created a way for them to be makers. We talk about the benefits of making in the context of being in a hospital, how he approaches learning, and what kinds of tech projects these kids have made. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Project Mach Squishy Circuits Cystic Fibrosis Skype 3D printing Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Mar 30, 2015•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast She was trained to be a web developer. But months after graduating from bootcamp, she's at Makerbot, helping build the software that their 3D printers need to do their job. It's an interesting change -- she's using python instead of ruby, and learned C++ too. We talk about what it's like to be a software developer in a world of hardware, how the two jobs compare, and what some of the challenges are. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) MakerBot MIT Intro to Computer Science Ha...
Mar 23, 2015•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Matt Richardson, evangelist for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, talks to us about the little computer that's making hardware accessible to more people. We talk about what the Raspberry Pi is, discuss some beginner friendly projects, and chat about a cool bike-based hardware project he made. If you've been thinking about getting started with the Raspberry Pi, this episode is for you. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) hard drive Micro SD Python on your Raspberry Pi Wolfram + Ras...
Mar 16, 2015•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julia Grace talks to us about Tindie, the hardware marketplace where creators and hardware enthusiasts can come together to share their goods. We talk about the challenges of building a hardware platform, the different problems these makers are solving, and how software and hardware compare when it comes to accessibility. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Tindie Etsy Jason Huggins Selenium Sauce Labs Raspberry Pi Arduino Arduino Lilly Pad Julia Elman Teen Tech Camp littleBi...
Mar 09, 2015•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast It started at a conference. When Sara Chipps sat in the audience and watched a speaker use JavaScript to interact with a smoke detector, she was entranced. She left with a bag of LEDs, and a new love for hardware that led to her ultimately starting her hardware company Jewliebots. She talks to us about her transition from software developer to hardware CEO, the differences she's seen between building software and hardware, and what it's like to build a product for teenage girls. Show Links Partn...
Mar 02, 2015•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Developer Sarah Frisk uses her incredible drawing skills to teach coding tools and concepts like git through her comic, Monster Markup Manual. We talk about her love of drawing, how art and code come together, and how monsters can do a great job of learning to code. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Monster Markup Manual Tavern Wenches jQuery Foundation Chassis Framework CSS Frameworks Google Summer of Code IRC GitHub RPG Maker Mono Carmen Sandiego D&D 24-Hour Comics Da...
Feb 23, 2015•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast In our first live broadcast of the podcast, we brought on developers Scott Hanselman and Tiffany Peon to chat about hot topics in the CodeNewbie community. We talked about finding a dev job, code mentorship, and our thoughts on Zed Shaw’s critiques of programming bootcamps. We recorded live on http://twitch.tv/codenewbie, and we loved having you in the chatroom to ask questions, comment, and join us in the conversation. And we’ll definitely do another live edition of Ask CodeNewbie soon. Hope yo...
Feb 16, 2015•1 hr 16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Catt Small gives us a great intro to UX (user experience) design, including insight on her design process, how she works with users to create great digital experiences, and how code newbies can get started in UX design. She also tells us how she used Leap Motion to design a music instrument you can play using gestures. Lots of great stuff in this episode. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Design with Animation Photoshop Sketch usability testing Framer Axure Advice for New U...
Feb 09, 2015•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Developer Rebecca Garcia had always loved computers. At a young age, she went to MIT's two-week computer science camp. She was surrounded by kids who love to build and make, just like her. But at over $1K a week, it wasn't a very accessible way for kids to learn to code. So when she learned about Coder Dojo many years later, an organization that creates free coding workshops for youth, she wanted in. So she started CoderDojo NYC two years ago, and has been helping kids from ages 7-17 learn to co...
Feb 02, 2015•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Joseph McLarty, developer and accessibility advocate, talks to us about issues of accessibility and how we can create, and remove, invisible barriers that keep people from accessing the web. We talk about tools like screen readers, and how as developers, we can do simple things like use semantic tags that would help many people. We also touch on the legal issues on accessibility, and how we can learn more about the topic and ways we can create a more accessible web for all. Show Links Partner wi...
Jan 26, 2015•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zed A. Shaw, developer and author of the Learn the Hard Way series, talks to us about how to learn to code, his own approach to learning a new programming language, and why he’s not a fan of programming bootcamps. He also answers a few questions from the CodeNewbie community, including what the A in his name stands for. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Zardoz Learn Python the Hard Way Learn SQL the Hard Way Scala Go Erlang Zed’s bootcamp blog post Lisp Codeland Conf Codela...
Jan 19, 2015•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vanessa Hurst, founder of CodeMontage, has spent a lot of her career making tech an inclusive space for all people, particularly women. We talk about how she created that space through Girl Develop It, the non-profit she founded, her perspective on managing your career as a code newbie, and particularly about getting that first tech job. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Breast Pump Hackathon Sara Chipps Moto360 Girl Develop It xkcd: How it works Megan Smith So Good They Ca...
Jan 12, 2015•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast You may have heard of Scott Hanselman from his own podcasts and his very popular tech blog. We talk to him about how he creates all this helpful tech content, why it's important to be a social developer, and how we can evaluate our own coding abilities. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Keys Left Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Tech Guy Scott's Blog 7-Minute Workout JQuery Pair Programming Root Cause Analysis Nerdist Coding Horror Blog Joel on Software Jekyll Markdown E...
Jan 04, 2015•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Engineer and artist Jenn Schiffer talks to us about the Vart Institute, the side project that blends her love of art with her love of javascript. We dive into how she brings those two worlds together, what the difference is between teaching an eight-year old and an eighty-year old how to code (she’s taught both), and about her experience working on the academic side of computer science. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Make 8 Bit Art IRC Montclair State University Casper t...
Dec 28, 2014•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast There's more to coding than just your code. In this episode, we talk to developer Chris Webber about devops, and all of the infrastructure-related things that are also important in getting your app to work. We untangle some devops concepts, like feature flats and the different programming environments, and talk through what a code newbie should know about devops when working on their code projects. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Devops the Title Match What DevOps Means T...
Dec 21, 2014•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast You've probably heard of this idea of testing. Or maybe you've just heard of test driven development and you're not really sure what it is or whether or not you should learn about it. In this episode, Noel Rappin, developer and author of the new book "Rails 4 Test Prescriptions" gives us a newbie-friendly explanation of the world of testing. We talk about different types of tests, we walk through an example of how you can approach something with tests first, and why test driven development can b...
Dec 14, 2014•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you're looking for solid, newbie-friendly guides to tech, Lauren Orsini's got you covered. As a tech journalist for ReadWrite, she's written some CodeNewbie favorites, including a great explanation of git and GIthub. We talk about her writing process, how she tackles a new piece of technology and learns it well enough to write about it, and why she calls herself an "amateur" programmer and really needs to stop. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) How to draw an owl Learn P...
Dec 07, 2014•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast When it was time for lunch, the other students ate and got to know each other while Tina Lee searched for a place to nurse her baby. The only one she found in that coding workshop was the cold, dark, filthy room where the company's developers slept - at least that's what it looked like. And she sat, frustrated that in a workshop that was meant to be inclusive, she still felt very much alone. So she started Mother Coders, the tech education program designed for mothers who want to gain technical ...
Nov 30, 2014•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast It was just a static webpage, telling you to get in the holiday spirit by making open source contributions. But 24 Pull Requests soon became its own open source project, with people adding features to make it fun and easy to make those contributions. We talk to creator Andrew Nestbitt about how code newbies can get started in making open source contributions, why getting involved in open source is a great idea, and how to get over the intimidation you might feel at the prospect of making your fi...
Nov 23, 2014•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast She calls them nitpicks, her term for the code reviews people get on exercism.io. It's a platform that developer Katrina Owen created to help people get mentorship and feedback on their code. It started as a project for her own students, but grew into something much more. Katrina talks to us about building her platform to help people become better programmers, how she went from being a secretary to studying biology to being a programmer, and how code newbies can make the most of exercism.io. Sho...
Nov 16, 2014•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
