Code and the Coding Coders who Code it
We talk about Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and everything in between. From tiny tips to bigger challenges we take on 3 questions a show; What are you working on? What's blocking you? What's something cool you want to share?
Code and the Coding Coders who Code it
Episode 46 - David Hill
David Hill, the innovative mind behind "Ode to RailsConf" and a senior engineer at Simplify, invites us to explore his fascinating journey into the world of podcasting. Inspired by the final announcement of RailsConf, David crafted a platform to celebrate the cherished memories of the event while also providing himself with a bridge to manage social interactions more comfortably. With his love for board games providing a structured approach, David shares how the podcasting framework has transformed him from a hesitant introvert to a comfortable conversationalist.
Our conversation takes an intriguing turn as we delve into the art of podcast guest planning and the intricate process of editing conference videos. From featuring guests from the Scholar Guide program at RailsConf and RubyConf to orchestrating a unique episode with nine guests from a single company, we leave no stone unturned. Engaging discussions with prominent figures like Freedom Dumlao and Sarah May offer listeners a treasure trove of insights, while upcoming episodes with Ruby Central's Rhiannon and Ali Vogel promise to further explore the dynamic world of PR, marketing, and operations.
As we navigate the evolution of podcasting strategies, the conversation shifts to the often-overlooked balance between coding and communication. The journey from a simple chat between friends to a thriving podcasting community has not been without its challenges and surprises. We reflect on the impact of Jason Charnes' departure due to family commitments and celebrate the resilience and growth that comes with embracing new roles. Amidst it all, the spirit of supporting creators, learning new skills, and fostering personal growth shines through, with an optimistic outlook for the show's future.
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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Code and the Coding Coders who Code it. I'm your host, drew Bragg, and I'm joined today by my friend David Hill. David, for anyone who is unfamiliar with you and your show, would you please introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:Sure, my name is David Hill, I'm a senior engineer at an advertising platform company called Simplify and I also have my own thing now, which is a bit of a new experience for me. I don't have a long history of having my own thing on the internet, which is a little bit weird, I think, for a web developer. But I have a podcast of my own called Ode to RailsConf. It kind of grew out of the announcement last year that RailsConf coming up in July would be the final RailsConf and I wanted to do something to kind of celebrate and commemorate a lot of fun, positive experiences and stories that I had had and I figured if I had had them then other people did too. So let's try and get other people to come on this podcast I had imagined and talk about and share those experiences and it is an awesome show.
Speaker 1:I love the idea behind it. Just hey, it's a podcast where all we do is talk about awesome experiences we've had at this thing. That's going away. It drives home this point of anyone can podcast and it can be about anything. You don't have to have a long running show either, because after July RailsConf will be over and maybe Odor RailsConf could go on for a little bit longer because you could talk about what just happened, but at some point you're like all right, well, it's gone. Do you plan on continuing podcasting afterwards?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to back up a little bit. Part of the original idea for this podcast was that it would have a very limited run In my head. The way I imagined it. It would end with a recording at RailsConf Okay, cool, so that would be the final episode and part of that. For me, this kind of might bleed into one of your traditional questions about the blockers and how they were resolved. This is my first podcast.
Speaker 1:This was my first podcast. I mean, this is my 40th something episode.
Speaker 2:Actually 50th, but yeah, it's my first podcast. I mean this is my 40th something episode actually 50th, but yeah, it's my first podcast too the weeds of it. So having a hard end date on it initially was really really helpful for me. I can do this for a little while and if I'm bad at it and if I'm not getting better and if I hate it, that's fine. There's an end date. At some point I can just be like, okay, I did the thing and I can call it good. That helped me get over an initial blocker I had of do I really want to do this, is this going to work out, type of concerns.
Speaker 2:But yes, I have really really enjoyed the process of doing this podcast. It's given me a lot of opportunities to have a reason to go and talk to a person that I have always been hesitant to approach for casual conversation. And I think you know this about me I'm an introvert. I have a certain amount of social anxiety which, the more I've talked to people, the more I've realized that is not a unique or special thing about developers. A lot of us wrestle with these same issues. It's one of those things where it's like I always felt so kind of hemmed in by my own inability to just get out of my own way to go talk to people.
Speaker 2:But one of the things that you and I kind of connected over when we first met was board games. Board games are so special to me, partially for that reason. It provides a really interesting structure of how you interact with other people for a limited amount of time. And I found at RailsConf, at one of the board game nights I kind of realized I've been really really quiet and reserved all day and then I get to a board game night. It's not just board games are fun, it's.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden my weird brain is oh, I know how to interact with people now because there are rules in this little piece of paper that tell me how I interact with people for the next 30 minutes. And so, circling back to the podcast, suddenly I had a structure that I could tell my brain. I'm going to go talk to this person about RailsConf and we're going to ask them questions about their experiences, how they were involved with RailsConf, if they were involved in planning it or giving a talk or through the scholars and guides program. I had brainstormed out this agenda of questions that I could ask, and it just started to kind of slowly rewire my brain a little bit to be like oh, maybe talking to people isn't as scary as I thought it was.
Speaker 1:It's still kind of scary, there's still a degree of scaredness, but I feel like the structure provides you with an escape hatch. Yeah, it's still scary, but you can just be like, all right. Well, that's all the questions I have, so I'm out now. Similar to the way that board games are like, there's an end goal to board games, so this is limited interaction. It provides that escape hatch, at least for me, because I'm sort of like you. I'm on the introverted side. I enjoy interacting with people, but it makes me super nervous. I have a limited social battery and if I don't feel like there's an escape hatch to a conversation, I'm immediately awkward. But if I'm like this is a limited conversation, I'm good to go, yeah.
Speaker 2:But for me, rubyconf back in November was my first RubyConf. I've been to multiple RailsConf but this most recent one was my first RubyConf and most of the time, through these conferences I'll have maybe one good day where I feel high energy, I feel like I can get out there and socialize and talk to people and I usually have to kind of work myself up into that state, which is not always successful, because I can't do it on the other days. This past RubyConf I went the whole week and I didn't feel like I came down from being like, yeah, let's go talk to people and see interesting things and the talks and everything. And honestly I attribute a lot of that to just doing the podcast kind of getting the reps in of okay, I'm talking to. I think nowadays I'm generally recording two episodes a week, twice a week having a 30-minute conversation with someone, most of the time that I haven't met before. Okay, we'll start with general questions about RailsConf and as they're talking oh wait, you just said something interesting, let's circle back to that and dive into that a little bit deeper.
Speaker 2:Just getting those practice sessions in a really low-risk environment what's the worst that can happen when you're recording a podcast? You stumble over your words a little bit and then, thankfully, we're using an editor, the same editor that you use. We stumble around for a couple of minutes and it's like, hey, mr editor paul, please just kind of clean this up for us. There's no downside, there's no risk to flubbing around for a little bit. It's really helped my mental state. It's really kind of fun to go talk to people who also happen to like Ruby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shout out to Paul for making us sound so much better at conversations than we actually are.
Speaker 1:Thank you, paul. There's that saying. You are what you consistently do. You're consistently having these conversations with people you don't know intimately well. It becomes a little bit easier, so it all makes sense. I think you're doing a great job.
Speaker 1:I really enjoy the show. I enjoyed being on the show. I enjoy listening to the show and if you are not listening to the show, do yourself a favor and go take a listen and then come to the very last RailsConf in July in Philly. It's going to be awesome. But back to the actual show, the template that I have. If you're new to the show, this is not how my show normally goes. Normally, what happens is I'm going to ask David three questions. I'm going to ask him what he's working on Could be podcast related, maybe what kind of blockers he has. If he doesn't have a current blocker, he can talk about a recent blocker he had, how he went about solving it, and then we'll wrap up the show with something cool, new or interesting that David's recently learned or discovered or even built and made. It doesn't have to be coding related, but it absolutely can be so, david, what are you working on?
Speaker 2:A lot of my personal time right now is spent on the podcast, the stuff I'm doing for my job. I hope no one listens to this. It's not super interesting or engaging. Right now I'm still relatively new to the company, and so it's this big sprawling monolith with multiple different teams with different focuses working on it. Okay, I guess I'm building this tiny little feature over here, but, yeah, the podcast is the big piece of what I'm working on right now. There's also since we're talking about RailsConf a little bit earlier the CFP opened up, I think last week, and so I submitted something for that that I hope gets accepted, but it's more of a panel discussion type proposal, so I'm hoping that gets accepted, since I think that would be cool, but I'm also still trying to work out something to propose. That's a more technical talk. One of my longstanding issues is trying to come up with something that I think is interesting that isn't also immediately squashed by my brain of you're just late to the party. Everyone else already knows this.
Speaker 1:I do not think that there are topics that actually exist like that. I know your brain is telling you that my brain is telling me they are.
Speaker 1:I know it's not real. Really, every topic, even if someone's already talked about it, even if someone's already beat it to death, your approach to the delivery will be different than theirs, which might resonate with someone differently. So someone's going to get value out of it. A lot of things, shit changes, right. Shit changes in Ruby, it changes in Rails. You could talk about like, hey, our approach to doing anything on the front end is drastically different now that we're on Rails 8 than maybe the last time someone talked about it in Rails 4 or even Rails 5, when the last major change to how front end happens on Rails, that kind of stuff, those are valid. Like, yeah, someone's already talked about front-end with Rails before, not with Rails 8, not with their approach to how they build view components or how your company's handling whatever. I hear you I deal with the same things where I'm like oh, I could talk about this. People smarter than me have definitely already talked about that before, but it's still valid. It's still.
Speaker 1:I have a very different approach to how I handle myself up on stage than someone else might. A very deadpool-esque style of humor. So I've been told best compliment I've ever received after giving my game show ever was being told that I have a very Deadpool-like sense of humor, thank you, but if you're actually struggling with some CFP-esque topics, there are CFP coaching opportunities through Ruby Central coming up. This is for you, david, since I'm talking to you right now. But anyone listening who's also like I should submit something I don't know what, or I need a better refinement.
Speaker 1:Monday February 17th, tuesday February 18th and Wednesday February 19th they're all at different times, sorry. The 17th is at 9 am, 18th at noon and the 19th at 4 pm Eastern time. All of those you can register through Ruby Central's posted link. A few places they have some awesome people doing great coaching sessions can help you get unblocked, refine your CFPs ideas, consolidate ideas into a more cohesive talk. So anyone listening, including you, david, who's like I want to submit more CFPs or refine this idea. I highly recommend taking the opportunity to get some mentorship on the CFP from people who have been there and done that a lot, so that can be helpful. I know Kevin Murphy has helped me with my CFP more than a few times early when I was just starting to do the game show and it gave me a lot more confidence to hit the submit button, knowing that someone as experienced as him was like yeah, no, this sounds good, or here are the tweaks to make, or what have you so highly recommended? I?
Speaker 2:did see the announcement for those coaching opportunities in the Ruby Central Slack, which is also another resource that if you're listening to this podcast you should definitely join the Ruby Central Slack just to be a little bit more connected to those types of announcements and everything.
Speaker 1:Totally. It's the place to find all your favorite Ruby developers too. A ton of people in there. So Ruby Central Community Slack. If you're not in, feel free to reach out and I will make sure that you get in. Cool, so you have one CFP in. You have some hopes, desires to do another CFP. You're podcasting like crazy. Is there anyone that you hope to have on the podcast that you haven't yet and don't necessarily have scheduled? Or maybe someone you do have scheduled that you're really excited about and you want to tease it a little bit?
Speaker 2:As of this recording, the latest guest was Cindy Backman of Cop Breaks. She's awesome.
Speaker 2:It was really fun talking with her because she's got such a different perspective than any of us would have about these types of events because of what she's there for. So that was really fun talking to her about the preparation and the perspective that goes into actually recording and getting all this stuff set up to be able to record that presentation. Well, I don't remember if this was someone else I was talking to or if this came from her, but it might have been from you. Even Just the videos for Rails World weren't super well edited together, because there's the person on stage talking and you want to be able to see them talk, but there's also their slides, which are also usually pretty informative to what they're talking about. So you need to see able to see them talk, but there's also their slides, which are also usually pretty informative to what they're talking about, and so you need to see that too. And a lot of the Rails world filming didn't capture the slides well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think that was me that brought it up, but I definitely agree with that statement of the Rails world. Videos were good-ish, but definitely I think there was some context quality missing there.
Speaker 2:So maybe it came from the conversation with her. That was a really interesting kind of realization for me, like, oh, there's a whole lot more that goes into trying to record these videos than just pointing a camera at the stage. I thought that was really interesting. So the next three guests are all people who went through the Scholar Guide program either at RailsConf or at RubyConf. I had a thought at one point that I wanted to have a nice long list of episodes that were from the Scholar Guides, especially since I'm expecting that the application window for the Scholar Guide program for RailsConf will be opening up soon. Once that does, I'm going to start making additional posts every week.
Speaker 2:If you're curious about this program, point to another episode of. Here's a scholar who went through the program. Here's a guide who helped a scholar through the program. Go listen to what they have to say about this program if you're even thinking about applying to this. So I've got three scholars coming up, and then I did a first for our editor, paul. I had him edit an episode that had I think it was nine people in it.
Speaker 2:Whoa, that's a lot of people. So, yeah, most of my episodes are just a one-on-one interview. Yeah, so late last year I moved from Kansas City to Tampa. Right before I left Kansas City I made a connection. There was a Ruby Central Slack for consultants that recently got merged into the main Ruby Central Slack channels. But I was in that Slack because I want to do more consulting work and kind of break out onto my own at some point. It's just a very slow process.
Speaker 2:But somebody else in that channel was also in the Kansas City area and so I did an uncharacteristic thing for me and reached out at one point. I always love to connect sometimes, since I'm leaving the area and I'm feeling social right now. So I was kind of riding that wave. So we met for lunch and we had a good talk and everything. And I asked towards the end of the conversation if he'd be interested in coming on the podcast sometime and he was like actually I have a different idea, because my whole team, his whole company, they all went to RailsConf together and for some of them it was their first time, for some of them it was multiple times. So he's like what would you think of just having all of us on the podcast. That sounds kind of cool, because that would be a very different thing than what I normally do, and so, yeah, I think it was nine people that just tell me how RailsConf went for all of you guys.
Speaker 1:I have no doubt Paul was able to tackle that Well. He's always done the panel discussions. Those have always come out really good when he's got five or six people and nine is a lot. I have no doubt that came out awesome. I'm excited for that one too. Yeah, so that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:And then two more I want to talk about really fast. I'm going to go out of order a little bit. The latest one I've recorded was with Freedom Dumlao. Okay, cool, yeah, he was a lot of fun to talk to. He had some really just fun stories. The whole reason I ended up talking to him was because Chris Oliver was hey, dave, you should talk to Freedom here because of his whole fun story about what happened at RailsConf last year. Oh yeah, I remember that that whole thing that Arena did on stage. Now he's in the spotlight. I probably didn't expect to be. So that one was fun. And then the last one I'm going to mention Sarah May. Oh, awesome, because I got to work with her for a couple of months years ago back at Pivotal Labs when it was still Pivotal Labs. She was one of my favorite people. She was just so awesome.
Speaker 1:I've had limited interactions with her, but every interaction has been awesome and no one has ever had anything negative to say about her ever she's amazing and she's wonderful and she was one of the first people I reached out to after I started the podcast.
Speaker 2:She's a fairly high-level employee at Backerkit right now. She was busy. Yeah, it took a while to get an opening in her schedule to get her to come on the show, but when she finally did, I was so happy. So those are the ones I've recorded already. And then I have some upcoming recordings scheduled with a couple of people from Ruby Central. I've got Rhiannon coming on to kind of talk about kind of the PR marketing side of things a bit, and Ali Vogel I've got coming on as well More the operations side of things, I guess. So those are the ones I have scheduled now, and then there's always kind's always the Ruby celebrity people that I'd love to have on the show at some point. At some point I need to bite the bullet. Since I took the risk and invited DHH cold at that one point and it worked out for me. At some point I need to do that again and reach out to Eileen at some point. She'd be fun to talk to over at RailsConf. I had Aaron Patterson already, so I already checked that box, so jealous.
Speaker 1:Every time I see him I'm like, when are you coming on my show? And he's soon, and then it never happens. And I think it's more my fault than his, because I'm always you should come on the show. And he's like, okay, I'll send you a link. And I send him a link and then I forget to follow up. And if someone sent me a link and then never followed, up with me, I would never click that link.
Speaker 2:That's the funny thing, though. With Aaron, it almost became a white whale situation for me too. The first time we scheduled, he totally forgot, and so I emailed him and we rescheduled for that second scheduled time. Something happened and I totally forgot, and it went back and forth like that for three or four different times. Finally we have it scheduled, and it actually happened. I was just like, oh, thank goodness, I wanted to have this conversation with Aaron Patterson and I was not going to let it go.
Speaker 1:He's awesome. Glad you got him on.
Speaker 2:At this point and this is kind of one of my blockers that I have kind of pending in the back of my head was I have this near constant worry that I'm running out of guests to have on the show and I need it to run for two months longer than I was really expecting it to go. Railsconf typically is in May and this year it's in July.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Right now I think I have everything running out to April. If I have no more guests record with me at all beyond what I currently have scheduled, I'll run through the beginning of April. It's not super pending. I feel like I've got a little bit of a buffer. I need to start inviting people again because I don't have anything new new appointments being made right now.
Speaker 1:Well, I know you've had Chris and Ufuk on, but you could have them on again now that they're announced as co-chairs for the last one. I've had Chris on, I haven't had Ufuk on yet. Oh, you haven't had Ufuk. Well, there you go. You got to get Ufukon. There's an idea you could also have Chris on again, since he's now co-chairing the last Railscom. The programming committee will come out soon. You can have them on again and talk about what they are hoping for. The last one, and there's things coming soon. There's a lot happening behind the scenes that'll become public soon and you'll have a whole new host of people to talk to.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, a lot of that just kind of wriggling around at the back of my mind, of the co-chairs now that they're announced, and then other ruby central people as we get closer to it.
Speaker 1:I definitely want to try and rope them into a little bit more we need to do is you need to have someone come on your show and hijack the show and interview you about your experiences at RailsConf?
Speaker 2:Ooh, Kinsey actually half did that during the episode Her she turned one of my questions right back on me after she answered. It's like that's not how this is supposed to work.
Speaker 1:You're just supposed to talk about your stuff. I am not prepared to talk about me. Please stop.
Speaker 2:I am a bit of an introvert, but once I'm comfortable talking with a person I can very easily go into. Let's tell a story mode. I can go for a while, but that's not the point of this show. I don't want to just be talking about my stuff. I want to be talking about your stuff. If you turn it back on me, I have to really rein myself in, or I will just kind of go.
Speaker 1:I know that feeling this is going off the rails, let's reel it back in, all right? Do you have other blockers that you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:This one is not a current blocker but it's a blocker that I ran into along the way that I kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier, but it's been on my mind recently so I kind of wanted to bring it up again. That whole issue of approaching someone that I don't know to have a conversation with them. We've talked before about how having a very kind of deliberate structure in mind for my interaction with that person has really helped kind of get over that blocker. But I'm in my 40s. How did it take me 40 years of my life to figure out how to just have a conversation with a person that I don't already know? The amount of time and energy that I feel like I wasted over the years of not feeling comfortable being able to go and connect with another person terrifies me a little bit. It's just kind of like that's a lot of wasted time where just not being able to interact with people.
Speaker 2:When I was a much younger, much less experienced developer, I used to think that my job was all about the code, which in a podcast with the word code in it so many times, that might seem appropriate as I've kind of grown up more and started having the ability to interact with people a bit more. That perspective that I've had on it has changed a lot, where it's like, oh no, the job isn't about the code. The code is a tool that I used to do the job, but the job is more about other people. It's about how other people use the system and the software that you're building and supporting, and if you're not actually understanding and meeting their needs, then it doesn't matter what you do with the code, because it doesn't give them what they need, which circles right back around the need to be able to communicate effectively and accurately and comfortably with other people. To be able to communicate effectively and accurately and comfortably with other people, to be able to really gauge what it is that they need.
Speaker 2:That's been a big kind of revelation to me recently. Just wow, the opportunities that I probably missed out on because I wasn't comfortable talking to people and seeing how much that's changed for me over this past year through doing this simple little podcast. From the beginning I felt pretty confident this was going to be a pretty niche podcast Ruby developers, but even then only Ruby developers who really care about RailsConf, who are interested in hearing other people's stories. The audience for that is not going to be some mega blockbuster-sized audience, but it was a project that helped me do something that I was initially very scared of for lack of a better way to describe it and so it was helping me do something that was outside of my comfort zone. That has really made a lot of changes for me personally.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's how a lot of awesome projects come about is someone's just trying to solve their own problem for themselves, and then they're just hey, other people might enjoy this thing. That I did too. I'm, of course, talking slightly more about code and software, but you indirectly went out and solved your own problem of I need to get better at talking to people and I can talk to people in this more structured setting and then you hit the record button and now other people get to enjoy the conversations that you've had too, but I think the fact that you were getting so much benefit out of it, too helps you keep going with it, which is another challenging part of podcasting is sometimes it's like, oh crap, I need another guest, or oh, I need to spend time talking to people or prepping or putting this episode together, remembering to respond to my emails or whatever, and if you don't have a good enough reason to enjoy what you're doing, you might lose the energy to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually had to dial it back a little bit and structure it a little bit more. For the recording times Originally I just kind of opened my schedule up five days a week from noon on. It was just pick a time, I'll record whenever you guys want, and so, like I was recording three or four episodes a week, at certain points I loved it. I really, really enjoyed it. But at the same time as like this might be burning the candle at both ends, just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Just sounds like that sounds like a lot. I sort of embarrassing to admit that I struggle to do my two times a month recording. When you're like, oh yeah, three or four times a week, I would just hammer them out, that sounds like a lot.
Speaker 2:And it was, it was, and so I stopped recording in late November so I could go through the holidays with a break. And when I started recording again in January, I was like, all right, tuesdays and Thursdays In the afternoon, those are the only open times. I've had one guest so far come back and ask if I had an opening in another time of the week, on a different day, because Tuesdays and Thursdays didn't work for her. And so for that one person I was like, yes, I will open up a block on another day and I'll send you a custom link to that one. I can be flexible with it, but I need to be more structured with it so I don't burn myself out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if Tuesdays and Thursdays in this certain time slot works for most people, then great, it's a benefit to you and they just have to pick from this small spot and if someone can't, they'll reach out. The guys from Remote Ruby do that. They record on Fridays, I think, at noon or 11 or whatever it is, and if they're having a guest on that can't do that time. They might adjust here or there, but for the most part that's when they record and if you want to come on their show, that's when they record and I feel like that probably helps them a lot.
Speaker 2:Speaking of Remote Ruby, did you see that Jason is leaving the show?
Speaker 1:Yeah, imagine me a guy who works with jason charns every day, talks to him on slack almost every day, is on the same project currently with him and finding out through blue sky that he's recording his last episode of Remote Ruby before I even get on the show. I sense some frustration from you the number of times I have declined Andrew Mason's invite to be on Remote Ruby because I promised Jason I wouldn't come on the show unless he was there when I came on the show. And now I'm so mad at him. I love Jason. He's a fantastic human, but currently I'm a little mad at him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I saw that the other day and did I miss an announcement or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that moments before jumping on a Zoom call with him, so that was fun. I should have given him an earful. I was like dude, what? And he's like I just need a break. Been doing it for Listen. I understand he's been doing it for years and it's gotten way bigger than it was ever supposed to be. It was supposed to be just hanging out and chatting. It was just supposed to be him and Chris chatting about stuff, yeah. So it got way bigger than he ever intended and it's a lot, and he's got little kids at home and listen. I totally get it. I just mean the way that I found out, dude, and he's also one of my favorite podcasters.
Speaker 1:You never want to hear that one of your favorite anyone is done doing what they do. Oh, that's depressing. I know that Chris and Andrew will keep it going and it'll be still an awesome show, and I can hear Jason rant about whatever shit is bothering him. You work with him. I have a unique access to that man, so it's not that bad. Yeah, I feel for the rest of the community that's going to lose out on the Jason Charnes magic every week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I reached out to Chris Oliver when I saw the news and was like, is this real, what is happening? And he said pretty much the exact same thing that he's been doing it for a long time. He's got three young kids now. Oh yeah, I remember when my kids were young. You need to have a certain amount of energy to handle life at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially his kids. He tells me stories and I'm like, dude, you have your hands full. Like the pranks his kids will play on him is crazy. He'll tell us some stories. Your son is eight and pulling these kinds of pranks. You are screwed. When he becomes a teenager, dude, you are so screwed.
Speaker 2:it's amazing his kids sound awesome sounds like he's raising him right but, you know it takes a certain amount of energy and sure, yeah, this that totally come from somewhere else. If it's not available, yeah, we'll definitely miss hearing.
Speaker 1:Jason on remote ruby yeah, definitely so the last question, because I feel like I've already taken up too much of your Friday Eve what is something cool, new, interesting that you've recently learned, discovered, built, created anything. It doesn't have to be coding related. Obviously, this is code and the coding coders who code it, so it can be code related, but it doesn't have to be. So hit me, what do you got?
Speaker 2:The only thing I was able to come up with contemplating this question earlier was Joe Mazzolotti's new book, the Hotwire. I picked that up on Pragmatic Programmer. I started working my way through it. I actually have a freelance gig that I'm working through a little bit to build a mobile app for a charity foundation thing, trying to be deliberately vague because I don't know how kosher it is to shoot that name out there, since it's a fairly recognizable name. But yeah, it's just. Oh, this hotline negative book is coming out right on time for me to have to do a mobile app. This is going to be so much easier yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's cool and joe knows his shit and I'm excited to see the book. I'm excited for joe definitely gonna have him back on the show to talk about the book soon, hopefully fingers crossed, scheduling and whatnot but yeah, that's a good one. Super excited for the book. I will be picking that one up too. I learned from andrew atkinson's postgres book and Nohrappin's Pick-Ass book that I am terrible with beta copies of books. I know some people are great with it and by all means, if you're chomping at the bit, grab it ASAP. But I just learned through getting both of their books in beta that I am really bad at beta books. So I will be waiting just a little bit. Just a little bit.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by you're bad at beta books? I don't really understand.
Speaker 1:I think the best way to consume a beta book is you read the chapter and then, when the new version's released, you reread the chapter, you reread the book, and I think that's probably a really good way to consume technical books in general. That's sort of how studying works, right, you're supposed to repeatedly consume. My ADHD does not allow me to reread chapters of a book. I can't do it. I don't like it, it's not good. Listener, you can't see this, but David can.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of books and I have not actually finished 50% of those books on my bookshelf and there's even more below it. That's two shelves and then two shelves. I also have a lot of books to go through, so I need to read it, probably once. Maybe I'll refer back to a section that I'm like oh, I remember this. I need to reconsume that information. Beta books are an awesome idea, and especially if you're someone who's good at studying and repeatedly reading a chapter to get good at the information. I just, unfortunately, am not. So I'm like okay for this book because I want to read it. I'm going to wait until it's either done or very close to done, and then I'll consume.
Speaker 2:Fair. That makes sense. I think I fall into the same category as you in terms of being bad at beta books, because I will read it through at whatever version I started reading it and then I'll circle back to it if I need to review a topic at some future point. But I don't regularly go back and try to really see what changed or whatever.
Speaker 2:But there's also certain loves in my life in the world of literature, with fiction and fandom and stuff like that that I'm fairly energetic and passionate about making sure that people who are creating those types of things for my enjoyment get paid so they can continue to make these things that I love. For that reason alone, if nothing else, I really enjoy finding even these technical books like this Hotwire Native book that I know is going to pay dividends for me in the long run with some skills and knowledge that will help me do things in my job better, throwing some money Joe's way so that he can keep doing and working on these things that have led him to making this book. Even if I don't get around to reading the beta at all and end up just getting the full book later on, I don't look at it as money poorly spent.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I'm definitely getting the book. I also have an affinity to print copies, which probably sounds weird for a software developer to be like. I like print books and not eBooks. I love having the physical. I take notes in my books. In technical books I highlight stuff. I did get a Remarkable, which is really cool. My wife got it for me for Christmas one year and it definitely was a game changer for eBooks because I could take notes and highlight. It's great for planes because I don't need to bring a thick book. It's great for conferences because I don't need to have a notebook and a book. But if I'm at home and it's totally up to me, I would rather pick up the physical book copy. I stare at a screen eight to 10 hours a day already. I don't want to stare at another one to read my book.
Speaker 2:Not just that, but with the technical books. Show me a technical book that does not refer you to a table or a chart or an image on some other page in the book, or refer back to some previous chapter and you're like wait, what was that again, it's so much easier with a physical book to flip back to that page and curl the pages a little bit so you can see the chart on one side and the words you're reading on the other side. That's 100 pages later in the book. Yeah, I'm right with you there the physical book. If I have that option and if it's at home, absolutely I'm going with the physical book. The ebooks and other things have their utility and have a perfectly valid place for use, but, all other things being equal, I prefer the physical book too.
Speaker 1:I own a lot of these books as physical and e-book because I'm like I like the physical but e-book is very convenient. I go to conferences and speak and stuff, so I want to play in enough. It's warranted to have both. But yeah, good, call out. Yeah, joe Malazotti's book is going to be awesome. Super excited for it.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else you want to talk about before we wrap up? One last plug for RailsConf this July it's in Philly. That's why Drew is so excited.
Speaker 1:Okay, to be fair, I would be excited for the very last RailsConf regardless. But yes, with it being in Philly, I am doubly excited.
Speaker 2:Yes, With it being in Philly, I am doubly excited. I remember you at RailsConf last year. Philly was not on the shortlist. They gave us of places to consider where the final RailsConf would be. You manifested this.
Speaker 1:You would be surprised what I can get done when I have an extreme amount of energy. You give me hyper fixation on something. That's a lot of energy that I get to pour into something. So, yeah, I'm also excited because it was me putting a shit ton of energy into telling anyone who would listen and a few people who wouldn't listen that it should be in Philly. Yeah, and it apparently worked.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to RailsConf this year and hoping to see a lot of people there, get to meet some new people and get to actually meet some people that I've only talked to virtually now through the podcast and actually talk to them in person and celebrate the conclusion of the RailsConf journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be awesome. It's going to be a party. Early bird tickets will be going on sale soon-ish. Soon, tm, soon, hashtag, hashtag, soon. There's no official date yet, but soon. You don't want to miss out, so hope to see everyone there. David, where can folks find you and Ode to RailsConf on the internet?
Speaker 2:For Ode to RailsConf. Just odetorailsconfcom is the website for the podcast, but it's also registered in pretty much every podcast directory, so searching for the name should find it. For my own socials, I think Blue Sky is probably the best one to find me these days, since I've largely abandoned Twitter. My profile on BlueSky is davidhilldev.
Speaker 1:So, everybody, if you haven't listened to David's podcast yet, now that you've listened to him on this one, definitely go check out Ode to RailsConf. We will see you all at RailsConf, we hope. Thanks for listening. Talk to you in the next episode. Bye.
