This Developer's Life 1.0.6 - Abstraction

October 22, 2010 6:32 AM Comments [10] Posted in Podcast

In this episode of This Developer's Life, Rob 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 three 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 spreadsheet and all around amazing guy.

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You can download here - 50 minutes

The bandwidth and other costs for this week's show were picked up by Twilio:

Need SMS or Voice call capabilities for your application? Check out Twilio.

… and Umbraco

“Priceless CMS at the cost of virtually nothing”

Also, big thanks to MaximumASP for helping us out with bandwidth for the first few shows while we got our act together!

Comments [10]

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Friday, October 22, 2010 7:06:38 AM UTC

Hey dude,

I have an engineers degree in electronics, and you don use an o scope to look at a computer, unless it your computer is made using radio tubes... then you would be calling it a radio and your talking to men from mars, not men on the other side of the earth, unless your radio tubes are connected to a bandpass ULF antenna array.

@ProtoBytes

protoBytes

Friday, October 22, 2010 7:36:31 AM UTC

Is it possible to get a version of the podcast without the music?

Stian Fagereng

Friday, October 22, 2010 10:35:30 AM UTC

It must be awesome to be able to talk to those people, the ones that build all if this stuff that we take for granted today.

I must admit that I'm also a proponent of talking away the "magic" in today's technology, but I find that more and more people prefer the magic to the knowledge. I hope it's not going to get to the point where people like us will be regarded as mages, learning at the Wizard of Oz Academy or something.

Iscu

Friday, October 22, 2010 12:37:15 PM UTC

I agree with Stian. I don't know where the drive for segment-connecting music came from in podcasts.
I hear it in all types, and have, on occasion, written a producer about its distraction, but not one has ever lessened its use.

It's sometimes like fighting a losing battle, but my opinion is that you must think about what you want to convey here. Is this podcast informational or is this a music platform? If you want to demonstrate your musical taste, develop a podcast promoting music.

Wolf Bogacz

Friday, October 22, 2010 2:58:20 PM UTC

@Wolf & @Stian

I don't know if Rob or Scott would agree with me on this point...but in my eyes this podcast is neither informational or musical...it's entertainment...granted entertainment with a slant to our industry. But there are plenty of 'technical' podcasts out there already...this one is geared more toward the peoples stories and not the tech. If you want a stripped down podcast there are plenty of alternatives.

Scott and Rob do this as their own creative venue...you don't have to like it. But I think if you change your perspective on it's content away from the technical, and more toward the human element...the music is perfect.

Ryan S.

Ryan Smith

Friday, October 22, 2010 4:58:06 PM UTC

Excellent episode. Not only did I learn some things, but I've been encouraged to keep thinking, long after the podcast is over. That's always a good thing.

I, for one, like the musical interstitials. Perhaps some of the transitions are a bit jarring, but I appreciate that Rob is still learning and improving his production skills. The shows have steadily gotten better.

Keep up the good work.

eking.myopenid.com

Friday, October 22, 2010 6:36:17 PM UTC

@protoBytes Ward builds oscilloscopes, he doesn't use them to build computers.

Rob Conery

Friday, October 22, 2010 6:37:10 PM UTC

@Stian there are plenty of choices out there without music. I'm not removing or changing it - it's a creative endeavor and I realize some might not like it :).

Rob Conery

Saturday, October 23, 2010 1:21:17 AM UTC

There is probably one more reason to know those people who have built awesome products. it brings inspiration to us. Thanks for inspiration! your voices are mesmerizing! like DJ's!