The One Where We Geek Out on Tech with Carmen Huidobro

Sep 10, 2024

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About our guest:

Carmen Huidobro (she/her) is a developer advocate and dev education enthusiast originally from Chile and based in Austria. She thrives on lifting others up in their tech careers and loves a good CSS challenge. Always excited to talk about teaching tech, especialmente en Español, oder auf Deutsch.

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All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingout
All of Adriana's social channels are on bento.me/adrianamvillela

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ADRIANA: Hey, fellow geeks! Welcome to Geeking Out, the podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery, DevOps, Observability, reliability, and everything in between. I'm your host, Adriana Villela, coming to you from Toronto, Canada. And geeking out with me today is Carmen Huidobro. Welcome, Carmen.

CARMEN: Thank you so much for having me. Hey everybody, all listeners. It's an absolute joy to be here.

ADRIANA: I am so excited to have you on. And, you know, it's really cool how I got you on the podcast was because I think Marino Wijay did a shoutout of, like, all amazing people that should...he did a Tweet about like, oh, these are some awesome people that you should totally have on your podcast. I'm like, awesome. And your name was on there. And so I replied to that tweet. I'm like, anyone on that list, like, let me know. DM me. You can be on the podcast.

CARMEN: Honestly, like, I'm so grateful to Marino and also you for, like, laying down that growndwork. I don't know what was what I was thinking that day. I was feeling like, oddly bold. Is like, because I saw, I saw your post and I was like, you know what? I am going to reach out to her and just sort of like, very bravely be like, hey, I'd love to.

ADRIANA: I am so glad that you did. I love it when, when people take me up on, on my offer. So.

CARMEN: Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

ADRIANA: Yay. Well, as, as we start off, are you ready for the lightning round lightning slash not really lightning round questions?

CARMEN: Awesome. Let's go.

ADRIANA: Okay. All right, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?

CARMEN: I'm a righty, but I was born a lefty. But, like, so I was growing up in Chile at the time, and my....so, like, my grandmother did not like it and she was, like, forcing me to, like, try and, like, write with my right hand. So, like, I do some stuff sort of lefty, but, like, 90% righty.

ADRIANA: Oh, okay. So your, like, brain was retrained on, on the rightiness. Ooh, cool, cool. Yeah, my mom. I'm a lefty. My mom was also a lefty. And she was forced to do things left-handed [NOTE: should be right-handed] by some angry nuns. And she...but she was like one of those, like, you can't take the lefty out of me. And she just couldn't, like, as much as the nuns tried to do it, she just. Nope, not. Not happening.

CARMEN: So they try. And they tried to train her out of being a lefty, right?

ADRIANA: They did. They did. And it did not work. Yeah, they...Because I think, like, she would hold her fork with her left hand, and they're like, nope. And so. So they make her sit in the cafeteria trying to eat with her right hand.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And if she didn't, she would, like, either not eat or whatever, like, if there was some sort of punishment or I think she missed recess because she was stuck at the cafeteria, like, trying to eat with her right hand. And so she was, like, thoroughly traumatized. So for her, it was like, almost. Almost like the visceral reaction of, like, nope, I'm a lefty for life on all the things.

CARMEN: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, kind of. I mean, I wasn't at school when they were doing this, but, like, my...my grandmother was very, very adamant about, like, nope, she has to be a righty.

ADRIANA: Thou shalt be righty. All right, next question. Do you prefer iPhone or Android?

CARMEN: You know, I alternate because I'm undecided and boring. But I started out as a Mac developer, so, like, there is a sort of, like, propensity to stick with, like, Apple products. So I'm currently on an iPhone 12 Mini, and I'm kind of annoyed about it because, like, it's the last...no, it's the second last mini they made, and I have small hands. I don't understand why phone manufacturers don't like people with small hands. Bring back the Mini.

ADRIANA: I know. I love the size of the Mini.

CARMEN: Right? So, like, yeah, I. And I have to get a new phone soon because this one's starting to run out of battery and, like, I don't know what to get. How about you?

ADRIANA: I am...I've had an iPhone since the 3GS.

CARMEN: No way. That was my first phone.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. So before that I had a BlackBerry, and before that I had an LG Chocolate, which I adored. It was one of those, like, do you remember the slider phones?

CARMEN: Yeah, totally.

ADRIANA: And, like, you know, they became, like, really popular because of the Matrix. And it was like, it was cute. It looked like a little candy bar. It was, like, tiny in your hand. And I adored that phone. And then, you know, blackberries came out, and I loved my BlackBerry until it started to spontaneously shut off in the middle of phone calls. And then I got really angry, and so we. We retaliated and bought iPhones.

CARMEN: Fair enough. Fair enough. I had a Motorola Razr. I don't know if you're familiar, like.

ADRIANA: Oh, my God, those were beautiful.

CARMEN: I love those. I miss it, honestly.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. Those were beautiful phones. I mean, even, like, it's predecessor, like, you remember the StarTAC?

CARMEN: Oh, my God. Yes.

ADRIANA: Like, I mean, at the time, I'm like, oh, my God, this is like the coolest phone ever. You know, especially, like, I carried around this. It was like a Sanyo brick phone, which at the time was like, oh, this is so tiny compared to those, like, really big ass phones that fortunately I never had.

CARMEN: Oh, yeah.

ADRIANA: I'm not that old.

CARMEN: Oh, gosh.

ADRIANA: Phone memory lane. Awesome. Okay, next question. Do you prefer Mac, Linux, or Windows?

CARMEN: So I recently, like, I like to...so I have a PC that I built back in 2018. Like the first PC I ever built, and I love it to bits, but it was getting too slow. So I did something very, very wild for me, which, I mean, it doesn't sound that wild. I installed a liquid cooler into it, right. Which is a lot more, which is a lot more complex than it sounds. It's really just sort of like, you know, doing, putting in some parts and plugging stuff in. It wasn't nearly like, as complex as it sounds.

CARMEN: But what that means is that, oh, my gosh, I'm motivated to work on my PC again. So I got on back on Linux and I missed it. Honestly, I'm really enjoying working on Linux right now. But I started out as a Mac developer, so it has a soft spot in my heart. Windows exists. I use it, you know.

ADRIANA: Yeah. I feel, you know, I. It's funny, I have Windows PTSD because I used it for so long.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And in, under such corporate settings that I have, like, this very negative association with Windows, even though, like, Windows was my...I guess my first operating system was DOS, but Windows was my first, I guess, like proper GUI...yeah...OS. I just, I cannot, like, you know, I should feel some nostalgia for it, but I honestly, I feel PTSD for it. And Macs kind of represent, like, you know, phase two of my career where I've, like, it's the enlightenment of my career where I've moved away from the corporate-y mindset.

CARMEN: Oh, I so feel you because I'm actually in that right now. I...last...no, earlier this year, I started consulting with an SAP consultancy. Do you know SAP?

ADRIANA: My husband works in SAP? Like that. That is his career. Yes, yes, yes. Like 20...I want to say 28 years doing SAP. Like, ABAP performance tuning. Like, that is his jam.

CARMEN: I mean, I don't know if you've ever taken. Absolutely. Like, I appreciate it because I'm, like, I started consulting with him, but, like, working on them, bringing sort of like, my developer relations and developer education site aspect to it. But I've also you know been picking up at ABAP and SAP GUI and all that stuff and like good golly what a completely different world that is. And like, and of course that means that I need to have a Windows machine because like you know it's completely like...what do you mean Linux? What do you mean open source? Like, you know? And like so I've been just rediscovering Windows in a corporate context and like, it hits different.

ADRIANA: It does hit different. Yep, yep, yep. But the Windows salvation is the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

CARMEN: Yes, yes. In fact like when I built my PC like a long time ago I was like you know what, I'm going to work with WSL. Like you know, Windows Subsystem for Linux. And I loved it. I still do and whatever, like whenever like I'm onboarding folks like if they're getting new to, if they're new to programming and they're like you know starting out, I love to like very, very gently...I'm not a, I'm not some kind of like adamant person who's like oh, you have to do this. But I'm definitely like, you know if you're having trouble installing node on your machine, have you heard of Windows Subsystem for Linux? You know, that sort of thing?

ADRIANA: Yeah exactly, exactly. Yeah. The last time I had a Windows machine the first thing I did was install WSL.

CARMEN: Absolutely, same here.

ADRIANA: Yeah it's, yeah I mean it's, it's, it's a whole other experience. It makes Windows a kinder, gentler.

CARMEN: Oh absolutely. And like honestly like I'm very grateful it exists because it gives folks an opportunity to you know get into programming a lot easier or like you know get antiquated...to get antiquated, is that the term? Familiar with? Yeah, acquainted. That's what I wanted to say. With, with these kind of tools that you know folks are working with on a day to day basis but like a lot more accessible. You know my...I had a client that I used to work with. I've done a ton of freelancing in my career and like one of my favorite client experiences was this was a client in gastronomy for like local businesses and like the business, the industry area of Vienna and we were doing like lunch...like you know like corporate lunch for them and stuff like the gastronomy and like catering and all that stuff. And my job was to build their POS, or point of sale system, right? And of course every, every office that they would deliver to would have a different kind of thing.

And like I was doing a lot with like thermal printers and stuff for their like receipts and stuff, you know. By the way, thermal print, you know, thermal printers, right? Like, I never occurred to me that they don't use ink, but in fact they burn the paper. Like how metal is that?

ADRIANA: I know, right?

CARMEN: It's like, oh, absolutely. And like the protocol for like printing to them like this, like the one we use was the ESC POS protocol for printing is so versatile. It's kind of cool. Anyway, and I wrote a system that like worked very nicely with like Linux and like writing to like writing over serial to the, to the USB, to the USB port on the, on the printer itself. And that was all well and cool. And then my clients like, cool, well this client has a Windows machine, so we should just...like a Windows POS...we should just do it with that. And I was like, oh yeah, no problem. I'm sure, like writing to, writing to like, you know, ports on Windows is going to be completely easy. And like 48 hours of like reading C documentation for like win DLL or something. I was like, maybe I'm not a programmer after all.

ADRIANA: Oh my God, the DLLs crap. I remember those.

CARMEN: I never, I never, I never wrote one. Like, we ended up giving up and like, I think what we ended up in doing in the end was the most like hacky thing in the world, which was like, let's just buy a Raspberry PI and send it data over wifi. And hey, it works. And that still being used to this day. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, it was great. I love that. I love...I gave a talk about that at a Ruby conference. It was a lot of fun.

ADRIANA: That's awesome. That sounds like such a great solution.

CARMEN: Oh, it's super fun.

ADRIANA: All right, next question. What's your favorite programming language?

CARMEN: Oh, no. Okay, I do have an answer. So I mentioned I started out as an Objective-C...I just gave it away. I started out as a Mac developer, and at the time, not to age myself, uh, the, the only programming language for macOS was Objective-C. And I don't know if you know Objective-C. It's weird. It's got a...it's got an odd syntax.

You send mess...like, you don't send messages using a full stop, you know, as you would like, you know, object dot method. Instead you do it with square brackets. So like, square brackets, object message, if you want to like use that as a parameter, no problem. Just surround it with more square brackets and you can end up with like an, in, like an inception of, like, several square brackets, and, like, it gets a lot of...

ADRIANA: Oh, my God.

CARMEN: And it gets a lot of criticism for having an odd syntax. It's still SmallTalk-like. But the reason it's my favorite programming language is because I now jokingly say, like, I started out in Objective-C. Nothing can hurt me now. And, like, it taught me to be flexible. It taught me to, like, appreciate, like, object orientation. Like, you know, the base, the essentials of SmallTalk and that sort of thing, and really grateful for it. But, you know, after that, I don't know. I think I associate programming languages with, like, stages of my career or my life because...

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that. Totally.

CARMEN: So, you know, after that, I was a...Like, all of our tooling for our apps and objectives were written in Ruby because my client was a big fan of, you know, of ruby on rails. And this was, like, early 2010. And so I went into ruby on rails, and I love Ruby. Like, especially, like, the european Ruby community has such a special place in my heart that, like, I. Because, like, right after, like, getting into that, then I started feeling a little bit isolated as a. As a. As a freelancer.

And then I sort of started, like, I'm a. Okay, believe it or not, I'm a shy person. And, like, I started, like, dipping my toes into, like, going to meetups and stuff, but it was very intimidating. And, like. Like, Objective-C. I think the German language gets a bad rap because it's, like. Like, especially for, like, you know, myself. I come from, like, a romance language.

I come from Spanish. And, like, yeah, German is hard to learn, but I think it, like, I think it gets...I don't know, there's a certain beauty to its modularity, for example, that, like...

ADRIANA: I agree with you. I totally agree with you. I think German is so...German is so beautiful.

CARMEN: I agree 100%. Like, don't get me wrong, it's hard. It's got its rules. Like, you know, articles, you know, the der, die, das...like, for. For assigning to nouns is difficult.

ADRIANA: Oh, my God. Yes, yes, right?

CARMEN: I gave up.

ADRIANA: Honestly, just make shit up as you go along.

CARMEN: Look, people are gonna know what you mean, like, regardless of the language and all of that, but, like. Anyway, so the meetups were, like, super intense and very, like. I mean, you. You know, if you. If you're familiar with, like, the tech scene, especially in, like, German speaking countries, there's this. There's this, like, sort of not anarchistic per se, but there's a very, like. Like, hacker. Like, are you familiar with that sort of German hacker culture? You know, like the, they call it the demo scene.

They do, like, lots of, like, graphics and music stuff, and it's very, like, anti authoritarian and that sort of thing. And, like...

ADRIANA: Right, right. Kind of, kind of like in the Hackers movie, that kind of vibe.

CARMEN: Oh, I was a complete side note, I was at EMF camp a few weeks ago, and, like, they have a, which is like a nerdy camping event, but with WiFi and electricity and, like, all of that stuff and talks. Actually, I gave a workshop on how to get into public speaking and tech speaking at that event a few weeks ago. It was good fun. I'm not a very good camper, but regardless, they show that movie every time.

ADRIANA: Yeah.

CARMEN: And they have the director there for a Q&A, which is pretty cool.

ADRIANA: What? Yeah, I, you know, that movie has a special place in my heart. Like, my husband and my daughter hate it. I'm like, but it's so bad. It's good. Come on.

CARMEN: I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching it, but I kind of just shocked myself. Favorite programming language. So, like, Ruby. Like, I started going to the Ruby meetup and, like, very quickly got on boarded into, like, Rails Girls. Rails Girls, Summer of Code, and, like, lots of, like, you know, more sort of like humanitarian stuff related to code. And so, like, I did a lot of that with Ruby for a couple of years. And then a couple years ago, my friend and I, my friend Jess and I started teaching JavaScript and HTML and, like, you know, especially when I talk to folks who do, like, more backend or low level programming, and they go like, ugh, JavaScript is weird. And I was like, I know, isn't it great? I have a soft spot. A soft spot for it. And then, like, I started getting integrated into the Rust community. And, like, at least here in Europe, they're also wonderful. I don't know, maybe I, maybe my favorite programming languages are associated to the respective communities.

ADRIANA: I mean, and that's such a great association to make. Like, you know, you have a nice community and you feel like it inspires you to learn more because you like the people around it. Right? And I think it's funny you mentioned Ruby because I've had a number of people on the podcast who are big fans of Ruby, and... everyone talks about the Ruby community.

CARMEN: I mean, they are pretty great.

ADRIANA: Can't beat that. Can't beat that.

CARMEN: I'm curious, may I ask what's yours right now?

ADRIANA: I would say Python. So I was a longtime Java developer, 15 years. So I got on the Java bandwagon, like in the late '90s, early 2000s...so when Java was pretty new. I was like, I got onto it because my dad is, he's a retired software architect. He learned Rust for fun last year. He just made, like, we were chatting on the phone. He made his first contribution to, what is the Rust library thing called? Not the package manager. Like the library, like where people, like, where people put their, like their homegrown libraries.

CARMEN: Crates. crates.io

ADRIANA: Yes, that's it. Yes. He published his first Crate last week. I'm like, and my dad's turning 71.

CARMEN: That's amazing.

ADRIANA: So, yeah, but I got into Java because of my dad. My dad got into SmallTalk when SmallTalk was like, the thing, and then it was like, Java, Java, Java. Now he's like, Java is an anti-pattern because object-oriented programming is an anti-pattern. And then he would...he did Go for a while. Now he's like, I hate Go. Rust. Rust is where it's at.

CARMEN: I mean, you know, that's something I find so liberating about programming languages and technologies in general is that, you know, opinions come and go. Like best, best practices come and go. And like, I find being able to like, recognize patterns and like, bring over knowledge and even use that prior knowledge to challenge current knowledge. So helpful. The one I always think about is, you know, I was doing lots of Ruby on Rails and then like, I kind of missed like the major hype of single page applications. Like, I did a little bit of Backbone.js, if you're familiar, like way back when, which was like one of the first, one of the first like single page application frameworks and stuff. And then like, but when I started really getting into stuff like React and Vue and all of that, everyone's like super excited about server side rendering. It's the future.

It's here. And I'm like, wait, we stopped doing that? And, you know, like, things come and go. Like, everyone in, like, a lot of folks in like the Next.js world are super excited about like RPCs and TrPCs. And I'm like, do y'all mean remote procedure calls? Because like, don't get me wrong, they're fantastic. Like, I didn't know they were gone, you know?

ADRIANA: So true. Yeah. It is very cyclical. Yeah, I think, like, programming languages, like, you know, it's also a thing, like, the thing I hear a lot with them is like, my favorite programming language is the one that I'm using right now, which is cool. It's like, yeah, whatever. I'm down to learn new languages, because what I. It's exactly what you said. You, like, you start to recognize patterns between languages.

And I think that's one of the things that I enjoy about learning new languages is like, oh, how is the thing done in this compared to the thing done here? Right? Yeah, and, yeah, I mean, and I think it's that process of discovery and then learning the nuances and then the...this language does this so poorly. I love how this language does that, and I think that's...that's what I love. It's that discovery of programming languages for the first time. It's like falling in love for the first time.

CARMEN: Absolutely. And then that excitement of, like, how something is done, and then you bring it back to your programming language. One of my favorites is when Objective-C introduced blocks, which are anonymous functions, right? And subjectively, the syntax is pretty gnarly for them. Like, I know, like, what are the...what are the...what's that sign....the...the little arrow that goes, is it a caret? The one that goes....

ADRIANA: Yeah, the yeah, right, yeah, like that. Right?

CARMEN: Yeah, but it's. It's. It's upwards.

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

CARMEN: Yeah, I think that's a caret as well. Could be wrong, but I think it is a caret. Yeah, yeah, most, I think so. Yeah. But, like, it's. It's pretty garly. It involves one of those. It involves ampersands. It involves, like, like, curly bracket. It's pretty, like, doesn't...curly brackets doesn't sound that bad. But anyway, it's pretty weird. So much so that for a very long time, I looked it up recently. It doesn't exist anymore. There was a website called effing blocks, which all of its purpose is to remind folks how to do block syntax in Objective-C because it was that weird. And I love that. That sort of, like, not spite per se, but like, that sort of joyful, like, oh, God, I need to reach for it again. Sort of thing that I just find.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love stuff like that.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: There's a place that I can go to to remind me how to do x.

CARMEN: Absolutely.

ADRIANA: I'm all for it.

CARMEN: Awesome.

ADRIANA: Okay, our next question. Do you prefer Dev or Ops?

CARMEN: Ooh. So I've spent most of my careers in dev, so, like, my heart will always be in dev, but, like, I've recently started dipping my toes more and more into ops. And, like, I have a very, very solid appreciation for it. And, like, again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. Y'all are so nice like, the community is so sweet and I just like inviting. Like, I spoke at my, my first DevOps event last year. It was a DevOps DevOps Days New York and it was just such an incredible event. And folks are so, like open minded and like inviting and like, so thoughtful and so provocative in a good way as well.

Like, I really enjoyed my time there and I feel like I'm learning a lot. It's like, it's just like rediscovering a new aspect of career. It's kind of like picking up a new programming language. Like, you're just sort of like picking up new things. And like, I think there's a lot of consideration and considerable work being done there that, like, I'm finding myself really drawn to.

ADRIANA: Yeah, that, that's such a great way of putting it because I think, like, for me, DevOps was, it was like a milestone in my career.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Like, it was. I, for me, it was a turning point because it was where I'm like, oh, I like infrastructure stuff, but I also like coding and I can do both? What?? It was like...🤯

CARMEN: And like, just, just the thought that just the fact that, like, so much, so much, like really good tooling is being made to make this more accessible for folks. Like, for me, onboarding is always a question with this sort of thing. It's both like, it's double edged sword. And like, I find that as folks, like, especially in the ops communities like are taking all of these steps to make these tools, make all of this, like, all this learning that we had to do in one way or another, perhaps more painstakingly than others, more accessible, is something that I'm finding really compelling.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fact that we've been able to transcend beyond bash scripting, right? Which, I mean, I love a good bash script, don't get me wrong, but I definitely appreciate all this other tooling that is now available for our convenience.

CARMEN: Semi related. Like, it's funny you mentioned that because like sort of related to Windows and shell scripting, I had to build a...so, like, one of the things that I do at my main job at DevCraft Academy is like give folks training in reviewing pull requests and like giving like kind, thoughtful, constructive, not necessarily nice, because nice is like superficial, but like kind for me is like really pushing towards, like this is great. This is how it can be better. So I'm like really pushing for a lot of that stuff. And one of the things that happened especially like, as folks are getting more experience in, like, contributing actively to teams, is giving your files and folders names that are not going to make Windows explode because Windows is pretty strict, uh, conventions for how you name your files. So. Okay, no problem. I'll just, like, add a little, like, existing GitHub action that, like, validates those names.

But it turns out, like, the thing I need didn't really exist. So I was like, well, guess I'm going to have to write my own. And I had to dip my toes into shell scripting for this. And good golly, did I struggle. And at the end, like, my client was like, why don't you just make a Ruby script for it? I was like, that's an option. Oh, goodness. And then it took five minutes.

ADRIANA: I feel. Yeah, yeah, there, there were a few instances where I'm like, you know, on the path towards creating, like, this horrible shell script, and then I'm like, I can do it in Python.

CARMEN: Exactly. I mean, isn't that one of the most wonderful things about tech, is that you have these tools available and, like, you have the right, like, I don't know, something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Kind of a side note is that, like, when we're introducing folks to, like, tech in general, and, like, we sort of, like, build up this sort of image, not, not on purpose. I don't think, and definitely not maliciously, that there is a perfect learning path that they have to take, or there's like, learn this, this, this and this, and you're good in this exact order. And, like, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, there's no set path because if there was, it'd be documented, right?

ADRIANA: Yeah.

CARMEN: So, and I feel like one of the things that I would love to, like to communicate more and want to do a better job at communicating is that, like, look, there's never going to be a perfect tool for a job. It's going to be the one that works best for you, like, working solo or working with your team. There's going to be the one that works best for y'all. For example, writing a script, gonna be Python for you, gonna be Ruby for me. And that's like, neither is wrong.

ADRIANA: Exactly.

CARMEN: Like, in most circumstances, if they're like, I don't know, running something on some embedded thing that only works on Python. Sure. Then your options are a little bit more limited. But, like, again, working within, working within your means and, like, picking the right tool for the job, I think is so much more important than, like, having, like, what is the most optimal tooling for the job.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think that speaks to it even makes me think actually about, that's how I feel about Agile.

CARMEN: Oh, yeah.

ADRIANA: Where I feel like we've especially generally, I think as an industry we've invested so much time in like the, the structure around Agile. And especially a lot of people equate Agile with Scrum even though Scrum is an approach to Agile.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And, and I detest Scrum. I detest SAFe Agile because it's...it defeats the purpose of what Agile is, which is agility and fast feedback loops. And people get so caught up in the, you know, you have to do it this, this and this way that, and get caught up in the ceremonies that you end up completely forgetting the point of why you were doing this in the first place. And so what I've always found has worked really well. I've, where I've seen teams being really successful at Agile is when they pick and choose the things that work best for them. It's like, oh, Scrum has an interesting concept that, you know what, it works really well for our team. And maybe SAFe has a thing and maybe Kanban.

So then you pick and choose these different approaches and it's a choose your own adventure. And it's similar with like solving, you know, it's similar with like what you were saying around like learning paths there is there because people learn so differently. And what clicks well with one person won't click well with another person. We have visual learners, we have non visual learners. So what's going to, what's going to work best? And so of course, as you said, there's no, you can't say like this. This is the path or if you learn these tools that is going to take you to where you need to be because it, it may and may not.

CARMEN: I mean, to the point of like, you know, learning differently. I, I actually got pushback on that from. Do you, do you by any chance know somebody called Felienne Hermans?

ADRIANA: I don't.

CARMEN: Oh. So she wrote this fantastic book called The Programmer's Brain. Highly recommend it. She's a neuroscientist, I believe. Don't, don't quote me on that. But she does a lot of work around the neuroscience and like, you know how that works in programming. She's working on this programming language called Hedy which like is like put pushing back on monolinguism in that. Like you can write it in any spoken language you want.

ADRIANA: Oh, whoa. That's cool.

CARMEN: Right? So we had her on. On The Bad Website club for like you know, learning how to learn and all of that. And she was pushed...she...because I very...said, like, well, yeah, we all learn differently. And she goes like, actually we don't. I can't remember why, but I remember that pushback. So whatever I hear, like, we will learn. We all learn differently is like, wait a minute. Apparently we don't.

But like, I think there's a, there's something to be said for like the, the aspects of like, because I used to teach children to code and like, like, actually one of my favorite things I've ever done was, you know, I was never the best student, but one of like at university. But like, one of my favorite things I did was actually my bachelor thesis which I wrote about like my experience teaching children to code and comparing that with like, established research in the, uh, technical pedagogy for children. And like, there's these, there's these two, um, learning theories that, that exist. One is called constructivism and one is called constructionism. And I'm going to focus on the latter which says that our learning is modular, where we pick up different, like, let's say like Lego blocks and apply them and analogize, analogize, analogize. Compare them with those other pieces of knowledge and make them fit together, which if you think about it, goes back to what we're talking about, like, you know, recognizing patterns. And what I love about that is that it kind of gives a freedom of, for example, choosing your learning path. And then like, when we think about like, you know, how we learn and stuff.

And like, you know, when we do like developer relations and we create different types of content, you know, for example, we like a lot of, there's a lot of metrics that say, like, oh, short form video is super popular right now. And maybe written, like, written a, written content, not so much. Like, personally I prefer written content for learning, but, but there's aspects of video that are very helpful. But like, what I found is that like, people have their preferences, people have their own learning styles that they prefer. And like, having that flexibility is going to help you so much more. I went off on a tangent and I apologize.

ADRIANA: I love that tangent. And you know what? I'm going to go off on a similar tangent because you made me think of....so my daughter attended Montessori school for many years. Because...I'm like super jealous of her education because like, what I love about Montessori is that it really embraces, like, it's all about individualism, but it also teaches you to work as part of a community. And what I especially loved is so my daughter, our first parent teacher interview that I had with her teacher, and she started when she was three in Montessori, and she did it up, up until she turned 13. And her first parent teacher interview, her teacher's like, yeah, Hannah's not learning very well. And also, she stole a bunch of stuff from the classroom, like, oh, my God. My first parent teacher interview. My kids a klepto.

I'm sorry, Hannah. I know you edit this podcast. I hope I'm not embarrassing you. And then I'm like, oh, my God. So I'm, like, panicky. I'm like, went from proud parent to like, oh, my God. And then...and then...Hannah has a very unique learning style where she hates being told what to do.

Like, and I mean, like, everything's on her own terms. And her teacher, Cecile, who, like, we're still friends with to this day, because she cracked the Hannah code, she determined that in order to teach Hannah how to do something, she had to go and show it to one of Hannah's classmates. And then Hannah would walk over, like, learning by observing. Don't teach me. I will learn this way. And her teacher, Cecile, cracked the code. And basically...and then Hannah went through this phase, I think she was, like, four or five, where she decided she wanted to sew.

So she would, like, she sewed, like, gowns and stuff. Like, when she graduated kindergarten, she sewed her own, like, grad dress thing and her. And she was, like, full on obsessed with the sewing. And her teacher, Cecile, again, then, okay, you love the sewing. Let's incorporate other aspects into the sewing. How can we incorporate math? How can we incorporate, you know, science or whatever, like, things into the learning to help her learn. And so ever since then, it's really made me appreciate seeing how she grew up versus how I grew up, which was very, you know, like, very traditional. Like, I'm south american.

I've got, like, my. My mom had very, very distinct ideas of how. How I should learn. And, you know, I spent, like, a summer memorizing my times tables, because that is what you do.

CARMEN: Yep, I can relate. I have that.

ADRIANA: So, you know, as a result of that, it's really...she's opened my eyes to, like, how people. How people learn. And even, like, my husband is dyslexic, and I'm a fast reader, and being around him, I've had to, like, first of all, learn to slow down. I can't just, like, show him a thing. Here, read this right now. And he's like, I need a minute. But also recognize the fact that, like, even though, like, he doesn't let dyslexia get the best of him. He's found coping mechanisms.

So it's so fascinating to see how different people adapt to different situations, how they will learn things differently. And I think that's, like, the most magical thing. And that...yeah, I love that.

CARMEN: No, 100%. I just want to. Just want to clarify the face I made when you. When. When you told me that she had, like, don't tell me how to learn who. That hit, like, a very familiar nerve for me, of, like. I mean, that's the exact. That's why I say I wasn't the best student, because, like.

And, like, it was so fascinating to see, like, how differently I would approach. Because if a professor, like, a university would tell me, like, read this book and, like, spit out its contents on an exam paper, three months later, I'm like, right. The man doesn't tell me what to do. But if a client or, like, somebody or, like, you know, a higher up tells me, he's like, hey, you should read this book. It's really helped me with my career. I was like, thank you, I will. And I read it with gusto. And I'm like, I take notes and stuff.

I'm like. Then I look at it, I'm like, wait a minute, who am I? And, like, I know that's me. That, like, I have, like, you know, attitude and stuff. But, like, I do think it's really, like, I mean, that kind of helps us sort of, like, reframe as well. Like, how we approach these different problems and stuff. Like, reframing is such a powerful tool.

ADRIANA: Like, oh, my God. Yes.

CARMEN: Right? Like, not. Not fully related to learning, but, like, you know, I do a lot of talking about, like, pub...like, tech speaking and public speaking and that sort of thing. And, like, I, like, I will be very embracing of the fact that I get so nervous every time I go on stage, right? And, like, yep. Right? And, like, I help...I used...I used to help run this thing called Global Diversity CFP Day. CFP standing for, you know, call for proposals at conferences when they invite folks to propose their talks and stuff. And like, I just, like, I was like, you know what? I'm going to give a short presentation about getting nervous.

And, like, I just went on Twitter. This was like, gosh, I want to say, like, three years ago and just, like, gathered so much empirical evidence from folks of, like, how do you. How nervous do you get? How nervous do you get relative to when you're going up on stage and that sort of thing. And, like, something I found so magical. Like, there was one person who replied with, by saying, like, I've been speaking for 14 years and I get nervous every single time. I get...I increasingly get unbearable to be around the closer it's time for me to get up on stage.

But then they said, I...and I'm so grateful for the fact that I get nervous because I've reframed it as excitement, as caring. And if I'm not nervous when I'm going up on stage, it means that I don't care about what I'm presenting about and I'm gonna do a bad job. And I was like, whoa.

ADRIANA: Oh, damn! Oh, my God, I love that so much.

CARMEN: It's such a powerful reframing. And, like, I don't get me wrong, it's not about, like, lying to yourself or anything. I think it's just, like, about looking at the things that you experience in and, like, for example, learning and, like, how you...how you, you know, take things in and just, like, rethinking about how you approach them is so powerful.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah. Because, I mean, I always get nervous before talks, and I've learned to just accept it, you know, and that's okay. And I also know myself well enough that, like, once I get up on stage and, you know, unwind a bit and I just get into the groove, and then it's like autopilot, and it's such a magical feeling to you when that kicks in.

CARMEN: It's the best. Like, I always, I always joke that it's like, you know, to get a little bit math nerdy. It's like a, it's like a tangent graph. Like a tan graph where it's, like, not nervous, not nervous. Super, super nervous. And then, like. And then I'm, like, in another plane of existence and, like, yes. Like, I know that my speaking style tends to be, like, very, like, engaging and, like, energetic and stuff.

And then people come up, it's like, oh, my God, you're so, like, don't get me wrong. I appreciate it. This isn't to, like, humble brag or anything. I have a point. But, like, you know, they'll come and be like, oh, my gosh, you're so energetic. It's so cool. Like, how do you do it? And I was like, yo, what you're seeing is, like, anxiety and adrenaline just, like, in human form.

ADRIANA: I can relate to that.

CARMEN: Right?

ADRIANA: Yeah. People are like, you're so peppy and, and then, you know, it's like when you said, like, you won't believe it, but I'm actually, actually, like, very shy. I'm like, I am too. I can so relate. And people, people meet me, they're like, oh, you're so outgoing. It's like, yeah. And then get me in a room full of people I don't know, and I'm the one, you know, in the corner texting. So texting a friend, going, oh, my God, help me.

CARMEN: That was me at my first meetup. I actually, I had a...I had...I had a little weird, like, let's call it a science experiment a few years ago where I, where I went to speak at a conference in Romania, in Bucharest. Had a really good time. They took such good care of me. But, like, I arrived, I, you know, earlier in the day, and I went out to find, get lunch. I was by myself, and, like, I realized I was being so...

I don't know what the term is. Shy, nervous, uncomfortable. Like, I felt uncomfortable even ordering food by myself. Right. And then, like, we went out first. Then was time for the speaker dinner. I kind of awkwardly went up to some folks at the, at the, in the hotel lobby that didn't really. They gave off that vibe as we don't really know anyone here, and we're gonna go to a speaker dinner, and, like, I want to introduce myself to them.

And then, like, we went to the speaker dinner after that. And, like, a couple of the folks I met were like, oh, I wonder where that guy got napkins. I could really use napkins, but I'm too shy to ask. And, like, don't ask me why. My brain, like, rewired itself. It's like, don't worry, I'll take care of this. And I go, it's like, excuse me, sir. Where did you get those napkins? Thinking back to the person, like, 3 hours, 5 hours ago who was too shy to order lunch, and I'm like, what's going on? Right? I don't know. It's weird.

ADRIANA: That's so cool. Yeah. It's funny how, like, certain things will trigger, like, I, you know, I think of myself at, like, conferences, right?

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Like, I am on, at conferences, I'm like, I put on the full on, like, extroverted thing, and then I look back at it and I'm like, who dat?

CARMEN: Oh, my God. I so feel that.

ADRIANA: Right? And sometimes, like, you're not even conscious of it. It's like something goes off and you're like, yep.

CARMEN: And, like, I gotta be honest, I still don't know. Like, I don't even know if I fall in any of the two categories of introversion versus extroversion. Like. Like, don't get me. I thrive on, like, being, like, being on, as you put it, because it's very similar for me. It's like I'm a different person when I'm in public versus I'm, when I'm at home, just, like, doom scrolling or something. But, like, it's. It's.

I don't know. I kind of like that. Don't get me wrong. I think...I think it's not that you're, like, personality is, like, fragmented or something, or it's just. Or anything like that, or that you're putting on a show. I think it's an aspect of your personality that just comes out in those situations, and it's extremely valid.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And what you mentioned earlier, too, like, why should we be put in a category of, like, you're either introverted or extroverted. Why. Why can't it be shades of gray? Like, everything else is shades of gray? There. There are seldom things that are binary. So, like, totally. Why not this?

CARMEN: Absolutely.

ADRIANA: Okay, we're almost done. Yeah, sort of done. No, we're not quite done. That's okay. This has been fun because, like, we've dug into, like, all the topics through. Through the...through these questions, so I'm here for it.

CARMEN: I love it. This is so much fun.

ADRIANA: Do you prefer JSON or YAML?

CARMEN: Oh, I have a YAML story. So I was building back in my Objective-C days, I was building a file renaming app. You drag in a bunch of files, you put in a set of actions, and then it would rename those files for you. It's pretty...it's a pretty complex app, and it's how I learned regular expressions, by the way. Super fun. But regardless, I needed to...these chains of actions that you would take to rename the files, insert these characters, put in numbers, find and replace all of this stuff.

I needed to store these somewhere, and I was like, oh, I'll just store these as YAML. For example, for find and replace, you could have any string you wanted. I was like, cool, we'll just put in, like, you know, if I put in a letter "y", I ran into trouble because YAML doesn't interpret the letter "y" as the letter "y". It interprets it as "true" now. And it gets wilder than that because, like, you might think, okay, well, then, like, don't use the letter "y". Fair. But the same goes for "ON", which is, correct me if I'm wrong, the..what's it called? The abbreviation for Ontario.

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.

CARMEN: But in YAML, "on" is "true".

ADRIANA: Derp.

CARMEN: And there's a bunch of these that through this...through these...through these sort of, like, frustrations, I just switched over to JSON. I have to admit, it made my life significantly easier. So do I prefer one to the other?

ADRIANA: That was it for you? It's like, yep.

CARMEN: I have...I mean, don't get me wrong. Like, I'm a big, like, use the right tool for the...for the job. I love...I kind of have a soft spot for those quirks of YAML. Don't get me wrong, they're frustrating. But, like, I don't know, I just like. I just like it when a...I just like it when...when languages or technologies have their...there's a spanish word that I love called that. It's mañas. It's like... it's what makes you like. It's like when you're a picky eater, you're called mañoso or mañosa or mañose...it's like, it's quirk. A quirk. That's the term. A quirk.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah.

CARMEN: And I don't know, I find them endearing. So, like, in that. In that context, of course I prefer JSON, but, like, I don't know. I have a soft spot for YAML.

ADRIANA: Fair enough. Fair enough. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. That viewpoint on it. Okay. On a similar vein, do you prefer spaces or tabs?

CARMEN: Oh, oh, I prefer. So, I mean, I use spaces. Well, I mostly used spaces, but there's actually a reason to prefer tabs, and that is for accessibility.

ADRIANA: Ooh, tell me more.

CARMEN: Like, I cannot for the life of me recall what that article, but I read an article where somebody said, like, look, essentially the way, like, a screen reader or something is going to interpret tabs or spaces, it's gonna make more sense to have tabs. And I'm like, you know what? Fair enough. Because at the end of the day, a tab is a character, right?

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A character that represents a chunk of space.

CARMEN: Exactly. And, like, that feels more, let's say, screen reader-ly honest than two to four spaces.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Huh. That's so cool. I have not looked at it from that perspective.

CARMEN: See if I can find the article, and I'll send it to you.

ADRIANA: Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Hopefully we can include that in our show notes. Okay, I think you answered this question in one of your earlier statements, but I will ask it formally. Do you prefer to consume content through video or text?

CARMEN: I think, yeah, no, I did kind of. There was somewhere in my rambling. It was there. I think I prefer text, but it really depends on, like, what I'm trying to do for, like, I don't know, like, I think I mentioned. Yeah, I did mention that, like, I installed a liquid cooler into my PC for that kind of thing. A video was much more helpful, but, like, for certain coach things, especially for, like, navigating. Navigating dashboards and that sort of thing, I don't know why I'm at dashboards. I don't know what's up.

Like, I feel like every time they. Every time, like, a dashboard gets updated, I'm like, am I bad at tech? So I find videos really helpful for helping me navigate dashboards and that sort of thing. But there's a balance to it. There's a really great book on documentation called Docs for Developers, and they mention, like, you know, having this versatility of content that I find really, really helpful. So it's...I know I'm...I know I'm tending to answer things where I don't really commit to one side or the other, but, like...

ADRIANA: No, no...I love it! I love hearing, like, the different, the different reasons for the different things. This is great. This is great. It's all the different perspectives. I appreciate it.

CARMEN: You're very kind. But, like, yeah, I think there's just nuances to this sort of thing that make, you know, make them more...more relevant for one or the other. I like talking about creating content, video or text.

ADRIANA: Ooh, I should add that one.

CARMEN: It's...let me tell you...I love live streaming. I love writing, like, prose or tutorials or guides and that sort of thing. I am so bad at videos and I don't know why because, like, I think the script has to go so perfectly. Like, did you do a lot of, like, did you pre record any talks during, like, when there were a lot of conferences were online?

ADRIANA: I wasn't doing talks at that point, but I have a recent experience...so this year I launched my video course on Observability through O'Reilly, and I had to do a lot of recording for that. Like, the whole thing is a video course. And, you know, I thought, okay, once I handed in my slides, like, it would be easy to record the video because I had all my speaker notes and stuff. Oh, my God, I can't tell you how hard it was to record the video for that. That was like, like the number of times I would, I would spend sometimes like an hour on one slide because I'd be, like, tripping over my words and I'd be like, so frustrating.

CARMEN: There's an, first of all, I feel you so much. Like, like, I just triple, like, I don't know why. Every time I have to record some video, like, I do some video courses for Egghead and like, every time I have to pre record a video, I'm always, I always naively think to myself, I can do this in one take, no problem. I do stuff in one take all the time. Not taking into consideration that I trip over my words constantly or like, I mess up and I just like, sort of just like blankly stare into space for a minute. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. My friend Cassie Evans released a montage. She does, like, stuff with green...I believe with GreenSock Animation...CSS animation stuff.

And she released a montage of like, all of the time she's messed up and sworn at...like, let out a swear word. So much life. I love that we've all done it. Let's be honest.

ADRIANA: I can't tell you how many outtakes I have going, "motherfucker!"

CARMEN: Honestly, even for like, even for like a two minute video for like, I'm going to speak at a conference next month about like, dependency management that they're like, hey, do you mind, like, recording a two minute video for us? And I was like, well, there go 3 hours. Because I'm, because I'm just like, hi, my name is Carmen and damn it. Hi, my name is Carmen and I'm here to damn it. And like, it's just that...a bunch of, that. It's the worst!

ADRIANA: Yes, it is. I like...yesterday I was putting together a video to accompany a blog post that I'd written. I don't know why I thought, like, let's do a video too. Like, I find, I find video work challenging, as you mentioned. And it was similar thing, like a three minute video. It took me an hour to record it. And also I'm like, I don't need a script.

CARMEN: Oh, my God.

ADRIANA: And I really...I do need a script. I do. I'm sorry, me, but you do.

CARMEN: Like, so, like, I don't know, like with talks it's different. With talks, it's like, I don't need a script. I don't need like speaker notes. Like, I'm fine. I can just wing it. It's totally cool. Like, for some reason I just sort of like, come up with the script in my head. And don't ask me why, but I.

I like, it's. It's not so much a script. I like to call it a. A mental choreograph of how I give a presentation and, like, I don't know, timing and stuff. It's just all in there, but with a video, just not the same. And I don't know why. So weird!

ADRIANA: It ends up more robotic for some reason. Like, yeah, I look at myself in videos, especially, like, the one I did yesterday, thankfully, was a voiceover. But, you know, if you're doing a video with your face on it now, it's like, oh, my God, I've got resting bitch face, or, like I look like a robot or whatever. Right?

CARMEN: It's like, the silly thing about that is that we're the only ones looking at those aspects of ourselves, right? Because everyone else is, like, focused on the content.

ADRIANA: Yeah, it's true. Yeah. They're like, why. Why is their face there?

CARMEN: I'm not even that. They're just, like. Like, barely registering it. It's just like, yep, that's a face talking to me. It's not like. It's not like me where I'm looking at myself going, like, oh, God, my hair. Like, I look so sweaty. Oh, my God. You know, like that sort of thing.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I know. Yeah. We tend to be so self critical and...I don't have the answer for that...I...you know, I tell people, don't be self critical. Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, my God, everything sucks.

CARMEN: Do as I say, not as I do.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly.

CARMEN: Totally.

ADRIANA: Exactly. That's okay. That's what therapy is for. It's helping me get through. Same. Okay. Oh, we have one more question left.

CARMEN: Hey, I I'm excited.

ADRIANA: Okay. What is your superpower?

CARMEN: Oh, gosh. That one's actually gonna stump me. What is my superpower? I'm gonna sound naive, maybe, but, like, I think so. I used to frame it as, like, if a dummy like me can do it, so can you. I'm trying to reframe that into a little bit more of an expertise, because I owe myself some credit, but, like, I think my superpower might be making things approachable.

ADRIANA: Yes.

CARMEN: And I mean. And I mean that in every sense of the word. Like, one of my favorite projects I ever did back in my days at Codesy, where we were doing a tool, we were making a tool on a complex, code based understanding, and I was like, well, it's Hacktoberfest. We need a live stream. Carmen, do you have an idea. And I was like how about we get a bunch of like open source maintainers, have them onboard me onto their project using our tools, never having looked at the code before, not even tried the programming language before, and like it was, you know, it's onboarding so, and I, and I have no sense of dignity, so I bought a little sailor outfit and like, you know, they were onboarding me to the ship and it was a lot of fun and, but I felt like, I felt like that sort of like relaxation and like, you know, embracing what is it failing, how does I put it? Failing positively, failing safely, taking privilege into consideration, of course, but like failing safely and responsibly. Something, I think that's something that I'm good at. I remember I have one more story I had.

So like I was doing the, we're teaching JavaScript online for free at the Bad Website Club, and like we're doing the free code camp exercises. They're very kind, they're very cool people. There was one exercise there called the Record Collection Exercise where you had to manipulate a complex JavaScript object with a function and it was pretty complex. So what this was is an hour of live streaming where I would just go through and explain the solutions that I would write as I wrote them and explain concepts and that sort of thing. And I got so stuck, I got extremely stuck, couldn't make it work. And I remember panicking on the inside, of course, I'm very good at hiding it. I remember panicking being like oh my gosh, this isn't working. And people in the chat were like, I'm so lost...she's...what is she doing? Try, like, have you tried doing this and this and that? And I couldn't process it.

I was just like ah, anyway, and I felt like a failure. But I did eventually get it. I spent like 20 minutes of that 60 hours...60 minutes livestream going through this exercise. And then like I went, I disconnected, sat down, I had a tiny cry, but then I got a message from somebody being like hey Carmen, you know, that looked really tough. Congratulations on beating that exercise. I just wanted to write you and say like thank you for showing me that even someone who's been developing for software for 15 years is gonna get stuck on stuff occasionally. And that to me felt like probably the biggest victory of my career, where I made something seem more approachable, where I just added that human side of it. Like, I think especially as we're finding our first roles, we forget, especially if we've been in tech for a while, we forget what it's like to look up to folks and think like, well, they know everything.

It's kind of like when we're children and we look at grown ups and we're like, oh, yeah, they've got everything figured out. And then we, you know, I'm 36 and I'm like, still waiting for that to happen. And like, yeah, same happens with tech, you know, and I think that might be my superpower, just sort of like embracing.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. And, you know, I...and you give off very approachable vibes. Like, you're, you're very friendly and bubbly and I feel like, you know, you're someone I'd want to learn from. And I think approachable, oh, no problem. Honestly, you know, making tech approachable and, and putting a friendly face to it is so important. Especially, like, I, I think for women in tech, that's so important too. Especially because so many of us come in intimidated.

Absolutely intimidated. Um, especially because it's, it's still a man's world in tech and we gotta, you know... and being able to show other people that, a, we exist.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And b, like, we're friendly and approachable. Come learning with us...I think is so, so important.

CARMEN: I agree 100%. And if, you know, if I may say likewise, like, you have made this experience of talking to you and podcasting. I feel like I've known you for ages. It's the strangest thing.

ADRIANA: I know. I feel like we're like besties, right?

CARMEN: And like, and I think that's, that is that same application of like, making something approachable, making it not comfortable in a, in a, in a....let's say more like, let's say marshmallowy way, but like making, making folks comfortable to, for example, something as, something as perhaps straightforward from the outside is asking questions like, we take for granted how scary it is to ask questions and knowing, like, what's a proper heuristic of when to ask a question, especially as you're starting out and like, you know, especially if you don't work in a very positive, a positively reinforcing team. Like, how do I ask questions like, what is the right time? Like, I have a little hack for that, actually. Like, even though, like, I might know the answer to something if we're at a meeting or something, I'm still going to ask the question being like, what are KPI's? What is SEO? Or whatever? And like, I find that, like, make, it's that aspect of approachable. Maybe it's my focus point?

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. And I think forcing yourself to ask questions and, because, like, I remember so early on in my career, I'd be sitting in a meeting, absolutely lost and just, like, not knowing what's going on, and. And I've started to just, like, I force myself because it's so scary, too, like, especially when you're in a room of people who are so confident and they exude confidence, but they might not actually know anything or they might not know as much as they let on, let's say.

CARMEN: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And so I've taken to just, like, take a deep breath, ask the question, and I kind of take the Columbo approach. And, you know, like, for folks who are younger, I'm sorry, if you don't know who Columbo is, you should definitely look up Columbo. He was this awesome detective on TV, but his approach was, like, kind of, it was kind of the bumbling idiot question. So it wasn't that I presented myself as a bumbling idiot, but I'd be like, you know, just, just for my own education. To clarify for me, could you explain what, what this means and taking that sort of approach? And people are usually more than happy to answer that question that you have, which is, like, that's another thing that I learned. It's, like, asking.

CARMEN: And there's almost, like, a bystander effect to it where, like, maybe everyone wants to ask that question, but they don't feel like it's the right space to. And, like, by doing so, you kind of open that door and, like, allow more conversations to flow. And, like, especially for those, like, in a higher position of privilege, I highly encourage them to lend it and, like, make things more accessible for folks.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things I enjoy about being a DevRel as well, is I find, like, you know, the thing that, that kind of launched my blogging, my tech blogging was like, I'd be spending all this time, like, trying to figure stuff out, and. And then I'm like, oh, my God, this was a doozy. I got to write about this a for my own benefit so that I can. And I referred back to my blog posts that I've written in the past. I'm like, thank you, past me. I forgot this.

But also, like, my thought is, like, if I have this question, chances are others will, too. And I also like to document, like, these are all the places where I messed up. And so you might want to check this, too. Like, I try to include a list of gotchas, depending I, depending on what I'm writing. And I think that's really important.

CARMEN: I agree 100%. In fact, you reminded me, like, one of the things that I always like, especially when folks are starting out with, like, public speaking and that sort of thing, like, they're always like, what is the one number one thing that we hear? And, like, I feel it myself from time to time, too, because I'm human and it's like I have nothing to talk about. And I was like, and I always tell them, look, there's one audience member that you want to be targeting, and that is yourself from four months ago who would have benefited from this talk. And, like, as long as you've got that one person, because there's always going to be one person who watches something or, like, reads something that you've created and will, you know, they might reach out, they might not, but, like, know that people are benefiting from that, especially, like, you know yourself from the future. Like you said, I think it happened to me once already that, like, that I googled, like, a problem. I was like, oh, I wrote a blog post about this.

ADRIANA: Yes.

CARMEN: It's a great feeling.

ADRIANA: It is. I know. Yeah. And so, like, and that's why I was also encouraged people to, like, blog stuff that they learn about because, like, I had this one mentee, and, you know, I was trying to give him some, some direction on his career. I'm like, you know what? Blog stuff on Medium. And within months, he got, like, he got a lot more followers than me on Medium. I'm like, damn. I'm genuinely happy for him because he writes about, like, I believe he does, like, working in AWS, and he does a lot of stuff around APIs, and that's something that resonates with the community.

So, like, for him to get that many followers means that he's writing about stuff that really, like, touches...it's things that people want to know about. So I'm very, I'm very happy to have encouraged him to do that. And every so often when I see one of his blog posts, I'm like...

CARMEN: If I may, you absolutely, like, deserve to give yourself credit as well for playing a part in that. I think it's not something that I don't know...I find that oftentimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for the work that we do and encouraging others and taking some credit for it for ourselves and being like, you know what? I did play a part that's significant.

ADRIANA: Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We do need to remember that we influence people's lives in different ways.

CARMEN: Absolutely.

ADRIANA: That's so awesome. Well, we. I think we're coming up on time, and we got through all...we got through all the lightning round questions, and this was, like, honestly such a fun application of the lightning round questions because it just, like, turned into so many fun topics that we got to dig into. And I swear I could just keep asking you more and more questions.

CARMEN: Same. I'm having such a good time.

ADRIANA: I think it just means I'll have to have you on at another point again.

CARMEN: I'd love that. Thank you.

ADRIANA: That would be so fun. So, yeah, you know, before we part ways, do you have any, any words of advice that you want to impart on our audience or hot takes, if you have any? Either is good.

CARMEN: Yeah, I think, you know, like, for me, very much a topic that's been very recent in my life is just sort of, like, trying to decouple myself from my online self, by which I mean, or, like, my professional self, and, like, trying to learn, like, not so much in a work life balance kind of thing, in terms more of a, like, identity sense of, like, am I a programmer or a human, or am I a dev. Am I an ops person? Am I a human being? Like, where do those coalesce? I don't even know if coalesce is the right word, but I'm gonna go with it. And. And, you know, been trying to take steps to sort of, like, maybe be a little bit less. Less online, maybe be like, I was having a conversation with somebody today about, you know, trends in tech and, like, FOMO, you know, fear of missing out. And, like, lately, that sort of, like, evolved for me in the last couple years into something that I called AOMO, which is more, ambivalence of missing out and, you know, trying to not...so not...I mean, of course, you know, mental health is very important, but also, like, trying to, I don't know, somebody gave you some advice once which was something like, youre only as helpful as you are capable in terms of energy, in terms of, like, you know, capacity.

If you take on too many mentees, the quality of your mentorship is going to decline, right? And I feel like a lot of that applies to. I mean, like, I'm talking about mentorship as if there's some kind of, like, seniority to that advice, and there really isn't. I think that this applies to a lot of aspects of my career. My friend Jess gave me some advice that I really love, which is that my phone is not allowed in my bedroom, and that has been such a game changer for me, first of all, because, like, the alarm sounds on my phone, I have to get up and go turn it off, as opposed to get up, drug, like, sort of groggily turn it off, and then go back to sleep. And I find that, like, yeah, I guess I'm trying to, like, decouple myself a little bit in terms of, like, you know, social media is...is...is very impactful, and it's giving me so many opportunities, opportunities for my career. But at the same time, I know that in my mo. In my weaker moments, it has dictated my life a little bit. So I'm trying to, like, you know, go easy myself and that sort of thing, and just. But at the same time, I'm not. I'm gonna not...I'm trying to feel less bad for feeling bad, if that makes any sense.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

CARMEN: So, yeah. And generally, my friend Sylvia, when we were getting to know each other, I adore her to bits. She gave me some advice that I really love, which is, like, you need to present more as an expert, and that is such a weird little contrast to making things accessible. You also need to present a little bit more as an expert. It's something I'm figuring out. So it's not so much advice as this is what's going on in my life, but I think there's some resonance there with folks, so I hope that's helpful.

ADRIANA: Yeah, yeah, that's so helpful. And I think I, you know, you've said so many insightful things, and I really, really enjoyed our conversation today. This has been a real, real treat and definitely brightened up my Tuesday.

CARMEN: Aw. Same, if I may say, like, you made this so approachable and so easy and so comfortable. Thank you.

ADRIANA: Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. Well, and with that, thank you so much, Carmen, for geeking out with me today. Y'all don't forget to subscribe and be sure to check the show notes for additional resources and to connect with us and our guests on social media. Until next time...

CARMEN: Peace out and geek out.

ADRIANA: Geeking Out is hosted and produced by me, Adriana Villela. I also compose and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter, Hannah Maxwell, who, incidentally, designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials by going to bento.me/geekingout