Bringing the Magic of Math into Programming with Chris Miller

Today we have some extra BEAM magic for all of you! Joining us on the show is Chris Miller, who currently works as an Associate Software Engineer at Corvus Insurance. We get into a great conversation with Chris about his history with programming, his long-held interest in mathematics, and how he is trying to bring these two worlds closer together through his work. Chris weighs in with some very important expert perspectives on a range of subjects, from monads and monoids to Vim and Emacs, before we get into the different avenues of Chris' work. Along with an old college friend, Chris runs the informative YouTube Channel, Coding Cave, helps other coders through mentorship and tutoring, and is also multilingual, speaking Mandarin, Spanish, German, and English! We get some illumination on interesting and important concepts such as Turing completeness, programming language theory, and more, all delivered with an accessibility that belies the high level of the material. So for all this, plus our bonus mini-segment with Semsee employee, Sidney Leatherwood, at the end, be sure to listen in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• The story behind Chris' Twitter handle and his admiration for Leonhard Euler!
• How Chris is bringing his love of math into his programming work.
• A crash course on monads and monoids!
• Chris' teaching and tutoring work and his aim of bringing fun examples into learning.
• The YouTube channel that Chris runs with an old friend, called Coding Cave.
• Chris' take on the Vim versus Emacs debate.
• How Chris learned to program from his father, and his return to it during college.
• Unpacking programming language theory and the idea of Turing completeness.
• Chris clears up the difference between computer science and mathematics.
• Reasons that Chris enjoys working in Elixir compared with other languages.
  
• Chris' goals for his YouTube channel and his hopes to spread advanced education.
• Magic and languages; a programming language theory perspective.
• Chris' day job as a software engineer at Corvus Insurance using Elixir and Elm.
• The array of languages that Chris can speak; Mandarin, German, and Spanish.
• The process of language acquisition and Chris' methods for learning.
• Why Chris believes starting with the function is the best way to learn a new programming language.
• The aspects of Elixir and the BEAM that have Chris the most excited at the moment!
• This week's mini-feature with Sidney Leatherwood and his use of Elixir in production.
• The comparative rating service that Semsee offers their customers.
• Hiring in Elixir currently; perks, challenges, and resources in the space.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Chris Miller on Twitter — https://twitter.com/blackeuler
Elixir Wizard Conference — http://smr.tl/conf-podcast
Leonhard Euler — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler
Curry–Howard Correspondence — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry%E2%80%93Howard_correspondence
Haskell — https://www.haskell.org/
Brooklyn Zelenka — https://medium.com/@expede
Coding Cave — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwIO8jv71cbOyEwJdrYov_g
Conversations with the Creator: José Valim — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpoKKkqAX4
Functor — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functor
Spacemacs: Emacs advanced Kit focused on Evil — https://www.spacemacs.org/
hlissner/doom-emacs — https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs
Turing Completeness — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
Cal Newport — https://www.calnewport.com/
Boolean Algebra — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra
Clojure — https://clojure.org/
Corvus Insurance — https://www.corvusinsurance.com/
APL — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)
Gleam - https://gleam.run/
Sidney Leatherwood on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/leather-s
Semsee — https://semsee.com/

Special Guest: Chris Miller.