Shaun Robinson and Toran Billups on Using Elixir to Empower Online Learning

With the prevalence of at-home learning, teachers have to compete for student attention against numerous screen-based activities. Today we speak with engineering lead Shaun Robinson and Elixir developer Toran Billups about how Legends of Learning helps educators make their classrooms fun, engaging, and productive through their curriculum-based games. After chatting about Legends’ mission to empower teachers, we talk with Toran about how he landed a job there. He then shares his insights into securing Elixir jobs, touching on the importance of networking and building a portfolio of Elixir projects. We discuss why Elixir became Legends’ language of choice before exploring their process in adopting Elixir. Reflecting on their early server structure, Shaun explains their process of refactoring from their old code base into an Elixir monolith. Responding to a previous episode, where frustrations were shared about coding in LiveView, Toran talks about its advantages, despite its issues as a new technology. Later, Shaun and Toran dive into what you can do to help your company adopt Elixir. We wrap up another incredible conversation by asking our guests about their favorite Legend of Learning games. Tune in to hear more about Legend of Learning’s Elixir journey and how they’re using it to create dynamic learning environments.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Exploring the mission and work of the Legends of Learning startup.
• Shaun and Toran share details about their backgrounds.
  
• Why building a van home is so similar to building software.
  
• Hear about Toran’s podcast on the human side of programming.
• Shaun talks about the time when he sold his Twitter and GitHub handle.
• What Toran did to land his first Elixir job.
• Why Legends of Learning decided to adopt Elixir.
• Insights into Legends of Learning’s early server architecture.
• Toran unpacks Legend’s hiring process.
• Why Shaun’s engineering team consists of remote workers.
• Toran shares the virtues of coding in LiveView.
• What Shaun did to refactor their old code base into an Elixir monolith.
• The process that Legends underwent when adopting Elixir.
• Advice on finding an Elixir role and adopting Elixir in your company.
• Hear about Shaun and Toran’s favorite Legend of Learning games.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Elixir Wizards Email — podcast@smartlogic.io
Shaun Robinson on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun1010/
Toran Billups on Twitter — https://twitter.com/toranb
Toran Billups on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/toranb/
Legends of Learning — https://www.legendsoflearning.com/
Vadim Polikov — https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadim-polikov/
Developing Fatigue Podcast — https://developingfatigue.fm/
Kris Van Houghton — https://twitter.com/krivaten
Dave Gardner — https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegardner01/
Legends of Learning Careers — https://www.legendsoflearning.com/interested-game-developer/
Legends of Learning API Docs — https://docs.legendsoflearning.com/
Lonestar Elixir — https://lonestarelixir.com/
Elixir Match —https://elixirmatch.com/
Elixir Match on GitHub — https://github.com/toranb/elixir-match
Chris McCord — http://chrismccord.com/
Grox.io — https://grox.io/
Bruce Tate — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-tate-a836b/
Postgraphile on GitHub — https://github.com/graphile/postgraphile
Martin Fowler — https://martinfowler.com/
The Strangler Application — https://martinfowler.com/bliki/StranglerFigApplication.html
Timescale — https://www.timescale.com/
‘TimescaleDB 2.0 is now Generally Available’ — https://blog.timescale.com/blog/timescaledb-2-0-is-now-generally-available/
Sun, Moon & Stars: Patterns of Apparent Motion on Legends of Learning — https://www.legendsoflearning.com/learning-objectives/the-sun-moon-and-stars-patterns-of-apparent-motion/
Magic the Gathering — https://magic.wizards.com/en
Legends of Learning Awakening — https://www.legendsoflearning.com/blog/homework-and-test-prep-math-and-science-game/
Hour of Code — https://hourofcode.com/
Owl Pro — https://owllabs.com/products/meeting-owl-pro

Correction: In an earlier version of this episode, the host mis-spoke and mis-named the guests' company name in the outro; that error has been corrected as of 2021-02-25 3:52PM ET.

Special Guests: Shaun Robinson and Toran Billups.