

The Bike Shed
thoughtbot
On The Bike Shed, hosts Joël Quenneville and Stephanie Minn discuss development experiences and challenges at thoughtbot with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and whatever else is drawing their attention, admiration, or ire this week.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 5, 2021 • 35min
275: In Search of An Acronym
On this week's episode, Steph and Chris revisit their discussion about testing rack rewrite redirect logic, mystery guests, DNS configuration, and trying very hard to not be too dogmatic. Steph describes her recent work trying to debug failing deploys with Concourse, Kubernetes, and Google Cloud while touching on blue-green deployment and secrets management. Finally, Chris talks about porting a svelte project to typescript and the trade-offs of adding Types upfront vs types after the fact, and the parallels to testing and TDD.
This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Solo Stove
rack_rewrite
Climate Control
The Art of Code Comments talk by Sarah Drasner
Concourse
Kubernetes
Google Cloud Platform
git-crypt
Rails encrypted secrets
Tailwind CSS
InertiaJS
Svelte
Rich Harris and Evan You on Undefined podcast
ts-routes gem
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Dec 29, 2020 • 26min
274: Top 10 Review for 2020
On this week's episode, Chris and Steph reflect on their top themes and technical picks for 2020.
This episode is brought to you by:
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Tailwind CSS
BEM CSS
Styled Components
css-modules
BikeShed Episode: I'm a Designer Now
ActiveModel Error Objects
Razer Kiyo
Upright Go 2
Svelte
Phoenix Live View
Laravel Livewire
Stimulus
Inertia.js
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Dec 22, 2020 • 27min
273: Revisiting 2019, A Top 10 Review
On this week's episode, Steph and Chris begin wrapping up 2020 with a review of their 2019 top 10 list. They share what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what they'd like to see more of in the coming year.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Indeed - Click through and get started with a free seventy five dollar credit for your first job post
Last year's top 10 countdown list
ErgoDox EZ
Leopold FC750
Keybordio Atreus
Prettier
Prettier Ruby
Elm
Code Hospitality
Testing Library
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Dec 15, 2020 • 33min
272: Hacking the Gibson
In this week's episode, Chris undertakes long-running background jobs that are performing duplicate work and adding significant load on the database. Steph shares her initial take of the book "Soul of a New Machine", a non-fiction account that chronicles the development of a mini-computer in the 1980s.
They also dive into the question "how can teams turn a slow, hard to maintain test suite from a liability into an asset?" and touch on how to identify highly-functioning teams.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.
HelloFresh - Visit HelloFresh and use code bikeshed80 to get $80 off including free shipping.
ExpressVPN - Click through to can get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package.
Sidekiq
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
Bike Shed Episode 236 - Featuring "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Cliff Stoll
Hackers
WarGames
Labyrinth
Therapeutic Refactoring by Katrina Owen
Goodhart's law
Drive by Daniel Pink
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Dec 8, 2020 • 38min
271: Is That Your Final Answer?
On this week's episode, Chris describes his continued explorations with Svelte specifically bringing TypeScript into the mix. Steph discusses the first cohort for the RSpec training and some related testing questions around third party APIs. They round things out with a listener question about managing permissions and roles, with a brief detour around single table inheritance vs polymorphic associations. Oh, and Steph rented goats to mow her lawn. 🐐
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
ExpressVPN - Click through to can get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package.
Elm
Svelte
React
Redux
Svelte - Writable Stores
webmock
Pundit
EdgeDB
Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed!Sponsored By:Scout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.ExpressVPN: Click through to get get an extra three months FREE on a one-year package!Support The Bike Shed

Dec 1, 2020 • 39min
270: Both Nothing and Deeply Special
In this week's episode, Chris and Steph discuss redirecting requests for various hostnames to one canonical host, creating student personas to improve educational content, and walking away from failing tests. They also embark on a Hollywood themed tour of RSpec mocks, stubs, and spies, when to use each approach, and discuss the types of tests they do (or do not) write.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Remote Works Podcast
Rack Canonical Host
Spring
rack-rewrite
Sandi Metz - The Magic Tricks of Testing
Erlang Dialyzer
Elixir Dialyxir
Sorbet - type checker for Ruby
Svelte
Sponsored By:Remote Works Podcast: Discover stories helping you find new ways to work, collaborate, and discover new possibilities on the Remote Works PodcastScout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.Support The Bike Shed

Nov 17, 2020 • 46min
269: Things are Knowable (Gary Bernhardt)
Steph's taking a quick break this week, but while she's away, Chris is joined by special guest Gary Bernhardt. Gary is the creator of Destroy All Software screencasts as well as his more recent venture, Execute Program. Between Execute Program, his screencasts, conference talks, and more Gary has consistently provided some of the highest quality and most impactful educational content around building great software and has been a huge inspiration to the hosts of this show.
In the episode, Chris and Gary discuss Gary's recent work with TypeScript and how it compares with Gary's focus on testing, they revisit some of Gary's ideas around software architecture and how they map to his current work, Gary's thoughts around the value of knowing our tools deeply, and the trade-offs between careful upfront design and shipping early and often.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Indeed - Click through and get started with a free seventy five dollar credit for your first job post
Gary Bernhardt on Twitter
Destroy All Software Screencasts
Execute Program
Deconstruct Conf
Gary's Conference Talks
Gary's new video - End-to-End TypeScript: Database, Backend, API, and Frontend
TypeScript Eslint
tsuquyomi Vim TypeScript integration
Functional Core, Imperative Shell
Boundaries
A Compiler From Scratch
The Unix Chainsaw
A Whole New World
Hammock Driven Development
WaniKani kanji learning app
Anki - spaced repetition flashcard system
Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed!Sponsored By:Scout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.Indeed: Click through and get started with a free seventy five dollar credit for your first job postSupport The Bike Shed

Nov 10, 2020 • 53min
268: Getting Your First-Through-N Jobs
On this week's episode, Steph discusses the value of conducting student research when creating course content and Chris revisits a recent architecture decision to use Svelt and Inertia. They also explore the challenges developers face in acquiring their first job and share insights for those looking for their next big role.
This episode is brought to you by:
ExpressVPN - Click through to can get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package.
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Wicked
Svelte
Inertia.js
Ruby on Rails Podcast - 285: Bikeshedding with Steph Viccari
Will Johnson
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Sponsored By:ExpressVPN: Click through to get get an extra three months FREE on a one-year package!Scout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.Support The Bike Shed

Nov 3, 2020 • 48min
267: Shiny New Things
On this week's episode, Steph describes her unique new project where they're building and presenting a training course around RSpec, testing, and TDD specific to an organization's codebase. Chris then runs some architecture choices by Steph to discuss a collection of new technologies he's considering, and more generally how we think about our experimentation budget.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Indeed - Click through and get started with a free seventy five dollar credit for your first job post
The Witches
The Witches (2020)
Addams Family
Addams Family Values
Practical Magic
Oculus Quest 2
SuperHot
Beat Saber
Rocket League
Sandi Metz
Inertia.js
Svelte
Rich Harris (Svelte creator): Futuristic Web Development
Bike Shed episode talking about Inertia.js
Another Bike Shed episode talking about Inertia.js
Write Less, Do More
Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed!Sponsored By:Scout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.Indeed: Click through and get started with a free seventy five dollar credit for your first job postSupport The Bike Shed

Oct 27, 2020 • 38min
266: Spring is My Least Favorite Season
On this week's episode, Chris and Steph share mixed-feelings about Spring preloader and how to use Spring just for tests. They also dive into troubleshooting an OpenSSL error, Postgres generated columns, and creating moments of contentment.
This episode is brought to you by:
ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy
Datadog - Click through to get a free 14-day trial and a free Datadog t-shirt!
Scale Your Rails App Internationally in 30 Days
Spring
LibreSSL
OpenSSL
Apple WWDC 2011 - Next Generation Cryptographic Services
Postgres Generated Columns
Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed!Sponsored By:Scout: Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.Datadog: Click through to get a free 14-day trial and a free Datadog t-shirt!Support The Bike Shed