
Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
A podcast about the design, development, and business of great software. Each week thoughtbot is joined by the people who build and nurture the products we love.
Latest episodes

Jul 1, 2013 • 42min
55: The Value of Flow
In this episode Ben Orenstein speaks with designer and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll, about Authentic Jobs, design, the value of flow and family, and much, much more.
Authentic Jobs
Cameron's personal website
Podcast: Hired
Cameron's Future Insights Live Keynote
Hire with your head – Lou Adler
Ebay CEO Interview Charlie Rose
Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign
Rails Conf 2013 How to Talk to Developers by Ben Orenstein
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Jun 24, 2013 • 25min
54: Build your stuff on the side and have a good time
In this episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by 17 year old Jack Kaufman, author of The Found a Business Book. Ben and Jack discuss Jack's inspiration for the book and how he got all his interviews, the other opportunities it's led too, the common themes he uncovered in his interviews, the differences between those who got funding and bootstrappers, working on the book while in highschool, marketing he's doing, his plans for the future, the issue with college computer science programs, his fears about the future, and much more.
The Found a Business Book
mixergy.com
The Side Project Book
Jack's guest post for Forbes.com
Haverford College
pillsoftware.com
Michael Hartl's Rails Totorial
Learn Prime
apprentice.io
Dev Bootcamp
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Jun 17, 2013 • 38min
53: Not everything needs to be extracted
In this episode Ben Orenstein is joined by Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale from Tilde. They discuss bootstrapping a business and the model behind Tilde, their breakdown of product development and consulting, and how they all met. They also talk about designing APIs and frameworks that people actually want to use, how teaching helps them be better framework developers, how they can beat the competition, how supporting multiple languages and frameworks can ruin your app's experience, the big surprises as they've launched, Ember.js' push to 1.0 and beyond, the difference between Ember.js and Backbone.js and why JavaScript matters, and much more.
Tilde
Skylight
Ember.js
Ember Data
The conceptual ladder
W3C
TC39
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Jun 10, 2013 • 58min
52: You look really fancy in your tuxedo
In this special episode, number 52, and our 1 year anniversary episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ruby and Rails core team member Aaron Patterson, thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris, and a live studio audience. The trio discuss Rails 4, observers, callbacks, dubstep, namespaces, Scheme, functional programming, thread safety in Rails, what it would take to remove callbacks from Rails and why you would want to do it, what should be in our anniversary episode, dealing with Rails security issues, why Aaron likes to work on Rails, meeting people's expectations, Vim, intuitive software, and so much more.
Array#forty_two
ChickenScheme
The Racket language
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP)
Metacircular interpreter
Play by Play: Aaron Patterson
Heroku fucking console
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Jun 3, 2013 • 33min
51: I found a voice
On this week's show, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Sandi Metz, developer, author, podcaster, and recent Ruby Hero award winner. Ben and Sandi discuss winning awards, writing, whether notoriety changes who you are, what Sandi is proud of, the bad code she's writing and why, what she's doing now, getting real feedback on your work, that it's OK not to know everything, and much, much more.
Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby
Rails Conf 2013 The Magic Tricks of Testing by Sandi Metz
Lanyrd
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May 27, 2013 • 43min
50: It's Monday today, let's change everything
In this week's episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jeff Casimir and Katrina Owen from Jumpstart Lab and gSchool to discuss performing, speaking, and imposter syndrome, preparing for your talk, and what makes a good talk and how to give one. The also discuss gSchool, the way the program works and they way it's guaranteed, teaching, admitting ignorance, how good practice should be harder than the real thing, and why Jeff didn't like studying Computer Science and why he didn't enjoy programming and how Rails reignited his passion for creating things, and much more.
Peepcode
gSchool
Jumpstart Lab
Code Academy
galvanize
Go
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May 20, 2013 • 36min
49: The psychology of work
In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Gregg Pollack and Nathaniel Bibler from EnvyLabs and codeschool.com. Gregg shares what he's learned running his business, when not to be transparent, how to deal with compensation, and how the EnvyLabs compensation structure has changed over the years. Nathan, Gregg, and Ben also discuss Code School, yearly payments to a subscription, making courses effective, effective marketing, the effectiveness of mailing lists, community events, shared ownership, and much more.
Code School
RailsBridge
Barcamp Orlando
Ruby5 podcast
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May 13, 2013 • 38min
48: Barista imposter syndrome
In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jon Larkowski, closet hippie and developer at CareZone. Ben and Jon discuss being a closet hippie, transitioning from consulting to working on a startup/product team, ping-pong, paying attention to your habits and improving to your life, meditation, firewalling your attention, fostering a startup culture, imposter syndrome, podcasting, coffee, code review, guitar, and much more.
e3 live algae
CareZone
Lift
Headspace
The Way I Getting Things Done by Jon Larkowski
Ruby5 podcast
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May 6, 2013 • 21min
47: Two hours per minute
In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ryan Bates of RailsCasts. Ben and Ryan discuss Ryan's transition to working on RailsCasts full time, staying up to date on the latest technology, how his coding style has changed, maintaining his open source, the process of producing RailsCasts, why he doesn't speak at conferences, the latest technology he is excited about, and much more
RailsCasts
Ruby Weekly
Angular.js
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Apr 29, 2013 • 34min
46: We don't have a monopoly on being unhealthy
Ben Orenstein is joined by Joe Kutner, programmer and author of ‘The Healthy Programmer’. Ben and Joe discuss how the demands of a development job lead to unhealthy habits, and ways to address the issues. They discuss specifics like standing desks, walking desks, the pomodoro technique, exercise, vitamin D, and much more.
The Healthy Programmer
The pomodoro technique
Starting Stength
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Big Ruby 2013 Build a Bigger Brain: How Healthy Living Makes You Smarter
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