Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Alex Godin from dispatch.io. Ben and Alex discuss Alex's hectic time in both apprentice.io and TechStars, how he got started at his age, what he's accomplished so far, what he worries about, when he is happiest, and his outlook on the future. apprentice.io TechStars NYC dispatch.io Seth Godin Follow @thoughtbot, @alex_godin, and @r00k on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Sarah Mei, RailsBridge co-founder, a developer at Pivotal Labs, and Diaspora core team member. In this episode, recorded at RubyConf 2012, Ben and Sarah discuss how communication patterns of your team manifest themselves in the code it writes, and how understanding those patterns can help you improve your code. They discuss RailsBridge, teaching, how teaching is an incredible learning opportunity, and how RailsBridge has helped expand the community of women developers in San Francisco and beyond. Finally, they explore how she got into Ruby, and women in technology. RailsBridge Pivotal Labs Follow @thoughtbot, @sarahmei, and @r00k on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Tammer Saleh and Randall Thomas, the founders of Thunderbolt Labs. In this episode, recorded at RubyConf 2012, they discuss their philosophy of running and building the company, how they differ from other consulting companies, and how they do much more than just Rails programming and how its leading to very interesting new kinds of work. Why they list their prices right on their website, and how they derived their rate of $277 per hour. They also explore what their first year in business has been like, some challenges they've faced, and some important lessons they've learned. Thunderbolt Labs Follow @thoughtbot, @thunderboltlabs, @tsaleh, @daksis and @r00k on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Bryan Helmkamp, founder of Code Climate, hosted software metrics for Ruby apps. In this episode, recorded at RubyConf 2012, they discuss what code climate is, how Bryan considers it a small business not a startup, and what its like being a solo founder. They also discuss how code metrics can help you write and maintain better software, how it helps, and how it changes behavior. Finally they explore what the biggest surprise for him has been so far, some of his plans, and what success looks like for him. Code Climate Steve Berry, Thought Merchants Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @brynary and @codeclimate on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Jim Gay, author of Clean Ruby, and Joe Ferris, CTO of thoughtbot, in the episode recorded at RubyConf 2012. Ben, Joe, and Jim discuss Data, Context and Interaction (DCI), what it is, whether it is at odds with Object-Oriented Programming, how it can be applied to your applications, and much more. Clean Ruby DCI DTO Radiant CMS Writing Effective Use Cases Follow @thoughtbot, @saturnflyer, @r00k, and @joeferris on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

In this special episode from RubyConf 2012 we pulled aside some of the attendees and found out what they're working on. We also include a selection of the great lightning talks at the conference. Enjoy! Rob Mack from Spiceworks Dr. Nic Williams from Engine Yard talks about BOSH Ray Hightower from WisdomGroup, WindyCityRails, and ChicagoRuby Noel Rapin from Groupon John Foley and Nick Howard talk about Project Grok, an Open Source Code Reader Club (like a book club, but for code) Brian Ford from Engine Yard talks about Rubinious 2.0-rc1. Jeff Casimir from JumpstartLab talks about gSchool Daniel Huckstep from Yardstick Software talks about rc files and sub. Joshua Szmajda talks about the Ruby Hangout, an online Ruby meetup. Ron Evans from The Hybrid Group talks about gitnesse and wields a mean ukulele. Christian Trosclair from The Hybrid Group talks about Kids Code Camp and FeatureCreep Richard Schneeman from Heroku talks about Issue Triage. Chris Maddox from LivingSocial talks about happiness. Follow @thoughtbot and @rubyconf on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Aaron Patterson, Ruby Core team member, Rails Core team member, and a Señior Software Engineer at AT&T Interactive. Aaron and Ben discuss the upcoming features and excitement for Ruby 2.0 and some things Aaron would like to see in Ruby in the future that didn't quite make it into Ruby 2.0. They also discuss how the Rails Core team differs from the Ruby Core team, how much effort it takes to write a detailed blog post and how many mistakes are involved, how he likes being a ruby celebrity, his involvement in Seattle.rb and what it teaches him. Finally, how awesome his job is and how he could do it forever, how he worries about Ruby or Rails becoming irrelevant and wants to stop that from happening, how he is happy all the time, and if he could wave a magic wand and change one thing about Rails, what it would be. This and so much more in this entertaining episode recorded at RubyConf 2012. Tender Lovemaking Seattle.rb Follow @thoughtbot, @tenderlove, and @r00k on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Brennan Dunn, author of double your freelancing rate and planscope.io. Ben and Brennan discuss transitioning from a freelancer to a consulting company, the issues he faced doing it, and how he overcame them. How he promoted someone to replace him in his consulting company and is focused exclusively on products now, where Planscope came from, how it works, and how he more than doubled the conversion rate. How content marketing was slow to work for him, and how he fixed it. How to effectively pitch and sell products, what victory looks like for him and what he's working for, and so much more. Double Your Freelancing Rate in 14 Days Planscope, Project Management for Independents Kalzumeus Podcast 3: Growing Consulting Practices, with Brennan Dunn Workshop: Start Your Own Multi-Million Dollar Consultancy Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't) Bidsketch Freckle MicroConf Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @brennandunn on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by Kyle Fiedler, a designer at thoughtbot, and one of the creators of Bourbon Neat. Ben and Kyle discuss responsive design, what it is, and how to implement it. They also discuss Bourbon (a library of Sass mixins) and Neat (a fluid grid framework based on Bourbon), what's wrong with Twitter Bootstrap and why Bourbon Neat is better, and the other reasons why Bourbon Neat was created despite all the other grid frameworks that are available. Kyle shares the most common design mistakes he sees developers make in projects, whether or not design is subjective or whether it can be more objective, his design process and how it has changed, what the Golden Ratio is, and how it's used in Neat. Finally, they also discuss the Design for Developers workshop offered by thoughtbot, which teaches the fundamental design principles and tools to developers, and much, much more. Bourbon Bourbon Neat Sass Design for Developers Golden ratio Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @kylefiedler on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Ben Orenstein is joined by William Josephson and Jay Moorthi from Solano Labs, the makers of tddium, the hosted, scalable continuous integration service. They discuss the architecture of the service, including how they're using Go to speed up parts of it, the surprises they've had in getting started, how they've gotten involved in the Ruby community, and how they validated their idea and get feedback from customers. Also, their experience working with thoughtbot, what has worked and not worked for driving public customers to the site and converting them, dealing with privacy, customer support, their goals and their growth plans, and much more. tddium (Solano Labs) Go eventmachine Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @tddium on twitter.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots