In late 2019, Bill Nichols, a senior member of the technical staff at Carnegie Mellon University with the Software Engineering Institute published his study on “the 10x developer myth.” On this show we talk with Bill about all the details of his research. Is the 10x developer a myth? Let’s find out. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019 OR changelog2020. To learn more and get started head to linode.com/changelog. Mux – If you’re trying to build video into your app, you’ll have to decide between building it yourself or using an out-of-the-box platform. Mux gives you the best of both worlds by doing for video what Stripe has done for payments. Mux simplifies all things video to an easy to use API. Get $50 in credit to play with at get.mux.com/changelog. Algolia – Our search partner. As the world is spending even more time online, search will be a critical lever for engaging your own users and customers. Algolia made their Pro Plan free to any developer or team working on a COVID-19-related, not-for-profit website or app. Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:William Nichols – XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: The End to the Myth of Individual Programmer Productivity Software Engineering Institute - Carnegie Mellon University The Personal Software Process (PSP) Team Software Process (TSP) Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

The Changelog is deep discussions in & around the world of software… and it’s been going for over a decade. We talk to hackers, like Chris Anderson from 3D Robotics… leaders, like Devon Zuegel from GitHub… and innovators, like Amal Hussein… Welcome to The Changelog! Please listen to an episode from our catalog that interests you and subscribe today. We’d love to have you with us. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Featuring:Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Johan Vos joined us to talk about his new book ‘Quantum Computing for Developers’ which is available to read right now as part of the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP). Listen near the end of the show to learn how you can get a free copy or check the show notes for details. We talked with Johan about the core principles of Quantum Computing, the hardware and software involved, the differences between quantum computing and classical computing, a little bit of physics, and what can we developers do today to prepare for the perhaps-not-so-distant future of Quantum Computing. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it simple to launch in the cloud and scale up as you grow. They have an intuitive control panel, predictable pricing, team accounts, worldwide availability with a 99.99% uptime SLA, and 24/7/365 world-class support to back that up. Get your $100 credit at do.co/changelog. Mux – If you’re trying to build video into your app, you’ll have to decide between building it yourself or using an out-of-the-box platform. Mux gives you the best of both worlds by doing for video what Stripe has done for payments. Mux simplifies all things video to an easy to use API. Get $50 in credit to play with at get.mux.com/changelog. Retool – Retool makes it super simple to build back-office apps in hours, not days. The tool is is built by engineers, explicitly for engineers. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:Johan Vos – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:Comment on this episode for a chance to win a FREE copy of the eBook version of Quantum Computing for Developers. Tell us why you are interested in Quantum Computing and how this book might help you prepare for this new frontier in computation. Our 3 favorite comments will be selected 30 days from the date of publish for this episode. ALSO be sure to use discount code podchangelog20 to save 40% on Manning’s entire catalog. Whether you want the print edition of Johan’s book or are interested in learning something else from their amazing library of books, we got the hook up. ✊ The book — Quantum Computing for Developers Qubit on Wikipedia Quantum superposition on Wikipedia gluonhq/strange - Quantum Computing API for Java Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Lauren Tan joined us to talk about her blog post titled “Does it spark joy?” In this post Lauren shared the news of her resignation as an engineering manager at Netflix to return to being a software engineer. We examine the career trajectory of a software engineer and the seemingly inevitable draw to management for continued career growth. The idea of understanding “What are you optimizing for?” and whether or not what you’re doing truly brings you joy. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it simple to launch in the cloud and scale up as you grow. They have an intuitive control panel, predictable pricing, team accounts, worldwide availability with a 99.99% uptime SLA, and 24/7/365 world-class support to back that up. Get your $100 credit at do.co/changelog. Retool – Retool makes it super simple to build back-office apps in hours, not days. The tool is is built by engineers, explicitly for engineers. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog Square – The Square developer team just launched their new developer YouTube channel. Head to youtube.com/squaredev or search for “Square Developer” on YouTube to learn more and subscribe. Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:Lauren Tan – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: Does It Spark Joy? Go Fast and Break Things: The Difference Between Reversible and Irreversible Decisions WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE??? The Engineer/Manager Pendulum The Regret Minimization Framework: How Jeff Bezos Made Decisions How to quit your job spectacularly well Stay Uncomfortable. Stay Hungry. The one question that will change your life Steve Jobs on connecting the dots thepricegeek.com Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

We sit down with Tobias Koppers of webpack fame to talk about his life as a full-time maintainer of one of the most highly used (4 million+ dependent repos!) and influential tools in all of the web. Things we ask Tobias include: how he got here, how he pays himself, has he ever gotten a raise, what his typical day is like, how he decides what to work on, if he pays attention to the competition, and if he’s ever suffered from burnout. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Tidelift – Tidelift is the first managed open source subscription that pays the maintainers of the exact open source projects you depend on while giving you the commercial support you’ve been looking for. Learn more at tidelift.com. Featuring:Tobias Koppers – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: webpack with Sean Larkin (The Changelog #233) webpack’s homepage webpack on Open Collective webpack on GitHub Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

We partnered with Red Hat to promote Season 4 of Command Line Heroes — a podcast about the people who transform technology from the command line up. Season 4 is all about hardware that changed the game. We’re featuring episode 3 from season 4 — called “Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution.” This is the story of personal computers and the revolution that took place in the PC era. Learn more and subscribe at redhat.com/commandlineheroes. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Command Line Heroes – A podcast from Red Hat about the people who transform technology from the command line up. Head to redhat.com/commandlineheroes to learn more and subscribe. Featuring:Saron Yitbarek – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:The Altair 8800 is why we have computers in most homes today. It was initially designed for hobbyists. But a few visionaries saw massive potential in this strange little machine—and worked hard to make others see it too. What they created led to so much more than anyone could have ever imagined. Forrest Mims tells us how his co-founder, Ed Roberts, planned to save their struggling electronics company. His idea? A microcomputer made for hobbyists. That computer led to a fateful phone call from Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Dan Sokol and Lee Felsenstein recall the unveiling of the Altair 8800 at the Homebrew Computer Club, and how it sparked Steve Wozniak’s eureka moment for the Apple I. We then hear from John Markoff about an infamous software heist that set the stage for the debate about whether code should be proprietary. And finally, Limor Fried reflects on how this story continues to influence today’s open source hardware movement. First Invite to the Homebrew Computer Club by Fred Moore The Altair story; early days at MITS by Forrest M. Mims III WIRED article on the Altair by Randy Alfred Video: Demo of the Altair by Don Russ PC Mag article on Altair by Michael J. Miller Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Matthew Hodgson (technical co-founder) joined us to talk about Matrix - an open source project and open standard for secure, decentralized, real-time communication. It’s open source, it’s decentralized, it’s end-to-end-encrypted, and it’s also self-sovereign. Matrix also provides a bridge feature to bridge existing platforms and communication silos into a global open matrix of communication. A recent big win for Matrix was Mozilla’s announcement of switching off its IRC network that it had been using for 22 years and now uses Matrix instead. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019 OR changelog2020. To learn more and get started head to linode.com/changelog. Square – The Square developer team just launched their new developer YouTube channel. Head to youtube.com/squaredev or search for “Square Developer” on YouTube to learn more and subscribe. Retool – Retool makes it super simple to build back-office apps in hours, not days. The tool is is built by engineers, explicitly for engineers. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:Matthew Hodgson – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: Matrix.org Matrix spec Matrix on GitHub Welcoming Mozilla to Matrix! Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla (the decision post) Check out this link and discussion on HN about “candidates for Mozilla’s IRC successor” Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Frank Karlitschek joined us to talk about Nextcloud - a self-hosted free & open source community-driven productivity platform that’s safe home for all your data. We talk about how Nextcloud was forked from ownCloud, successful ways to run community-driven open source projects, open core vs open source, aligned incentives, and the challenges Nextcloud is facing to increase adoption and grow. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019 OR changelog2020. To learn more and get started head to linode.com/changelog. Square – The Square developer team just launched their new developer YouTube channel. Head to youtube.com/squaredev or search for “Square Developer” on YouTube to learn more and subscribe. Retool – Retool makes it super simple to build back-office apps in hours, not days. The tool is is built by engineers, explicitly for engineers. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:Frank Karlitschek – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:Special thanks to André Jaenisch and AJ Jordan for suggesting this show and topic! Nextcloud Nextcloud community on GitHub Frank Karlitschek’s talk at FOSDEM — Why I forked my own project and my own company (ownCloud to Nextcloud) Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Stephanie Morillo (content strategist and previously editor-in-chief of DigitalOcean and GitHub’s company blogs) wrote a book titled The Developer’s Guide to Content Creation — it’s a book for developers who want to consistently and confidently generate new ideas and publish high-quality technical content. We talked with Stephanie about why developers should be writing and sharing their ideas, crafting a mission statement for your blog and thoughts on personal brand, her 4 step recipe for generating content ideas, as well as promotional and syndication strategies to consider for your developer blog. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it simple to launch in the cloud and scale up as you grow. They have an intuitive control panel, predictable pricing, team accounts, worldwide availability with a 99.99% uptime SLA, and 24/7/365 world-class support to back that up. Get your $100 credit at do.co/changelog. Retool – Retool makes it super simple to build back-office apps in hours, not days. The tool is is built by engineers, explicitly for engineers. Learn more and try it for free at retool.com/changelog Square – The Square developer team just launched their new developer YouTube channel. Head to youtube.com/squaredev or search for “Square Developer” on YouTube to learn more and subscribe. Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com. Featuring:Stephanie Morillo – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: The Developer’s Guide to Content Creation The book did well on Product Hunt with 356 upvotes Writing a dev blog and need help? Schedule a 30 minute content session with Stephanie. What Admiral Grace Hopper really meant when she said, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission” Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Caleb Porzio is the creator & maintainer of Livewire, AlpineJS, and more. His latest open source endeavor was announced as “sponsorware”, which means it lived in a private repo (only available to Caleb’s GitHub Sponsors) until he hit a set sponsorship threshold, at which point it was open sourced. On this episode, we talk through this sponsorware experiment in-depth. We learn how he dreamt it up, how it went (spoiler: very well), and how he had to change his mindset on 2 things in order to make sustainability possible. Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Tidelift – Tidelift is the first managed open source subscription that pays the maintainers of the exact open source projects you depend on while giving you the commercial support you’ve been looking for. Learn more at tidelift.com. Featuring:Caleb Porzio – Website, GitHub, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: Gitdown Livewire Alpine.js Sushi Caleb’s sponsorship page Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!