
Changelog Interviews
Conversations with the hackers, leaders, and innovators of the software world. Adam Stacoviak and Jerod Santo face their imposter syndrome so you don’t have to. Expect in-depth interviews with the best and brightest in software engineering, open source & leadership. This is a polyglot podcast. All programming languages, platforms & communities are welcome.
Latest episodes

Jul 25, 2019 • 55min
Go is eating the world of software
We’re joined by Ron Evans at OSCON on the expo hall floor talking about Go and how it’s eating the world of software. Specifically we’re talking about TinyGo and what they’re doing to bring the Go programming language to micro-controllers and modern web browsers. According to Ron Evans, “embedded systems and Go are the most exciting things happening right now.”
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – The simplest cloud platform for developers and teams Whether you’re running one virtual machine or ten thousand, makes managing your infrastructure too easy. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
Innovate Software at OSCON – Whether you’re looking to understand where software development is headed, or want to dive into the key technologies that you need to build resilient, useful, innovative software, the O’Reilly Open Source Software Conference (OSCON) is where you’ll find the answers you need. Secure your spot for 2020 now and save 20% on your pass with code CHANGELOG20.
Featuring:Ron Evans – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
TinyGo - Go compiler for small places
Gopherbot - Robotic Gopher plushie you can code
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 16, 2019 • 26min
Learning the BASICs
We partnered with Red Hat to promote Season 3 of Command Line Heroes — an original podcast from Red Hat, hosted by Saron Yitbarek, about the people who transform technology from the command line up. It’s an awesome show and we’re huge fans of Saron and the team behind the podcast, so we wanted to share it with you.
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:Tom Cormen – Website, XDenise Dumas – LinkedInAvi Flombaum – GitHub, LinkedIn, XFemi Owolade-Coombes – Website, XSaron Yitbarek – Website, GitHub, XShow Notes:Check the show notes and transcript for more details.
Becoming a programmer used to require a PhD and having access to some serious hardware. Then, in 1965, a couple of engineers had a radical idea: make it easier for people to get started.
Beginner languages, like BASIC, burst the doors to coding wide open. Tom Cormen and Denise Dumas recall how BASIC changed everything. Avi Flombaum and Saron share tips on picking a first language in this new era of software development. And we hear from Femi Owolade-Coombes and Robyn Bergeron about how the next generation of coders are getting their start with video games.
Beginner languages give everyone an opportunity to get their foot in the door. And that helps the industry as a whole.
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 16, 2019 • 1h 31min
The war for the soul of open source
Adam Jacob (co-founder and board member of Chef) joins the show to talk about the keynote he’s giving at OSCON this week. The keynote is titled “The war for the soul of open source.” We talked about what made open source great in the first place, what went wrong, the pitfalls of open core models, licensing, and more.
By the way, we’re at OSCON this week so if you make your way to the expo hall, make sure you come by our booth and say hi.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
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:Adam Jacob – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:You can now watch Adam’s OSCON keynote on his YouTube channel.
“The war for the soul of open source”
Chef
Goodbye Open Core — Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish
“So happy that @chef is now a 100% open source company. They are done being open core, and I have to say, I’m stoked about it. It aligns the company with its core values in a way that is so much more elegant and understandable.”
996 License
Utility monster on Wikipedia
Why we’re relicensing CockroachDB
Redis will remain BSD licensed
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 11, 2019 • 1h 19min
The Pragmatic Programmers
Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt, best known as the authors of The Pragmatic Programmer and founders of The Pragmatic Bookshelf, joined the show today to talk about the 20th anniversary edition of The Pragmatic Programmer. This is a beloved book to software developers all over the world, so we wanted to catch up with Andy and Dave to talk about how this book came to be, some of the wisdom shared in its contents, as well as the impact it’s had on the world of software.
Also, the beta book is now “fully content complete” and is going to production. If you decide to pick up the ebook, you’ll get a coupon for 50% off the hardcover when it comes out this fall.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
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:Andy Hunt – Website, GitHub, XDave Thomas – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
The Pragmatic Programmer - 20th Anniversary Edition
Agile Manifesto
The humble programmer
Considered harmful
Edsger Dijkstra
PDPjs, a PDP-11 Emulator
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 2, 2019 • 29min
Python's Tale
We partnered with Red Hat to promote Season 3 of Command Line Heroes — an original podcast from Red Hat, hosted by Saron Yitbarek, about the people who transform technology from the command line up. It’s an awesome show and we’re huge fans of Saron and the team behind the podcast, so we wanted to share it with you.
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!Featuring:Emily Morehouse – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XMichael Kennedy – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XDiane Mueller – Website, GitHub, XSaron Yitbarek – Website, GitHub, XShow Notes:Check the show notes and transcript for more details.
A benevolent dictator for life steps down and changes the course of the Python language forever. Guido van Rossum’s “Transfer of Power” memo brings attention to the way programming languages evolve.
In this episode, Emily Morehouse makes the connection between Python’s technical extensibility and its inclusive community. Michael Kennedy explains how Python is both easy to learn and powerful enough to build YouTube and Instagram. And Diane Mueller highlights how the Python community took the lead on so many inclusive practices that are spreading in tech—including the rise of community-led decision-making.
Sometimes, a benevolent dictator can get a language started. But Python shows it’s communities that make languages thrive.
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 28, 2019 • 51min
Maintainer spotlight! Ned Batchelder
In this episode we’re shinning our maintainer spotlight on Ned Batchelder. Ned is one of the lucky ones out there that gets to double-dip — his day job is working on open source at edX, working on the Open edX community team. Ned is also a “single maintainer” of coverage.py - a tool for measuring code coverage of Python programs. This episode with Ned kicks off the first of many in our maintainer spotlight series where we dig deep into the life of an open source software maintainer. We’re producing this series in partnership with Tidelift. Huge thanks to Tidelift for making this series 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:Ned Batchelder – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
edX
Open edX
Coverage.py - Code coverage measurement for Python
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 19, 2019 • 1h 14min
Boldly going where no data tools have gone before
Computer Scientist Yaw Anokwa joins the show to tell us how Open Data Kit is enabling data collection efforts around the world. From monitoring rainforests to observing elections to tracking outbreaks, ODK has done it all. We hear its origin story, ruminate on why it’s been so successful, learn how the software works, and even answer the question, “are people really using it in space?!” All that and more…
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.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:Yaw Anokwa – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Hat tip to Brett Neese for the show idea
Here’s the Singularity episode Jerod referenced
University of Washington has a great backgrounder on Yaw and ODK
Open Data Kit’s website is where to dive in
Or check out the source on GitHub
Nafundi – the company behind the project
Videos of ODK in action
evaluating global health programs
forest monitoring from the ground to the cloud
mapping flood risk in Tanzania
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 14, 2019 • 1h 17min
The state of CSS in 2019
We’re talking with Sacha Greif to discuss the State of CSS survey and results. CSS is evolving faster than ever. And, coming off the heels of their annual State of JavaScript survey, they’ve decided to take on the world of styles and selectors to help identify the latests patterns and trends in CSS.
We talk through the history and motivations of this survey, the methodology of their data collection, the tooling involved to build and run the survey, and of course we dig deep into the survey results and talk through the insights we found most interesting.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud server for only $5/month. Get 4 months free using the code changelog2019. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.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:Sacha Greif – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
State of CSS survey and the results for 2019
State of JavaScript
State of JavaScript on GitHub
JS Party #54: trust.js but verify (malware, opaque surveys, and console.log debugging) and Sacha’s response “Mainly, that it wasn’t clear who exactly took the survey, how they found the survey, and whether that population sample was representative of the overall JavaScript ecosystem.”
The Changelog #91: Discover Meteor.js with Sacha Greif
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 6, 2019 • 1h 11min
Python's new governance and core team
We’re talking with Brett Cannon for a behind the scenes look at Guido stepping down as Python’s BDFL (Benevolent dictator for life) and the process they had to go through to establish a new governance model, the various proposed PEPs to establish this new direction, the winning PEP, and what the future holds for Python.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
O'Reilly Open Source Software Conference – OSCON has been ground zero for the open source community for 20 years. This year they’ve expanded to become a “software development conference” — because in 2019, software development IS open source. The program covers everything from open source, AI, infrastructure, blockchain, edge computing, architecture, and emerging languages. Use the code CHANGELOG20 to get 20% off Bronze, Silver, and Gold passes.
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
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:Brett Cannon – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
An update on Python’s governance
Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs)
Condorcet Internet Voting Service
PEP 8000 - Python language governance proposal overview
PEP 8001
PEP 8002
PEP 8011
PEP 8016 (winning PEP)
Python governance vote (December 2018) results
One of Jerod’s favorite episodes of The Changelog in 2018 ~> The Changelog #318: A call for kindness in open source with Brett Cannon
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

May 24, 2019 • 1h 19min
Creating and selling multiplayer online games
We’re talking with Victor Zhou about the explosion of the .io game genre. We talked through all the details around building and running one of these games, the details behind Victor’s super popular game called Generals — which he eventually sold, and we also covered the economics behind creating and selling one of these games.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
GoCD + Kubernetes – With GoCD running on Kubernetes, you define your build workflow and let GoCD provision and scale build infrastructure on the fly. GoCD installs as a Kubernetes native application. Scale your build infrastructure elastically. Learn more at gocd.org/kubernetes
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.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:Victor Zhou – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
When Agar.io came out in 2015, it inspired a new .io game genre that has since exploded in popularity. I experienced the rise of .io games firsthand: I’ve built and sold 2 .io games in the past 3 years.
How to build a multiplayer (.io) web game - part 1
How to build a multiplayer (.io) web game - part 2
Generals
How I Became a Programmer - My unlikely origin story
iogames.space
agar.io
slither.io
diep.io
“kingz.io” was discussed but no longer has a web presence
Socket.io plays a crucial role in .io games
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!