
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

Oct 31, 2017 • 1h 4min
Operação Serenata de Amor (Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Government Corruption 😱)
Eduardo Cuducos joined the show to talk about Operação Serenata de Amor an Artificial Intelligence and Data Science project that aims to inform the general public about government corruption and spending. We talked about how this artificial intelligence project analyzes claims for reimbursement from congresspeople to determine illegal probability, how it monitors government spending, the technology behind it, and how other governments might be able to follow this model.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Get one of the fastest, most efficient SSD cloud servers for only $5/mo. Use the code changelog2017 to get 4 months free!
CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Toptal – Hire the top 3% of freelance software developers, designers, and finance experts. Email adam@changelog.com for a personal introduction.
Featuring:Eduardo Cuducos – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Special thanks to Fabio Rehm for making us aware of this project!
Operação Serenata de Amor
Help fund the future of Operação Serenata de Amor
datasciencebr/serenata-de-amor: 🕵 Artificial Intelligence for social control of public administration
datasciencebr/rosie: 🤖 Python application responsible for Serenata de Amor’s intelligence
Irio (Irio Musskopf) on GitHub the founder of Operação Serenata de Amor
Data Science Brigade
Rosie (@RosieDaSerenata) on Twitter
Google Search for “toblerone”
Mona Sahlin
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Oct 28, 2017 • 60min
Functional Programming
Eric Normand joined the show to talk about Functional Programming. We talked about FP vs OOP vs Imperative, why FP is popular again, the advantages and disadvantages of Functional Programming, and teaching Functional Programming concepts.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
DigitalOcean – Get DigitalOcean Spaces free for 2 months. Securely store and deliver any amount of data with the same simplicity you’ve come to expect from us. Instantaneously create a cost-effective, reliable storage space using our drag-and-drop UI or API.
Toptal – Hire the top 3% of freelance software developers, designers, and finance experts. Email adam@changelog.com for a personal introduction.
Featuring:Eric Normand – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Learn Functional Programming on your schedule
Can I do FP in my language? (dev.to)
Functional programming (Wikipedia)
Lambda Calculus (Wikipedia)
Maxima and Minima (Wikipedia)
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Oct 17, 2017 • 1h 10min
The Future of RethinkDB
Mike Glukhovsky joined the show to talk about the future of RethinkDB. Mike was a co-founder of RethinkDB along-side Slava Akhmechet. RethinkDB shutdown a year ago officially on October 5, 2016 — and today we’re talking through all the details with Mike. The shutdown, getting purchased by the CNCF, relicensing, buying back their IP and source code, community and governance, and some specific features that Mike and the rest of the community are excited about.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Get one of the fastest, most efficient SSD cloud servers for only $5/mo. Use the code changelog2017 to get 4 months free!
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:Mike Glukhovsky – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
RethinkDB
The Changelog #114 (with Slava Akhmechet)
The Changelog #181 (with Slava Akhmechet)
Proposal: Modifier functions · Issue #5813 · rethinkdb/rethinkdb
The ReQL query language
RethinkDB joins The Linux Foundation
RethinkDB Documentation
RethinkDB is shutting down
Contribute to RethinkDB
From Slava Akhmechet on why RethinkDB failed
Announcing RethinkDB 2.3.6: the first release under community governance
CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) Members
The liberation of RethinkDB
Apache License, Version 2.0
AGPL
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Oct 13, 2017 • 54min
The Kotlin Programming Language
Dmitry Jemerov joined the show to talk about Kotlin - a language created by JetBrains that’s designed to be an industrial-strength object-oriented language, and a “better language” than Java. We asked Dmitry “Why invent a new language?”, talked through Google announcing official Android support, covered some of Kotlin’s characteristics, Kotlin vs Swift, and more.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Get hired. It’s free — in fact, they pay you to get hired. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600.
DigitalOcean – Get DigitalOcean Spaces free for 2 months. Securely store and deliver any amount of data with the same simplicity you’ve come to expect from us. Instantaneously create a cost-effective, reliable storage space using our drag-and-drop UI or API.
CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Featuring:Dmitry Jemerov – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Kotlin Programming Language
Kotlin Community
KotlinConf
JetBrains Gogland - Up and Coming Go IDE
On the Rise of Kotlin
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Oct 6, 2017 • 1h 11min
Automating GitHub with Probot
We talk with Brandon Keepers and Bex Warner about GitHub’s Probot — GitHub Apps to automate and improve your workflows. You can use pre-built apps or easily build and share your own.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Featuring:Brandon Keepers – GitHub, XBex Warner – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Probot
GitHub Apps docs
Web UI Discussion #262
Probot best practices
GitHub Marketplace
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Sep 22, 2017 • 55min
Conversations about sustaining open source
This episode features conversations from Sustain 2017 at GitHub HQ with Richard Littauer, Karthik Ram, Andrea Goulet, and Scott Ford. Sustain was a one day conversation for open source software sustainers to share stories, resources, and ways forward to sustain open source.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Get hired. It’s free — in fact, they pay you to get hired. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600.
Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Get one of the fastest, most efficient SSD cloud servers for only $5/mo. Use the code changelog2017 to get 4 months free!
Featuring:Richard Littauer – Website, GitHub, XKarthik Ram – Website, GitHub, XAndrea Goulet – Website, GitHub, XScott Ford – Website, GitHub, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
sustainoss.org (inspired by maintainerati.org)
maintainer.io - Scale Open Source Maintenance
rOpenSci - Open Tools for Open Science
Corgibytes
Legacy Code Rocks! (you should listen to this podcast)
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Sep 8, 2017 • 1h 28min
Community, Building Remote-first Teams, and Web Performance Inclusivity
Karolina Szczur joined the show to talk about community building, building remote-first teams, the hiring process in tech, product development, and the inclusivity factor of web performance.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Get hired. It’s free — in fact, they pay you to get hired. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600.
GoCD – GoCD is an on-premise open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks that lets you automate and streamline your build-test-release cycle for reliable, continuous delivery of your product.
Linode – Our cloud server of choice. Get one of the fastest, most efficient SSD cloud servers for only $5/mo. Use the code changelog2017 to get 4 months free!
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform.
Featuring:Karolina Szczur – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Houston Flood Relief Fund - JJ Watt’s fundraiser for Victims of Hurricane Harvey
Bayou City Relief - Helping Houston Get Home
About Karolina Szczur
Building remote-first teams
How to write a successful conference proposal
CSSConf and JSConf Australia Diversity Report
A guide to empathetic hiring processes
Your tech job posting is broken. Here’s how to fix it.
Lighthouse from Google
ElectronConf Seattle 2017
Calibre - Web performance monitoring
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Aug 11, 2017 • 1h 5min
Building an artificial Pancreas with Elixir and Nerves
We talked with Tim Mecklem about building an artificial Pancreas with Elixir and Nerves to help those with Type 1 Diabetes who want to “loop” — a process which involves monitoring glucose levels, predicting where a person’s glucose levels are heading, then delivering insulin based on that prediction. Tim is a Developer at Gaslight in Cincinnati where he builds software solutions with Ruby and Elixir, and he’s a member of the Nerves Core team.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:ElixirConf 2017 – September 5-8 in Bellevue, WA - Our listeners get an exclusive $40 discount! Get face time with core developers of Elixir, Phoenix, Ecto, Nerves and more. Learn from over 40 speakers and keynotes about how top companies and developers are getting performance gains from Elixir and surpassing their competition. There is no better place to discuss, collaborate and socialize with other Elixir professionals and enthusiasts.
Datadog – Cloud-Scale Monitoring — Monitoring that tracks your dynamic infrastructure and applications. Plus next-generation APM. Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize end-to-end application performance. Start your free trial, install the agent, and get a free t-shirt!
Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
Featuring:Tim Mecklem – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Building an Artificial Pancreas with Elixir and Nerves at ElixirConf 2017
Listen to why Karen Sandler can’t hack her heart
Gaslight - Ruby on Rails, iOS, and JavaScript Consultants out of Cincinnati, OH
OpenAPS.org - #WeAreNotWaiting to reduce the burden of Type 1 diabetes
OpenAPS Reference Design
OpenAPS on GitHub
The open reference implementation of the OpenAPS reference design
The Nerves Project
Nightscout - #WeAreNotWaiting
Tim’s Elixir Library
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Aug 4, 2017 • 49min
You are not Google/Amazon/LinkedIn
If you find yourself chasing shiny objects and squirrels all time, you should 💯 listen to this episode featuring Ozan Onay (President of Bradfield School of Computer Science) where we discuss his recent blog post entitled You Are Not Google which was the #1 link in Changelog Weekly - Issue #159. This show is full of wisdom and advice for every developer out there.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:GoCD – GoCD is an on-premise open source continuous delivery server created by ThoughtWorks that lets you automate and streamline your build-test-release cycle for reliable, continuous delivery of your product.
Datadog – Cloud-Scale Monitoring — Monitoring that tracks your dynamic infrastructure and applications. Plus next-generation APM. Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize end-to-end application performance. Start your free trial, install the agent, and get a free t-shirt!
Bugsnag – Mission control for software quality! Monitor website or mobile app errors that impact your customers. Our listeners can try all the features free for 60 days ($118 value).
Featuring:Oz Onay – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:Before we get to the show note links, here are some notable quotes from this episode and Oz’s post.
Software engineers go crazy for the most ridiculous things. We like to think that we’re hyper-rational, but when we have to choose a technology, we end up in a kind of frenzy — bouncing from one person’s Hacker News comment to another’s blog post until, in a stupor, we float helplessly toward the brightest light and lay prone in front of it, oblivious to what we were looking for in the first place. This is not how rational people make decisions…
Writing code isn’t really about writing. Thinking is the thing that we do. Eventually that gets translated into running code.
This is a counter-force against the marketing machine of high opinion technologies.
As of 2016, Stack Exchange served 200 million requests per day, backed by just four SQL servers: a primary for Stack Overflow, a primary for everything else, and two replicas.
You Are Not Google
Changelog Weekly - Issue #159
Bradfield School of Computer Science
Cutting through to what matters
How to teach yourself computer science
Teach Yourself Computer Science
Learn how computers work
Learn every language
Google Search for ‘postgres paper’
The Implementation of Postgres (paper)
The Design of Postgres (paper)
@loveapaper on Twitter
All Things Open
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 28, 2017 • 57min
ANTHOLOGY — The Future of Open Source at OSCON 2017
This is an anthology episode from OSCON 2017 featuring awesome conversations with Kelsey Hightower (OSCON Co-Chair and Developer Advocate at Google Cloud Platform), Safia Abdalla (Open Source Developer and Creator of Zarf), and Mike McQuaid and Nadia Eghbal (GitHub Open Source Programs).
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:ElixirConf 2017 – September 5-8 in Bellevue, WA - Our listeners get an exclusive $40 discount! Get face time with core developers of Elixir, Phoenix, Ecto, Nerves and more. Learn from over 40 speakers and keynotes about how top companies and developers are getting performance gains from Elixir and surpassing their competition. There is no better place to discuss, collaborate and socialize with other Elixir professionals and enthusiasts.
CircleCI – CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery platform that helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Checkout the recently launched CircleCI 2.0!
Datadog – Cloud-Scale Monitoring — Monitoring that tracks your dynamic infrastructure and applications. Plus next-generation APM. Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize end-to-end application performance. Start your free trial, install the agent, and get a free t-shirt!
Hired – Get hired. It’s free — in fact, they pay you to get hired. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600.
Featuring:Kelsey Hightower – GitHub, XSafia Abdalla – Website, GitHub, XNadia Eghbal – GitHub, XMike McQuaid – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:Kelsey Hightower
Kelsey Hightower is an OSCON Co-Chair and Developer Advocate (Google Cloud Platform) — We talked about being a co-chair, why he does live demos, and his motivations towards open source.
When you say you’re successful, I guarantee when you look around it’s because someone is celebrating your victories.
Check out DevOps Days Austin 2017 on YouTube
The tweets mentioned from Kelsey that were seen as “controversial by some in the community” started with this tweet, then this tweet, and finally this tweet.
“I don’t write code for free. I write code for freedom.”
“Best birthday gift ever!” thanks to Brian Ketelsen
Safia Abdalla
Safia Abdalla is an open source developer and creator of Zarf — We talked about being a command-line junkie and her talk on the intersection of business and open source.
Zarf - an online platform that allows writers to sell subscription content to their readers.
captainsafia/legit
captainsafia/goopshttps
captainsafia/commentator
captainsafia/checklist
Brief
captainsafia/giddy
captainsafia/fony
Open Source at Facebook with James Pearce (Facebook)
Mike McQuaid and Nadia Eghbal
Mike McQuaid and Nadia Eghbal work at GitHub in Open Source Programs — We talked about GitHub’s Open Source Alley at OSCON and how they are working to better support open source maintainers and their communities.
dear-github/dear-github
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!