
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Software's best weekly news brief, deep technical interviews & talk show.
Latest episodes

Aug 15, 2018 • 1h 21min
Open sourcing the DEV community (Interview)
We talk with Ben Halpern the founder and webmaster of dev.to — a community for developers to talk about software. Last Wednesday they open sourced the codebase of the dev.to platform, so we wanted to talk through all the details with Ben. We talked through the backstory, how Ben realized this could become a business, how the team was formed, their motivations for open sourcing it and why they didn’t open source it from the start, the technical stack, and their vision for the future of the site.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Salary and benefits upfront? Yes please. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600! Or, refer a friend and get a check for $1,337 when they accept a job. On Hired companies send you offers with salary, benefits, and even equity upfront. You are in full control of the process. Learn more at hired.com/changelog.
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 changelog2018. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
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.
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:Ben Halpern – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
dev.to is now open source
thepracticaldev/dev.to
dev.to roadmap
O RLY Cover Generator
Saron from Codenewbie
Making dev.to insanely fast
RailsConf talk on making dev.to fast
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Aug 10, 2018 • 30min
Jeff Robbins is an actual rockstar [rebroadcast] (Interview)
On this special bonus episode of The Changelog, we’re playing the latest episode of Away from Keyboard with Jeff Robbins. While some dream of having a successful career, Jeff Robbins has already had several. Once the lead singer and guitarist for Orbit, Jeff has worked on some of the most famous Drupal websites. He talks to Tim about his early interest in computers, starting Lullabot, and adjusting to life after leaving the company he built and ran.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Salary and benefits upfront? Yes please. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600! Or, refer a friend and get a check for $1,337 when they accept a job. On Hired companies send you offers with salary, benefits, and even equity upfront. You are in full control of the process. Learn more at hired.com/afk.
Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code 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.
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 changelog2018. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
Featuring:Jeff Robbins – Website, XTim Smith – GitHub, XShow Notes:
Original Episode
Listen to more episodes of AFK
Yonder
Lullabot
123 Astronaut
AFK is taking a break, and will be back on August 29th. If you or someone you know would make a great guest on the show, send an email to tim+afk@changelog.com.
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Aug 8, 2018 • 1h 14min
Rebuilding Exercism from the ground up (Interview)
Adam and Jerod invite back Katrina Owen after years away focusing on Exercism—a 100% free platform for code practice and mentorship with over 2500 exercises and 48 different language tracks. They talk to Katrina about how the platform has changed, the direction it’s taken, the backstory on the recently launched version 2, and how she plans to turn Exercism into a sustainable business. Also, what happens if that doesn’t work?!
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Hired – Salary and benefits upfront? Yes please. Our listeners get a double hiring bonus of $600! Or, refer a friend and get a check for $1,337 when they accept a job. On Hired companies send you offers with salary, benefits, and even equity upfront. You are in full control of the process. Learn more at hired.com/changelog.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
Algolia – Our search partner. Algolia’s full suite search APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences across all platforms and devices. We’re using Algolia to power our site search here at Changelog.com. Get started for free and learn more at algolia.com.
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.
Featuring:Katrina Owen – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Exercism
About the new site
The Exercism core team
exercism on Github
The Changelog #108: Exercism.io and Crowd-Sourced Code Reviews with Katrina Owen
Go Time #19: Programming Practices, Exercism, Open Source with Katrina Owen, creator of Exercism
Spotlight #2: Exercism and 99 Bottles of OOP with Katrina Owen at OSCON London 2016
audreylim (Audrey Lim)
Audrey Lim’s website
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Aug 1, 2018 • 1h 4min
Biases in AI, helping veterans get jobs in software, open science (Interview)
Adam and Jerod are on location at OSCON and talk with Camille Eddy about recognizing biases in AI, Jerome Hardaway about the work he’s doing to prepare veterans for jobs in software, and Abby Cobunoc Mayes about the work she’s doing at Mozilla for open science.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
Algolia – Our search partner. Algolia’s full suite search APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences across all platforms and devices. We’re using Algolia to power our site search here at Changelog.com. Get started for free and learn more at algolia.com.
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.
Featuring:Camille Eddy – Website, XJerome Hardaway – Website, GitHub, XAbigail Cabunoc Mayes – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
GIRL STEM STARS
#VetsWhoCode
Mozilla Science
The Journal of Open Source Software
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 25, 2018 • 1h
AWS Amplify and cloud-enabled apps (Interview)
We talk with Nader Dabit, Developer Advocate for Amazon Web Services, about the role of DevRel and what’s involved in this “dream job”, frontend and mobile developers using AWS Amplify to build cloud-enabled applications, how GraphQL, React, and others fit in, and the direction of React Native.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
Algolia – Our search partner. Algolia’s full suite search APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences across all platforms and devices. We’re using Algolia to power our site search here at Changelog.com. Get started for free and learn more at algolia.com.
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:Nader Dabit – GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
React Native Training - Professional Private and Classroom React Native Training
GitHub - aws-amplify/amplify-js: A declarative JavaScript library for application development using cloud services.
AWS Mobile
GitHub - dabit3/awesome-aws-amplify: Curated list of AWS Amplify Resources
AWS Amplify Quick Start
Building AI Enabled GraphQL Applications – Open GraphQL – Medium
Introducing the AWS Amplify GraphQL Client – Hacker Noon
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 18, 2018 • 1h 12min
The Great GatsbyJS (Interview)
From open source project to a $3.8 million dollar seed round to transform Gatsby.js into a full-blown startup that’s building what’s becoming the defacto modern web frontend. In this episode, we talk with Jason Lengstorf about this blazing-fast static site generator, its building blocks and how they all fit together, the future of web development on the JAMstack (JavaScript + APIs), the importance of site performance, site rebuilds, getting started, and how they’re focused on building an awesome product and an awesome community.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
Algolia – Our search partner. Algolia’s full suite search APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences across all platforms and devices. We’re using Algolia to power our site search here at Changelog.com. Get started for free and learn more at algolia.com.
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:Jason Lengstorf – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
GatsbyJS raised a $3.8M seed round and is now a startup
GatsbyJS.org
GatsbyJS Integrations
JAMStack on The Changelog #251
Firefox 61 with Accessibility Inspector
Gatsby Showcase
Learning how to code with Gatsby
Workshop.me - Live Technical Training
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 11, 2018 • 48min
Putting AI in a box at MachineBox [rebroadcast] (Interview)
In this special episode of The Changelog we’re sharing a full-length episode of our newly launched podcast called Practical AI — covering AI, Machine Learning, and Data Science. In this episode Mat Ryer and David Hernandez joined Daniel and Chris to talk about MachineBox, building a company around AI, and democratizing AI.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Airbrake – Airbrake is an exception reporting service, currently providing error monitoring for 50,000 applications with support for 18 programming languages.
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 changelog2018. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
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.
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:Mat Ryer – GitHub, LinkedIn, Bluesky, XDavid Hernandez – GitHub, XChris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XDaniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, XShow Notes:
MachineBox
Practical AI #2: Putting AI in a box at MachineBox with Mat Ryer and David Hernandez
Practical AI with Chris Benson and Daniel Whitenack
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jul 4, 2018 • 58min
The impact of AI at Microsoft (Interview)
We’re on location at Microsoft Build 2018 talking with Corey Sanders and Steve Guggenheimer — two Microsoft veterans focused on artificial intelligence and cloud computing. We talked about the direction and convergence of AI, ethics, cloud computing, and how the day to day lives of developers will change because of the advancements in AI.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Airbrake – Airbrake is an exception reporting service, currently providing error monitoring for 50,000 applications with support for 18 programming languages.
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 changelog2018. Start your server - head to linode.com/changelog
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.
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:Corey Sanders – GitHub, XSteve Guggenheimer – Website, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:We’re releasing this AI focused show in conjunction with the launch of Practical AI — our newest podcast, hosted by Chris Benson and Daniel Whitenack. This show is focused on making artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone.
Learn more and subscribe at changelog.com/practicalai.
Microsoft Build 2018
Microsoft AI
Azure Compute
The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society
Corey Sanders on the Azure blog
OpenAI
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 27, 2018 • 1h 2min
Programmable infrastructure (Interview)
Jerod Santo is riding solo talking with Kurt Mackey, co-founder of Fly. He talked to him about his work at Ars Technica, his prediction on tabs being a fad, and Kurt being a founding member of MongoHQ, which was later renamed to Compose and acquired by IBM. Jerod also talked to him about lighthouse scores, performance, and an interesting program Fly is instituting to compensate open source project maintainers.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Airbrake – Airbrake is an exception reporting service, currently providing error monitoring for 50,000 applications with support for 18 programming languages.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
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.
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:Kurt Mackey – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
Kurt’s author profile on Ars
fly.io
fly on GitHub
flygit is like rawgit on fly
JS Party #26 – 🎊 TS Party! 🎊
JS Party #29 – Node’s survey, Ry’s regrets, Microsoft’s GitHub
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Jun 20, 2018 • 1h 15min
Computer Science without a computer (Interview)
Adam Stacoviak and Jerod Santo talk with Tim Bell, the founder and creator of CS Unplugged, a collection of free teaching material that teaches computer science through engaging games and puzzles. They talk to him about where this program came from him, the need for computer science in today’s K-12 education programs, how CS Unplugged fits in, and how you can get involved.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Airbrake – Airbrake is an exception reporting service, currently providing error monitoring for 50,000 applications with support for 18 programming languages.
DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean is simplicity at scale. Whether your business is running one virtual machine or ten thousand, DigitalOcean gets out of your way so your team can build, deploy, and scale faster and more efficiently. New accounts get $100 in credit to use in your first 60 days.
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.
Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes, and deploy your code with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
Featuring:Tim Bell – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes:
CS Unplugged
University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research
Tim Bell - Academic Staff - People - Computer Science and Software Engineering - University of Canterbury - New Zealand
Tim Bell (computer scientist) - Wikipedia
Modems Unplugged - Computer Science Unplugged
Data Representation - Computer Science Field Guide
uccser/cs-unplugged: CS Unplugged is a collection of free teaching material that teaches Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.
uccser/cs-field-guide: An online interactive resource/textbook for high school students learning about computer science.
Three ways to get started with computer science and computational thinking
Topics - CS Unplugged
Computer Science Education Research Group | University of Canterbury
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!