CoRecursive: Coding Stories

Jason McDonald shares his journey of resilience after a traumatic brain injury, rediscovering his passion for coding. The podcast explores challenges faced by brain injury survivors, reframing disabilities, job hunting challenges, and finding balance to overcome burnout.

Evan You, the creator of Vue.js, shares his journey from a developer solving his own problems to leading one of today's most popular web frameworks. He discusses the challenges and successes of Vue.js, including explosive user feedback at conferences and the impact of negative feedback on his motivation.

Learn how Spotify scaled their engineering team without losing speed and independence, creating a unified developer platform called Backstage. Discover the challenges faced, including silos and communication gaps, and how they were overcome through transparency and collaboration. Hear how the development of Backstage with a plugin model transformed the engineering culture and enabled scalability.

A tale of lost treasure, conspiracy theories, and impossible tech demos. Jan Sloot's compression claims astound tech world, but doubts arise. Delve into Sloot's creation of RepaBase, his captivating demonstration day, and the concept of compression. Explore support from a senior executive at Philips and a CEO's interest in commercializing the technology. Discover the coding system for video processing and Sloot's conditions for bringing the device to Silicon Valley. Listen for acknowledgements and updates on future plans.

Adam Jacob, Creator of Chef and former startup CEO battles self-doubt and finds his footing as a leader. He shares his identity crisis as a sysadmin turned CEO, the motivational speech that left him in tears, and the challenges faced by sysadmins. The podcast explores the success and challenges of Chef, the importance of vision and commitment in startups, and the growth and confidence that comes with becoming a professional in the field.

Learning to code can feel impossible. Like facing a sheer rock wall with no ropes or harnesses. But what if there was a path up the mountain? A trail blazed smooth by master coders who went before?  In this episode, we'll follow that path. We'll hear the stories of legends like Seymour Papert, who championed active, project-based learning. Of Fred Brooks, who discovered that pairing accelerates learning. And more.  The research shows that with the right methods, motivation, and support, anyone can master learning curves and summit. So join me as we uncover the science behind learning to code. You'll walk away fired up, equipped with proven techniques to unlock your potential and conquer new technical skills.     The climb is on!   Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter  

 Have you ever been frustrated with your job? Maybe not burnt out, but getting close to there? You used to love what you did, and it felt so creative and empowering, but then it starts to feel a bit more cookie cutter. Have you ever been frustrated with your whole life? The daily grind has taken what you love and it just doesn't feel the same anymore. Some of the magic just has slowly faded away. You don't know when it started, but it did.  Today's guest is Amir Rajan. He's hard to describe.     Is he a developer? Yes. An artist who sold everything that he owned for indie game development. Yes. The subject of a New Yorker profile? Yes, all of that. And also, somebody who got frustrated with his life and left everything behind. Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter  

Today, we meet Ben Dumke-von der Ehe, one of the early developers on the Stack Overflow team.  He was on the front lines as the platform transformed how programmers worked. And he embodies the spirit of Stack Overflow:  Its transparency, playfulness, and even some of its struggles to be as welcoming and friendly as it should be.    But you'll see what I mean.    So stick around as Ben takes us on a journey through the building of Stack Overflow. Get ready for a candid inside look at the creation of a platform that would become an essential part of the developer community and the internet as we know it.  Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter  

How do you accomplish something massive over time? I've had the chance to meet with a number of exceptional software developers and it's something I always wonder about.  Today, I might have an answer with the incredible story of Yann Collet. Yann was a project manager who went from being burnt out on corporate life to becoming one of the most sought-after developers in the world. What happens when you build something so impressive and valuable that it essentially becomes invisible? And how do you do that when your day job is mainly organizing spreadsheets and keeping timelines on track? Yann built LZ4 and ZStandard - two of the world's fastest compression algorithms that have transformed databases, operating systems, file systems, and much more. We'll go back in time to Yann's initial steps with programming, his game-changing discoveries along the way and how his devotion to data compression hobby led him to create something that saves billions of dollars worldwide. Episode Links Episode Page Bonus 17 - Accomplishing Hard Things Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter  

Today's guest is Douglas Crockford. He's sharing the story of JSON, his discovery of JavaScript's good parts, and his approach to finding a simple way to build software. Also, his battles against XML, against complexity, his battles to say that there's a better way to build software.    This is foundational stuff for the web, and Doug is an iconoclast Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter