CodeNewbie

Last episode we talked to Gina Trapani about her Lifehacker days. In this episode, we look to the future and hear about her work at Postlight, what it’s like to work with Paul Ford (Episode 82), and what she looks for when she’s hiring an engineer. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Postlight Lifehacker IBM PC Junior Track Changes Paul Ford episode Meet the Twitter API (book) The End of ThinkUp ThinkUp Anil Dash TWiG (This Week in Google) Leo Laporte TWiT Danny O'Brien "father of life hacks" CodeNewbie Newsletter Sign up Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Gina TrapaniGina Trapani is currently the director of engineering at Postlight and the founding and former editor of Lifehacker. She's also the founder and creator of Makerbase, an IMDb for web sites and apps and ThinkUp, an app that gives you insights into your social networks.

Once upon a time, Gina Trapani started Lifehacker. It got big, really big, with the ups and downs of being the sole editor responsible for a website that millions of people read. But after awhile, she wanted to get back to coding. In part one of our two-part interview, Gina talks to us about her journey going from famous blogger to product creator, the risks of building an app based on APIs, and what it felt like to shut down her company. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Danny O'Brien "father of life hacks" TWiT Leo Laporte TWiG (This Week in Google) Anil Dash ThinkUp The End of ThinkUp Meet the Twitter API (book) Paul Ford episode Track Changes IBM PC Junior Lifehacker Postlight Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Gina TrapaniGina Trapani is currently the director of engineering at Postlight and the founding and former editor of Lifehacker. She's also the founder and creator of Makerbase, an IMDb for web sites and apps and ThinkUp, an app that gives you insights into your social networks.

Ashley Lewis used to light stages. She worked as a theater technician working shows like Hamilton (when it was much smaller) and New York Fashion Week. But after some introspection, she realized that her passion wasn’t in light design, and she searched for other career options. She talks to us about the similarities between coding and her art background, what it’s like working as a theater technician, and how being introspective has helped her on her coding journey. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Savannah School of Art and Design MIT Open Courseware Planet Money podcast Viking School Hamilton Musical Lin-Manuel Miranda OSCON Ira Glass Quote Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Ashley LewisAshley Michal Lewis started as a stubborn art student and over the course of the past five years discovered a passion for technical problem solving as a stage electrician and lighting designer, finally transitioning into a career as a stubborn web developer. She also has a deep interest in education, open source culture, and income inequality, and hopes to eventually weave these passions together to make a positive impact.

Nickolas Means talked about airplanes, and in doing so, he connected them with code in beautiful and interesting ways. In this interview, Nick explains how to take seemingly disconnected subjects and put them together in compelling talks, and how he uses his public speaking training to turn these talks into inspiring performances. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Ruby Conf 2015 Brandon Hays Strunk and White's Elements of Style Here Be Dragons Scott Hanselman Conway's Law Skunkworks by Nickolas Means CodeNewbie Logo Contest NPR One App Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Nickolas MeansNick is the VP of Engineering at iTriage and Wellmatch Health, working with an incredibly talented team of engineers to bring transparency to healthcare pricing. He believes that software engineering is mostly human interaction and he’s passionate about building empathetic, compassionate teams.

When one man decided to crowdfund a bailout for Greece on Indiegogo (a feat that required over a billion dollars), Stella Cotton and her team found themselves in trouble. The site went down, and they had to figure out what to do. Stella takes us through the journey of getting the Indiegogo site back up, shares what she’s learned about site availability and what CodeNewbies can do to be ready for their own heavy traffic. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Apache bench REDIS Heroku Indiegogo Cache Etsy Feature Flag Latency RSpec Kaya Thomas Episode W3C Michael J. Fox Foundation Data Challenge Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Stella CottonStella Cotton is a software engineer, Ruby enthusiast, conference speaker, and co-organizer of SF.rb & AndConf.

Lil Chen has been in gaming for years. She started by playing video games, then become a competitive Super Smash Brothers player, and now works as a UX Designer at YouTube Gaming. We talk about how her long history in gaming affects her work as a designer and vice versa, and how she keeps up with her coding skills at night. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) YouTube Gaming TED Talks Xanga MVP car graphic Sailor Moon Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Lil ChenLil Chen currently works for YouTube Gaming and resides in San Francisco. Prior to that, she spent three and a half years designing for TED Talks in New York City.

Michael Rau didn’t want to build an app, he wanted to create an experience. So he constructed a physical room, and with the help of a Rails app, created a theater show called “Temping.” He talks through his concept, how he used his new coding skills to make it happen, and the surprising emotional reactions he’s witnessed from audience members who’ve tried his creation. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Hue lights Storytelling with Code talk Mail Gun API AppleScript General Assembly Temping Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Michael RauMichael Rau is a professional director of theater, opera and a creator of new media experiences.

Fereshteh Forough wanted to help women in Afghanistan. She knew that attaining education was difficult, let alone technical training, and the cultural attitudes towards women didn’t help. But she tackled these issues head on by starting the first coding school for women in Afghanistan. She talks to us about how she started the program, how she took on the different challenges her students face, and how her training in computer science and her previous role as a computer science professor affected her decision to open Code To Inspire. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Google RISE Awards Code To Inspire Technical University of Berlin Herat Universiy Laboratoria - Maria Costa Coding In Colombia - Juan Pablo Buriticá Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Fereshteh Forough Fereshteh Forough is the Founder and President of Code to Inspire, the first coding school for girls in Afghanistan. Fereshteh was born as an Afghan refugee in Iran. One year after the fall of Taliban, she moved to Herat, Afghanistan with her family where she received her bachelor’s degree in computer science from Herat University and later a Master’s degree from Technical University of Berlin in Germany. She taught as a professor in the Computer Science Faculty of Herat University for three years. Fereshteh was a 2013 TED Talks speaker and a 2015 Clinton Global Initiative.

In part two of our interview with Yehuda Katz, we talk about how he created EmberJS, and what it means to build a web framework. We also talk about what it means to be a beginner, and how growing up poor has influenced his perspectives as a coder today. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Liz Bailie YAGNI EmberJS John Resig's Interview on CodeNewbie jQuery FrontPage Visual Basic Q Basic GW Basic Glimmer Oauth Skylight Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Yehuda KatzYehuda Katz is one of the creators of Ember.js, a member of the Rust Core Team, and a retired Ruby on Rails and jQuery Core Team member. His 9-to-5 home is at the startup he founded, Tilde Inc. where he works on Skylight, the smart profiler for Rails, and does Ember.js consulting.

Yehuda Katz has done many, many code things. He co-created Ember.js, co-founded a tech startup Tilde, is a frequent contributor to open source projects including Handlebars, Bundler, and Thor, and is a member of the Rust Core Team. But it took years of playing with tech before he finally felt like coding was something he could do. In the first half of our two-part interview, he talks about what he looks for when he hires, how it took him years to feel like he could code, and why he doesn’t like the term “junior developer”. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Skylight Oauth Glimmer GW Basic Q Basic Visual Basic FrontPage jQuery John Resig's Interview on CodeNewbie EmberJS YAGNI Liz Bailie Linode (sponsor) Codeland Conf Codeland 2019 Yehuda KatzYehuda Katz is one of the creators of Ember.js, a member of the Rust Core Team, and a retired Ruby on Rails and jQuery Core Team member. His 9-to-5 home is at the startup he founded, Tilde Inc. where he works on Skylight, the smart profiler for Rails, and does Ember.js consulting.