Elixir Wizards

Today’s guest is Mohd Maqbool Alam, a software developer and Elixir fan from Delhi. He enjoys learning about programming language theory, distributed systems, Cloud Native technologies, and open source. As he is working towards building an Elixir community in Delhi, we caught up with him to find out how he came to be part of the Elixir world, and what drew him to programming in the first place. We also discuss Maqbool’s favorite Elixir resources and how Elixir has changed the way he thinks about architecture applications, as well as his opinions on microservices, APIs, and static typing. We talk about the real-world consequences of programming, using Neil Ferguson’s pandemic simulation model as an example, and Maqbool shares his favorite RPC (when we actually meant to ask him his favorite RFC)! The episode concludes with Pattern Matching with Todd. In this edition, he discusses Kubernetes and Beam with Principal Software Architect Cory O’Daniel. Key Points From This Episode: Maqbool tells us a bit about himself and how he came to be part of the Elixir community. What enticed Maqbool to programming. Maqbool’s favorite resources from Elixir. How Elixir has changed the way Maqbool thinks about architecting applications. Maqbool’s ‘aha’ moment in distributed programming and how he got into pattern matching. Phoenix Live Dashboard and why Maqbool and the team are excited about it. How Maqbool approaches the design process when building an application from scratch. The tools and methods Maqbool uses when designing information architecture and APIs. Maqbool’s opinions on microservices, Kubernetes, and Amazon Lambda. Protocols and non-standard protocols. Neil Ferguson’s pandemic simulation model using undocumented C-code. How we should think about the real world consequences of high-stakes programming. Maqbool’s opinion on static typing. Macbool’s favorite RPC and RFC. Pattern Matching with Todd Resudek, discussing Kubernetes and Beam with Cory O’Daniel. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Justus Eapen on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/justuseapen/ Justus Eapen on Twitter — https://twitter.com/justuseapen Eric Oestrich — https://oestrich.org/ Eric Oestrich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ericoestrich Eric Oestrich on GitHub — https://github.com/oestrich Mohd Maqbool Alam on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Maqboolism Elixir Forum – https://elixirforum.com/ Elixir in Action – https://www.amazon.com/Elixir-Action-Sa%C5%A1a-Juri-cacute/dp/161729201X Phoenix Live Dashboard – https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_dashboard Absinthe – https://github.com/absinthe-graphql/absinthe Kubeless – https://kubeless.io/ Kubernetes — https://kubernetes.io/ Amazon Lambda – https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/ Groxio – https://grox.io/ Todd Resudek on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sprsmpl Cory O’Daniel on Twitter – https://twitter.com/coryodaniel Ziggy O’Doodle on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ziggy.odoodle/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guests: Cory O'Daniel and Mohd Maqbool Alam.

As our first trilogy comes to a close, and we embark on the next one, we’re doing what all great trilogies do: Upending everything that made the initial one great and starting afresh. We have taken on board some excellent listener feedback to keep this the highest quality Elixir related podcast. So, for this launchisode, rather than doing a trailer, we are diving in headfirst with a full episode on system and application architecture, this season’s theme, with Justus Eapen, Dan Ivovich, and Eric Oestrich. We kick off the show by getting to know Dan and Eric a bit better. This season, as per listener requests, we will spend more time on our guests' personal lives. We learn about Dan and Eric’s time at SmartLogic, their experience working with Elixir, and their approaches to learning it. From there, we move onto tackling clients’ projects. We discuss the importance of letting ideas flow free as well as how to break projects down into manageable sized segments to work on. Following this, we touch on flexible architecture. As the world changes, sometimes at a pace faster than we anticipate, it is more important than ever to design systems that we can iterate on. Then, we discuss the future of applications and architecture and the exciting possibilities in-store. The show rounds off with our new segment, Pattern Matching with Todd, where our friend Todd Resudek gets to know someone in the community a bit better. Today, he talks with Connor Rigby of Binary Noggin, finding out more about his programing journey, his favorite music and movies, and his WiFi meshing project. We're so excited for this season, and we hope you join us on the journey. Tune in today! Key Points From This Episode: Dan’s background and how he came to be Director of Development Operations. How Eric started at SmartLogic and what his journey at the company has been like. Learn what convinced Dan to go all-in on Elixir and make the move from Rails Some of the educational materials and tools Dan and Eric used to learn Elixir. Dan’s preferred style of design and why he enjoys TDD. Why we think that Cucumber falls short and chose to move away from it. Find out what we think domain-driven design is. How Dan and Eric approach deconstructing clients’ projects. Pre-coding: Why it’s best to do free-form planning, with no constraints. Insights into the broad-reaching term of ‘API’ and what we mean by it. SOAP and REST APIs: What they are and the differences between them. How Dan, Eric, and Justus’s thinking about designing and application architecture has evolved. Object-oriented programming versus functional: Our take on the age-old debate. Is this finally the year that we get to kill micro-services? The relationship between team size and micro-services and some other constraints. What the future has in store for applications and architecting. Pattern-matching with Todd: Five questions to get to know Connor Rigby a bit better. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Justus Eapen on Twitter — https://twitter.com/justuseapen Dan Ivovich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/danivovich Eric Oestrich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ericoestrich Kalevala on GitHub — https://github.com/oestrich/kalevala Valve — https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/ Ecto — https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.html Phoenix Elixir books — https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix14/programming-phoenix-1-4 Ruby on Rails — https://rubyonrails.org/ Designing for Scalability with Erlang — http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920024149.do Mike Amundsen on O’Reily Media — https://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/1192 Designing Elixir Systems With OTP — https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Elixir-Systems-OTP-Self-healing/dp/1680506617 Cucumber — https://cucumber.io/ Visual Studio Code — https://code.visualstudio.com/ SOAP vs REST APIs — https://www.soapui.org/learn/api/soap-vs-rest-api/ RESTFest — https://www.restfest.org/ ExVenture — https://exventure.org/ Kubernetes — https://kubernetes.io/ Phoenix — https://phoenixframework.org/ Nerves Project — https://www.nerves-project.org/ Todd Resudek on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sprsmpl Binary Noggin — https://binarynoggin.com/ Connor Rigby on GitHub — https://github.com/ConnorRigby The Big Lebowski — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/ Aesop Rock on Twitter — https://twitter.com/AesopRockWins All That Remains on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ATRhq Korn — https://www.kornofficial.com/ Eric Meadows-Jönsson on Twitter — https://twitter.com/emjii Donnie Darko — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/ Richard Kelly — https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0446819/ Frank Hunleth on Twitter — https://twitter.com/fhunleth SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guests: Connor Rigby and Dan Ivovich.

Welcome back to part two of our betweenisode! Everybody is working remotely now including ourselves, so today we continue the catch ups we were having with a number of longstanding buddies and chat about life after social distancing! The show is a back-to-back of four different conversations, the first being with Amos King, Chris Keathley, and Anna Neyzberg from Elixir Outlaws. After that we talk to Paul Schoenfelder, before getting on the line with Sophie DeBenedetto and Meryl Dakin. Last but not least we catch up with Dave Thomas. Our four conversations cover the same broad themes, and we mostly share our thoughts about what is happening in the world right now, how we are coping with working remotely, and what particular projects have been keeping us busy. Our guests share varying perspectives about what it means that we are restructuring the way we do things. We talk about how even if you worked remotely before, things feel different now, and we also consider the extra burdens of being a remote software developer. Other topics include the line between complaints and constructive criticism, wild animals roaming the streets, and the general atmosphere in our different locations. From a tech point of view, we touch on IoT development, various GitHub projects to get involved with, why students aren’t learning how to program properly anymore, and a lot more. Get it all here and make sure you stay tuned for episode one of season four! Key Points From This Episode: Scaling up the NFL Draft website for remote screening. Home life and side projects in the quarantine: Mogde Podge, a baby, and game development. Shameless plugs from everybody: Binary Noggin, ElixirBridge, and Finch. Isolation, low supplies and trying to stay positive at present. Imagining roaming wild animals now that humans are in quarantine. Advice from Paul who works at home for surviving social distancing. What Paul is doing for Ockam to secure IoT devices. The danger of starting hack vulnerable tech companies. A plug from Paul to get involved with Lumen. Nature taking over; Meryl and Sophie’s experiences in Brooklyn and Westchester right now. Working from home versus working from home due to a global crisis. Domestic squabbles over bandwidth between Meryl and her software developer brother. Lessons learned to stay sane during quarantine: getting dressed. Extra tasks remote developers are having to do remotely; becoming project managers. The difference between complaints and legitimate critiques of work systems. Dave’s amazing remote communications setup 40 miles north of Dallas. The situation where Dave is with regard to coronavirus and freedom. How COBOL has not become too broad despite not using libraries. The history of programming languages that Dave teaches. That PDP-11 runs better emulated in Javascript than in its original hardware. A drawback of modern development: not understanding hardware. How Dave is digitizing his SMU courses due to teaching them online at present. All the effort Dave puts into grading his students’ exercises. Issues that coding is not taught rigorously enough; students can’t ‘program’. How well the human race is doing to mobilize en masse right now. Whether tech caused the crisis and humanity could manage this crisis 100 years ago. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Eric Oestrich — https://oestrich.org/ Justus Eapen — https://www.linkedin.com/in/justuseapen/ Amos King — https://www.linkedin.com/in/amosking/ Chris Keathley — https://keathley.io/ Anna Neyzberg — https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-neyzberg-93545316/ Elixir Outlaws — https://elixiroutlaws.com/ NFL Draft — https://www.nfl.com/draft/home Modge Podge — https://www.amazon.com/Mod-Podge-Waterbase-16-Ounce-CS11302/dp/B001IKES5O Star Trek — https://intl.startrek.com/ Sublime — https://www.sublimetext.com/ VSCode — https://code.visualstudio.com/ Binary Noggin — https://binarynoggin.com/ Connor Rigby — https://binarynoggin.com/author/connor/ ElixirBridge — http://elixirbridge.org/ Nico Piderman — https://github.com/sneako Quinn Wilton — https://github.com/QuinnWilton Jose Valim — https://github.com/josevalim Finch Library— https://github.com/keathley/finch Paul Schoenfelder — https://www.linkedin.com/in/gotbones/ Ockam — https://www.ockam.io/ Lumen — https://github.com/lumen/lumen Timex — https://github.com/bitwalker/timex Sophie DeBenedetto — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiedebenedetto/ Meryl Dakin — https://github.com/meryldakin Flatiron — https://flatironschool.com/ Sophie DeBenedetto’s GitHub Post — https://www.thegreatcodeadventure.com/my-long-distance-relationship-with-github/ Elixir School — https://elixirschool.com/en/ Meryl Dakin’s Watch if Your Dare Episode — https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/watch-if-you-dare/e/68798094?autoplay=true Luigi’s Mansion — https://www.nintendo.co.za/Games/Nintendo-Switch/Luigi-s-Mansion-3-1437312.html Dave Thomas — https://pragdave.me/ COBOL — https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cobol/index.htm PD-11 — https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/PDP-11.html SMU — https://www.smu.edu/lyle Elixir Wizards Podcast — https://podcast.smartlogic.io SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guests: Amos King, Anna Neyzberg, Chris Keathley, Dave Thomas, Meryl Dakin, Paul Schoenfelder, and Sophie DeBenedetto.

The world has changed so much since the end of season 3, that we thought we’d put together a special Betweenisode to tide you over until Season 4 launches. In this episode, we talk to several friends and respected members of the Elixir community, about how they’re coping and tips they have for retaining some normalcy in your life if you’re suddenly having to work from home. Our first guest, Saša Jurić, of Very Big Things, and author of the unrivaled Elixir in Action, has had the privilege of working from home for several years. He shares the importance of having a routine, connecting with people, and why you should get out of your pajamas and into some real clothes when you work. He also shares what it’s been like in his home city of Zagreb, and how previous devastating events have in some way prepared him for what’s currently happening. Bruce and Maggie Tate of Groxio, an educational platform to learn languages, also join us. Maggie shares more on her culinary adventures, and the importance of having a definite start and finish time to your day. Bruce talks about some of the professional projects he’s working on, and why he believes it’s crucial to tackle difficult technical skills outside of developing. Other guests include James Edward Gray II, who shares more about the incredible way he and his daughter have been bonding, Jim Freeze, founder of ElixirConf, and his son Chris, who share some of the benefits of working from home, and show us how to see the silver lining during this difficult time, and Frank Hunleth, of Nerves Project, who talks about what he’s up to. There have certainly been more changes in the world than we could have anticipated, so it was wonderful to catch up and see how people in our community have been coping. Be sure to tune in today! Key Points From This Episode: Learn what’s happening in Saša’s home city, Zagreb, and what he’s doing to keep busy. Saša’s advice for coping during the pandemic and preventing information overload. The transition to remote work in Saša’s company and the impacts it’s had on workload. How Saša started working remotely and the main lessons he has learned from doing it. What Saša believes the future of virtual events and conferences will be. Find out how Bruce and Maggie are dealing with these strange times. Groxio’s mission in terms of learning and Bruce and Maggie’s tip for working from home. Current projects that Bruce and Maggie are working on both at Groxio and personally. What’s in the pipeline with Groxio’s Elixir material and Bruce and Maggie’s plugs. How James is holding up and his take on the COBOL debacle. Find out what motivated James to transition from Ruby to Elixir and what it’s been like. James’s experience working from home and tips for people who are new to it. Specific versus general solutions: The difference and how James thinks we can tackle this. Hear James’s ExVenture plug, which is Eric’s project. Jim’s and Chris’s experience of the lockdown and the silver linings that have come from it Find out Jim and Chris’s necessities for working from home and being productive. Jim’s plans for ElixirConf for this year and 2021, and Chris and Jim’s final plug. Frank’s tips for working from home and his product plugs. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Saša Jurić on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sasajuric Saša Jurić on LinkedIn — https://hr.linkedin.com/in/sa%C5%A1a-juri%C4%87-21b23186 Erlangelist — https://www.theerlangelist.com/ Very Big Things — https://verybigthings.com/ Elixir in Action — https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-second-edition Bruce Tate — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-tate-a836b Bruce Tate on Twitter — https://twitter.com/redrapids Maggie Tate on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-tate-230234171 Groxio — https://grox.io/ Programmer Passport — https://elixirforum.com/t/programmer-passport-grox-io-pragprog/28253 Lonestar Elixir — https://lonestarelixir.com/ James Edward Gray II — https://twitter.com/JEG2 COBOL — https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cobol/index.htm Gray Inc — http://graysoftinc.com/ Programming Erlang — https://pragprog.com/book/jaerlang2/programming-erlang Nathan Long — https://twitter.com/sleeplessgeek POV-Ray — http://www.povray.org/ Elixir Wizards S02 Eric on ExVenture — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/season-two-oestrich Jesse Link — http://www.jesselink.com/ Jim Freeze on Twitter— https://twitter.com/jimfreeze ElixirConf — https://elixirconf.com/2020 Chris Freeze on Twitter— https://twitter.com/chrisfreeze_ Tesla Car Lot — https://teslacarlot.com/ David Antaramian — https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidantaramian/ PepsiCo — https://www.pepsico.com/ Nerves Project — https://www.nerves-project.org/ Frank Hunleth on Twitter — https://twitter.com/fhunleth SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guests: Bruce Tate, Chris Freeze, Dr. Jim Freeze, Frank Hunleth, James Gray, Maggie Tate, and Saša Jurić.

In this episode, we take a look into the current contexts and home lives many of us find ourselves in today, offering top tips for working remotely from home during these challenging times. The lockdowns have caused many of us to reflect. To reflect on our lives, our work, what we’re grateful for, and in this case, our epic last season of Elixir Wizards! Here, we take you through the highlights, the lowlights, our biggest lessons, our juiciest debates, and what you can expect for Season 4 – in sickness and in health. Stay safe, listen, and enjoy! Key Points from This Episode: The importance of demarcating your workspace, especially when the kids are home! Always put your pants on: Why sticking to your morning schedule helps productivity. Ways to eliminate the potential for distraction when working from home. How working from home is enabling programmers to see one another’s human side. Taking a break from conferences, cognition, and learning how to birth a baby Oestrich. Third dimensions and entering the tangential learning plane with Brooklyn Zelenka. The Surprise Toddcast: Why the improvised episode was a hit. What it was like interviewing entrepreneurial couple, Bruce & Maggie Tate. Remember the time the father and son roasted each other on the podcast mic? Why your podcast audience wants to know your guests on a more personal level. A recap of the numbers from Season 1-3 and the 40,000+ Elixir Wizards downloads. A sneak peek into the new Elixir Wizards theme for the upcoming Season 4. Lib versus Web and other essential tips for the lazy Phoenix users out there. Why we need a whole season on application architecture and one-letter module names. The debate sparked by the disagreement between Chris Keathley and Brooklyn Zelenka. Hackers, painters, Paul Graham, and the argument made in favor of dynamic typing. Find out more about Sophie and Meryl’s epic takeover of Elixir Wizards! Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Eric Oestrich — https://twitter.com/ericoestrich?lang=en Justus Eapen — https://twitter.com/justuseapen Brooklyn Zelenka on Witchcraft — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/season-two-zelenka Brooklyn Zelenka — https://twitter.com/expede?lang=en Bruce and Maggie Tate from Groxio on Training — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/s3e8-groxio Saša Jurić — https://twitter.com/sasajuric Bonus Toddcast & Lonestar Preview — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/s3e14-bonus-toddcast-and-lonestar-preview The Lonestar Lunchisode — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/s3-lonestar-lunchisode-2020 Dave Thomas — https://www.davethomas.net/talks_index.html Bonus Episode: Outlaws and The Wizards — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/s3-bonus-outlaws-and-wizards Chris Keathley — https://twitter.com/ChrisKeathley Paul Graham — http://www.paulgraham.com/ Sean Lewis from Divvy on Performance, Hiring and Training — https://podcast.smartlogic.io/s3e12-divvy Devin C. Estes — https://twitter.com/devoncestes?lang=en Muzak — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/devonestes/muzak-a-mutation-testing-library-for-elixir-and-erlangSpecial Guest: Todd Resudek.

Welcome to another extra special episode of Elixir Wizards! We have guest hosts today, Meryl Dakin of Frame.io and Sophie DeBenedetto of Github, and they welcome Steven Nunez, Staff Engineer at the Flatiron School, and Sean Callan, creator of Elixir School, to the show. Where some would see the fact that Elixir doesn’t have a ton of readily available answers out there as a restriction to mastering the language, our guests argue that this is the best educational environment. Writing about challenges and teaching others how you overcame them are some of the best ways to learn. We also discuss concurrency and other contrasts with prominent languages. Our guests weigh in on dealing with students and how far enthusiasm and openness can go in helping inspire other minds. Steven stresses the need for greater resources, especially at a beginner level, as this will lower the barrier to entry for new programmers and ultimately benefit the entire Elixir community. Key Points From This Episode: An introduction to Sean and Steven, their work and experience with Elixir. Work and professional horoscopes for the panel of today's podcast! The accidental path that led Sean to Elixir and the translations that affirmed his work. The use of writing and blogging in your own education; teaching is learning twice! Steven's early attraction to Elixir and the obsession and evangelism that followed. Concurrency visibility and differences between Elixir and other languages. Different tracks for learning; coming into Elixir as a beginner or as someone with experience. The evolution of thought around education and things that have changed at Elixir School. Learning that includes reasons why; you don't know what you don't know! Knowing your students and keeping them excited to maintain a passion for learning. Growing confidence and the benefits of great resources for the spread of increasing skills. Scratching your own itch; write the educational information that you cannot find yourself. Our guest's Elixir wish lists; more learning opportunities, widespread adoption and beginner-friendly content. Requests about Elixir from our guests, a few plugs and how to connect with them! Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Sophie DeBenedetto — https://twitter.com/sm_debenedetto Meryl Dakin — https://twitter.com/meryldakin Steven Nunez — https://twitter.com/_stevennunez Sean Callan — https://twitter.com/doomspork System 76 — https://system76.com/ Flatiron — https://flatironschool.com/ Elixir School — https://elixirschool.com GitHub — https://github.com/ Erlang — https://www.erlang.org/ Phoenix — https://www.phoenixframework.org/ Kubernetes — https://kubernetes.io/ The Developer's Guide to Content Creation — https://www.developersguidetocontent.com/ Stephanie Morillo — https://www.stephaniemorillo.co/ Elixir and The Beam: How Concurrency Really Works https://www.thegreatcodeadventure.com/elixir-and-the-beam-how-concurrency-really-works/Special Guests: Sean Callan and Steven Nunez.

Saša Jurić is a household name in the Elixir and Erlang space and we are so glad to finally welcome him on to the show today! Author of Elixir in Action, Saša is here to discuss training and his thoughts on getting a team up to speed with regards to testing and beyond. We hear from our guest about his discovery of Elixir, his uncharacteristic early adoption of the language, and why he chose it. From there, Saša talks a bit about his book, the opportunity that arose for him to write it after Manning approached him and how he views its place among other prominent pieces of literature on the subject. We discuss early steps in the process of learning Elixir for new programmers and old, and Saša weighs in on when it might be a good idea to put in the effort. We also get to hear about very big things, where Saša works and the central work and services of the agency. The last part of our conversation is spent on more technical aspects of Saša's work, his approach to coding in general and then approaches to testing and the training side of this. Join us today for this great conversation! Key Points From This Episode: Saša's discovery of Elixir and his first experiences of the language. A lucky opportunity to write a book that presented itself to Saša! The complementary nature of Elixir in Action; reading it in conjunction with other books. Ideas on how to introduce the concepts of Elixir to new programmers and the unfamiliar. The effort needed in order to understand and adopt the new paradigm of Elixir. Saša's work at very big things and the services that the agency offers. The most useful idioms that Saša uses and the modes of operation at that agency. Saša's use of Dialyzer for debugging despite its imperfections. The exploratory nature of good coding and finding solutions as you go. Helper libraries and comparing functions from Saša's own one! Training for unit, feature and integration testing; Saša's approach for his team. Differentiating between the different types of testing and the importance of naming. Clarifying Saša's philosophy on testing and his understanding of the term 'unit'. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Saša Jurić on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sasajuric The Erlangerist — https://www.theerlangelist.com/ Elixir in Action — https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-second-edition?query=sa%C5%A1a - use special code podexwizards20 for 40% off your purchase at Manning Publications! Michael Stevens — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstephens2 Manning — https://www.manning.com/ Programming Elixir — https://pragprog.com/book/elixir16/programming-elixir-1-6 Learn Functional Programming with Elixir — https://pragprog.com/book/cdc-elixir/learn-functional-programming-with-elixir very big things — https://verybigthings.com/ Dialyzer — https://hexdocs.pm/dialyzex/Mix.Tasks.Dialyzer.html Hackers & Painters — http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596006624.do Paul Graham — http://www.paulgraham.com/ Justin Searls Blog - https://blog.testdouble.com/ Marie Kondo — https://konmari.com/Special Guest: Saša Jurić.

Elixir Outlaws invited us to join them for a special crossover episode, recorded live at Lonestar Elixir 2020. Join us for a conversation around fun and learning in development, highlights from day one of the conference, remembering Joe Armstrong, and more. Guests / Hosts Justus Eapen @justuseapen Anna Neyzberg @ANeyzb Amos King @adkron Bruce Tate @redrapids Susumu Yamazaki @zacky1972 Melvin Cedeno @TheCraftedGem Tim Mecklem @tim_mecklem Elixir Outlaws https://elixiroutlaws.com/ Lonestar Elixir https://lonestarelixir.com/Special Guests: Amos King, Anna Neyzberg, Bruce Tate, Chris Keathley, Melvin Cedeno, Susumu Yamazaki, and Tim Mecklem.

Our guest today, Devon Estes, approached us about the possible opportunity for Elixir to optimize and build out the pandas data analysis and manipulation tool, sharing why he thinks it would be a valuable addition to the Elixir open source ecosystem. But Devon joins us to contribute to our ongoing discussion about performance and training in the Elixir world, sharing about his current work on the beta for Sketch Cloud, his previous Erlang consultancy role at one of the largest banks in Europe, and the massive responsibility he carried while working on the bottom line application. He continues to advise listeners on the considerations for optimizing Erlang performance and solving database-specific problems, and the memory constraints he comes up against in the Sketch Cloud application. Devon talks about Benchee, a benchmarking library created by his friend, and how the two of them have continued to develop this tool, including its performance testing capabilities and how they deconstructed the benchmarking steps to build out the library. He also talks more broadly about the importance of considering the data when distinguishing between facts and opinions in conversations about performance. Key Points From This Episode: What Devon believes would be a valuable addition to the Elixir open source ecosystem. Why optimizing and building out the pandas tool will be worth a company’s time and effort. Devon’s experience with pandas and Python, and recognizing the opportunity for Elixir. Working on the beta for Sketch’s Cloud that will allow real-time collaboration. Devon’s consultancy role at Klarna, one of the largest banks in Europe. The responsibility involved in working on the bottom-of-the-stack application at Klarna. Considerations for optimizing Erlang performance and why you should look at the tail. Solving the database performance problems – running queries and searches – at Klarna. The unique memory constraints of Sketch Cloud and the problem with receiving large files. More about Benchee, a benchmarking library, and all its performance testing capabilities. Deciding whether a function is responsible for other things when benchmarking. The time Devon spends on optimizing performance and the first two steps in the process. The profiling process of determining which function is slow and writing a benchmark for it. Distinguish between a fact and an opinion by considering the data (or lack thereof). Keeping in mind that truth is time-bound, and it also applies to benchmarking. Deconstructing the steps in the process of further developing Benchee. How Devon became a maintainer of the Elixir track for Exercism, and what the role involves. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Devon Estes — http://www.devonestes.com Devon Estes on Twitter — https://twitter.com/devoncestes?lang=en Devon Estes on GitHub — https://github.com/devonestes pandas — https://pandas.pydata.org Python — https://www.python.org Sketch — https://www.sketch.com Klarna — https://www.klarna.com/international/ Erlang — https://www.erlang.org PostgreSQL — https://www.postgresql.org Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ Adopting Elixir — https://www.amazon.com/Adopting-Elixir-Production-Ben-Marx/dp/1680502522 Exercism — https://exercism.io JavaScript — https://www.javascript.com Benchee — https://github.com/bencheeorg SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Elixir — https://elixir-lang.org Elixir Wizards Podcast — https://podcast.smartlogic.io Update: What's Inside a Reduction? http://www.devonestes.com/inside-a-reductionSpecial Guest: Devon Estes.

Welcome back to the show for this special edition Lunchisode, coming to you live from the Lonestar Elixir 2020 Conference! We have a revolving door of speakers at this informal roundtable and a few friends and associates stop by to introduce themselves, share their thoughts on the conference so far and subjects that they care about. We follow up on some of the ideas raised in the Lonestar preview episode as well as hear about new and interesting ways that Elixir is being used at a variety of companies, including SalesLoft, ActiveProspect, SmartRent and more! We also consider the place of Elixir education and go deeper on the topic of finding fun and meaning in our programming pursuits and beyond. Join us for this special edition and stay tuned for the next installment soon. Key Points From This Episode: Thoughts on the conference so far — the talks and venue. SalesLoft's Elixir adoption and how the decision was made by those in power. Bruce Williams' current work at GitHub and his project on Absinthe. Elixir usage in Mexico and the prominent organizations and companies that use it. Some information on the Observability Working Group and what they are currently busy with. Differences between tracing and logging; tracing is essentially distributed logging. What it means for the programmer when they bump up against a challenge! The amount of effort that should go into developing entry points for new Elixir developers. Education in the Elixir space and the success of the bootcamp model. Considering the ongoing utility of unit tests and changing up training strategies. The work done by SmartRent in real estate and how Elixir fits into their tech stack. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Lonestar Elixir — https://lonestarelixir.com/ Bruce Tate — https://twitter.com/redrapids Steve Bussey — https://twitter.com/YOOOODAAAA Bruce Williams — https://twitter.com/wbruce Ricardo Echavarria — https://twitter.com/r_icarus Brain Naegele — https://twitter.com/bside_bryan Frank Kumro — https://twitter.com/frigidcode Zach Thomas — https://twitter.com/ZachDCThom Dave Thomas — https://twitter.com/pragdave Jon Carstens — https://twitter.com/JonCarstens Todd Resudek — https://twitter.com/sprsmpl SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ SalesLoft — https://salesloft.com/ Absinthe — https://github.com/absinthe-graphql/absinthe Sophie DeBenedetto — http://sophiedebenedetto.nyc/ RestFest — https://www.restfest.org/ Observability Working Group — https://erlef.org/wg/observability GigCity Elixir Conference — https://www.gigcityelixir.com/ ActiveProspect — https://activeprospect.com/ The Pragmatic Programmer — https://pragprog.com/book/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition SmartRent — https://smartrent.com/ Blinker — https://www.blinker.com/Special Guests: Brain Naegele, Bruce Tate, Bruce Williams, Dave Thomas, Frank Kumro, Jon Carstens, Ricardo Echavarria, Steve Bussey, Todd Resudek, and Zach Thomas.