Today on the show we are joined by Sophie DeBenedetto from GitHub and Meryl Dakin from Frame.io to talk about the processes involved in training others and building Elixir projects. They share about studying and working together at the Flatiron School and what they do now in their respective new roles at Github and Frame.io. During their time at Flatiron, they worked on various projects, often collaborating with engineering teams from other companies and having to train these team members in Elixir. They talk about how they managed to develop new features while simultaneously onboarding new people and getting everyone on the same page. For them, the pair programming model had been most beneficial, and they discuss the habits and practices they implemented to encourage team members, optimize each learning experience, and share knowledge during training events. Sophie and Meryl also share the Elixir-specific challenges they encountered while developing applications for 2U, how Elixir’s failure-first programming capability guided them, how they prepare for training workshops, and the productivity hacks that keep them focused and energized. Key Points From This Episode: • How Sophie and Meryl know each other from working and studying at the Flatiron School. • Frame.io as a tool that facilitates the communication between video editors and clients. • Meryl’s new role as a full-stack developer working with Elixir and React. • The projects they worked on at Flatiron and partnering with various companies like 2U. • Their secret to developing new features while also introducing new team members to Elixir. • The benefits of pair programming and teaching a programming language to others. • Reserving time to celebrate wins and knowledge share during training events. • Key lessons they learned from their collaboration with the 2U team. • Elixir-specific challenges during the development of the applications project with 2U. • How Elixir’s failure-first programming capability ultimately helps developers. • Sophie and Meryl’s experience using LiveView at Flatiron and the problems encountered. • The work that went into preparing for training workshops. • Advice for teaching someone who is not technical to become a working developer. • Productivity hacks to stay focused and regain energy. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Sophie DeBenedetto on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiedebenedetto/ Sophie DeBenedetto on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sm_debenedetto Meryl Dakin in LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/meryldakin/ Meryl Dakin on Twitter — https://twitter.com/meryldakin Eric Oestrich — https://oestrich.org Frame.io — https://frame.io GitHub — https://github.com Flatiron School — https://flatironschool.com Elixir — https://elixir-lang.org React — https://reactjs.org 2U — https://2u.com Kubernetes — https://kubernetes.io Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ Elixir School — https://elixirschool.com/en/ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain — https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201 Etsy — https://www.etsy.com EMPEX NYC Conference — https://empex.co/nyc.html SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guests: Meryl Dakin and Sophie DeBenedetto.

In today’s episode we have one of our favorite recurring guests, Brooklyn Zelenka, joining us once again! Brooklyn has been on the show in both the first and second seasons to speak about Elixir and functional programming. In those conversations, it came up that this topic is far from exhausted, and since Season 3's theme is working with Elixir, we thought it would be great to have Brooklyn on for a third time. Today, Brooklyn does not speak to Elixir specifically though, but on functional programming more broadly. Fission, her company which is working on developing next-generation hostless apps, actually uses Haskel, but Brooklyn has a ton of experience across the board. She gives us some great insights into what makes the functional versus OOP paradigm great and helps us to understand some of the inner workings of both worlds, talking about abstraction, application, data orientation, and more. Interestingly, Brooklyn does employ some imperative programming in her company through the use of Typescript, but uses a functional style to get around the context switch. We spend some time toward the end of the show digging deeper into macros, and Brooklyn helps to revise understandings of them as code which writes more code as well as clarifies the term 'homoiconic' as it relates to ASTs. Brooklyn covers a whole lot more today so hop on for a deep dive into functional programming with today's great guest. Key Points From This Episode: • Why Brooklyn uses FPE: it can be reused and reasoned about. • Two things that functions provide: abstraction and application. • Data orientation and hiding information: imperative vs functional paradigms. • Understanding imperative programming: it’s less structured and hard to reason about. • Challenges experienced imperative programmers face with functional programming. • Differences between Elixir, Erlang, Haskel, Elm, and Clojure. • Using Clojure: tradeoffs, distinctions, tooling, flexibility, and compatibility with Java. • The language Brooklyn could use if only one existed: Racket. • Bridging functional and imperative paradigms through disciplined use of style. • Segfaults in Haskell related to its compatibility with lib C. • How to use Musl instead of lib C by employing docker files. • Algebraic types and why static types aren’t hindrances in functional languages. • Preferences for tests or proofs and their role in finding types valuable. • Macros as compile-time functions that are difficult to debug. • A definition of a ‘homoiconic’: high-level syntax which represents the AST. • What makes C macros different from Lisp ones. • Architecture in Elixir and the need for a more user-friendly Haskell. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Brooklyn Zelenka on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooklynzelenka/ Fission — https://fission.codes/ Seven Languages in Seven Weeks — https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Programmers/dp/193435659X Chris Keathley — https://keathley.io/ Hackers and Painters — https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554 Paul Graham — http://www.paulgraham.com/Special Guest: Brooklyn Zelenka.

Groxio is a great platform that allows programmers to learn new languages easily and broaden their horizons. Our guests today are the team behind Groxio, Bruce and Maggie Tate! In our discussion, we cover the basics and the not so basics of what they do, from how they got into the Elixir world and founded Groxio to the conferences they run and the books they have published. We also talk about the benefits of learning multiple languages and Bruce makes a strong argument for the influence that smaller coding languages have had on his Elixir skills. Maggie and Bruce open up about having a professional and personal partnership and how they manage their marriage and businesses side by side. To finish off we hear about all the exciting things to expect at the Lonestar Conference this year and how it is going to be even better than last year's! Key Points From This Episode: • Bruce and Maggie's background in Elixir and how they started Groxio. • What sets Groxio apart from similar technical education companies. • The inspiration that Bruce got from the Crystal and Pony languages. • How curiosity and dopamine are linked; following new and interesting pathways. • Maggie and Bruce's personal and professional partnership and how they manage it. • The Elixir books that still need to be written and under-appreciated published ones. • A guide to Bruce's books and which to read for particular applications. • Running a conference; the stressful and fun parts for Maggie and Bruce. • Aspirations for the conferences and what to expect at this year's events. • Exciting speakers that will be appearing at the Lone Star Conference. • The controversy around the new Lone Star bat logo! • A few special plugs from our guests for things they are passionate about. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Bruce and Maggie Tate — https://grox.io/about Bruce Tate on Twitter — https://twitter.com/redrapids Maggie Tate on Twitter — https://twitter.com/gardenertate Groxio — https://grox.io/ Gig City Elixir — https://www.gigcityelixir.com/ Lone Star Elixir — https://lonestarelixir.com/ Crystal — https://crystal-lang.org/ Pony — https://www.ponylang.io/ Joe Armstrong — https://joearms.github.io/ Elixir in Action — https://www.amazon.com/Elixir-Action-Sa%C5%A1a-Juri-cacute/dp/161729201X Designing Elixir Systems — https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Elixir-Systems-OTP-Self-healing/dp/1680506617/ Andrea Leopardi — https://confengine.com/user/andrea-leopardiSpecial Guests: Bruce Tate and Maggie Tate.

On today's show, we are joined by Dan Ivovich from our team here at SmartLogic! Dan is the Director of Development Operations and has already been a guest and cohost a few times on the show. Today we are talking about hiring and training and his experience with these tasks at the company and especially concerning Elixir. We discuss the challenges Dan has faced in recruiting and the ways in which SmartLogic has lined up resumes and possible candidates through events and meetups. Dan explains some of the difficulties that are common for programmers transitioning into Elixir and how the company approaches the tasks of onboarding and ongoing support. We also get into Dan's favorite resources and tools for staying abreast of Elixir and his recommendations for practices to learn fast as a newcomer before he explains how he thinks about continual learning and expanding his own skillset. The conversation finishes with some thoughts and reflections on functional programming from our guest, so make sure to tune in for all of that and more! Key Points From This Episode: Dan's role at SmartLogic and how he leads the team. Recruiting new employees; collecting resumes and attending events. Challenges posed by recruiting good Elixir programmers and who to look for. Sticking points for people transitioning into Elixir from other languages. The stack at SmartLogic and the number of projects based in Elixir. Onboarding at the company; skills that are transferable to Elixir. Professional development and ongoing support for team members. Dan's favorite tools and resources for learning Elixir. Continual learning and Dan's strategies for growing his skillset. A simple definition of functional programming and Dan's early experiences with it. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Dan Ivovich — https://www.danivovich.com/ Dan Ivovich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/danivovich ElixirConf — https://elixirconf.com/events Java — https://www.java.com/ Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/ Python — https://www.python.org/ Rails — https://rubyonrails.org/ Rust — https://www.rust-lang.org/ GO — https://golang.org/ Twitch — https://www.twitch.tv/ Bruce Tate — https://codesync.global/speaker/bruce-tate/ Scala — https://www.scala-lang.org/Special Guest: Dan Ivovich.

We are happy to be joined in this episode by Eric Meadows Jönsson, creator of the hexpm package manager, and an amazing resource who works tirelessly to build the Elixir community. Eric presently works at Brex and was part of the core team at Forza previously. In keeping with our current topic of all things working with Elixir, Eric takes a deep dive into the work he is doing to optimize various interfaces at Brex. He gives us the rundown on the static compile-time checking project he is working on, talking about his aims to build in different warnings and what we can expect from the new release in that regard. You’ll also hear about Eric’s journey learning Elixir and how he had to change his OOP mindset when he got introduced to functional programming at university. He shares the story behind hexpm and Mint, his thoughts about the future of Hex, and some of the processes around accessing the private repositories on its website. We also hear more about Eric’s hiring procedure while working at Forza, how he teaches functional programming to students at ElixirConf, and some of the major performance bottlenecks he experiences using Hex. Tap into the incredible resource that is Eric and hear more about how you can link with him online to learn further in the future by tuning in! Key Points From This Episode: Jose Valim, the Ecto library, and Eric’s journey with Elixir since 2012 at a coding camp. Early-stage static compile-time checks that Eric is adding to the compiler at Brex. Whether the static compile-time checks Eric is adding constitute a type system or not. Static compile-time checks in the current system such as undefined function warnings. Features of the new static compile-time check release: refactored checks, etc. Currently, these checks happen at compile-time, or when Elixir compiles into the byte code. Whether these checks will move into BEAM: currently it’s in Elixir and at an early stage. The Erlang compiler already does type inference during compilation. Eric’s Erlang proficiency and why he had to brush up on it through using Elixir. What makes Eric helpful with Hex: his debugging skills and availability to answer questions. How Eric got started with Hex adding an intake for Git packages. The story behind Hex regarding ties to Elixir and Devinus from Pool Boy. Todd’s perspective on Eric as a smart and nice mentor who sleeps very little. Changes that Eric sees happening in Elixir. Hex will no longer support older Elixir versions so that it can enable better maintenance. Another change will be a refactoring of the resolution version algorithm. Security-related updates that Todd has been working on. Private versus public repositories on the hex.pm website. Hiring challenges at Forza and how Eric found the right team out of scarce people. Eric looks for people who love being programmers and have a passion for learning. Tactics Eric uses to train functional programming such as hosting ElixirConf workshops. Important fundamentals in functional programming: using data structures to model data, etc. Differences between functional and object-oriented programming: data vs classes. The role of types in Eric coming to understand functional programming better. Performance bottlenecks in Hex such as dependency resolution. How every package manager/resolver compromises, exemplified by NPM and Rebar3. Origins of Mint: wanting http2 support for Hex, and more. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Eric Meadows Jönsson on GitHub – https://github.com/ericmj Eric Meadows Jönsson on Hexpm — https://hex.pm/users/ericmj Brex — https://brex.com/ Todd Resudek on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddresudek Justus Eapen on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/justuseapen/ Eric Oestreich on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-oestreich-8b55aab/ hexpm on GitHub — https://github.com/hexpm Google Summer of Code — https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/ Jose Valim on GitHib — https://github.com/josevalim Pool Boy — https://github.com/devinus/poolboy Devin Alexander Torres — https://github.com/devinus Voitech — https://www.voitech.biz/ Hex — https://hex.pm/ hexpm specifications — https://github.com/hexpm/specifications Slack — https://slack.com IRC —https://hexchat.github.io/ Forza — https://www.forzafootball.com/women ElixirConf — https://elixirconf.com/events Chalmers University — https://www.chalmers.se/en/Pages/default.aspx Fastly — https://www.fastly.com/ NPM — https://www.npmjs.com/ Rebar 3 — https://github.com/erlang/rebar3 Mint — https://www.mint-lang.com/ Ruby Gems — https://rubygems.org/ Andrea Leopardi on GitHub — https://github.com/whatyouhide?tab=overview&org=ForzaElixirSpecial Guest: Todd Resudek.

Our guest on the show today is blogger, software cowboy, and podcast host Chris Keathley. Chris is a senior engineer at Bleacher Report, co-host of Elixir Outlaws, and writer of an assemblage of open-source software. He joins us today to speak about his new projects, his journey with functional programming, and what it is like to run Bleacher Report’s infrastructure on Elixir. Chris gives us the lowdown on Norm, a data validating interface he recently completed, weighing in on how it is different from Dialyzer and what it can offer as far as scalability. We hear more about how Chris got introduced to Elixir through Haskell, why he wishes he learned Clojure sooner, and why Ruby on Rails isn’t going anywhere soon. Chris also gets into the tradeoffs these languages make to correlate with Erlang. He argues that Elixir can only be more widely adopted if more people build cool things in it, and then lays out some of its power in supporting Bleacher Report’s user interface. We pick Chris’s brain about what his company is trying to optimize at the moment and hear about their preference for capacity over speed, and their techniques for failing gracefully during traffic spikes. Chris tells us how much he loves Elixir due to its use of ETS and other functionality which allows Bleacher Report to keep running even above capacity. Finally, we hear about some of the observability practices that Bleacher Report uses when deploying new systems and predicting future spikes. Plug in for a great conversation and hear why you should get building with Elixir now! Key Points From This Episode: Chris’s explanation of Norm, his new software that describes data moving through a system. Chris’s introduction to functional programming through learning Haskell, Clojure, and Elixir. What makes a great functional language: immutable data and first class functions. Things that make Clojure great, such as its thought out, holistic design. Characteristics of Cons lists versus RRB trees, and what makes the latter better. An acknowledgment of the necessity of the tradeoffs Elixir makes to interact with Erlang. A little bit about the language Chris wrote to do the admin of code challenges in. Why Ruby (on Rails) will not be replaced by Elixir due to commoditization that surrounds it. An argument that Elixir can only be more widely adopted if more people build with it. Why any language can build any program thus comparisons between them are arbitrary. Where Chris sets the bar as to when something is performant. Chris’s preference for high user capacity capability over speed of delivery at Bleacher Report. Optimization projects at Bleacher Report such as using few boxes and handling traffic spikes. Things Chris loves about Elixir such as its ability to deliver more from its boxes. Elixir’s use of ETS and how Chris coded a complex problem in half a day using it. How Chris detects spikes using time series, StatsD, and other observability tools. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Chris Keathley on GitHub — https://github.com/keathley Chris Keathley Blog — https://keathley.io/ ElixirConf 2019, Contracts for Building Reliable Systems presented by Chris Keathley — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpo3JUyVIjQ The Big Elixir 2019 - Keynote: Adoption - Brian Cardarella — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghpIiQKRfQ4 Bleacher Report — https://bleacherreport.com/ Elixir Outlaws Podcast — https://elixiroutlaws.com/ Norm — https://github.com/keathley/norm Dialyzer — http://erlang.org/doc/man/dialyzer.html Haskell — https://www.haskell.org/ Clojure — https://clojure.org/ Erlang — https://www.erlang.org/ Chris Okasaki — https://github.com/chrisokasaki Discord — https://discordapp.com/company StatsD — https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/statsd/ Prometheus — https://prometheus.io/ Opentracing — https://opentracing.io/Special Guest: Chris Keathley.

On today’s show, we welcome Justin Schneck and Frank Hunleth, luminaries from the Nerves team! We take a dive into the world of Nerves with them, covering themes of performance, problem-solving, transitioning to hardware, and breakthroughs in the field. We begin with a conversation on how Elixir handles performance issues on the range of devices they support and Frank gets into how the team solved an early boot time discrepancy between a PC and a Raspberry Pi board. Other big themes for today are ironing out the kinks in the system registry model and merging Erlang and into hard real-time. After squeezing some information out of the guys about their use of ugly code hacks we get into some visionary decisions as well as things the team wished they could have done differently at Elixir (see the release of the new networking stack). Finally, we end off with what Frank and Justin are excited about as far as developments in the Nerves community, so be sure to plug into this one! **Key Points From This Episode: What Justin did in Tokyo, from soaking in hot springs to debugging in Kanji. An explanation of The Erlang Ecosystem Foundation, an embedded systems working group. The use of the VintageNet library for setting up multi-hold nerve networks. How Elixir handles performance issues on the range of devices they support. A breakdown of troubleshooting processes as far as acceleration with FPGAs. Issues with dependencies that occur when starting a network node on a Nerves device. How Elixir is trying to evolve past the system registry model. Identifying the challenge of reconfiguring early boot time which Elixir is facing. How Elixir solved a load time discrepancy between a PC and the Raspberry Pi board. Which situations require hardware when Elixir is too slow, such as video encoding. Japanese research into GPU, FPGA and SIMD optimization involving wrapping code blocks. Merging Erlang which is soft real-time into hard real-time. Examples of ugly but fast code hacks in Elixir. Hacks and the pitfalls of system registry such as returning to a prompt when an app crashes. Things Elixir would have done differently in working with Nerves if could they rewind time. Why releasing a new networking stack means Elixir could have done things differently. Lessons Justin and Frank learned moving from OTP to functional programming at Elixir. Exciting new developments and releases in the Nerves community. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Nerves Project — https://nerves-project.org/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ ElixirConf US — https://elixirconf.com/events The Erlang Ecosystem Foundation — https://erlef.org/ GRiSP — https://www.grisp.org/ Vintage Net — https://github.com/nerves-networking/vintage_net Joe Armstrong — https://joearms.github.io/ Erlang — https://www.erlang.org/ Linux — https://www.linux.org/Special Guest: Frank Hunleth.

Our theme this season is working with Elixir, and joining in the conversation today is Brad Traylor from Podium. Brad shares his expertise in hiring and training for Podium, a position he is passionate about since it gives him the opportunity to work on the people and tech side of things. We begin by hearing a bit of Brad’s background, when and how he was first introduced to Elixir and the standout qualities that attracted him to Podium. He discusses the hiring process, including what he looks for in an engineer, why they don’t recruit much but rather work with referrals, the step-by-step of onboarding new devs and the resources he recommends to anyone in the industry. Another great talk with a stand-up guy — be sure to tune in! Key Points From This Episode: When Brad was first exposed to Elixir and how he became the engineering manager. Searching for rocket ship startups and what specifically drew him to Podium. Having a desire to work with the people and the tech side of the industry. The growth trajectory of Podium from a management perspective. Hiring predominantly from referrals rather than recruiting developers. The biggest challenge with hiring Elixir devs, including the scarcity of good ones! Two things Brad looks for when hiring engineers: the drive to learn and a cultural fit. The benefit of hiring younger developers. Thoughts on training different languages and adding them to Podium’s tech stack. An overview of the typical onboarding process for a new engineer. Elixir 101 and other ways they keep training and refining the skills of developers. Resources that Brad has recently learned and those he always recommends to devs. **Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Brad Traylor on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradtraylor Brad Traylor on Twitter — https://twitter.com/btjordan23 Podium — https://www.podium.com SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Elixir — https://elixir-lang.org University of Michigan — https://umich.edu Java — https://www.java.com/en/ Python — https://www.python.org Rust — https://www.rust-lang.org Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ TypeScript — https://www.typescriptlang.org Pragmatic Institute — https://www.pragmaticinstitute.com/courses The Manager’s Path — https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth-ebook/dp/B06XP3GJ7F Camile Fournier — https://twitter.com/skamilleSpecial Guest: Brad Traylor.

Today on Elixir Wizards we are joined by none other than José Valim, the inventor of Elixir! Coming from the Ruby on Rails world, José found his way to functional programming and we hear all about the evolution of his philosophy and thought process around the time of the creation of the language. He gives us some great insight into why functional programming is so appealing to him and the problems he wanted to solve by creating Elixir. We chat about other languages and his use of Erlang, Elixir's three biggest influences and some important characters in the story. José also shares a bit of personal, behind the scenes stuff about his schedule and how he tries to stay as productive as possible. We finish off the chat, talking about performance and the measures José has taken in this regard. For all this and more from a true Elixir wizard, be sure to tune in! Key Points From This Episode: José's thoughts on our recent podcast name-change! The first steps for José in the process of writing a language. Reason for José's decision to step out of the Ruby on Rails world. The 'aha' moment that José had when moving into functional programming. Some of the inspiration for Elixir from other languages. A few of the people that have mentored and inspired José in his career. The research and development phase for Elixir and José strategy for this. José's work habits, his typical day and the influence of his kids on his flow. Why José still considers himself an Elixir programmer despite his proximity. Elixir and machine learning; why the two are not more closely linked. Steps in the measurement process for José and Elixir. The time that José has spent on the performance side of the language. Sacrifices and substitution in optimizing Elixir's performance. Some of the things on the horizon that are exciting José. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic José Valim Plataformatec Harry Potter Erlang Ruby Clojure ElixirConfSpecial Guest: José Valim.

Welcome to Elixir Wizards, today we are joined by Dr. Jim Freeze to talk about his passion for and history in Elixir and functional programming. Dr. Freeze is one of the organizers of one of our favorite things in the world, Elixir Conf! He shares his story of coming to functional programming and his early days with Elixir, what he sees as the most important aspects of the conference before diving into what is on offer for those that attend. We talk about how employers can get Elixir newcomers up to speed on the language and the most effective ways Dr. Freeze stays abreast of developments in the field. Our guest also recommends a few resources for those wanting an introduction to Elixir and makes a great argument for the usefulness of a functional approach to programming. For all this and a whole bunch more, join us today! Key Points From This Episode: How Dr. Freeze got started with Elixir and his programming background. A little bit about the early days of Elixir Conf and what the first events were like. The particulars of Dr. Freeze's doctorate and his title. Education, networking and how Elixir Conf fits into the developer hiring game. The training that is offered at the conference and the philosophy to serving attendees. Dr. Freeze's recommendations for employers bringing newbies up to speed with Elixir. How our guest continues his learning and stays focused on what is necessary. Useful resources and materials for Elixir, according to Dr. Freeze. Contemplating functional programming and its key components. Why to consider functional programming coming from an object-based background. The biggest hurdles in moving over to functional programming and Elixir. Following the data and how much the simplicity of this directive can help. Dr. Freeze's favorite thing in the functional world! Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic  Dr. Jim Freeze on Twitter ElixirConf  Sophie DeBenedetto Elixir Radar Phoenix In Action Geoffrey Lessel Saša Jurić Sandi MetzSpecial Guest: Dr. Jim Freeze.