Welcome to our first episode of Season 9 Elixir Wizards, Parsing the Particulars. A show focused on conversations with software developers from around the world on the Elixir language and other modern web technologies. Today, we are joined by Dave Lucia, Chief Technology Officer at Bitfo, a cryptocurrency media company building educational content for people who are interested in cryptocurrency. Dave is active in the Elixir community and in the past has spoken at Code BEAM SF, ElixirConf, RabbitMQ Summit, and has written several blog posts which can be found at davelucia.com. In today’s episode we find out more about Dave’s professional background and dive into the particulars of observability. Tune in today to learn more from today’s special guest, Dave Lucia! Key Points From This Episode: A brief breakdown of today’s topic and introduction to our special guest, Dave Lucia We find out about Bitfo and what services they offer We discuss Dave’s blog post on observability Find out how Dave wrote the blog post because he saw a gap at his company How Sundi proofread Dave’s blog post and realized her lack of knowledge on observability The most common mistake teams or engineers make when it comes to observability We peel back the layers on what telemetry is What the difference between telemetry and OpenTelemetry is How to choose which tool is right when it comes to better observability *The breakdown of the uses for observability telemetry *When and why would we use OpenTelemtry vs basic observability *What languages Dave started in before he was working in Elixir *How Elixir lends better for observability *Where to start if you want to implement basic observability for someone who has no experience with it *Dave answers the question, “can you go too far with observability?” *We discuss Livebook and what exciting things it will bring for the future *Most importantly, Dave explains why pineapples are important to him **Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Dave’s blog post on Observability: https://davelucia.com/blog/observing-elixir-with-lightstep Dave Lucia on Twitter — https://twitter.com/davydog187 Dave Lucia on GitHub — https://github.com/davydog187 Dave Lucia on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lucia-a395441b/ Bitfo — https://www.bitfo.com/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Links:Spotify

Hey everyone, Season 9 of Elixir Wizards is back! This season's theme is Parsing the Particulars, where we dive into particular subjects with our guests. Your returning hosts this season are Sundi, Owen and Dan! And we are excited to announce that we have a new host joining the show - Bilal Hankins! Bilal is a Software Developer at SmartLogic and is super excited to join us this season. Some of this season's guests include Dave Lucia, CTO at Bitfo, Tyler Young, Senior Software Developer at Felt, and Kate Rezentes, Junior Developer at SimpleBet. Can't wait to see you there! SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ SmartLogic on Twitter — https://twitter.com/smartlogic SmartLogic on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/smartlogic-io/ SmartLogic on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/smartlogic/ Bilal Hankins on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hankins-bilal/ Sundi Myint on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundimyint/ Owen Bickford on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-bickford-8b6b1523a/

It’s the season finale show! Can you believe it? Join us this week as Sundi, Owen, and Dan take a look back at this season of Elixir Wizards! You’ll hear their discussion about favorite moments over the season and learn about this season’s theme and its origin, and what they learned throughout the season. Enjoy and we hope to see you back for Season 9! Key Points From This Episode: Reflection on the guests experiences with all different types of language How the team landed on the theme of Elixir in a Polyglot Environment Having expectation of guests vs how the conversation turned out The discovery that environment influences the strength of the code that is being written We dig deeper into the flexibility of all of these companies How the hosts enjoyed the dream language combination answers from guests We hear about the teams experience with their first in-person recording Hearing about guests personal experiences and projects vs just their at-work experience We find out what birds do when they’re excited in a tree Flutter as a solution for building mobile applications The hosts likes, dislikes, experience with Flutter and the difference it brings to the table We reflect on a guest applying gamification The hosts discuss the guests range of experience, from a year to decades in the field, and how many different perspectives were shown with different backgrounds A recurring theme of the guests: structuring teams to fit the needs of the company - recurring theme Hearing about products and projects guests are working on Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ SmartLogic on Twitter — https://twitter.com/smartlogic SmartLogic on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/smartlogic-io/ SmartLogic on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/smartlogic/ Dan Ivovich on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/divovich/ Sundi Myint on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundimyint/

This week on Elixir Wizards we’re joined by Nathan Retta, Senior Software Engineer from Android at DoorDash. We learn about Nathan’s background; his experience having a degree in Chemical Engineering and working in Oil and Gas for 6 years. Nathan then wrote an Android app in 2016 and soon after became a mobile developer -- the rest is history. He is currently based in Denver, Colorado, and our host Owen has met him prior through the Denver Elixir virtual meet up. Join us today for this conversation between Owen, Dan and Nathan as we learn about Nathan’s experience leading up to his current position at Android for DoorDash and how he is using Elixir in his side projects.

Welcome to this week’s episode of Elixir Wizards, with our special guest, Cara Mitchell of Pepsi Co. Today we speak with Cara about her career journey that led to her living in the lower East Side of New York City. Cara has been working in the software engineering field for over 20 years and currently works at PepsiCo on their in-house eCommerce platform built with Elixir. Over the years, she's worked on systems that range from embedded firmware to large distributed systems running on thousands of machines. She enjoys working in a number of programming languages and refuses to pick a favorite. Today we learn about Cara’s unique experience as a college dropout turned self-made software engineer and how PepsiCo is working in Elixir on a global scale with an inside look at the goings on at PepsiCo. Tune in today to learn more from today’s special guest, Cara Mitchell!

Joining us today on Elixir Wizards is Catalina Astengo, Staff Software Engineer at Nav Inc. We chat with Catalina about how she went from working as a process engineer in a mine to a software engineer in beautiful Salt Lake City. In today’s show we find out more about Catalina’s professional background, how and why she started taking Ruby courses while working at a mine in southern Utah, how she fell in love with Salt Lake City and what it looked like transitioning to a new profession. We learn about the ins & outs of Nav and their team roles, as well as how they keep up with all of the languages that they are using including Elixir, Ruby, Go and JS. Tune in today to learn more from today’s special guest, Catalina Astengo! Key Points From This Episode: A brief breakdown of today’s topic and introduction to our special guest, Catalina Astengo. What it was like working in a small town in a mine in southern Utah What a process engineer is and what the job title entails What prompted the switch from process engineering to software engineering What Nav does as a company Catalina gives us a rundown of her professional career. Is this the most Polyglot stack we have encountered this season!? The ins & outs at Nav and their teams roles How Nav uses Elixir on a daily basis How Nav keeps up to date on all of the languages they are using Concerns about using multiple languages on the backend Context switching between languages How Nav decided to use Golang and why she prefers Elixir Where Nav is based and where they are hiring How Catalina and her team made a home movie production of Beetlejuice We review Elixir Conf 2020 and takeaways that Catalina had from the conference How Nav uses GRPC RP vs GRPC - what’s the difference? Protobuf for validation schemes across GPS Ways to validate event payloads by using the Graph QL We discuss our experience with management vs. coding Owens penguin discovery about Catalina on the Nav website Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Catalina Astengo on Twitter — https://twitter.com/catalinaastengo Catalina Astengo on GitHub — https://github.com/castengo Catalina Astengo on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/catalinaastengo/ Blog Post on Graph QL Schema Validation – https://www.infoq.com/news/2022/05/graphql-schema-validation/ Nav Careers — https://www.nav.com/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ SmartLogic on Twitter — https://twitter.com/smartlogic SmartLogic on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/smartlogic-io/ SmartLogic on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/smartlogic/ Sundi Myint on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundimyint/

Welcome to another episode of Elixir Wizards, a show focused on conversations with software developers from around the world on the Elixir language and other modern web technologies. In today’s episode, we speak with Meks McClure, a Full Stack Software Engineer with an unconventional background in Biology and Philosophy. Meks found their passion for programming after building a website for a Mexican non-profit, Permanencia Voluntaria, using wix.com. Seeing people use the website and how it helped the community inspired Meks to pursue a career in programming. They are currently based at NewAperio, a software development company, as a Junior Developer. In today’s show we find out more about Meks’s professional background, NewAperio and the services they offer, more about their unconventional training background, challenges transitioning to a new career path, the importance of effective communication in the workplace, the significance of Pride Month, Meks’s very cool desk setup, and much more! Tune in today to learn more from today’s special guest, Meks McClure! Key Points From This Episode: A brief breakdown of today’s topic and introduction to our special guest, Meks McClure. We find out about NewAperio and what services they offer. How long Meks has been based at NewAperio. Find out what the NewAperio tradition is for people celebrating their work anniversary. A light-hearted discussion about singing Happy Birthday to colleagues. Meks gives us a rundown of their professional career. We find out more about Meks’s non-traditional programming background. How long they have been using Elixir for and how they initially got started in it. The lessons they learned from their Flatiron and Elixir development experience. What was most difficult transitioning from working Ruby to Elixir. Keeping a balance between learning and meeting productivity targets. The moment when Meks felt like they were making good progress transitioning. Some advice they have for people learning Elixir. Other projects that Meks is currently working on and programming languages used. How boot camp is different from real-world situations, in terms of programming. We find out about Meks’s current Star Wars obsession. The importance of finding enjoyment outside of work. Meks shares their personal journey to becoming the person they are today. A conversation about the importance of Pride Month and keeping an open mind. A highlight of some communication challenges that come with remote working. Why empathetic and effective communication is essential in the workplace. We reflect on some recent networking opportunities and conferences. The approach at NewAperio to networking and conferences. Details about Meks’ desk setup and why it is called the ‘Moon Lander’. More about their desk setup: keycap preferences. How learning Elixir changed the way Meks thinks about programming in general. Meks explains their approach to writing code. What their ultimate combination of programming languages are. What opportunities or weaknesses that a polyglot environment can introduce. *Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: * Meks McClure on Twitter — https://twitter.com/mmcclure0100 Meks McClure on GitHub — https://github.com/MMcClure11 Meks McClure on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/meksmcclure/ NewAperio — https://newaperio.com/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Sundi Myint on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sundikhin Owen Bickford on Twitter — https://twitter.com/owenbickford/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io Moon Lander — https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/ Difficult Conversations — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/331191/difficult-conversations-by-douglas-stone-bruce-patton-and-sheila-heen-foreword-by-roger-fisher/ Kailh Speed Silver (Linear) Mechanical Switch Kit — https://www.amazon.com/Silver-Linear-Mechanical-EVGA-Keyboard/dp/B09N9BXW7Z Special Guest: Meks McClure.

A superpower of software development is teaching our code to teach us what’s happening. This is observability, and it’s why Jessica Kerr works at Honeycomb, where she is a Developer Advocate. After twenty years as a developer, Jess sees software as a significant force in the world. As a symmathecist in the medium of code, she views development teams as learning systems made of both people and software. She believes that, if we allow the software to teach us, it becomes a better teammate and, if this process makes us into systems thinkers, we can be better people in the world! Today, Jess compares the way we work in teams to game design and we find out what she means by observability and how it can serve everybody on a team. She elaborates on the remarkable agency that software developers have and how the languages they use can empower them, especially when they aren’t having specific architecture imposed on them! We also touch on what being a polyglot means to Jess, the value of working with rather then against complexity, and what Jess means when she says a software team is the perfect example of a symmathesy, plus so much more, so make sure to tune in today for this fascinating conversation with Jessica Kerr! *Key Points From This Episode: * Jess starts by drawing an interesting comparison between teamwork and game design. Insight into her journey as a developer and how she was introduced to Elixir. Discover Jess’ connection to Elixir iteratees via Jose Valim! Her role at Honeycomb, the languages she uses, and what she means by observability. Why Jess believes that developers have agency and enormous power. Why the best language to use is the one that you and your team know best. The value of standardizing the platform rather than trying to dictate the language. How observability reveals connections and acts as one tool that serves everybody. Congressive versus ingressive behavior as per Dr. Eugenia Cheng. What being a polyglot means to Jess: accepting that others don’t think just like you do and actively learning from them. Working skillfully within complexity rather than trying to eliminate it. How people gain exposure to different languages at Honeycomb. The importance of understanding what architecture is being imposed on you. Jess’ favorite talk on symmathesy and why a software team in particular is a symmathesy. Opportunities and/or weaknesses that being in a polyglot environment can introduce. Ways you can connect with Jess and even sign up for a 30-minute chat with her! *Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: * Jessica Kerr — https://jessitron.com/ Jessica Kerr on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakerr/ Jessica Kerr on Twitter — https://twitter.com/jessitron Honeycomb — https://www.honeycomb.io/ Schedule a Call with Jess — honeycomb.io/office-hours Games: Agency As Art — https://objectionable.net/games-agency-as-art/ OpenTelemetry — https://opentelemetry.io/ Matthew Skelton — https://blog.matthewskelton.net/ Team Topologies — https://teamtopologies.com/ QCon — https://plus.qconferences.com/ Keynote: ’The Language is the Least of It’ — https://youtu.be/nvV-4040xXI Dr Eugenia Cheng — http://eugeniacheng.com/ x + y — https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/eugenia-cheng/x-y/9781541646513/ 'Backend for frontend (BFF) pattern’ — https://medium.com/mobilepeople/backend-for-frontend-pattern-why-you-need-to-know-it-46f94ce420b0 Abstract syntax tree — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree Keynote: ‘Collective Problem Solving in Music, Science, Art, and Software’ — https://jessitron.com/2019/11/05/keynote-collective-problem-solving-in-music-science-art-and-software/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guest: Jessica Kerr.

Welcome back to another episode of Elixir Wizards. Today, we chat with Digit, a talented software engineer currently based at SmartRent. He became aware of the company when he started trying to modify his smart home and realized what was behind the software. Digit works on building applications within the SmartRent suite of tools using the Nerves ecosystem. Although fairly new at SmartRent, Digit loves the powerful applications of the software they are developing. In today’s show we find out more about the work Digit is currently involved with at SmartRent and what they have in store for the future. We also discuss the pros and cons of living in a smart home, the different languages that Digit uses, what makes developing a game so challenging, Using Elixir for building DSLs to generate content for Unity, what Digit’s opinion is of Burrito, and much more! For all this and more, be sure to tune in today! Key Points From This Episode: Introduction to today’s show and brief catch-up of what everyone has been up to. We find out what talks at the conference Digit is most looking forward to. What OTP stands for: hint, it is not ‘Open Telephony Platform.’ A brief discussion about the advantages of a one-day conference. We find out who all the people are that are going to give talks at EMPEX. Digit shares what it has been like working at SmartRent. We find out how Digit landed the job at SmartRent. Breakdown of what SmartRent is in terms of the high level. We get some insider knowledge of the next-generation technology at SmartRent. Rundown of what Flutter is and the advantages of using it. Discussion about the pros and cons of living in a smart home. Find out what the best smart thermostat is, according to Digit. The different programming languages that Digit is currently working in. Digit explains the type of WebSocket support available in Flutter. Background about Digit’s experience in game development. What makes finishing developing a game so difficult. The language stack used to develop games. Using Elixir for building DSLs to generate content for Unity. Digit gives listeners an overview of Burrito. The advantages of using Burrito for cross-platform with no internet connection. Examples of real-world applications using Burrito. Other applications for Elixir outside of web application development. We get some insider information about a new Elixir-based project in the works. A rundown of the security applications using Macaroons. The power that passwordless authentication has to offer. We end the show with some takeaways from Digit for listeners. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Digit — https://puppy.surf Digit on GitHub — https://github.com/doawoo Digit on Twitter — https://twitter.com/doawoo SmartRent — https://smartrent.com SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Sundi Myint on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sundikhin/ Owen Bickford on Twitter — https://twitter.com/owenbickford/ EMPEX — https://www.empex.co Flutter — https://flutter.dev/Special Guest: Digit.

Joining us in conversation today is Nathan Willson all the way from Tokyo, Japan. Listeners will learn about the polyglot landscape he works in from Japan, why he believes knowing a language, and mastering it, are two different things, and what his first foray into coding looked like. We touch on the necessary evil of MIDI plugins, and Nathan introduces listeners to GEMS, how you can use it, and what he has done to make it accessible across the globe. We talk latency issues, curbing the potential for abuse, and choosing to make an app open source, before delving into Nathan’s other projects outside of GEMS, including the Elixir app, Biddy, that he built with five friends, When to Chat, and much more. Thanks for tuning in to hear from today’s inspiring guest. Key Points From This Episode: An introduction to today’s guest, Nathan Willson, his Canadian-Japanese history, his obsession with Elixir, and his musical experimental app, GEMS. The polyglot environment in which he works which is Japanese and English. Why knowing a language and mastering a language are such different things. His first foray into coding via Reaper’s plugins. Why he considers MIDI to be a necessary evil. What GEMS, or Globally Editable Matrix Sequencer, is, and how it works. How Phoenix or Elixir can facilitate the use of GEMS anywhere in the world, at the same time. How he has approached the problem of the potential for abuse. Relative and absolute latency and how that impacts user experience between countries. Nathan’s other projects outside of GEMS, including the Elixir app, Biddy, and TreeLib. The app, When to Chat, that Nathan has built. Where he picked up his design skills with a background in back-end engineering. Why he prefers BandCamp to Spotify as a music listener. How his knowledge of Elixir has helped him to code Ruby better. An invitation from Nathan to reach out with what you are working on. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Tone.js — https://tonejs.github.io/ BandCamp — https://bandcamp.com/ Nathan Wilson — https://nathanwillson.com/ Nathan Willson on Twitter — https://twitter.com/nathanwillson Nathan Willson on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/nahtanw/ GEMS — https://gems.nathanwillson.com/ What is Max? | Cycling ‘74 — https://cycling74.com/products/max When to Chat —https://whentochat.co/ SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Special Guest: Nathan Willson.