Programmer & Developer Ben Borowski explores the creative side of software and shares his recent personal projects – The Busy Creator Podcast 62

Ben Borowski (@TypeOneError) is a software developer and programmer based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. In past years, Ben run a small studio doing web development for top agencies, but has recently made a move to create his own project, and is working on that full-time.

Ben is one half of Oki Doki, along with Designer & Digital Strategist Marie Poulin. Together, the duo are hard at work on Doki, a web platform to build and run online courses and communities. In this conversation, Ben discusses the creative side of programming, the definition of a “coder”, and the challenges of putting aside client projects for the endeavor of building your own app.

Catch up with Ben on his site, Type One Error, or check out Doki.io.

Show Notes & Links

Marie Poulin was a guest on The Busy Creator Podcast last year

Ben defines himself broadly as a web developer, but more specifically as a programmer in Ruby, and other disciplines

TWiT – This Week in Tech

Ben doesn’t subscribe to the idea that “Coders aren’t necessarily programmers” 

If Statements, For Loops – essentials in programming

Mark-up is code

“I’ve met many computer science guys … who are completely stumped by CSS.”

—Ben Borowski

 Tweet This

“If you’re building a website and you write HTML tags, you’re a coder.”

—Ben Borowski

 Tweet This

Markdown, the coding format for Reddit comments

Dustin Hartzler, WordPress Engineer and host Your Website Engineer Podcast

Podcast Movement Conference

“Programing is more technical … but making software is creative.”

—Ben Borowski

 Tweet This

Product Designer, as the term applies to web design, can incorporate development/programming

Open-Source, a place for inspiration

Ben consults and develops cross-platform games, and other projects

Doki, currently in development as a consulting platform and will be a public product soon

Previous guests on The Busy Creator Podcast have discussed online teaching, such as Karen Marston, Steve Dotto

Javascript framework Ember.js (similar to Ruby-on-Rails for the front end of the website)

Prescott attended Drexel University, a school set up on the quarter system.

Alpha testers

You can’t have nine people make a baby in one month.

—productivity adage

 Tweet This

Unit Tests or Feature Tests are useful for programmers when merging code and error-correcting

Material Design, from Google — hard to describe because it’s almost like a framework … for design

Facebook asks developers to work on the main product in their first week

Gone in 60 Seconds, writing on the walls in detergent and using a blacklight

Type One Error

Oki Doki

 Ben Borowski on Twitter

 Ben Borowski on Facebook

Tools

HTML to Markdown converter

Markdown to HTML converter

WordPress

Jetpack, the official suite of plugins for WordPress

Infusionsoft

MailChimp

Google Analytics

WishList for WordPress

Platform-as-a-server

Amazon web services

Heroku

EngineYard

9Folds

Sit or Stand adjustable GeekDesk

MacBook Pro

SublimeText

GitTower, a GUI application for managing Git projects 

iTerm, Terminal replacement for Mac

Homebrew, a Ruby Framework

Vagrant, custom virtual machines on your system

Teamwork.com

EcoStatic Slickynotes

Techniques

Write your WordPress entries in Markdown — it’s fast and simple

Examine where you can reduce lines of code, load time, etc.

Launch first, and then go back and optimise

More team members always help the progress of a programming project

Give your team the building blocks, for design or programming alike

Develop a naming and organization system — any system — for your team to follow

Require new [programming] employees to push live code to the site on day one; this teaches them the entire process

Head to a coffee shop or co-working space 2-3 days/week even if you prefer to work from home

Keep a clean image of your system after a fresh reinstall

If you can, go full-time toward developing a product rather than try to cram it in “after hours”

Habits

Jog or Rock-Climb

Take breaks to walk (or wrestle with) the dog

Do some exercise in the morning, even stretching

Drink and eat in the morning (write it down if necessary)

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Download The Busy Creator Podcast, episode 62 (MP3, 46:17, 22.5 MB)

Download The Busy Creator Podcast, episode 62 (OGG, 46:17, 39.8 MB)

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