Backend Banter

Today, we bring you the final episode of the first season of Backend Banter! It’s a wrap up for now. With 69 episodes behind us, we want to tell you the story of Boot Dev and how far we’ve come from our beginnings, and for that, we bring Allan Lires, the first official employee and the second person to work on our platform!

We’re going to cover our entire timeline, achievements, hardships, how Lane and Allan were able to go all-in on building Boot Dev and our visions and plans for the future.

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Boot.Dev Discord: https://discord.com/invite/EEkFwbv

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:01 Last episode of Season 1 of Backend Banter

01:45 Boot.dev Story and what this episode will be about

02:26 How and when Allan was hired to work at Boot.dev

05:33 Timeline on Boot.dev

08:53 Guessing game

10:34 The Rebranding Process

12:43 Going Full-time

14:56 What was the curriculum in the beginning?

18:38 What was the original vision for Boot.dev

19:17 Being honest about how long it'll take you to learn to code

22:48 Setting expectations for difficulty

29:55 On learning the fundamentals

34:42 The Long Term vision of Boot.dev

41:30 Old gamification features and why we changed them

50:26 The Track is Never Complete

55:01 We cover a lot of the basics that traditional colleges don't cover

01:00:06 Why do we want to remove JavaScript from the learning course

01:06:12 Million Lessons Completed in a single month

01:08:28 You got to be comfortable being uncomfortable

01:13:25 Where to find Allan

Today we welcome Chuck Carpenter aka Charles The 3rd, co-host at Whiskey Web and Whatnot.

As two content creators in the tech scene, we discuss if and how celebrity developers and tech influencers are a good thing for the community, how we should be careful when choosing technologies based on influencers’ opinions, why so many people nowadays want to speedrun their whole career and how that could be self-sabotage, and a lot more!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Whiskey Web and Whatnot: https://whiskey.fm/

Charles' X/Twitter: https://x.com/charleswthe3rd

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:27 Does Charles listen to his own podcast episodes?

03:33 Are celebrity developers a good thing?

09:11 Podcasts are usually centered around a business

10:06 We are essentially entertainers

14:04 Tech choices being influenced by creators

17:37 Why ThePrimeagen stood out from other tech influencers

20:26 Career speedrunning

23:44 The biggest miss when starting something

24:51 What is wrong with Full-Stack application frameworks?

29:03 How Frankenstein is the Boot.dev web application stack

37:41 Rolling your own stuff vs using a provider

46:01 It's easy to screw up your architecture

50:53 What is Charles building with in 2024 and what is his preferred stack

56:39 Does it seem like people don't talk about security anymore?

01:00:30 Accessibility

01:02:02 The amount of people that are "kinda" interested in cybersecurity

01:11:03 Have some patience

01:11:37 Where to find Charles

In today’s episode, we bring back Aaron Francis. If you haven’t watched our previous episode with him, he is a software developer, fellow content creator and co-founder of Try Hard Studios. In the past he’s been an accountant at a Big 4 but now he focuses on Laravel, web development and all things business and video.

This episode will step away from the usual tech focused content and we’ll talk a bit more about the business side of things, how you have to balance entertainment and education when creating courses, Aaron’s High Performance SQLite course, building a personal brand through the discomfort of centering it around yourself, how good presentation matters and how proactiveness puts you miles ahead of the majority, so stay tuned!

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Aaron's X/Twitter: https://x.com/aarondfrancis

Aaron's Website: https://aaronfrancis.com/

High Performance SQLite: https://highperformancesqlite.com/

Screencasting: https://screencasting.com/

Mostly Technical Podcast: https://mostlytechnical.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:32 Podcast listening going up when having a kid

02:25 Podcast about earning the first million

08:54 You have to choose the entertainment vs education levels

10:37 You have to shape your material to the platforms

16:40 Long hour videos vs 2 minute ones

20:16 Are the videos in the High Performance SQLite in linear order?

24:19 Figuring out the metrics

28:06 Building courses on other domains

31:46 Building brands is difficult

35:55 quick disclaimer

36:30 Personal brand vs company

37:57 Is this sellable?

40:23 Do you need an audience?

44:26 The strategy is simple but it is also hard to execute

49:31 The presentation matters a LOT

51:54 On being proactive

57:00 Where to find Aaron

In today’s episode, we bring Adam Argyle, a CSS Dev Rel at Google, content creator, co-host at CSS Podcast, Bad At CSS Podcast and host of GUI Challenges. He’s also the creator of a bunch of tools and utilities for the front-end.

We’re going to touch on a lot of hot topics, regarding the difficulty and power of CSS, how programmers most of the time underestimate and dismiss it as something trivial when in reality it’s one of the hardest things to master in the programming world. We also go over AI, the barriers between designers and developers and a bunch of other topics.

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Adam's Website: https://nerdy.dev/

Adam's X/Twitter: https://x.com/argyleink

Adam on Chrome For Developers: https://chromeextensionsdocs.appspot.com/authors/argyle/

The CSS Podcast: https://thecsspodcast.libsyn.com/

Bad at CSS Podcast: https://badatcss.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:51 CSS Wizard has entered the chat

02:37 HTML and CSS are not programming languages

07:44 There's a case for complex things using CSS

10:28 CSS is declarative by nature

17:58 Writing CSS is a pain

20:43 AI isn't a threat to CSS

21:19 Breaking barriers between designers and developers

26:33 Getting to an entry-level competency on the backend is a bit more difficult when compared to the frontend

31:37 Adam's backstory

33:40 Knowing everything

34:56 The majority of the complexity lives on the frontend a lot of the times

38:48 South Park Reality

39:49 BFF vs BOF (Backend for frontend vs Backend of the Frontend)

47:03 CSS is typed in the browser

51:28 Take on why are there so many mormons and ex-mormons in the webdev and tech influencer scene?

54:08 Where to find Adam

In today’s episode, we welcome Matt Pocock, an educator, content creator and engineer who used to be a voice coach. Now, he teaches Typescript on his YouTube channel and is building Total Typescript, the most comprehensive TypeScript course available out there.

We talk about his transition from a completely unrelated field into tech, the importance of great communication, TypeScript’s future, AI tooling and job hunts! A lot more else is covered in this video, so get cozy and tune in into this gem of an episode!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Matt's X/Twitter: https://x.com/mattpocockuk

Total Typescript: https://www.totaltypescript.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:15 What did Matt do before becoming a dev?

03:15 Career Transitions from a non-math background

04:02 What makes a good programmer?

06:46 Math knowledge > great communication?

08:55 On writing elaborate PR's

09:58 OCaml my Typescript

11:00 What is Typescript's Future?

14:21 Python type hinting and JSDoc

20:36 null vs undefined

25:02 interfaces vs type aliases

32:35 Does Matt have any rules of thumb when working with types?

37:14 How do you build nice encapsulated components with no external dependencies?

43:43 AI tooling integration

46:15 Will there be fewer jobs?

52:00 How often do you use classes?

54:29 Where to find Matt

In today’s episode, we welcome Lawrence Lockhart, a former hospitality manager turned full stack software developer. Apart from his tech job, he’s also a developer advocate, a teaching assistant at a coding bootcamp and a tech meetup leader, so you know he spends a lot of his time helping others build and transfer their existing skills into tech, being a powerful voice in the tech space for upcoming developers.

Today we talk briefly about how he managed to switch from hospitality to tech, and how that wasn’t as easy as a lot of people online make it out to be, the importance of local and in-person jobs as opposed to starting off remote, how learning with purpose is essential if you want to make progress and advice for people starting out!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Code Connector: https://codeconnector.io

Lawrence's X/Twitter: https://x.com/LawrenceDCodes

Lawrence's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawrencedlockhart

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:44 When did Lawrence start to be more involved in the online tech communities?

02:23 How did Lawrence meet James Q Quick

04:42 Transition from a Blue Collar job into Tech

10:59 6 months is not the standard anymore to get in the industry

13:44 The Timeline Discussion

15:56 Kelsey Hightower

18:09 Has Lawrence worked as a dev in non-tech companies and where he works now

23:33 It's IMPORTANT to go for local market and in-person jobs first

24:27 How networking actually works

28:46 Learning with a purpose

36:43 You shouldn't be trying to minmax your career path

39:43 Advice to people that are unsure in their skills

43:51 How to approach interviews

49:31 You have to practice interviewing

54:48 Learn the thing or get out

58:33 Disagree and commit

01:01:45 Where to find Lawrence

In today’s episode, we bring Spiro Floropoulos, a senior developer and architect with over 20 years of experience. This episode is an unusual one, as Spiro recently got laid off due to a bizarre chain of events that involved HTMX, overworking, and technical debt.

But we’ll learn from this story, as we want to shed some light on how situations that Spiro described could be avoided, namely how the tech industry is obsessing over developer experience and why that’s detrimental, why abstractions should be teaching you the technology as opposed to just doing the work for you, why you should be able to train your junior devs and much more!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Spiro's X/Twitter: https://x.com/spirodonfl

Spiro's Website: https://spirofloropoulos.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:35 Why are we having this conversation

01:33 How was HTMX involved in this?

03:38 Spiro's background

05:58 Why are we focusing so much on developer experience?

13:38 The Tech Industry as a whole is headed down the wrong path

16:17 Abstractions teaching you about the underlying technology rather than hiding it

18:47 What are the long-term consequences of unresolved technical debt?

26:46 There's things you can't blame frameworks for

28:27 We have to slow down

30:46 What happened after the introduction of HTMX into the project?

40:26 Hiring juniors is great, but you should have the resources to train them

47:00 The Technical Debt

50:32 The more complex the feature became, the bigger the struggle with HTMX

53:42 The reasons why Spiro was let go

57:10 Instead of Agile we should treat our programmers like adults

57:31 HTMX was instant and testing ability was better

01:01:21 Is Spiro looking for work?

01:02:00 Where to find Spiro

In today’s episode, we go to war with Sam Selikoff, co-host of the Frontend First podcast, and specialist on everything Frontend related.

We have an amazing conversation where we discuss Sam’s journey, as he also did some backend work in the past, we talk about abstractions, what JavaScript is doing differently from other languages and frameworks, why the frontend should be driving the backend and not the other way around, and finish it off with a discussion about RSCs (React Server Components).

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Frontend First: https://frontendfirst.fm/

Sam's X/Twitter: https://x.com/samselikoff

Sam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/samselikoff

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:51 Who is Sam Selikoff

02:12 Abstractions - Should you go a level deeper?

06:37 What was Sam's talk about

10:51 What is JavaScript doing differently?

19:10 Do you want the frameworks to push more features out of the box for backend work?

24:04 Strong opinions on a library level

30:29 Shipping more standardized interfaces

37:06 The frontend should be driving everything in the backend

39:12 Your types should flow from the database to the frontend, but not the product decisions

46:53 React Server Components

58:49 Where to find Sam

Today we bring Thomas Ballinger, a developer at Convex, an open-source backend for application builders. We will be discussing mainly databases, and why at Convex they use Rust and Typescript.

We'll also talk about systems scalability, infrastructure and go over different practices regarding abstractions

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Convex: https://www.convex.dev/

Thomas' X/Twitter: https://x.com/ballingt

Thomas' Website: https://ballingt.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:33 Thomas' background

02:29 Convex - what it is and why should you use it?

03:16 What are query planners?

06:32 SQL is a very high level language

07:43 The primary differentiator of Convex

10:49 Who are Convex's biggest competitors?

14:20 How do you build the infrastructure

17:11 What type of database is Convex?

19:18 Why is Convex written in Rust?

23:35 Cheap abstractions

25:47 Productivity suffering from compile times

29:47 The different approaches for a backend developer to build scalable systems

32:28 Backend for Frontend

37:21 You want to be close to your data

42:13 Are there plans to support other languages at Convex?

47:06 Does the schema update the autocompletion in the editor

48:31 Naming and behavior of the queries with Convex

51:06 Why sqlc is great

52:28 Why TypeScript is a great "shortcut" for Convex

59:34 Where to find Thomas

Today we bring anothe returning guest, Adam Elmore! An AWS Hero, Teacher and fellow content creator! You might notice today's talk is a bit different, as we don't cover too much technical details but we do cover a lot of other interesting topics that permeate our everyday lives, such as kids and family time, religion and purpose in life...

But don't worry, we also share some hot takes on indie hackers, business models of education platforms and finally content creation and how it can help you propel your career!

Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Adam's Twitter: https://x.com/adamdotdev

Adam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamdotdev

ProAWS: https://www.proaws.dev/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:42 Terminal Coffee

06:42 Kids' books

09:00 How serious is the Terminal Coffee business

12:51 Indie Hackers

19:11 Books

23:42 The March of Time

25:56 Commitment to the lessons

27:21 The problem with course platforms

28:31 ProAWS

35:45 The education industry isn't as cutthroat as it seems

39:13 What's Adams plan of attack with the courses?

40:00 How does streaming affect Adam?

44:05 Who is Adam's audience?

44:44 Podcasting

47:34 Who is TomorrowFM targeted at?

49:14 Burnout in podcasts

52:01 Growing up religious

57:34 Would you say that you've distanced yourself from religion for epistemological or cultural reasons?

01:03:00 Throwing the religious labels out

01:13:03 Where to find Adam