Backend Banter

By Boot.dev

The only podcast dedicated to backend development, technologies, and careers. Lane Wagner, the founder of Boot.dev, interviews successful backend engineers to get their takes on various trends, techno... more

· Technology

5

2828 ratings

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FAQs about Backend Banter:

How many episodes does Backend Banter have?

The podcast currently has 82 episodes available.

Backend Banter episodes:

February 19, 2024#041 - From Roblox to software founder feat. Lewis Menelaws
In this episode, Lane chats with Lewis Menelaws, a Full-Stack developer and entrepreneur. Today he takes us through his coding journey and insights as a developer influencer. From his early days coding Roblox games, tech stacks, and the challenges of freelancing, to his shift into content creation and thoughts on the current programming meta.
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm
Lewis's Twitter: https://twitter.com/LewisMenelaws
Lewis's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CodingwithLewis
(02:01) - Intro
(02:18) - We need to talk about developer influencers
(02:53) - When did Lewis first learn to code
(05:17) - Java and PHP
(06:17) - Shift from Python2 to Python3
(07:02) - Why Python
(07:34) - Dynamic Typing Isn't Enjoyable
(09:09) - Dynamic Languages are just a tool
(09:47) - When did Lewis Start a WebDev Agency
(12:30) - Pivotal moment at the agency
(15:50) - Website vs WebApp
(21:53) - Tech stacks
(24:54) - Not so Open Source
(27:09) - Opinion about TypeScript
(29:13) - Understanding topics at a deeper level
(33:23) - 1 layer deeper than where i do most of my work
(35:45) - Be the glue
(38:28) - Dependencies as a cost
(39:57) - What motivated Lewis to start his own agency
(40:52) - Freelancing is playing on hard mode
(43:14) - Transition to content creation
(46:42) - Confidence in your technical abilities
(49:12) - We need to talk about developer Influencers
(56:19) - Catering towards the algorithm
(56:56) - Take on the current programming meta
(58:55) - Future of Coding with Lewis channel
(01:01:55) - Where to find lewis
(00:00) - Chapter 28
...more
1h 4min
February 12, 2024#040 - The man who wrote the book on DynamoDB feat. Alex DeBrie
In this episode, Lane talks to Alex DeBrie, author of the DynamoDB book. Today's talk covers various aspects such as DynamoDB's comparison with Amazon S3, its benefits, use cases, constraints, and cost considerations, while also covering other AWS and Google Cloud services. Alex also shares his insights into his journey of writing the book on DynamoDB and touches on topics like access patterns, secondary indexes, and billing modes. Alex also shares his professional experiences, including consulting vs freelancing, thoughts of entrepreneurial aspirations, and gives helpful advice for those that are considering pursuing a similar career.
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm
Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbdebrie
Alex's Website: https://www.alexdebrie.com
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:27) - Who is Alex DeBrie?
(02:39) - What is DynamoDB?
(04:15) - EC2 instance
(05:50) - Amazon S3
(06:25) - DynamoDB is more like S3
(07:40) - Difference between DynamoDB and S3
(08:20) - What do we mean when we say NoSQL
(10:08) - BigQuery and BigTable
(12:31) - Some of DynamoDB's benefits
(13:15) - When to use DynamoDB
(15:58) - Constraint of number of connections
(18:06) - DynamoDB is a multi-tenant service
(19:21) - How does DynamoDB shake up against something like MongoDB
(22:22) - DynamoDB is opinionated, but it provides good results consistently
(25:54) - You can only do certain things in DynamoDB, but they are guaranteed to be fast
(26:42) - Relational Databases - Theory vs Practicality
(31:08) - How Alex came to write a book about DynamoDB
(32:15) - What happens when SQL runs, depends heavily on the system underneath
(33:57) - DynamoDB doesn't have a query planner
(36:08) - Access patterns
(38:04) - Use case for Secondary Indexes
(39:43) - Costs of DynamoDB
(40:45) - Billing modes for DynamoDB
(45:26) - Provisioning and planning for expenses
(48:40) - Super Mario 64 Hack
(49:34) - What Was Alex's Last Full Time Job
(51:02) - Consulting vs Freelancing
(52:23) - Does Alex see himself going back to a Full Time Job?
(53:07) - Does Alex have any entrepreneurial urges?
(54:01) - What you should think about before jumping into freelance/consulting
(56:01) - Authority in the consulting world
(57:11) - Where to find Alex
...more
59min
February 05, 2024#039 - Get promoted by being lazy feat. Dax Raad
In this episode, Lane talks to Dax Raad, a well rounded engineer that is currently a developer for SST, a framework that helps people build Full-Stack applications on AWS with ease. Today, they talk about personal opinions on industry practices, scale, financial decisions, infrastructure mistakes, reflections on long-term company commitments and many more!
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm
Dax's Twitter: https://twitter.com/thdxr
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:51) - Dax's Tweets and Personal Branding
(01:31) - You have to learn to be yourself
(02:56) - Intrusive thoughts
(03:33) - When did Dax become active in the Tech Twitter scene
(06:30) - What was the Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon (ZIRP) in the tech scene
(09:33) - Should people choose fun early in their career?
(12:22) - Lane's take on the expertise when abstracting
(14:15) - SST's Philosophy in regards to abstractions
(16:35) - Merging roles
(19:28) - People don't want to care about the cloud
(21:31) - Less stressed about work = better results
(24:10) - Managers vs leaders
(25:20) - Dax shares stories about managing vs leading
(29:36) - Did Dax ever have users?
(31:24) - Most Startups Fail
(32:09) - Dax's reason for joining startups
(33:25) - Staying at a company for decades
(35:53) - Main downside of staying at an established company for a long time
(36:34) - The World changes, so don't look at how already established companies do things
(37:57) - Scale has a different meaning for different companies
(40:07) - So much goes away when you have less people at the company
(41:51) - Sometimes not saving money is a better option
(43:35) - Moving off Stripe
(46:54) - Rolling your own payment processor
(49:05) - Which debate on Tech Twitter annoys Dax the most
(50:52) - Stored Procedure debate
(53:31) - What's a BIG mistake in the infrastructure space?
(57:31) - Kubernetes
(01:02:58) - What Dax misses from Google Cloud
(01:03:19) - Is Sundar Pichai a bad CEO?
(01:04:51) - Where to find Dax
...more
1h 6min
January 29, 2024#038 - I Got Caught Rolling my Own Auth... feat. Dev Agrawal
Lane chats with Dev Agrawal— content creator & Developer Advocate at Clerk! Tune in as they discuss DevRel, authentication vs. authorization, JWT, and so much more in this episode.
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm
Dev's Twitter: https://twitter.com/devagrawal09
Dev's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@devagr
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:50) - Is Dev's name really Dev?
(02:10) - What is it about writing code that scares Dev?
(02:50) - JavaScript is one of the worst with dependencies
(03:09) - Dev's ideal world
(03:20) - .NET and Blazor
(03:59) - Blazor explained
(04:36) - WASM on the Front-end
(05:04) - Is Blazor unique to C# ?
(06:11) - What is a DevRel?
(08:07) - Lane's experience
(09:13) - You shouldn't roll your own Auth
(11:59) - Undifferentiated work
(13:56) - Authentication vs Authorization
(16:19) - Regarding Auth, which is a bigger pain point for companies
(16:48) - Pain points of Authorization
(18:38) - Pain Points of Authentication
(20:23) - Lane's perspective
(22:29) - Using a third party for authorization
(24:27) - Is Clerk used for both Authentication and Authorization?
(26:16) - JWT explained
(28:39) - Where is the users' data stored?
(29:27) - Features are developed as needed
(29:52) - Auth coupling to the rest of the system
(30:16) - Webhooks listeners to access user session data
(31:03) - Postgres foreign-data wrapper
(32:09) - Microservices sharing databases
(34:29) - CQRS
(37:37) - Average size of a company that uses Clerk
(40:50) - What are the most used ways to sign-in
(42:04) - Stances on passwords
(46:56) - OAuth
(50:33) - Why Lane dropped Sign-in with Twitter/X
(51:14) - What do popular services usually use?
(52:24) - Sign-in with Google
(57:39) - Unpopular opinion on Auth related web architecture
(01:00:17) - 2 ways of doing authentication
(01:05:59) - Where to find Dev
...more
1h 7min
January 23, 2024 #037 - Caddy Chronicles with Matt Holt
Lane chats with Matt Holt-- a renowned figure in backend engineering and the creator of Caddy, a leading platform for serving sites and apps written in Go. In this episode, they discuss the origins of Caddy, its unique features, and Matt's journey in Go programming and web development.
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm
Matt Holt Twitter: https://x.com/mholt6?s=20
Caddy Web Server Twitter: https://x.com/caddyserver?s=20
...more
59min
January 15, 2024 #036 - BadCop's Bash Breakdown
Lane chats with BadCop-- a senior Bash engineer, Twitch streamer and the mastermind behind their online presence. From the origins of 'BadCop' to the recent emergence of 'BashCop,' they explore scripting languages, focusing on Bash, shells, terminals and more. Follow the conversation in this enlightening episode, unraveling the intricacies of online identity and the technical landscape of Unix shells!
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.com
BadCop Twitter: twitter.com/badcop_
BadCop Twitch: twitch.tv/badcop_
...more
1h
January 08, 2024 #035 - Discussing Roc and functional systems with Richard Fieldman
Lane chats with Richard Feldman, creator of the Roc programming language, about why he decided to create it. They discuss object oriented programming and whether it did irreparable damage to the industry - or not. Follow along as they talk about all of that and functional programming too!
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.com
Richard Feldmans Twitter: twitter.com/rtfeldman
Roc Programming Language: https://www.roc-lang.org/
Software Unscripted can be found on any podcast platform!
...more
1h 3min
January 01, 2024 #034 - Brain Oriented Programming with Philip Winston
Lane chats with Philip Winston, a software engineer with a storied history who recently published an article titled "Brain Oriented Programming". Tune in as Lane and Philip talk about the pros and cons of object oriented programming and... guitar hero? Don't miss this episode of Backend Banter!
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.com
Philip Winston's Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbwinston
Brain Oriented Programming Article: https://tobeva.com/articles/brain-oriented-programming/
...more
1h 13min
December 25, 2023 #033 - WebI is not a package manager feat. AJ O'neal
Lane chats with AJ O'Neal about giving up on Rust, the challenges of using brew from a permissions standpoint, and how, exactly, WebI is not a package manager. Tune in as they discuss why AJ developed WebI, and why you should be using it as well.
AJ O'Neal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/coolaj86
WebI: https://webinstall.dev/
...more
1h 29min
December 18, 2023 #032 - React Server Components... in Go? With JLarky
In this episode of Backend Banter, Lane chats with JLarky about React server components... in GO. Why would anyone want to do that? Find out here! They also discuss how JLarky came up with the idea to use React in the backend, what other people think about the practice, and how he uses it to streamline his process. All this is intermixed with discussing the differences between frontend and backend, and how knowing how both work can make either job easier!
Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.com
JLarky's Twitter: twitter.com/JLarky
...more
57min

FAQs about Backend Banter:

How many episodes does Backend Banter have?

The podcast currently has 82 episodes available.

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