Carolina Code Cast™

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Christina Roberts, Chairwoman of the Board at the Agile Learning Institute. During this episode, Barry and Christina talk about opening technology careers via mentorship from the Agile Learning Institute, the Persevere program helping people learn to code from prison without an internet connection, local Women Who Code meetups, qualities of great programmers, the value of internships and Christina’s remarkable backstory. You won’t want to miss this!

“What that experience really taught me, being in nursing homes, seeing people's experience at the end of their life, you know, what they had wished they had done, what they're glad that they did, what really mattered. It was never a job. Not one single time.” - Christina Roberts

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Agile Learning Institute - Mission of Mentorship (0:52)

* Persevere: Learning to code from Prison (5:27)

* Getting involved with a Women Who Code Meetup (10:37)

* Going through Build Carolina’s Carolina Code School (16:39)

* Curiosity and Persistence (23:42)

* Changing the World with Code (27:17)

* SELECT * FROM internships WHERE exists = true (30:19)

* Making Christina: On your own at age 15 in South Texas (43:38)

Links

* Christina Roberts on LinkedIn

* Agile Learning Institute

* Persevere

* Women Who Code

* Women Who Code - Greenville

* Build Carolina

* Coagio Consulting

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Jake Hennett, Software Engineer with Lima One Capital. During this episode, Barry and Jake talk about all sorts of things from “No Code” solutions with MuleSoft, Create React apps, the value in learning unpopular things, software in the finance world, balancing work, family and education, focus and motivation for developers, as well as the complexities involve with making good technology decisions where everybody buys in. Check it out!

“Nope, we tried though. This is the one we want. Everybody worked together to come to the decision. It works better for team integration. It works better for morale.” - Jake Hennett

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* MuleSoft for “No Code” APIs, Create React (1:12)

* Learn unpopular things…BPM, COBOL (9:05)

* Fun with Finance (17:38)

* Finishing that Masters Degree: Theory and Practice (21:42)

* Next.js and Psychological Buy In on Technology Decisions (28:59)

* Holiday Plans, Family Dynamics at Work (37:38)

* Late Nights and Learning Hungry (43:55)

* Focus, Context Switching and the Art of Motivation (48:47)

* Assembler and efficiency constraints (59:04)

Links

* MuleSoft

* Create React App

* Next.js

* Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Liz Johnson, Staff Software Engineer with Silicon Hemisphere. During this episode, Barry and Liz talk about her talks at PyCon and PyData around Python, AI and data science as well as her experience with PHP+Laravel and Ruby on Rails. Liz explains Vectors and TFIDF (Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency) in a manner that even Barry can understand. We learn about family and tech life in Dallas, as well as getting into writing and publishing tech content in the first place. Great and informative episode!

“I've always told people who are considering publishing more content, do it because it's a really good learning experience. To try to teach someone something, you have to know it really deeply yourself.” - Liz Johnson

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Python data science, PHP + Laravel and Ruby on Rails (1:24)

* How did Skynet find the Carolina Code Conference? (9:05)

* Explaining Vectors and TFIDF (15:28)

* Family, Meetups, and Dallas Tech Community (22:34)

* PyData Conference: TDD with your CICD (35:12)

* Writing and Publishing Tech Content (44:59)

Links

* Google’s Machine Learning Crash Course

* PyCon Talk: Skynet 101 - How to Keep Your Machine Learning Code from Getting Away from You

* Liz’s articles on freeCodeCamp, Medium and Silicon Hemisphere

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Eric Burden, IT Senior Principal Consultant with NTT Data Services. During the episode, Barry and Eric talk about moving from Memphis to Pickens, plugging into the local tech community in the upstate with Hack Greenville, the Code Connector community in Memphis, teaching with a heart for service, getting into R for data analysis, learning new languages like Kotlin during Advent of Code and learn about falling in love with iterators at the Carolina Code Conference.

“There is technology out there for everyone to do the thing that you love to do with technology and to make a career of it that you can enjoy.” - Eric Burden

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Memphis, TN to beautiful Pickens, SC (0:24)

* Memphis Code Connector (8:47)

* Coding Dojo: Preparing for Whiteboard Interviews (11:30)

* Career Journey: Chemistry to Social Work to Programming (14:57)

* Diving into R for data analysis…plus Excel, Python, Julia and SQL (27:22)

* Learning languages during Advent of Code (39:48)

* Picking up Kotlin (44:22)

* Falling in Love with Iterators: Slides with R (53:30)

Links

* Pandas

* Polars

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Jās Eckard, YAML Engineer at VMWare/SaltStack. During the episode, Barry and Jās talk about Salt Stack, Ansible, YAML configuration management, Terraform, ToFu, the IDEM Project, Southeast Linux Fest, Upstate Carolina Linux Users Group (UCLUG) and Columbia too, benefits of speaking at local meetups and how we learn more when we share, open source tools for event management like Get Together Community and Jitsi. Plus the next UCLUG meeting on November 14th where we’ll learn about Hacking Low Orbit Satellites…because reasons.

“Be kind to the next programmer, it may be you.” - Jās Eckard

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Secret Agent(less) Man - Salt, Ansible, YAML, Puppet, Chef (0:38)

* Perl, Regex, TCL over SSH (9:18)

* Southeast Linux Fest (13:29)

* Upstate Carolina (and Columbia) Linux Users Group (19:26)

* Perks of giving talks at local meetup (27:29)

* Using screen to serial connect to modems, multitail and pairing (30:47)

* Hacking Low Orbit Satellites at UCLUG on Nov 14th (37:42)

* Open Source Events Management with Get Together Community (40:45)

Links

* Salt Project

* IDEM Project

* Southeast Linux Fest

* UCLUG on Get Together

* Get Together Community - Open Source

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Jeremy Smith, Owner, Designer and Rails Developer at HYBRD. During the episode, Barry and Jeremy talk about Ruby on Rails, unexpected challenges of freelancing, starting the Blue Ridge Ruby Conference in Asheville, NC, visting Friendly.rb in Bucharest, Romania followed by Rails World in Amsterdam and the upcoming Rails World: Greenville watch party on November 9th.

“I decided last year to start going all out and doing a lot of conferences. That was an intentional choice to start investing that way.”- Jeremy Smith

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Ruby on Rails since 2009 (2:08)

* Challenges of going freelance…twice (6:16)

* River tubing and the Blue Ridge Ruby Conference (21:11)

* Conference planning energy, doing the next one (34:00)

* Friendly.rb in Bucharest, Romania(40:15)

* Rails World in Amsterdam (51:25)

* Upstate Ruby Meetup - Rails World: Greenville (57:18)

Links

* HYBRD

* Jeremy Smith on… Web, LinkedIn, Twitter/X

* Indie Rails Podcast

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chat with Robert Roskam, Engineering Manager at Pantheon. During the episode, Barry and Robert talk about Refactor Greenville (Refactor_GVL), Emoji Driven Development™, Yak shaving, HackGreenville Nights, Flutter, Dart, React Native, DNS hacks and…a lot. We talked about a lot. Just listen.

“There’s no such thing as best practices but there’s context to discovering what’s best for you.” - Robert Roskam

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Pantheon and WebOps (0:38)

* How was the 1st HackGreenville Nights? (2:40)

* Flutter, Dart, React Native and getting under the abstraction layer track (13:00)

* Emoji driven development…in Swift…WHY? (21:14)

* Refactor_GVL’s mission…and cool SVG web effects (24:10)

* CRDT hacks in your DNS…because reasons (28:32)

* Refactor_GVL, HackGreenville and meetup support systems (35:16)

* Just ask ChatGPT? (49:16)

* Advice with Contextualized Experience (57:20)

* A History of the Origins of …“Yak Shaving” (59:29)

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Kevin Dees, Partner at Robojuice. During the episode, Barry and Kevin talk about WordPress, Typerocket, the ancient art of development before version control, the 17 year journey to making a trading card game that will come out this year, the Business Website Leader and Podcast as well as the experience of the Carolina Code Conference this year and in the future.

“It took me 17 years to make this thing…it releases March 19th, 2024.”- Kevin Dees, on the making of Six Forms

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* TypeRocket the WordPress MVC Framework (2:06)

* Come back to PHP (7:30)

* Prehistoric Version Control (12:21)

* You have a game company?! Talk about Six Forms (18:20)

* 2023 Carolina Code Conference (27:17)

* Business Website Leader & Podcast (34:00)

* Ticket Price research for 2024 (39:32)

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Sean Reid, Lead Instructor at the Carolina Code School. During the episode, Barry and Sean talk about Carolina Code School, Designers and Developers speaking different language, scented candles, theme parks, UGA, Neurelo, really old school web development, cheerleading and spelling. Writing a summary for this one isn’t even possible.

“The programmer’s biggest enemy is…spelling.”- Sean Reid

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Just started with Carolina Code School (0:51)

* Design Language vs Developer Language (3:05)

* Theme Park Pulse and…scented candles? (7:47)

* Mouse Dining app for Disney Food Reservations (14:08)

* Ellen’s Energy Adventure of the Galaxy (17:57)

* Disney World and NASCAR (21:36)

* If you drive through Athens with your window down… (24:43)

* Oh yea…code stuff. Btw, Neurelo is awesome (29:54)

* The most absurd conference website ever created (33:10)

* jQuery, old school web dev and soccer moms (36:23)

* Space Jam’s 1996 website is still online (41:55)

* When middle school IT and coaching cheerleading collide (48:27)

* Boomkarks! (52:35)

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Chris Merritt, Managing Partner of Atlas Local. During the episode, Barry and Chris talk about Grok, the unconference, making its return to Greenville, SC on October 4th-6th this year. Where did it come from, how much fun will you have and what does Grok even mean!

“We wanted the conference to be about the people that are there and the conversations that we would all have together.” - Chris Merritt

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

* Mill conversions and Atlas Local history (1:25)

* Let’s talk about Grok (6:20)

* Memorable presenters like Jeremy Smith (11:22)

* What…does Grok mean? (15:01)

* What are you excited for this year? (19:09)

* The weirdest thing that ever happened at Grok (25:43)

* Methodical Coffee is really good (30:19)

* Heard Media, remote life and coworking (33:11)

* Yes that is a 1st generation iPhone (38:39)

* Greenville is growing fast (41:08)

* Final thoughts on Grok 2023 (42:06)

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.

Developed with assistance from Heard Media.

Subscribe to stay informed of the latest developments, new podcast episodes, event tickets, as well speaking and sponsorship opportunities!