DESCRIPTIVE

DESCRIPTIVE

By Kahlil LecheltTechnology
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DESCRIPTIVE episodes

  • 24: I have been Looking for an Excuse to Exercise my Confessional Personality with Ed Finkler

    Kahlil and Henning talk to Ed Finkler about his origin story. Ed tells us about his interested in computers as a user and how to took quite some time for him to become interested in development.

    He adopted PHP in the early days and also dabbled in JavaScript and Python before returning to PHP.
    In one of the /dev/hell podcast episodes he reviled that he has suffered from mental illness for most of his life and this gave rise to the Open Sourcing Mental Illness project he is currently involved in.

    Highlights
    • [00:00:00] Pre Show
    • [00:03:50] Henning introduces Ed Finkler
    • [00:04:22] Space Invaders and Pong
    • [00:10:36] C64, Basic
    • [00:18:15] College, HTML
    • [00:25:40] PHP
    • [00:40:28] Desktop applications
    • [00:45:58] Spaz Twitter client
    • [01:08:26] Python
    • [01:20:24] The MicroPHP Manifesto
    • [01:23:15] /dev/hell
    • [01:26:55] Mental Health Issues
    • [01:43:44] Picks
    • Links
      • Ed Finkler is @funkatron on Twitter
      • RealBasic Xojo
      • Spaz
      • Graph Story
      • The MicroPHP Manifesto
      • /dev/hell
      • OSMI
      • Open Sourcing Mental Illness: Stronger Than Fear
      • mhprompt.org
      • Picks
        • Ed's picks:
          • Vern's Reviews
        • Candyman
        • Arch Enemy - Burning Angel
        • Henning's picks:
          • Exercise by Raquel Valez
        • Kahlil's picks:
          • cycle.js
          Got feedback/suggestions/questions? Get in touch with us!
          • descriptive.audio
          • @descriptivepod
          • Descriptive on Slack
          • Kahlil Lechelt - @kahliltweets
          • Henning Glatter-Götz - @hglattergotz
          • 1 hr 53 min
          • 23: One is Just the Other in Reverse with Jafar Husain
            Show Notes & Links

            Kahlil and Henning talk to Jafar Husain about his origin story. If you listen to any episode of Descriptive make it this one!

            This is the must-listen story in which Jafar takes us from batch programming Doom to writing JavaScript on the server before anyone else to many "failures" and victories to finally creating Falcor at Netflix which brings together all the lessons he learned along the way.

            Highlights
            • [00:00:00] Pre-show
            • [00:03:50] Kahlil introduces Jafar Husain
            • [00:04:09] Batch programming to run Doom on 486SX
            • [00:05:11] Turing the programming language
            • [00:08:58] First contact with JavaScript
            • [00:15:57] Writing JavaScript on the server
            • [00:20:46] Meta programming in JavaScript
            • [00:22:27] .NET
            • [00:24:36] Learning non-programming skills
            • [00:34:10] Microsoft Office Platform for Software Development
            • [00:41:48] A programming language is yet another tool
            • [00:44:27] Getting into the web at Blast Radius
            • [00:45:54] Paradigm shifts - Data is Code and Code is Data
            • [01:07:00] Getting on the Silverlight team
            • [01:17:26] What is the difference between an Event and a Stream?
            • [01:28:19] Bringing RX to Netflix
            • [01:31:18] Falcor
            • [01:49:19] You need to be a triple threat as a developer
            • [01:58:48] Go find a great manager
            • [01:59:37] How to externalize passion
            • [02:05:02] Picks
            • Links
              • Jafar Husain is @jhusain on Twitter
              • Turing, the programming language)
              • Rich Hickey - "Simple Made Easy"
              • Transcript of "Simple Made Easy"
              • F#
              • Erik Meijer
              • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
              • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs video series
              • Programming with Circles, Triangles and Rectangles
              • ReactiveX
              • Falcor
              • Reactive programming on Frontend Masters
              • Picks
                • Jafar's picks:
                  • React
                • Clojure
                • ClojureScript
                • node.js
                • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
                • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs video series
                • Programming with Circles, Triangles and Rectangles
                • Rich Hickey - "Simple Made Easy"
                • Henning's picks:
                  • Amazon Prime Music
                • Kahlil's picks:
                  • Angular 2
                • Angular Connect
                • Got feedback/suggestions/questions? Get in touch with us!
                  • descriptive.audio
                  • @descriptivepod
                  • Descriptive on Slack
                  • Kahlil Lechelt - @kahliltweets
                  • Henning Glatter-Götz - @hglattergotz**
                  • 2 hr 11 min
                  • 22: Building Abstractions That Aren't Ahistorical with Ashley Williams
                    Show Notes & Links

                    Kahlil and Henning talk to Ashley Williams about her introduction to computers and programming with Logo and HyperCard. Ashley explains how her degrees in philosophy and neuroscience help her reason about program architecture and where her interest in teaching comes from. She becomes the lead instructor at Flatiron School after being rejected as a student, which leads to many different teaching and speaking engagements. Before taking a position at npm, Inc. she also worked at Mozilla and Bocoup.

                    Highlights
                    • [00:00:00] Kahlil welcomes Ashley Williams to the show
                    • [00:00:58] Logo
                    • [00:01:42] HyperCard
                    • [00:06:35] Philosophy and Neuroscience
                    • [00:22:02] Where @ag_dubs comes from
                    • [00:23:46] Teaching
                    • [00:35:24] From rejected student to lead instructor
                    • [00:42:27] NYC Web Development Fellowship
                    • [00:49:44] bocoup
                    • [00:51:19] endpoints
                    • [00:59:32] APIs and API driven development
                    • [01:01:56] Ashley's personal website
                    • [01:07:26] Mozilla
                    • [01:08:56] Low Cost Education
                    • [01:12:02] Conference Talks
                    • [01:14:56] npm, Inc.
                    • [01:25:18] Writing documentation
                    • [01:34:33] Picks
                    • Links
                      • Ashley Williams is @ag_dubs on Twitter
                      • Logo (programming language))
                      • hypercard.org
                      • HyperCard
                      • HyperCard player
                      • "ashley's hypers"
                      • "The Server"
                      • Flatiron School
                      • NYC WEB DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP
                      • bocoup
                      • endpoints
                      • json-api
                      • ember-data
                      • sails
                      • sinatra
                      • Ashley's personal site
                      • Mozilla Foundation
                      • JSConf - If you wish to learn ES6/2015 from scratch, you must first invent the universe
                      • npm
                      • Trek Glowacki - early documentation on Ember
                      • Picks
                        • Ashley's picks:
                          • Inside Jokes by Daniel Dennet
                        • greenkeeper.io
                        • Squatconf
                        • MUSIC PICK: Chvrches - Empty Threat
                        • Henning's picks:
                          • Ember Global meetup
                        • Nested Loops
                        • No, Really... Robots and JavaScript?!
                        • Music: Jamiroquai - Alright
                        • Kahlil's picks:
                          • React on Web Components
                        • JSConf EU 2015 videos
                        • CSSConf EU 2015 videos
                        • Metalsmith
                        • MUSIC PICK: Boris Lechelt
                        • Got feedback/suggestions/questions? Get in touch with us!
                          • descriptive.audio
                          • @descriptivepod
                          • Descriptive on Slack
                          • Kahlil Lechelt - @kahliltweets
                          • Henning Glatter-Götz - @hglattergotz
                          • 2 hr 5 min
                          • 21: I Will Not Get in the Way of My Projects Success with Steve Francia
                            Show Notes & Links

                            Henning and Kahlil talk to Steve Francia about his introduction to programming with a Texas Instrument Calculator, Zoop Framework, Blogging, MongoDB, Vim Distributions, Go & Hugo and many other stops in his career up to his current job at Docker and his numerous speaking engagemens on a large variety of topics.

                            Highlights
                            • [00:00:26] Henning welcomes Steve Francia to the show
                            • [00:01:40] First programming experience with Texas Instruments calculators
                            • [00:04:30] C, Pascal, Prolog
                            • [00:16:45] Swiched from CS degree to Philosophy
                            • [00:20:00] Developed software for Toyota
                            • [00:21:16] Zoop Framework
                            • [00:28:40] OpenSky
                            • [00:37:00] Blogging
                            • [00:38:36] MongoDB
                            • [00:43:34] Vim Distribution detour
                            • [01:00:40] More MongoDB
                            • [01:02:49] Go
                            • [01:03:47] Hugo
                            • [01:16:20] The Go community and OSS communities in general
                            • [01:19:28] Docker
                            • [01:35:25] MongoDB's large number of programming languages
                            • [01:28:50] The Pitch for Docker containers
                            • [01:51:48] Picks
                            • Links
                              • Steve Francia is @spf13 on Twitter
                              • Zoop Framework
                              • OpenSky
                              • Blogging
                              • MongoDB
                              • spf13-vim
                              • Go
                              • Hugo
                              • Cobra
                              • Docker
                              • Steve's picks:
                                • Badman Under the Red Hood
                                • Based on the graphic novel of the same name
                              • I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short
                              • The Legend of Zelda
                              • MUSIC PICK: Less than Jake
                                • The Science Of Selling Yourself Short
                              • From the album Anthem Album
                              • Henning's picks:
                                • Google inbox
                              • EmberWeekend
                              • KarlsruheJS/BeerJS
                              • MUSIC PICK: Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode
                              • Kahlil's picks:
                                • AngularJS.de
                              • People from KarlsruheJS
                              • This Week in Startups
                              • MUSIC PICK: Sickick Who Needs Keyboards anyway?
                              • Got feedback/suggestions/questions? Get in touch with us!
                                • descriptive.audio
                                • @descriptivepod
                                • Descriptive on Slack
                                • Kahlil Lechelt - @distilledhype
                                • Henning Glatter-Götz - @hglattergotz
                                • 2 hr 9 min
                                • 20: I've Always Been Interested in Really Rich Experiences with Robin Ward
                                  Show Notes & Links

                                  Henning and Kahlil talk to Robin Ward, the co-founder of Discourse, the creator of Forumwarz and the Evilest Trout of them all. Robin explains how his interest in forums and the software that powers them leads him to a collaboration with Jeff Atwood to create Discourse. And of course we had to ask how his alias "Evil Trout" came to be.

                                  Highlights
                                  • [00:00:25] Henning welcomes Robin Ward to the show
                                  • [00:01:20] Introduced to computers via IBM's first PC
                                  • [00:02:32] Kings Quest
                                  • [00:06:40] First job as a web developer at $15/h
                                  • [00:15:16] Discovered Ruby on Rails
                                  • [00:16:06] Forumwarz
                                  • [00:32:20] Jeff Atwood talks about Forumwarz ...
                                  • [00:33:28] Discourse
                                  • [00:47:20] Ember forums - first user of Discourse
                                  • [00:53:43] Ember.js mobile performance of Discourse
                                  • [01:05:44] Gamification/trust levels in Discourse
                                  • [01:09:42] The "Evil Trout" alias
                                  • [01:14:02] Picks
                                  • Links
                                    • Robin Ward is @eviltrout on Twitter
                                    • Forumwarz
                                    • Discourse
                                    • Robin's picks:
                                      • Amy Schumer
                                    • It follows
                                    • Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
                                    • MUSIC PICK: In Colour by Jamie XX
                                    • Henning's picks:
                                      • The end of Single Page Apps by Chris Tse
                                    • PHPStorm by JetBRAINS
                                    • MUSIC PICK: Nelly Furtado - Say it Right
                                    • Kahlil's picks:
                                      • Jafar Husain: Async Programming in ES7 | JSConf US 2015
                                    • RxJS - The Reactive Extensions for JavaScript
                                    • Reactive Podcast
                                    • MUSIC PICK: Lethal Bizzle Fester Skank Remix ft Stormzy, Fuse ODG & Wretch 32
                                    • Got feedback/suggestions/questions? Get in touch with us!
                                      • descriptive.audio
                                      • @descriptivepod
                                      • Descriptive on Slack
                                      • Kahlil Lechelt - @distilledhype
                                      • Henning Glatter-Götz - @hglattergotz
                                      • 1 hr 26 min
                                      • 19: I Don't Own Stuff Exactly with Steve Klabnik
                                        Show Notes & Links

                                        Henning and Kahlil have an interesting and amusing conversation with Steve Klabnik about his origins as a programmer and how he got involved in Ruby, JSON API and Rust.

                                        Highlights
                                        • [00:01:30] Henning welcomes Steve Klabnik to the show
                                        • [00:04:30] Learning C at age 12-ish
                                        • [00:13:03] Dropped out of college and joined a startup
                                        • [00:41:50] Taking over the Hackety Hack project
                                        • [00:47:50] First conference talk
                                        • [00:50:10] Teaching Ruby at Jumpstart Labs
                                        • [01:04:01] Starting at Mozilla and working on Rust
                                        • [01:12:05] arewewebyet.com
                                        • [01:13:00] The story of JSON API
                                        • [01:22:35] Hold on! How does that Mozilla gig work?
                                        • [01:26:40] The Servo Parallel Browser Project
                                        • [01:29:47] Why Rubyists should use Rust
                                        • [01:36:45] Picks
                                        • [01:57:00] I will be unlocking my Twitter in the near future
                                        • Links
                                          • Steve Klabnik is @steveklabnik on Twitter
                                          • JSON API
                                          • Rust
                                          • Are We Web Yet?
                                          • Steve's picks:
                                            • Tropical Ruby 2015 - Keynote: The Soul of Software by Avdi Grimm
                                          • Netrunner
                                          • House of Leaves
                                          • MUSIC PICK: Against Me! Reinventing Axl Rose
                                          • Henning's picks
                                            • JSON Server: Get a full fake REST API with zero coding in less than 30 seconds (seriously)
                                          • Mystery Show Podcast
                                          • Shohin Bonsai by Morten Albek (currently out of print) (One of my trees (about 15cm tall))
                                          • MUSIC PICK: Pharrell Williams - Happy
                                          • Kahlil's picks:
                                            • Jake Archibald's perf video
                                          • Polymer 1.0
                                          • Dgeni
                                          • MUSIC PICK: On the Bible feat. TI and Zuse
                                          • 2 hr
                                          • 18: Hilariously, Isaac Emailed Me with Raquel Vélez
                                            Show Notes & Links

                                            Raquel talked to Kahlil about getting into robots, transitioning to web development, working at several startups and landing at npm inc. as employee #1. Raquel also goes into what it was like to rebuild npm's website and the different challenges they are facing at npm because of the explosive growth.

                                            • Raquel is @rockbot on Twitter
                                            • Raquel's website
                                            • npmjs.com
                                            • npm private modules (get 1 month free with coupon code "rockbot-descriptive", valid till June 1st)
                                            • Raquel's talk from JSConf.eu 2014: Evolution of a Developer
                                            • Raquel's picks:
                                              • Peepresearch
                                            • JavaScript For Cats
                                            • Slack
                                            • MUSIC PICK: Tainted Love radio station on Pandora
                                            • Kahlil's picks:
                                              • Building a Simple Command Line Tool With npm
                                            • Clove Essential Oil
                                            • First Aid Git
                                            • MUSIC PICK: Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun
                                            • super weird Tunak Tunak Tun Vine video
                                            • NEW: Chat with us on Slack!

                                              1 hr 37 min
                                            • 17: What's Going On With Angular? with Pascal Precht
                                              Show Notes & Links

                                              Henning and Kahlil talk to Pascal about what's going on with Angular, how internationalisation works it's way into core and what he and his business partner are doing with Thoughtram.

                                              Corrections

                                              Just after we recorded this episode parts of the Angular 2 API, that we talked about, have changed as you can see here and here.

                                              There are no terms like 'Decorator' and 'Viewport' directives anymore. As mentioned in this episode, the framework provides ES7 decorators formerly known as AtScript Annotations.

                                              If you want to find out more about the difference between Annotations and Decorators, read Pascal's corresponding article.

                                              Links
                                              • Pascal is @pascalprecht on Twitter
                                              • Thoughtram
                                              • Angular and i18n - The New World
                                              • Pascal's picks
                                                • Lee Byron, Facebook on Immutable Data and React
                                              • Angular Gitter Chat
                                              • Microsoft Edge
                                              • Henning's picks
                                                • Startup Podcast
                                              • Goose Island Burbon County Stout
                                              • Overcast Podcast App
                                              • Kahlil's picks
                                                • Elevator.js
                                              • Daredevil
                                              • Tomorrow
                                              • 1 hr 37 min
                                              • 16: Feel Free to Argue About Services with Rachel Myers
                                                Show Notes & Links

                                                Rachel talked to Kahlil about how she got interested in programming after her philosophy major, how she ended up at GitHub, what RailsBridge and the Passions Projects are and what her talk at SoCoded Conf will be about.

                                                • Rachel is @rachelmyers on Twitter and on GitHub
                                                • SoCoded Conf 2015
                                                • Starfish organisation blog post
                                                • RailsBridge
                                                • RailsBridge Curriculum
                                                • Passion Projects
                                                • Rachel's picks:
                                                  • Jetboil – Flash Cooking System – SAPPHIRE
                                                • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, second edition
                                                • Feminism is for Everybody
                                                • MUSIC PICK: Tayler Swift – Shake it Off
                                                • Kahlil's picks:
                                                  • Good sound engineers
                                                • @horse_js
                                                • Git (10 years!)
                                                • MUSIC PICK: Major Lazer – Roll The Bass (lyrics video)
                                                • 1 hr 47 min

                                                About DESCRIPTIVE

                                                From the publisher's feed

                                                DESCRIPTIVE is a weekly technical interview podcast with people from the JavaScript and web development world.