Developer Side Quests: The Podcast

Developer Side Quests: The Podcast

By Al RodriguezTechnologyEducationHow To
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Developer Side Quests: The Podcast episodes

  • Building a Podcast Search App with Joe Zack

    Guest Bio

    Joe Zack is a Druid of the Moon, able to take the shape of the animal that best suits the needs of the moment. Sometimes that animal is a newt, and sometimes it's a Giant Octopus but either way Joe is always ready to lend a tentacle, or whatever.

    What was the quest?

    I love to learn via listening, so I wanted an app where I could search for podcast episodes by topic. I launched a little proof of concept and was surprised to see that there were other people interested in the project, so it's been a collaborative effort. There have been some challenges, but ultimately it's been very rewarding because of the product https://qit.cloud, but mostly because of the people I got to know while working together on the project.

    Links:

    • Website:  https://www.codingblocks.net/
    • Twitter:  https://twitter.com/codingblocks
    • YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/codingblocks

      • Special Guest: Joe Zack.

      33 min
    • Building Games with JavaScript and Excalibur with Erik Onarheim

      Guest Bio

      Erik Onarheim is a web development ranger that dabbles in druidic devops tradition. He spends his time in Minneapolis being chaotic good on the web using TypeScript, JavaScript, and .NET core. He makes web games for fun, is a part time bard, and scribbles drawings on parchment. You can find him in the twitterverse @ErikOnarheim

      What was the quest?

      Excalibur is a simple, free game engine written in TypeScript for making 2D games in HTML5 canvas. Our goal is to make it incredibly simple to create 2D HTML/JS games, for folks new to game development as well as experienced game developers. We take care of all of the boilerplate engine code, cross-platform targeting (using browserstack 😎), and more so you don't have to. Use as much or as little as you need!

      Links:

      • Excalibur.js - 🎮 A simple HTML5 Canvas game engine written in TypeScript
        • https://excaliburjs.com/
        • https://github.com/excaliburjs/Excalibur 
        • https://twitter.com/excaliburjs 
        • TypeState - A strongly typed finite state machine for TypeScript
        • https://github.com/eonarheim/TypeState
        • https://erikonarheim.com/TypeState/example/
          • 44 min
        • Leveling Up in Haskell with Darren Hoehna

          Guest Bio

          A male, human, force, or a FoMar. His go-to spell for quests is C#. Mainly because he's spent the most time studying C#. Also dabbling in C, C++, and Haskell. He also decided to become a Force because he likes having the power to bring computers to their knees and have them do what he says.
          A level 6 back-end spellcaster. Darren can do some front-end spells when a major quest needs him to. But usually he sticks with the back-end spells. This does not mean Darren can't do front-end spells. He just chooses to learn more about back-end magic because he's better at it than front-end magic.

          What was the quest?

          Learning Haskell. I wanted to learn different languages to improve my coding skills and to make myself more marketable. I decided to learn Haskell because 1. Learning Functional Programming I heard would help my programming because of the practices FP makes you follow. 2. To prove to other people that learning Hasekll is hard and that is okay. Too many people want to learn something "right now", or, they quit when something gets too hard.

          Links:

          • Twitter: https://twitter.com/activefireball 
            • Twitch: http://twitch.tv/ThatProgrammingGuy
            • Youtube: Haskell Practice Makes Better
            • Website: http://www.ThatProgrammingGuy.com
            • Book: Mazes for Programmers
            • Book: Learn you haskell for good
            • Tool: Stack

              • Special Guest: Daren Hoehna.

              31 min
            • Learning by building a TODO App with all the bells and whistles with Lee Warrick

              Guest Bio

              Lee Warrick is a multitasking bard with many feathers in his cap. Truly a jack-of-all trades and master of none, Lee has worked as a firefighter and nurse before changing jobs to web development where he now works as a Front-end Developer, using his Bardic charms to enchant his audience with sizzling CSS and jumping JavaScript tunes. Not satisfied with focusing only on his own quest as a developer, Lee formed a guild for fledgling developers in the form of the Project Codex Meetup in Orlando, FL, where he works tirelessly to support the membership with inspirational and educational talks and workshops. To extend that support even further beyond Orlando, Lee teamed up with Eddie Otero to spin epic yarns coding quests they've tackled, as well as those of other developers on the Tech Jr podcast. 

              What was the quest?

              I wrote leewarrick.com/Goaler as my own personal todo app over last winter break in React/Firebase. I've been slowly adding tweaks and updates as my own use cases change. Basically I wanted a no-nonsense todo app with that I could braindump all the stuff I have to do instead of keeping it in my head. Then I wanted to keep myself accountable so I assigned a countdown time to each task. It sorts tasks by due time or by last added. Beyond that I added functionality to group tasks under multi-step goals, since some things are too complex to be handled in one step.

              Links:

              • Twitter: @leewarrickjr, @TechJrPodcast
                • Websites:
                  • https://leewarrick.com
                  • https://techjr.dev
                  • https://leewarrick.com/goaler
                  • https://leewarrick.com/babelfish
                  • Meetup: https://meetup.com/project-code-experience
                  • "Create React App" tool: https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app
                  • Wes Bos: https://wesbos.com/

                    • Special Guest: Lee Warrick.

                    47 min
                  • Starting Productivity in Tech with Jay Miller

                    Guest Bio

                    Jay is a hybrid class monk (meaning he does a lot of things, but does them for the journey) with a passion for productivity, automation, and community. His quest has been to create a business by helping developers and other tech folks with Marketing Services, Editing Services, and Productivity Coaching so he can escape cubicle captivity.

                    What was the quest?

                    Create a business around my fascinations with Automation, Productivity, and Content Creation.

                    Links:

                    • Twitter: https://twitter.com/kjaymiller
                    • Getting Things Done (GTD)
                    • Book: How to Be Everything
                    • Productivity in Tech

                      • Special Guest: Jay Miller.

                      33 min
                    • Security Research with Antony Garand

                      Guest Bio

                      Antony is a chaotic good thief trying to figure out the limit of today’s security in apps we all use. His day time role is to figure out security issues with popular CMSs and apps, while he gets out to write or solve security challenges during his free time, even though the authors of these apps might not expect them to be targeted. Security is a very vast domain, starting by lockpicking, passing through hacking websites and other applications and ending up with cryptography, the weird arcane magic of mathematics. Recently, he found himself writing about his findings, while hacking the platform he used to write his posts. You can find him on Twitter at AntoGarand, or read his posts on dev.to/antogarand

                      What was the quest?

                      Hacking companies I want to get into (Eg: disclose a vulnerability and send my resume). Making side money by hacking apps I was using. Generally testing the apps I am using for security flaws

                      Links:

                      • Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoGarand
                      • Dev.to : https://dev.to/AntoGarand
                      • Burp Suite: https://portswigger.net/burp
                      • Ring 0 CTF: https://ringzer0ctf.com/

                        • Special Guest: Antony Garand.

                        25 min
                      • Learning Static Site Generation with Jamie Taylor

                        Guest Bio

                        Jamie Taylor is a sneaky rogue spending most of his time creating and learning as much about .NET and web technolgies as he can, but has recently started learning to use Hugo, flexbox grid, and doing as much as possible without using the arcane and potentially self-destructive JavaScript. When not working or learning, he can be found giving talks or creating podcasts - he's a serial podcast creator. His podcasts "The .NET Core Show", "The Waffling Taylors", and "Ask a Brit" can be found on all major podcatching services, and you can find him on Twitter @dotnetcoreshow

                        What was the quest?

                        So I started out wanting to learn as much about .NET Core as I could, right? This was a previously closed source, Windows only stack primarily targetting enterprise. But now it runs anywhere, like literally anywhere. You can run an app on your desktop, your phone, your watch, your server, your fridge, your TV: all the same code. Crazy, right?

                        But then I found Netlify, static site generators, and the JAM stack. I haven't been able to do much with the JAM stack yet... well, other than creating the simplest possible sites. But static sites combined with my passion for making incredibly small, efficient, secure web applications is where I wanted to be.

                        This meant going away and learning a number of different static site generators. I'm from a .NET background, but I wanted to step way out of my comfort zone because I love a challenge. I really like Markdown, so I start with that: I needed a static site generator which could work with Markdown. Turns out that there are a whole bunch of them. StaticGen is a great site which lists them all.

                        For arbitrary reasons, I picked Gatsby and Hugo. Gatsby because I wanted to level up my JavaScript knowledge, and Hugo because I've wanted to mess around with Go for the longest time.

                        Within a few evenings of futzing around with both, I had a few static sites being generated. Then I decided to look into hosting, and it turns out that Netlify are great at hosting static sites. You can point it at a repo, and it'll pick up any changes, build the site, and serve it for you... all for free.

                        A week or so later, and I had a number of static sites up and running. Then it was time to make them faster, smaller, and more secure.

                        It turns out that you can apply things like HTTP headers with a single config file, and Netlify will take care of configuring everything for you.

                        Links:

                        • https://about.me/thejamietaylor
                        • https://github.com/GaProgMan/OwaspHeaders.Core
                        • Podcasts
                          • - https://www.wafflingtaylors.rocks/
                          - https://dotnetcore.show/

                          Special Guest: Jamie Taylor.

                          33 min
                        • Building a Custom Blog Engine with Roberta Barbosa

                          Guest Bio

                          The beach walk is one of the activities Roberta Barbosa does to unwind. The breeze renews her energy and gives the motivation to develop web applications and inspiration for new business ideas. Additionally, she has been in the IT industry for 28 years, from systems operation to help desk support to systems/firewall administration to software development/ technical project management and entrepreneurship. Currently, she works as a senior software architect/project manager for an investment services company in West Palm Beach and has a part-time online gift business. You can contact her through Twitter @bertabarbosa, Facebook Page @rbrtbarbosa, and LinkedIn.

                          What was the quest?

                          My quest is a blog engine whose goal is to build a platform to help my business and personal brand. I started this project as a way to level up my skills using Microsoft ASP.Net Web Forms a few years ago. Now, since I shifted my mindset to use my technical knowledge to help my business ideas and create a personal brand, I converted this engine to ASP.Core 3 Preview. Also, it is using Entity Framework Core 2.2 for MS SQL and MySql databases, MVC with summernote open source text editor, xUnit Test, and Web Driver Test for Edge. Once Microsoft has the final release of the ASP.Core 3, I will be deploying it to the Godaddy Web Hosting Services: for my personal brand, I will be using the Economy plan, and for my business, I will be using the Deluxe plan. After the deployment, I plan to implement AI, if applicable as well. Perhaps, one of the ideas is to add a chatbot using Language Understanding (LUIS) API.

                          Links:

                          • www.indulgentgifts.com
                          • https://summernote.org/

                            • Special Guest: Roberta Barbosa.

                            27 min
                          • Building a Flash Card/Note Taking App with Vincent Tang

                            Guest Bio

                            Vincent Tang is a Dwarven Elementalist that spends his days building tools to make his life easier. His full-time role now is developing water fortress design contract wizardry (water park design contract software), but previous he worked as an architect, ran a tool store, and did research in great metal foundries. As any dwarf, he’s good with any tools but as an Elementalist he likes to think outside the box. He likes to min-max his buildset and focus mostly in wisdom stat tree, so sometimes he spends too much time overthinking things. He writes things about new techniques he learns on vincentntang.com

                            What was the quest?

                            Vincent doesn’t believe in working harder than he has too. So he’s been building little wizardry components, some used by hundreds of Elementalists, to improve stat gains. That’s how Vincent became a self-taught Elementalist.

                            Links:

                            • [Vincent's Blog](VincentnTang.com)
                            • Link to Flashnotes github repo
                            • Alternative To Site
                            • Mozilla's Conditional Operator Docs

                              • Special Guest: Vincent Tang.

                              28 min
                            • Automating Your Own Home with Spencer Oberstadt

                              Guest Bio

                              Spencer Oberstadt is a Gnome Priest who gets to build with Ruby on Rails for his day job, but writes JavaScript when no-one is looking. Over the last few years, he has attempted to develop journeyman skills in Electrical Engineering, but only has the attention span to learn through short recipes.

                              What was the quest?

                              Spencer set out to remove as many physical switches from his house as possible using low level enchantments (and wifi).

                              Links:

                              • Link to github repo
                              • Home Assistant

                                • Special Guest: Spencer Oberstadt.

                                30 min

                              About Developer Side Quests: The Podcast

                              From the publisher's feed

                              The podcast that talks about all the different side quests we take on as player characters.