In this special episode, number 52, and our 1 year anniversary episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ruby and Rails core team member Aaron Patterson, thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris, and a live studio audience. The trio discuss Rails 4, observers, callbacks, dubstep, namespaces, Scheme, functional programming, thread safety in Rails, what it would take to remove callbacks from Rails and why you would want to do it, what should be in our anniversary episode, dealing with Rails security issues, why Aaron likes to work on Rails, meeting people's expectations, Vim, intuitive software, and so much more.

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On this week's show, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Sandi Metz, developer, author, podcaster, and recent Ruby Hero award winner. Ben and Sandi discuss winning awards, writing, whether notoriety changes who you are, what Sandi is proud of, the bad code she's writing and why, what she's doing now, getting real feedback on your work, that it's OK not to know everything, and much, much more.

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In this week's episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jeff Casimir and Katrina Owen from Jumpstart Lab and gSchool to discuss performing, speaking, and imposter syndrome, preparing for your talk, and what makes a good talk and how to give one. The also discuss gSchool, the way the program works and they way it's guaranteed, teaching, admitting ignorance, how good practice should be harder than the real thing, and why Jeff didn't like studying Computer Science and why he didn't enjoy programming and how Rails reignited his passion for creating things, and much more.

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In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Gregg Pollack and Nathaniel Bibler from EnvyLabs and codeschool.com. Gregg shares what he's learned running his business, when not to be transparent, how to deal with compensation, and how the EnvyLabs compensation structure has changed over the years. Nathan, Gregg, and Ben also discuss Code School, yearly payments to a subscription, making courses effective, effective marketing, the effectiveness of mailing lists, community events, shared ownership, and much more.

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In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jon Larkowski, closet hippie and developer at CareZone. Ben and Jon discuss being a closet hippie, transitioning from consulting to working on a startup/product team, ping-pong, paying attention to your habits and improving to your life, meditation, firewalling your attention, fostering a startup culture, imposter syndrome, podcasting, coffee, code review, guitar, and much more.

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In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ryan Bates of RailsCasts. Ben and Ryan discuss Ryan's transition to working on RailsCasts full time, staying up to date on the latest technology, how his coding style has changed, maintaining his open source, the process of producing RailsCasts, why he doesn't speak at conferences, the latest technology he is excited about, and much more

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Ben Orenstein is joined by Joe Kutner, programmer and author of ‘The Healthy Programmer’. Ben and Joe discuss how the demands of a development job lead to unhealthy habits, and ways to address the issues. They discuss specifics like standing desks, walking desks, the pomodoro technique, exercise, vitamin D, and much more.

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This week we try something a little different. Joe Ferris, Matt Jankowski, Ben Orenstein, and Chad Pytel get together and have a little fun, in what we're calling "Tiny Robots cuddling with other Tiny Robots". We'd love to get your thoughts on this special format, tweet us @thoughtbot or email [email protected].

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In this week's podcast, Ben Orenstein is joined by Chad Fowler, author, speaker, and CTO of 6wunderkinder. Ben and Chad discuss Chad's recent move to Berlin and 6wunderkinder, what a CTO does, getting back to coding, the early Ruby community, who Chad wants to hire, predicting success of new hires, and what makes a truly good developer, favorite interview questions, how Chad's interviewing process has changed over time, how age and experience can change your perspective, how Chad built a great team, and what he might write about in the future. They also discuss Chad's new tattoo, his regrets, meditation, therapy, gaining control over your mind, and much, much more.

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thoughtbot's Ben Orenstein is joined by Scott Orn, venture capitalist at Lighthouse Capital Partners by day, and co-founder of Ben's Friends by night. Ben and Scott discuss building a community, the future of Ben's Friends, and how running the site helps him be a better VC, teaching people, and getting value out of giving back. They also talk about his work as a venture capitalist at Lighthouse, how the money flows, the freemium software model, why it's good and how it works, picking the winners, and how the market can affect success, and the companies Scott thinks are great investments, and where he thinks the market is going.

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