Johanna Larsson is a community-minded software engineer whose project, Hex Diff, generates highlighted git diffs, right in your browser. In this episode, we talk to Johanna about how Hex Diff can benefit Elixir users, the differences between code architecture and code design, and the debatably under-appreciated role of Elixir umbrella apps. We start the conversation by chatting with Johanna about her recent move to London and her work for Duffel; a startup helping travel agencies book trips. After talking about how she got into software development, we dive into Hex Diff versus GitHub, with Joanna detailing how Hex Diff offers greater security for your code. We ask Johanna about the origins of the Hex Diff project and she explores its aims and her experiences working on the project. In line with this month’s theme, we discuss what architecture means to Joanna and the need for domain-driven design. We quiz Joanna on her approaches to problem-solving and she explains how her coding process emphasizes building an early prototype and constantly iterating on it. Despite hearing that umbrella apps are bad news, Joanna makes a case for their value while acknowledging how that they need greater tooling. We round off our conversation by asking Joanna how she tries to grow her skillset and what her favorite Elixir resource is. Following our discussion with Johanna, we open with another edition of Pattern Matching with Todd. This week, friend of the podcast Todd Resudek asks five questions of Elixir community member Bruce Williams. They talk about Bruce’s work as an Arabic cryptologic linguist for the US Airforce, his software career, and the therapeutic uses of playing Animal Crossing during a pandemic.

Key Points From This Episode:

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Johanna Larsson — https://blog.jola.dev/

Special Guest: Johanna Larsson.