Legacy Code Rocks

Imagine if you could compare concepts side-by-side between a programming language you know and one you don't. Well, now you can!

Today we talk with Sarah Withee, a polyglot software engineer, international tech speaker, and robot tinkerer. Sarah is also the author of Code Thesaurus, the polyglot developer reference tool. She tells us about the reasons behind the creation of the thesaurus, its continuous development, and what you can do to make the thesaurus even better.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Sarah on Twitter and LinkedIn and check out the Code Thesaurus project on GitHub.

Mentioned in this episode:

Corgibytes at https://corgibytes.com

Sarah in Twitter at https://twitter.com/geekygirlsarah

Sarah on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahwithee/

Sarah's website at https://geekygirlsarah.com

Code Thesaurus at https://codethesaur.us

Code Thesaurus project on GitHub at https://github.com/codethesaurus/

Coders spend most of their time reading rather than writing code. Yet, when you look at the undergraduate programs, boot camps, and conferences, everything seems to be dedicated to code production.

Today we talk with Felienne Hermans. Felienne is an associate professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science at Leiden University and the author of the book The Programmer's Brain. She also developed Hedy, a new programming language that makes it easier for kids to learn textual programming. She tells us how to help young programmers better understand both the code they are working with and their own cognition.

After you finish listening to the episode, connect with Felienne on LinkedIn and Twitter, visit her website at https://www.felienne.com, and make sure to check out her book.

Mentioned in this episode:

Felienne on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Felienne

Felienne on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/felienne

Felienne's website at: https://www.felienne.com

Hedy Programming language at https://hedycode.com

The Programmer's Brain at https://www.manning.com/books/the-programmers-brain?utm_source=felienne&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=book_hermans2_programmers_12_8_20&a_aid=felienne&a_bid=d7c7c538

Empathy in Tech at https://empathyintech.com

Some of the biggest risks for cyber security frameworks come from employees meant to maintain them. The reason for that is simple, and it couldn't be more human - people who don't feel well don't perform well.

Today we talk with Nyota Gordon, the founder, developer, and all-around do-gooder at Transition365, a cyber resiliency firm that helps cybersecurity professionals increase their leadership and life skills.

Nyota digs deep into the intersection between cyber security, resiliency, and personal wellness. She shares with us some mental health strategies that will improve our well-being and, as a consequence, our work performance.

When you finish listening to the episode, make sure to connect with Nyota on LinkedIn.

Mentioned in this episode:

Nyota on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyotagordon/

Transition365 at https://transition365.com

Brené Brown, Shame Resilience Theory at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1606/1044-3894.3483

Symantec Cyber Resiliency White Paper at https://informationsecurity.report/whitepapers/symantec-white-paper-the-cyber-resilience-blueprint-a-new-perspective-on-security

Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KLT8RKM/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

Charles Feltman, The Thin Book of Trust at https://www.amazon.com/Thin-Book-Trust-Essential-Building/dp/0988953862/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1646648424&sr=1-1

Empathy in Tech at https://empathyintech.com

Agile is all about the speed of iteration and execution. One of the things that often gets neglected is the business impact of the code we are shipping. Today we talk with Prabhjot Singh, serial entrepreneur and the president and CEO of Pyze. He tells us how taking time to better understand the system we are mending can speed up our work and yield much better results.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Prabhjot on Twitter and LinkedIn and visit Pyze's website at https://www.pyze.com.

Mentioned in this episode:

Prabhjot on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/psinghsf/

Prabhjot on Twitter at https://twitter.com/psinghsf

Pyze at https://www.pyze.com

We frequently discuss compassion, empathy, and kindness on this podcast. What we rarely focus on, however, is being kind and compassionate to ourselves.

Today we talk with Clare Sudbery. Clare is a lead engineer at Made Tech, and she is the host of the Making Tech Better podcast. Clare tells why it is so important to be compassionate to ourselves and shares with us some techniques on how to achieve this.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Clare on Twitter and dive deeper into the subject of empathy in tech by joining our new community.

Mentioned in this episode:

Clare on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ClareSudbery

Making Tech Better Podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-tech-better-made-tech/id1558845124

Made Tech Academy at https://www.madetech.com/careers/academy/

Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff at https://self-compassion.org

Empathy in Tech at https://empathyintech.com

Everyone wants their software system to be resilient - to continue carrying out its mission-critical tasks in the face of disruption or adversity. But resiliency has its cost, and not just in a material sense. With resiliency, your system becomes more complex and harder to maintain. That is why we always have to balance our resiliency requirement with other non-functional requirements around the system.

Today we talk with Briana Augenreich, a Senior Software Engineer at HubSpot. Briana wears many hats in the software engineering world, but she officially calls herself backend and infrastructure engineer. Briana has extensive experience working with large and complex mission-critical systems. This gives her unique insight on finding the right measure while striving for resiliency.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Briana on LinkedIn.

Mentioned in this episode:

Briana on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/briana-augenreich-93b4a191/

David Woods, The Theory of Graceful Extensibility at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327427067_The_Theory_of_Graceful_Extensibility_Basic_rules_that_govern_adaptive_systems

We all get excited about that new, shiny code, but more often than not, our company can live without it. On the other hand, some old and boring lines of code laying around are usually the backbone of our entire business system. And while inventors tend to get all the praise, those who keep the wheels running smoothly are content with, well, the wheels running smoothly.

Today we talk with Tramaine Darby, a Senior Manager of Content, Subscriptions, and Insights Engineering at Red Hat. She tells us how to manage teams responsible for maintaining the systems that make companies run and how to defend these systems from hard-cuts and radical changes.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Tramaine on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mentioned in this episode:

Tramaine on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tramainedarby/

Tramaine on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tdarby4

Red Hat at https://www.redhat.com/

Making widespread changes to a codebase can be hard! Your team starts a long-lived branch that is difficult to maintain and often impossible to merge; you and your team-mates agree to improve the code slowly over time, but you all forget this agreement, and the improvement never happens. But what if there were a tool that keeps you on track to steadily improve your code without making you feel like losing control over these improvements?

Today we talk with Craig Spence, a senior engineer at Spotify and a creator of Betterer - a tool that helps with incremental improvements of big codebases and legacy systems. Craig tells us how Betterer works, how it differs from other debugging tools, and what are the plans for its improvements.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Craig on LinkedIn and Twitter, and be sure to check out Betterer on GitHub.

Mentioned in this episode:

Craig on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-spence/

Craig on Twitter at https://twitter.com/phenomnominal

Betterer on GitHub at https://phenomnomnominal.github.io/betterer/docs/introduction

Touca at https://touca.io

Kubernetes with James Sturtevant

As applications grow to span multiple containers deployed across multiple servers, operating them becomes more complex. While it is possible to maintain these growing applications manually, most will reach out to an orchestrator to help them with the tasks. As applications grow to span multiple containers deployed across multiple servers, operating them becomes more complex. One of such orchestrators is Kubernetes.

Today we talk with James Sturtevant, Principal Software Engineering Lead at Microsoft. James is a coauthor of the book Kubernetes for Windows. He helped blaze the trail for Windows support in upstream Kubernetes for enterprises, and now he helps us understand how Kubernetes work and why you would want to use it.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with James on LinkedIn, visit SIG-Windows and Kubernetes channels on Slack and grab a copy of Kubernetes on Windows.

Mentioned in this episode:

James on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamessturtevant/

Jay Vyas, James Sturtevent, Kubernetes on Windows, at https://www.manning.com/books/kubernetes-on-windows

SIG-Windows Channel on Slack at https://kubernetes.slack.com/?redir=%2Fmessages%2Fsig-windows

Kubernetes Channel on Slack at https://slack.k8s.io

The power of software is enormous, but the code can only be as good as the humans who write it. Despite popular belief, "being good" has nothing to do with character predisposition. It is a product of an intentional effort to nurture care and compassion.

Today we talk with Liz Acosta, a software engineer and a developer advocate at Stacklet. Liz's past professions as a copywriter, social media manager, and odd job freelancer give her a unique perspective on software development and enables her to help teams collaborate with empathy.

When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Liz on LinkedIn or find her on Stacklet.

Mentioned in this episode:

Liz on LinedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizacostalinkedin/

Liz on Stacklet at https://stacklet.io/blog/author/liz-acosta

Exercism at https://exercism.org

Empathy in Tech at https://empathyintech.com