Panel: Charles Max Wood

Guest: Michael King

This week on My Ruby Story, Chuck talks with Michael King who is a developer, an enthusiast for natural languages, developing, and mathematics. Charles and Michael talk about his background, and past/current projects that Michael is working on right now. Other topics of discussion include Ruby, Rails, Audacity, PHP, RubyMotion, and React Native. Check it out!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

0:00 – Get A Coder Job!

0:58 – Chuck: Say “hi” Michael! Introduce yourself.

1:12 – Michael: I am a big language learner: Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. I learned through T.V. and music. I decided to build an app that helped with languages. I started doing it.

1:50 – Chuck: You hired a developer and had no idea what the developer what was doing. How do you make that transition? They just go with it – right? How did you decide: no, I have to understand THIS.

2:25 – Guest: It’s either I am really into it or I am NOT into it. I have been always very good with mathematics. The computer broke when I was in school and the only option we had were these...He was writing all these variables and I loved variables.

The guest talks about Ruby, Rails, and Audacity!

4:08 – Chuck: You talk about natural languages – I see the correlation sometimes and sometimes I don’t. I learned French in school, and then I became fluent in Italian during my Mormon missionary trips.

4:56 – Guest: I am reading this book right now and you have to understand the technicians’ role in order to help lead him.

The guest talks about the differences between coding, natural languages, and mathematics.

5:50 – Chuck: Did you let your developer go? Or did you keep him around?

6:03 – Guest: I let him go actually b/c he was on for a part-time basis. I started coding myself. I got help from friends and I got help from a lot of other people. I would ask them tons of questions and form a friendly relationship with them. From there, it snowed-ball from there!

6:57 – Guest: From that experience, I learned a lot. If I had to REDO what I did originally, then I would have done the following things differently...

7:44 – Chuck: I can identify with that – I was a freelancer for 8-9 years. I would build something and then they say: that’s not what we hired you to build.

8:10 – Guest: They wonder why they are getting this feedback?

8:22- Chuck: Why Ruby on Rails?

8:27 – Guest: I didn’t know the difference between mobile frameworks and web frameworks.

9:01 – Chuck: Yeah I don’t like the word “dumb” either.

9:09 – Guest: Ruby was very smooth and I liked it. I got addicted to the process through the Rails way and the Ruby syntax.

9:46 – Chuck: Same for me. I have done PHP before but when I got into Rails it naturally flowed into the way I wanted to work on stuff. I get it.

10:12 – Chuck: What are you working on now?

10:19 – Guest: This project that I have been working on now for 1.5 years.

11:41 – Chuck: You talked about how you picked up React Native.

11:52 – Guest: Yes, yes.

12:39 – Chuck: How did you settle on React Native?

12:50 – Guest talks about the Spanish and English languages.

13:25 – Chuck: I am curious – why didn’t you go with RubyMotion?

13:34 – Guest: I didn’t know anyone that could help me honestly. Also, I didn’t think it was going to be EASY to learn for me.

14:02 – Chuck: Is Reactive Native your main focus?

14:08 – Guest: No building just designing and putting it in front of people. I want to get a prototype to get more funding. I want to know EXACTLY what we are building.

14:40 – Chuck: For entrepreneurs, any advice for anything to get this rolling?

14:56 – Guest: If I had to do it again I would draw it out on paper and figure out how to get to MVP right away. I would try to get validation right away from not building too much

15:47 – Chuck: I am working on a service to help podcasters. They see that that I run 15 shows through DevChat.TV. If I can solve those three problems then I am golden: monetization and/or production. For scheduling guests it’s a pain point for most podcasters.

17:36 – Chuck: Some of the validation for me is talking to people through conferences and other venues. Main question is: What are you doing for scheduling? It takes a bunch of time.

Post to where people will get your content.

Have your guests promote it, too!

20:05 – Guest: Inviting people to the show.

20:13 – Chuck: This is the 16th interview this week so far! To give you an idea!

21:16 – Guest: You lost me along the way only b/c I don’t do podcasting. You know the problem b/c you are doing it, and you are within the field.

21:42 – Chuck: The more I talk to people the more I get ideas and such.

22:00 – Guest.

22:06 – Chuck: They are worried that their ideas are going to get stolen.

22:15 – Chuck: It’s interesting to see where it goes. I have 2 more interviews after this.

Michael, you see and say: what solutions can I provide?

23:03 – Chuck: Did we get into your mobile app then?

23:14 – Guest: It was really hard for me, but now I love coding. Getting it in front of people and testing it. I am trying to keep my education going. I learn by doing and learning by being thrown in to the fire. I am doing a free code camp now. Any suggestions, Chuck that you could offer?

24:35 – Chuck: Learning how to prioritize. What are you aiming at, and what goal are you trying to achieve? I want to make a video course on HOW to stay current?

25:12 – Chuck: Where can people find you?

25:18 – Guest: Twitter! There really isn’t an easy way to find me online – something I should probably fix.

25:28 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!

END – CacheFly

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Chuck

Michael