Tammy and Tim have a chat with Ken Kousen, author of Help Your Boss Help You, about his journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 14-July-2021

Show Links

• Ken Kousen on Twitter
• Help Your Boss Help You

Tim and Tammy are back with another episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast. This month, our hosts chat with Ken Kousen, author of Help Your Boss Help You.

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Ken Kousen is a Java Champion and Oracle Developer Champion. He's also the author of Help Your Boss Help You and co-host of the Groovy Podcast.

On this episode, Ken talks about how he got interested in writing books, and how his latest book, Help Your Boss Help You, got its start. He also explains the concept of the prisoner's dilemma, and how it relates to managing people.

Listen to the rest of Ken's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

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Note: We apologize for the "somewhat noisy" recording. Tammy was still experiencing technical difficulties.

Tammy and Tim have a chat with Herbert Wolverson, author of Hands-on Rust, about his journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 16-June-2021

Show Links

• Herbert Wolverson on Twitter
• Hands-on Rust

Tim and Tammy are back with another episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast. This month, our hosts chat with Herbert Wolverson, author of Hands-on Rust.

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Herbert Wolverson, the founder of Bracket Productions, likes to take a holistic approach to development. As an experienced freelance consultant, he encourages solutions that encompass the entirety of a problem, and he provides tools at each level to automate essential business tasks.

On this episode, Herbert talks about his love of video games and how his parents fueled his desire to write a book. As a first-time author, Herbert didn't know what to expect, but he enjoyed the process so much that he's already writing another book with us.

Listen to the rest of Herbert's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

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Note: We apologize for the "somewhat noisy" recording. As it turns out, Tammy and Herbert were both experiencing technical difficulties.

Tim has a chat with Karl Stolley about his journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 19-May-2021

On the latest episode of the Pragmatic Hero’s Journey podcast, Tim chats with Karl Stolley, associate professor of information technology and management at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

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Karl Stolley has been teaching, researching, and writing about web development up and down the stack since graduate school. He frequently speaks at national and international academic conferences, and he’s a presenter and active participant in many professional developer groups and meetups in the Chicago area.   With the contract signed and the project officially launched, Karl is working on his debut book with the Pragmatic Bookshelf, tentatively titled WebRTC: Build Real-Time Web Applications in the Browser. Beyond the professional advancement and other things this book means to Karl, writing and publishing with Pragmatic is a straight-up bucket-list item for him.   On this episode, Karl talks about his journey to becoming a pragmatic author and why selecting the right title for your book can make all the difference.

Listen to the rest of Karl's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

Tammy and Tim have a chat with Sophie DeBenedetto, co-author of Programming Phoenix LiveView, about her journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

*Recorded April 14, 2021

Show Links

• Sophie DeBenedetto on Twitter
• Programming Phoenix LiveView

Tim and Tammy are back with another episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast. This month, our hosts chat with Sophie DeBenedetto, co-author of Programming Phoenix LiveView.

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Sophie DeBenedetto is a software engineer at GitHub and a former teacher at The Flatiron School. At GitHub, Sophie works on tools that power software collaboration around the world.

Her language of choice is Elixir, and it's no surprise considering all she's done—and is currently doing—for the Elixir community. Not only is she a contributor and maintainer of Elixir School, a newsletter choc-full of resources for anyone learning to code and working hard to get started in the tech field, she's also the co-host of the Elixir Mix podcast.

On this episode, Sophie talks about her journey to becoming a pragmatic author and how she is passionate about helping people change their lives through code.

Listen to the rest of Sophie's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

Tammy and Tim have a chat with Brian Hogan, author of Build Websites with Hugo, about his journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 10-March-2021

Show Links

• Brian Hogan on Twitter
• Build Websites with Hugo
• Small, Sharp Software Tools

Tim and Tammy are back with another episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast. This month, our hosts chat with Brian Hogan, author of Build Websites with Hugo.

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Brian Hogan is a software developer, teacher, author, editor, and musician. Since 1995, Brian's been building websites and web applications using a variety of tools and technology.

But Brian's journey didn't stop with web development. He's been working as a freelance developer for small businesses and has helped countless developers through lectures, mentoring, and of course, books---including Small, Sharp Software Tools, Exercises for Programmers, tmux 2: Productive Mouse-Free Development, and several others for The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

On this episode, Brian talks about his journey to becoming a pragmatic author and what he's learned along the way. He also spills the beans on what makes for a great bio and how to showcase who you are and what you do.

Listen to the rest of Brian's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

Tammy and Tim have a chat with Chris Pine, author of Learn to Program, about his journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 10-February-2021

Show Links

• Chris Pine on Twitter
• Learn to Program
• Sourcegraph
• Alan Watts, Out of Your Mind (Part 1)
• Alan Watts, Out of Your Mind (Part 2)
• Programming Ruby (2nd edition)

Tim and Tammy are back with another episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast. This month, our hosts chat with Chris Pine, author of Learn to Program. From tiny houses to huge programming concepts and everything in-between, this episode has it all.

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Chris Pine started his Hero's Journey in 2002 when he thought about using Ruby to teach people how to program. There wasn't much Ruby documentation for beginners at the time, so he decided to stop thinking about teaching and start writing a tutorial aimed at beginners.

But the task of writing a great tutorial for non-programmers was a bit more challenging than Chris first anticipated. But, he kept at it---adding more and more polish with each revision. Because Chris made it so easy for people to contact him, he was able to rework the tutorial based on reader feedback.

Just as Chris was ready to wrap up the tutorial writing, he was contacted by a handful of publishers, including the Pragmatic Bookshelf---he's been with us ever since and is now working on the 3rd edition of Learn to Program, which is currently in beta.

Listen to the rest of Chris's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.

You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

Tammy and Tim have a chat with VM (Vicky) Brasseur, author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, about her journey to becoming a Pragmatic author.

* Recorded 13-January-2021

Show Links

• VM (Vicky) Brasseur on Twitter
• Forge Your Future with Open Source
• Brian MacDonald (Editor) on Twitter
• Project Gutenberg
• Usenet
• Kobo Clara HD 6" Carta E Ink Touchscreen E-Reader

The wait is finally over: the first guest of our new podcast is here! VM (Vicky) Brasseur, author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, joins the show to discuss her journey to becoming a pragmatic author. On this episode, you’ll find out how VM went from free/open source advocate and corporate strategist to pragmatic author, and you’ll discover what it takes to write a book.

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VM (Vicky) Brasseur spent most of her twenty-plus years in the tech industry leading software development departments and teams, providing technical management and leadership consulting for small and medium businesses, and helping companies understand, use, release, and contribute to free and open source software in a way that’s good for both their bottom line and for the community.   After discovering Project Gutenberg—a free eBook platform for public domain content—VM was hooked on the free/open source model as a way to share documentation, software, and knowledge.    Although VM had been writing articles and contributing to free/open source projects before becoming an author, making the leap from article writer to book author was intimidating—and not necessarily something she considered on her own. But thanks to her editor, Brian MacDonald, VM was convinced to write Forge Your Future with Open Source, the first and only book to detail how to contribute to free and open source software projects.    Listen to the rest of VM's story on this episode of the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast.   You can stream the episode here: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/ or subscribe to the RSS feed using the following link: https://pragprog.libsyn.com/rss.

Introducing the Pragmatic Hero's Journey podcast with your hosts, Tammy Coron and Tim Mitra.

On this episode, you'll meet your hosts, Tammy and Tim, as they discuss their plans for the new podcast.

* Recorded 09-December-2020