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The Bike Shed episodes

December 10, 2024 450: Javascript-Driven Development?
Joël and Stephanie go back to fundamentals as they pick apart some recent conversations they’ve been having around the office.
Together they discuss the advantages of GraphQL over a REST API, how they utilise JSONB over a regular column or table, and the use-cases for and against a frontend framework like React.
But what’s the theme that ties all these conversations together?
—
The article mentioned in this episode was Why I’m over GraphQL
Your hosts for this episode have been thoughtbot’s own Stephanie Minn and Joël Quenneville.
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40 min
December 03, 2024 449: Evergreen skills for new-ish developers
One of the most challenging things about starting out as a developer is how much you need to master all at once. And with so much to learn, it can be difficult for experts to guide fresh developers and advise them on where to focus first. Luckily, some skills will always be useful, no matter what language you’re coding in. In today’s episode, Stephanie and Joël tackle this topic by unpacking several key evergreen skills that will always be valuable, from reading error messages to deciphering a stack trace. They break down how new-ish developers can start acquiring these skills, key obstacles they’re likely to encounter, and how to ask for help when you hit a block. Their conversation covers the ins and outs of debugging, how to feel comfortable in your editor as a new developer, the art of asking for help, and much more. They also share plenty of valuable tips to help you on your journey – including one that will help you commit more frequently. Tune in now to hear it all!
Key Points From This Episode:
Stephanie’s time at the Ruby Conference in Chicago.
The challenges of advising new-ish developers as an expert.
Broad evergreen skills that are always valuable to learn.
Tips on mastering debugging as a core skill.
How to improve your ability to read error messages.
Our approach to resolving errors and isolating what is wrong.
Advice for learning to read a stack trace (even though it’s intimidating).
Strategies for fixing different types of bugs.
The value of editor mastery and version history.
Tips on how to commit more frequently as a new developer.
Learning to ask for help when you hit a block.
The art of structuring your questions when asking for help.
Breaking down large tasks into smaller sections.
Learning to find focus as a new developer.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
What technologies should I learn?
Debugging blog post series
Asking about solutions rather than problems
The Bike Shed
Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
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Mailtrap
[WorkOS](workos.com/)
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38 min
November 26, 2024 448: Other Uses for Tests
How can tests serve beyond just catching bugs in code? In this episode, Stephanie and Joël dive into the various roles that tests can play in a developer's toolkit. Covering all the fundamentals, from aiding knowledge transfer and documentation to ensuring accountability in code reviews, they explore the unexpected ways that tests support developer workflows. They also explain the balance between writing detailed tests for documentation and managing complex code, and how effective testing practices can help developers become more confident and informed in their work. Gain insights about the impact of test suites on team collaboration, code readability, and project handoffs, and discover how tests can provide a “living specification” that evolves with your application. Join us to learn how to make the most of your tests and unlock new ways to elevate your development process. Tune in now!
How test suites can act as living documentation that changes with the codebase.
Using tests to document complex code before handing off a project.
How backfilling tests can reveal critical edge cases in legacy code.
The benefits of tests for developers working with complex code areas.
Why a balance between comprehensive coverage and “good enough” testing is essential.
Challenges associated with reading tests as documentation in certain codebases.
Techniques for improving the readability of test suites for documentation.
Advantages of using tests as a tool for accountability in code reviews.
The concept of test-first code reviews to improve understanding of pull requests.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Mailtrap
'Unlock the value of tests in understanding your codebase'
Good Enough Testing
'RailsConf 2024: So writing tests feels painful. What now? by Stephanie Minn'
'Algorithms we develop software by'
[Exercism](exercism.io)
WorkOS
The Bike Shed
Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
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34 min
November 19, 2024 447: How to (not) implement impersonation
For developers, impersonation can be a powerful tool, but with great power comes great responsibility. In today’s episode, hosts Stephanie and Joël explore the complexities of implementing impersonation features in software development, giving you the ability to take over someone’s account and act as the user. They delve into the pros and cons of impersonation, from how it can help with debugging and customer support to its prime drawbacks regarding security and auditing issues. Discover why the need for impersonation is often a sign of poor admin tooling, alternative solutions to true impersonation, and the scenarios where impersonation might be the most pragmatic approach. You’ll also learn why they advocate for understanding the root problem and considering alternative solutions before implementing impersonation. Tune in today for a deep dive into impersonation and the best ways to use it (or not use it)! 
Key Points From This Episode:
What’s new in Stephanie’s world: how Notion Calendar is helping her manage her schedule.
Joël’s quest to find a health plan: how he used a spreadsheet to compare his options.
A client request to build an impersonation feature, and why Joël has mixed feelings about it.
What an impersonation tool does: it allows you to take over someone’s account.
When it’s useful to use implementation as a feature, like for debugging and support.
Potential risks and responsibilities associated with impersonation.
Why the need for impersonation often indicates poor admin tooling.
Technical and security implications of impersonation.
Solutions for logging the audit trail when you’re doing impersonation.
Differentiating between the logged-in user and the user you’re rendering views for.
Building an app that isn’t as tightly coupled to the “current user.”
Suggested alternatives to true impersonation.
The value of cross-functional teams and collaborative problem-solving.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Mailtrap
Notion Calendar
'Implementing Impersonation'
Sustainable Web Development with Ruby on Rails
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Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
Support The Bike Shed
WorkOS
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38 min
November 12, 2024 446: All about rewrites
When is it time for a rewrite? How do you justify it? If you’re tasked with one, how do you approach it? In today’s episode of The Bike Shed, we dive into the tough question of software rewrites, sharing firsthand experiences that reveal why these projects are often more complicated and risky than they first appear. We unpack critical factors that make or break a rewrite, from balancing developer satisfaction with business value to managing stakeholder expectations when costs and timelines stretch unexpectedly. You’ll hear about real-world rewrite pitfalls like downtime and reintroducing bugs, as well as strategies for achieving similar improvements through incremental changes or refactoring instead. If you’re a developer or team lead considering a rewrite, this conversation offers a pragmatic perspective that could save your team time, effort, and potential setbacks. Tune in to learn how to make the best call for your codebase and find out when a rewrite might actually be necessary!
Key Points From This Episode:
Accessible selectors versus test IDs: best practices in Capybara and React Testing Library.
Balancing test coverage with pragmatism and risk tolerance with Good Enough Testing.
Software rewrites and the tough questions around deciding when they're necessary.
The importance of prioritizing business value over frustrations with the current codebase.
Drawbacks of rewrites, such as downtime, data loss, and reintroducing past bugs.
Risks of “grass is greener” thinking and using mocked data in demos.
Unrealistic expectations of full feature parity and why an MVP approach is better.
How incremental refactoring can achieve similar goals to a complete rewrite.
The appeal and hubris of a “fresh start” and why it’s much more complex than that.
Balancing innovation with practicality: ways to introduce new elements without rewriting.
An example that illustrates when a rewrite might actually be necessary.
Reasons that early prototypes and test builds are the best candidates for rewrites.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Mailtrap
WorkOS
Matt Brictson: ‘Simplify your Capybara selectors’
React Testing Library Guidelines
Capybara Accessibility Selectors
Good Enough Testing
‘RailsConf 2023: The Math Every Programmer Needs by Joël Quenneville’
‘Testing Your Edge Cases’
'Working Iteratively'
'Technical Considerations to Help Scale Your Product'
Dan McKinley: ‘Choose Boring Technology'
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Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
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36 min
October 29, 2024 445: Working Iteratively
Does having smaller, more frequent iterations help to ease your cognitive load? During this episode, we discuss the benefits and challenges of working iteratively and whether or not it can prevent costly errors. You’ll hear about juggling individual pieces effectively, factors that incentivize and de-incentivize working iteratively, and how Joël gauges whether or not a project should be broken up into smaller tasks. It can be hard to adopt small iterations, and this conversation also touches on the idea of ‘good enough code’ and discusses how agility can reduce the cost of making changes. Tuning in, you’ll hear about some of the challenges of keeping up with changes as they evolve and why it is beneficial to do so. You will also be equipped with a thought experiment involving elephant carpaccio to build your understanding of working iteratively, explore the challenge of keeping up with evolving changes, and more. Thanks for listening.
Key Points From This Episode:
Stephanie shares a recent mishap that happened at work and what she learned from it.
Unpacking pressures and other aspects that may have contributed to the error.
Joël’s recent travels and his fresh appreciation for fall.
The cost of an incident occurring, how this increases, and the role of code review.
Benefits and pitfalls of more regular code review.
Why working with smaller chunks of work is helpful for Joël’s focus.
Juggling individual pieces effectively.
Factors that de-incentivize working iteratively such as waiting on 24-hour quality control processes.
How working iteratively can facilitate better communication.
Why Joël feels that work that spans a few days should be broken up into smaller chunks.
The idea of ‘good enough code’.
How agility can reduce the cost of making changes.
Using the elephant carpaccio exercise to bolster your understanding of working iteratively.
The challenge of keeping up with changes as they evolve and why it is beneficial to do so.
Involvement from the team and the capacity to change course.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
WorkOS
Working Incrementally
Working Iteratively
Elephant Carpaccio Exercise
The Bike Shed
Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
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41 min
October 15, 2024 444: From Solutions To Patterns
What’s the difference between solving problems and recognizing patterns, and why does it matter for developers? In this episode, Stephanie and Joël discuss transitioning from collecting solutions to identifying patterns applicable to broader contexts in software development. They explore the role of heuristics, common misconceptions among junior and intermediate developers, and strategies for leveling up from a solution-focused mindset to thinking in patterns. They also discuss their experiences of moving through this transition during their careers and share advice for upcoming software developers to navigate it successfully. They explore how learning abstraction, engaging in code reviews, and developing a strong intuition for code quality help developers grow. Uncover the issue of over-applying patterns and gain insights into the benefits of broader, reusable approaches in code development. Join us to discover how to build your own set of coding heuristics, the pitfalls of pattern misuse, and how to become a more thoughtful developer. Tune in now!
Key Points From This Episode:
Stephanie unpacks the differences between patterns and solutions.
The role of software development experience in recognizing patterns.
Why transitioning from solving problems to recognizing patterns is crucial.
Joël and Stephanie talk about the challenges of learning abstraction.
Hear pragmatic strategies for implementing patterns effectively.
How junior developers can build their own set of heuristics for code quality.
Discover valuable tools and techniques to identify patterns in your work.
Find out about approaches to documenting, learning, and sharing patterns.
Gain insights into the process of refactoring a solution into a pattern.
Outlining the common mistakes developers make and the pitfalls to avoid.
Steps for navigating disagreements and feedback in a team environment.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
WorkOS
RubyConf 2021 - The Intro to Abstraction I Wish I'd Received
'Ruby Science'
Refactoring.Guru
Thoughtbot code review guide
The Bike Shed
Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
Joël Quenneville on X
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35 min
October 08, 2024 443: Rails World and Open Source with Stefanni Brasil
Learning from other developers is an important ingredient to your success. During this episode, Joël Quenneville is joined by Stefanni Brasil, Senior Developer at Thoughtbot, and core maintainer of faker-ruby. To open our conversation, she shares the details of her experience at the Rails World conference in Toronto and the projects she enjoyed seeing most. Next, we explore the challenge of Mac versus Windows and how these programs interact with Ruby on Rails and dive into Stefanni’s involvement in Open Source for Thoughtbot and beyond; what she loves about it, and how she is working to educate others and expand the current limitations that people experience. This episode is also dedicated to the upcoming Open Source Summit that Stefanni is planning on 25 October 2024, what to expect, and how you can get involved. Thanks for listening!
Key Points From This Episode:
Introducing and catching up with Thoughtbot Senior Developer and maintainer of faker-ruby, Stefanni Brasil.
Her experience at the Rails World conference in Toronto and the projects she found most inspiring.
Why accessibility remains a key topic.
How Ruby on Rails translates on Mac and Windows.
Stefanni’s involvement in Open Source and why she enjoys it.
Her experience as core maintainer at faker-ruby.
Ideas she is exploring around Jeremy Evans’ book Polished Ruby Programming and the direction of Faker.
Involvement in Thoughtbot’s Open Source and how it drew her in initially.
The coaching series on Open Source that she participated in earlier this year.
What motivated her to create a public Google doc on Open Source maintenance.
An upcoming event: the Open Source Summit.
The time commitment expected from attendees.
How Stefanni intends to interact with guests and the talk that she will give at the event.
Why everyone is welcome to engage at any level they are comfortable with.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Stefanni Brasil
Stefanni Brasil on X
Thoughtbot Open Summit
Open Source Issues doc
Open Source at Thoughtbot
Polished Ruby Programming
Faker Gem
Rails World 
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Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
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33 min
October 01, 2024 442: Paradigms - What is a Program?
What is a program? Your answer to this question will determine the paradigm through which you view programming. During this episode, you’ll come to understand how things change once you develop an awareness of your paradigm, and what. To kick off this episode, Stephanie shares key insights she took from Planet Argon’s 2024 Ruby on Rails survey and dives deeper into her history with Ruby on Rails. Next, we dive into the definition of a paradigm and unpack three different paradigms you might hold as a developer: procedural, object-oriented, and functional. Considering how each of these impacts the way that you might approach your work as a developer, and what you can learn from the ones that are less familiar to you. Joël describes his scripting style and evaluates the concept of pure functions and their place in development, and we close by digging deeper into how your paradigm might impact the code that you write. Tune in to hear all this and more.
Key Points From This Episode:
The EPI feature that Joël has started to build out for his client.
Why Stephanie is excited about the results of Planet Argon’s 2024 Ruby on Rails community survey.
What a procedural program is: programming envisions a program as a series of instructions to a computer.
Defining an object-oriented paradigm: programming envisions a program as the behavior that emerges from objects talking to each other.
How a functional paradigm envisions a program as a series of data transformations.
Alan Turing and Alonzo Church’s approach to understanding this.
How a lot of the foundations of computer science came to be built before we had computers.
Using Ruby to make judgments and assessing whether or not this is a procedural habit.
Why Joël describes his scripting style as being very procedural.
Unpacking the meaning of functional programming.
Evaluating the concept of pure functions.
Considering how your paradigm may impact the Ruby code that you write.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
2024 Ruby on Rails Community Survey
Church-Turing Thesis
Dynamic type systems are not inherently more open
What is Functional Programming?
Blocks as an abstraction vs for loops
Functional core imperative shell
Testing objects with a functional mindset 
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Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
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43 min
September 24, 2024 441: The Pickaxe Book with Noel Rappin
For a long time, Programming Ruby was the authority in the developing world. Now, a much-needed update has been published. During this conversation, we are joined by Noel Rappin, who shares how his frustration at the idea of static type in Ruby motivated him to investigate why he felt this way, as he published his findings in The Pickaxe Book. We discuss how this book differs from previous material he has published, explore a recent blog post series that explored the idea of failing fast, and address the widespread opinion that developers should take a simpler approach that is more accessible. Noel also explores the responsibility of understanding how readers consume material and the importance of providing thorough context as an author, how Programming Ruby became the most significant programming reference, and the surprising journey that led Noel to realize he was able to provide an updated version of the theory in it. Next, we dive into some of the more opinionated blog posts Noel has posted and the harshest feedback he has received in response to them. You’ll also hear about his research and learning during the act of writing the book. Join us today to hear all this and more.
Key Points From This Episode:
Noel Rappin’s recently published work, The Pickaxe Book, on current versions of Ruby.
The inception of the book during discussions about the collision of Sorbet and Ruby.
How his background made him comfortable with the idea that there are no static types.
A recent blog post series and how it answered a question about failing fast.
Considering whether developers pursue simpler things that are more accessible to a wider range of coders.
The problem of thoroughness and longevity in writing instructional material.
Developing awareness of how readers consume and contextualize theory and opinion.
How Programming Ruby became the most significant programming reference.
Noel’s updated version of this material in his latest book.
His blog posts on real-life applications of Ruby and the feedback he receives.
How he goes about framing blog posts as opinion or instruction.
Determining what community consensus is.
The bewilderment that often accompanies onboarding sessions.
Research and learning leading up to writing and publishing the book.
Feedback and reviews on the book.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Noel Rappin
Noel Rappin on X
Programming Ruby 
How Not to Use Static Typing in Ruby 
David Copeland Talk 
Better Know a Ruby Thing 
How To Manage Duplicate Test Setup, Or Can I Interest You in Weird RSpec?  
Better Know a Ruby Thing: On The Use of Private Methods
Standardrb
Rails Test Prescriptions
Programming Ruby: A Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide 
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Joël Quenneville on LinkedIn
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40 min

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On The Bike Shed, hosts Joël Quenneville, Sally Hall, and Aji Slater discuss development experiences and challenges at thoughtbot with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and whatever else is drawing their…