The Stack Overflow Podcast

In this episode, Host Jon Skeet takes the reins along with Jay, Jess, Ilana, and special guests Casey Ashenhurst (SO Inclusion Manager & Senior People Ops Partner) and Cassie Montrose (SO Executive Assistant) to chat about hitting a million rep on Stack Overflow; Jon's thoughts on feminism and inclusion and how those have evolved over the years; and a rant about a regrettable Applebee's experience in Times Square. You should'a known better, Jon...

Happy Holidays from The Stack Overflow Podcast! On today's episode: Winter Bash 2017 details are revealed, Abby Reads Nice Tweets, and we ponder the questionable morality behind Santa's favorite narc, The Elf on the Shelf.

Welcome to the entirely too jolly holiday episode of the Stack Overflow Podcast, recorded Friday, December 15, 2017 at Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. On today's island of misfit toys, we have EVP of Culture Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, Dir. of Community Ops and Mgmt Abby T. Mars, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, and me, Producer Jess Pardue.

We would like to thank our sponsor Oracle. Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle’s support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.  

Today's festivities include:

Elf on the Shelf: Fun addition to holiday cheer or nefarious North Pole spy?

Is the Santa myth hurting our children? News at 11.

Abby raves rants about Sonos, but their customer service is magic!

It's hat season! We discuss the details of this year's Winter Bash 2017, happening now on all Stack Exchange sites. This year's theme: Greatest Hits Hats! How many hats can you earn before it comes to a close on January 2nd?

Abby Reads Nice Tweets! - To put a cap on this season's ongoing discussion of "Making Stack Overflow a Better Place for Users" we discuss some of the things that we are focusing on right now in the community/engineering team (*cough cough* channels *cough*) and Abby reads tweets of appreciation from the community.

In the NEWS: Is this the end of Net Neutrality? And the new Imac Pro is available, so, yay?

This week's Candy Cane Constitution question:

Eggnog? Is it delicious? Is it even food?

Post your thoughts to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you're a fan of eggnog or CON if you give eggnog a big fat NOPE. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers.

Last week's winner is Mordechai Zuber (@mordzuber). 

https://twitter.com/mordzuber/status/930176862663467008

Congrats Mordechai, and thanks for listening! We'll be back early next year. In the meantime, you can listen to our backlog HERE or keep up with us by following @stackpodcast on Twitter. Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Links:

Thanks again Oracle!

Sonos speaker solutions

Eggnog recipe - Coquito recipe

Winter Bash 2017 is here! What's this? Read Abby's blog post for a full explanation.

Nice tweet appreciation gif!

Channels is in alpha! Click that link to sign up. Wanna simply learn more? Read about it here:

Why Channels? - Chance Heath

How we're designing Channels - Kurtis Beavers

NEWS links:

FCC voted to gut net neutrality

New Imac Pro is available now

Recs: Elf, Heavyweight and Reply All - both from Gimlet Media

Today's hijinks include: Talking about engineering management (and pranks)with Ben Kamens; discussing a new study on how to ask a question on Stack Overflow, and chatting way too much about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Welcome to the Stack Overflow Podcast episode #121 recorded Thursday, November 9, 2017 at Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. Today's crew includes VP of Stack Overflow Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, SO Engineering Manager Matt Sherman, and me, Producer Jess. Joel is away getting fitted for gutter-drains and tap dancing shoes!

Special thanks to our sponsors: Oracle and Digital Ocean.

Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle’s support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.

Digital Ocean just launched Spaces – a beautifully simple Object Storage service designed for developers who want a simple way to store and serve vast amounts of data. Digital Ocean thinks developers who try spaces will love it, so they’re making trying it easy. New and existing DigitalOcean customers can you can get a free 2 month trial of spaces by going to do.co/stackoverflow.

This week's hijinks include:

Our Developer Story is Ben Kamens; longtime friend of the company and former VP of Engineering at Fog Creek and Khan Acadamy, where he was also the first employee. He joins us to chat about how he became interested in programming, some of his philosophies behind engineering management, and wanting to leave Khan Academy in order to work on building something that can help reduce the burdens of disease. He also may or may not have been responsible for the greatest desk-based prank ever, played on our very own David Fullerton. Disclaimer: Ben's also TOTALLY not Batman.

Here's the video of said greatest desk-based prank ever.

Jess, along with everyone else on iOS 11, are ranting about the Apple autocorrect bug.

We talk way too much about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Can you really talk too much about it though? Shatner's hair is amazing!)

We discuss a new academic paper about How to Ask a Question on Stack Overflow.

We play another installment of Start Up or Shut Up. Does Jay come in last this time? Maaaaybe...

Today's Constitution Question comes from Stack Overflow SRE Manager Tom Limoncelli:

Khan (full name "Khan Noonien Singh") was the best villain on Star Trek:

Pro: Khan

Con: Not Khan

I'm sure there's nothing at all confusing about that. Post your thoughts to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you think Khan was the greatest Star Trek villain of all time or CON if you're more of a Q or T'Kuvma type of person. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers.

Last week's winner, to the question of candy corn's edibility, is Adam Rcheimer.

https://twitter.com/adamzr/status/925062559195054082

Thanks Adam! Look for a DM from Ilana in the coming days.

Also thanks to everyone else for listening. Because of the holidays, we'll only be back for one more episode in 2017. Look for us in mid December. Follow @stackpodcast on Twitter for all Stack Overflow Podcast news!

Links:

Apple fixed the bug! (FINALLY. - Jess)

Follow @yesthattom on Twitter, and buy his book about Network Administration!

Ben Kamens on Twitter: @kamens. Follow him to see what happens next.

We do public data dumps so that people (like the Italian researchers above) can play with the data and come up with awesome things! Visit archive.org for our past dumps.

Today's episode is a real scream. Recorded in a haunted house, this week's host is longtime podcast friend Anil Dash, joined by Fog Creek's Jenn Schiffer, Stack Overflow engineering manager Matt Sherman, news editor Ilana Yitzhaki, and executive producer Kaitlin Pike. Special guest is Leon Young of Cogniss.

Welcome to The Stack Overflow Podcast episode #120 recorded Thursday, October 26, 2017 at our Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. As a special treat (or is it a trick?) your hosts today include Fog Creek CEO Anil Slash, self-described Glitch-Witch Jenn Schiffer, podcast Executive Producer Kaitlin (head-on-a) Pike, SO Engineering Manager Matt Sherman Munster, and News Editor Ill-ana Yitzhaki.

Special thanks to this week's sponsors: Oracle and Digital Ocean.

Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle's support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.  

Digital Ocean just launched Spaces - a beautifully simple Object Storage service designed for developers who want a simple way to store and serve vast amounts of data. Digital Ocean thinks developers who try spaces will love it, so they're making trying it easy. New and existing DigitalOcean customers can you can get a free 2 month trial of spaces by going to do.co/stackoverflow.

Today's Spooky Segments include:

What is the best Halloween candy and why is it definitely Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? (and not Skittles lentils…)

This week's Developer Story is Leon Young, founder and CEO of Cogniss, a platform anyone can use to create sophisticated educational apps, and 2and2, an award-winning educational games company. He explains how Cogniss is using its Cognition Engine AI in order to optimize learning experiences for people of all ages, not just younger folks.

In our ongoing discussion about making Stack Overflow a more welcoming place, Anil and Jenn tell us about how Glitch was made specifically to be a supportive, expressive, and inclusive community, and what Stack Overflow may be able to learn from that.

Is Amazon Key a scary prospect?

This week's Constitution proposal was very controversial in the SO offices.

Candy Corn: PRO or CON?

Post your thoughts to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you're wrong (according to Anil) and think that candy corn is delicious or CON if you think they are disgusting and no one should eat them ever. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers.

Last week's winner, on the subject of "Yay or Nay Treadmill Desks" is David @toonarmycaptain:

https://twitter.com/toonarmycaptain/status/922292050787295232

Thanks David, look for a DM from Ilana.

Links!

LOTS of different kinds of Candy Corn.

If you would like to help Code to Inspire reach their goal of teaching programming to girls in Afghanistan, please visit their Generosity page and donate to the IndieGoGo campaign.

Leon Young is doing some really awesome things. Check it out:

Cogniss.com

2and2

Follow @CognissHQ on Twitter

Glitch! It's fun and easy. Build (or remix) the app of your dreams.

Follow Anil and Jenn on Twitter!

Ravelry.com, for all of your knitting and crocheting needs.

Your First PR

NEWS links: Amazon Key, Netflix is spending 8b in 2018

Thanks again to Oracle and Digital Ocean!

On today's episode we chat about the nature of VR and reality with IBM Watson's Michael Ludden, plus SO marketing manager Rachel Ferrigno stops by to present the NYC Dev Hiring Ecosystem report.

Welcome to The Stack Overflow Podcast episode #119 recorded Thursday, October 12, 2017 at the Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. Today's motley crew includes VP and GM of Stack Overflow Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, me, Producer Jess.  Joining us are very special guests Michael Ludden, Director of Product at IBM Developer labs for IBM Watson, and SO Content Marketing Manager Rachel Ferrigno.

Special thanks to this week's sponsors: Oracle and Digital Ocean.

Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle's support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.  

Digital Ocean just launched Spaces - a beautifully simple Object Storage service designed for developers who want a simple way to store and serve vast amounts of data. Digital Ocean thinks developers who try spaces will love it, so they're making trying it easy. New and existing DigitalOcean customers can you can get a free 2 month trial of spaces by going to do.co/stackoverflow.

On this episode:

Today's Developer Story (and so much more) is Michael Ludden, a self proclaimed script kiddie who has an amazing vision for what AR and VR could be. We chat about how he is trying to bring that vision to life with IBM's Watson, as well as some of the philosophies of futurism, with a healthy dose of pop culture thrown in for good measure.

"Use your imagination to invision a future powered by AI and even maybe taking the form of AR or VR that is hopeful and can augment human ability and help to future-proof the world from being dystopian."

The NYC Developer Hiring Ecosystem report is here! Rachel Ferrigno gives us a rundown of her findings, including the fact that 10% of the nation's developers are located in the NYC metro area. You can download your own report here.

After 20 years, AIM is shutting down. We take a few minutes to mourn the messaging service before pointing and laughing at each other's embarrassing screen names.

This week's Constitution question comes from our very own David Fullerton. It's called the Nick Craver amendment, because of reasons.

"It is forbidden to participate in a Hangout or other video conference while working at a treadmill desk or any other form of treadmill."

Post your answer to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you think that treadmill desks should be banned when in a video call or CON if you think that exercising while in a meeting is fair game. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers.

Last week's winner, for the proposal: "One must always use rebasing instead of merging branches in Git." is @TheOnlyMego with:

https://twitter.com/TheOnlyMego/status/918326739952160769

Thanks Mego, you win some stickers. And thanks to all of you for listening, we'll be back in 2 weeks.

Links for the lazy:

Awesome stuff from Michael Ludden:

@Michael_Ludden

Watson and Waffles (best name ever)

VR Speech Sandbox

Developerworks

On Github: IBM, vr-speech-sandbox-vive

Doraemon!

NYC Dev Hiring Ecosystem report blog post, and available for download

We're definitely living in a simulation.

In the News: AIM is shutting down, Article on Age of Empires mentioned by David.

Zach Holman: The Depression Thing

On today's episode, we learn about travel-hacking and building a fully remote company with the co-founders of FlightFox, as well as chat with former Stack Overflow mods turned current Stack Overflow developers to learn about moderator processes at SO.