Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

This week's episode features Matt Knox of Twitter. Matt is a part of Twitter's university team which teaches new Twitter recruits about the company. He works as an engineer as well in order to stay current. Matt discusses his background as an engineer, and how he got into teaching. He discusses using Storm, essentially a real-time Hadoop, for Twitter. Ben and Matt talk about the importance of keeping a portfolio as a programmer and deliberate practice routines for coding, and more. Matt Knox's Github Matt Knox's Blog Storm Hadoop The Things They Carry On the Fundamentals of Programming Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @mattknox on twitter.

In this week's episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by best selling author, Seth Godin. Seth describes himself as an entrepreneur, a blogger, and an agent of change. They discuss art, frustration, and the endless pursuit of perfection as an artist. In his newest book, The Icarus Deception, Seth discusses seeking art in your work and looking beyond standards and production. They talk about the importance of finding connections with other artists and people who can provide meaningful feedback. They discuss several of Seth's blog posts which are linked below, and much more. Seth's Books How to Draw an Owl Pick Three But What if I Fail Krypton Course The Gift by Lewis Hyde The War of Art Interview with Scott Adams Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @thisissethsblog on twitter.

This week on Giant Robots, Ben Orenstein chats with Josh Pigford about time management, entrepreneurship and farming Josh Pigford's Website Josh Pigford's Twitter Tiny Farmstead Baremetrics Popsurvey Temper

This week on Giant Robots, Ben Orenstein talks with Uncle Bob Martin about functional programming, ethics, and writing. Bob Martin's Twitter Clean Coder Bob Martin's Blog

This week on Giant Robots, Ben Orenstein talks with Chris Lindland, CEO of Betabrand.com about online fashion, self-generating product and dress-pant-sweatpants. Chris Lindland's Twitte Betabrand

This week on Giant Robots, Ben Orenstein speaks with Harold Giménez, Heroku postgres leader, about postgres, data management, and beer brewing. Harold's Twitter Harold's Blog Heroku

Ben Orenstein speaks with Alex Kesler, founder and CEO of inSegment about digital marketing, GTD and productivity. inSegment inSegment's Twitter

This week Ben Orenstein interviews Catherine Bracy, Director of Community Organizing at Code for America. Catherine Bracy's Twitter Code for America

Ben Orenstein speaks with thoughtbot developer Sean Griffin about scala and ruby. Sean Griffin's Twitter Understanding Computation Tom Stuart Scala Website Martin Odersky's Free Class Programming Scala

Ben Orenstein speaks with Drew Neil, creator of vimcasts.org about teaching writing and workshopping vim. Vimcasts Practical Vim: Edit at the Speed of Thought Drew Neil's Twitter

This week on The Giant Robots Podcast, Ben Orenstein chats with Nathan Barry about book writing, teaching and self employment. Nathan's Twitter Nathan's Website The App Design Handbook

Josh Clayton and Ben Orenstein interview each other about their managing director positions. Ben Orenstein's Twitter Josh Clayton's Twitter

Ben Orenstein speaks with Jeff Atwood about Discourse, forum software, and soylent. Coding Horror StackExchange Discourse.org discourse.soylent.me Jeff Atwood's Twitter

Ben Orenstein interviews Josh Clayton and Laila Winner on their book, Geocoding on Rails. Geocoding on Rails Josh Clayton's Twitter Laila Winner's Github

Ben Orenstein and Paul Farnell, CEO of Litmus, talk about starting up, business practices, and Litmus. Paul Farnell's Twitter Litmus

Ben Orenstein and Hilary Mason, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners, talk about Data Science, Bitly and Cheeseburgers. rt.ly search engine OkCupid Blog hackNY DataGotham NYC Resister Hilary Mason's Personal Website Hilary Mason on Twitter

Ben talks with Anthony Eden about DNSimple, programming languages and code retreats. dnsimple Anthony Eden's Twitter

On this episode Ben talks with Chris Savage and Brendan Schwartz about Wistia Wistia Chris Savage's Twitter Brendan Schwartz's Twitter

In this episode of Giant Robots Ben talks with Des Traynor about intercom, concise communication. blogging and customer outreach. Intercom Inside Intercom Blog Des Traynor's Twitter

Ben and Chad discuss mentoring, job hunting tips and FAQ thoughtbot Code Review Guide Pair With Me Sandi Metz Rules

In this of episode of Giant Robots, Ben speaks with Natalie Nagele and Ilya Sabanin about Wildbit, Beanstalk, and work flow. Wildbit Beanstalk Ilya Sabanin's Twitter Natalie Nagele's Twitter

In this episode Paul and Ben talk about tito, funconf, and organizing conferences. Paul Campbell's Twitter Pabcas Hypertiny Tito

In this week's episode Ben discusses effective business practices and advice for optimal page design with special guest Patrick McKenzie. Learn Prime Bingo Card Creator Paul Gram (Do Things That Don't Scale) Double your Freelancing Rate Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @patio11 on twitter.

In this episode, Ben Orenstein speaks with thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris about the technical interview process at thoughtbot, and more. Flog tool complexity Flay duplication tool Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @joeferris on twitter.

This week Ben Orenstein, Pat Brisbin, and Mike Burns talk about Haskell, Linux, functional and dynamic programming, Conway's Game of Life, and much more. Real World Haskell Hackage Conways Game of LIfe Learn You A Haskell Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @patbrisbin and @mikeburns on twitter.

In this episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by Michael Klett, Co-founder and tech lead of Chargify. Ben and Michael discuss the evolution of Chargify and bumps along the way, underwear subscriptions, Michael’s transition from hardware to software, negativity in the Rails community, slow tests, and much more. Chargify Manpacks Bryan Helmcamp’s blog on 7 ways to refactor Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs @tenderlove’s keynote at railsconf Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @moklett on twitter.

]In this episode Ben Orenstein is joined by Alex MacCaw, creator of Spine, formerly of Twitter, and now a developer at Stripe. Ben and Alex talk about travel, writing, code, and couch surfing. Alex's Personal Website Alex's Blog Alex's World Travel Blog Post Alex's Github Spine Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @maccaw on twitter.

In this episode Ben Orenstein speaks with designer and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll, about Authentic Jobs, design, the value of flow and family, and much, much more. Authentic Jobs Cameron's personal website Podcast: Hired Cameron's Future Insights Live Keynote Hire with your head – Lou Adler Ebay CEO Interview Charlie Rose Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign Rails Conf 2013 How to Talk to Developers by Ben Orenstein Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @cameronmoll on twitter.

In this episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by 17 year old Jack Kaufman, author of The Found a Business Book. Ben and Jack discuss Jack's inspiration for the book and how he got all his interviews, the other opportunities it's led too, the common themes he uncovered in his interviews, the differences between those who got funding and bootstrappers, working on the book while in highschool, marketing he's doing, his plans for the future, the issue with college computer science programs, his fears about the future, and much more. The Found a Business Book mixergy.com The Side Project Book Jack's guest post for Forbes.com Haverford College pillsoftware.com Michael Hartl's Rails Totorial Learn Prime apprentice.io Dev Bootcamp Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @kaufman_jack on twitter.

In this episode Ben Orenstein is joined by Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale from Tilde. They discuss bootstrapping a business and the model behind Tilde, their breakdown of product development and consulting, and how they all met. They also talk about designing APIs and frameworks that people actually want to use, how teaching helps them be better framework developers, how they can beat the competition, how supporting multiple languages and frameworks can ruin your app's experience, the big surprises as they've launched, Ember.js' push to 1.0 and beyond, the difference between Ember.js and Backbone.js and why JavaScript matters, and much more. Tilde Skylight Ember.js Ember Data The conceptual ladder W3C TC39 Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @tomdale, and @wycats on twitter.

In this special episode, number 52, and our 1 year anniversary episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ruby and Rails core team member Aaron Patterson, thoughtbot CTO Joe Ferris, and a live studio audience. The trio discuss Rails 4, observers, callbacks, dubstep, namespaces, Scheme, functional programming, thread safety in Rails, what it would take to remove callbacks from Rails and why you would want to do it, what should be in our anniversary episode, dealing with Rails security issues, why Aaron likes to work on Rails, meeting people's expectations, Vim, intuitive software, and so much more. Array#forty_two ChickenScheme The Racket language Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) Metacircular interpreter Play by Play: Aaron Patterson Heroku fucking console Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @tenderlove, and @joeferris on twitter.

On this week's show, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Sandi Metz, developer, author, podcaster, and recent Ruby Hero award winner. Ben and Sandi discuss winning awards, writing, whether notoriety changes who you are, what Sandi is proud of, the bad code she's writing and why, what she's doing now, getting real feedback on your work, that it's OK not to know everything, and much, much more. Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby Rails Conf 2013 The Magic Tricks of Testing by Sandi Metz Lanyrd Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @sandimetz on twitter.

In this week's episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jeff Casimir and Katrina Owen from Jumpstart Lab and gSchool to discuss performing, speaking, and imposter syndrome, preparing for your talk, and what makes a good talk and how to give one. The also discuss gSchool, the way the program works and they way it's guaranteed, teaching, admitting ignorance, how good practice should be harder than the real thing, and why Jeff didn't like studying Computer Science and why he didn't enjoy programming and how Rails reignited his passion for creating things, and much more. Peepcode gSchool Jumpstart Lab Code Academy galvanize Go Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @j3 and @kytrinyx on twitter.

In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Gregg Pollack and Nathaniel Bibler from EnvyLabs and codeschool.com. Gregg shares what he's learned running his business, when not to be transparent, how to deal with compensation, and how the EnvyLabs compensation structure has changed over the years. Nathan, Gregg, and Ben also discuss Code School, yearly payments to a subscription, making courses effective, effective marketing, the effectiveness of mailing lists, community events, shared ownership, and much more. Code School RailsBridge Barcamp Orlando Ruby5 podcast Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, @greggpollack and @nbibler on twitter.

In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Jon Larkowski, closet hippie and developer at CareZone. Ben and Jon discuss being a closet hippie, transitioning from consulting to working on a startup/product team, ping-pong, paying attention to your habits and improving to your life, meditation, firewalling your attention, fostering a startup culture, imposter syndrome, podcasting, coffee, code review, guitar, and much more. e3 live algae CareZone Lift Headspace The Way I Getting Things Done by Jon Larkowski Ruby5 podcast Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @l4rk on twitter.

In this episode, recorded at RailsConf 2013, Ben Orenstein is joined by Ryan Bates of RailsCasts. Ben and Ryan discuss Ryan's transition to working on RailsCasts full time, staying up to date on the latest technology, how his coding style has changed, maintaining his open source, the process of producing RailsCasts, why he doesn't speak at conferences, the latest technology he is excited about, and much more RailsCasts Ruby Weekly Angular.js Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @rbates on twitter.

Ben Orenstein is joined by Joe Kutner, programmer and author of ‘The Healthy Programmer’. Ben and Joe discuss how the demands of a development job lead to unhealthy habits, and ways to address the issues. They discuss specifics like standing desks, walking desks, the pomodoro technique, exercise, vitamin D, and much more. The Healthy Programmer The pomodoro technique Starting Stength The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business Big Ruby 2013 Build a Bigger Brain: How Healthy Living Makes You Smarter Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @codefinger on twitter.

This week we try something a little different. Joe Ferris, Matt Jankowski, Ben Orenstein, and Chad Pytel get together and have a little fun, in what we're calling "Tiny Robots cuddling with other Tiny Robots". We'd love to get your thoughts on this special format, tweet us @thoughtbot or email [email protected]. Follow @thoughtbot, @joeferris, @jankowski, @r00k, and @cpytel on twitter.

In this week's podcast, Ben Orenstein is joined by Chad Fowler, author, speaker, and CTO of 6wunderkinder. Ben and Chad discuss Chad's recent move to Berlin and 6wunderkinder, what a CTO does, getting back to coding, the early Ruby community, who Chad wants to hire, predicting success of new hires, and what makes a truly good developer, favorite interview questions, how Chad's interviewing process has changed over time, how age and experience can change your perspective, how Chad built a great team, and what he might write about in the future. They also discuss Chad's new tattoo, his regrets, meditation, therapy, gaining control over your mind, and much, much more. Wunderlist David A. Black Rich Kilmer Dave Thomas Hilary Mason, Speaking: Entertain, Don’t Teach Befunge Ook! a programming language designed for orangutans LivingSocial Gains Wealth Of Ruby on Rails Expertise With InfoEther Acquisition Ben Scofield Evan Pheonix The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development My Job Went to India: 52 Ways to Save Your Job Martin Fowler Clojure Scala Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are (Power Posing) Railsberry Power Posing! Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @chadfowler on twitter.

thoughtbot's Ben Orenstein is joined by Scott Orn, venture capitalist at Lighthouse Capital Partners by day, and co-founder of Ben's Friends by night. Ben and Scott discuss building a community, the future of Ben's Friends, and how running the site helps him be a better VC, teaching people, and getting value out of giving back. They also talk about his work as a venture capitalist at Lighthouse, how the money flows, the freemium software model, why it's good and how it works, picking the winners, and how the market can affect success, and the companies Scott thinks are great investments, and where he thinks the market is going. Ben's Friends Rails Rumble Jonathan Coulton's blog post, 'Payday' Lighthouse Capital Partners Boundless Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @scottorn on twitter.

This week, Ben Orenstein is joined by Peter Moldave, attorney at Gesmer Updegrove to discuss attorney client privilege, what not to do with email, the similarities between lawyers and programmers, how he got into law, his history with technology, and his time as a corporate lawyer at Apple. They also dig into how EULAs work, whether they are binding, whether you should be reading them, and how they can be enforced, software licensing, copyrights and the First-sale doctrine, patent law, software patents, and navigating the patent landscape. They also discuss how to view stock options in your startup job offer, working at startups, how to have a valuable career path, what your employer owns from your side projects or your work for them, how to manage liability in your startup, web site, app on the App Store, and side projects, the best corporate structure and much, much more. First-sale doctrine gSchool Assignment of Inventions Limited Liability Company The default iOS app store license Gesmer Updegrove, LLP Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @petermoldave on twitter.

This week Ben Orenstein in joined by thoughtbot CEO, Chad Pytel, to discuss thoughbot's books, online and in-person training programs, other educational products, and the launch of thoughtbot's new subscription to everything they teach, Learn Prime. They also discuss some changes to apprentice.io, Five Guys, and much more! Ruby Science Backbone.js on Rails Intermediate Ruby on Rails Intro to Ruby on Rails Learn Prime apprentice.io Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @cpytel on twitter.

Ben is joined by Bryan Helmkamp, the founder of CodeClimate. In Bryan's second appearance on the podcast, Ben and Bryan discuss the architecture behind CodeClimate, scaling the service, and growing the business. They also discuss speaking at conferences, proposal selection, two factor authentication and adding it to CodeClimate, marketing and content marketing, how to decide what to build and proving that it was worthwhile, strategies for testing at the beginning when you have few users, and Bryan reveals CodeClimate next big upcoming feature. Sidekiq JRuby Rubinius Just-in-time (JIT) compilation Librato metrics Rails Security Monitor by Code Climate Boston.rb, Rails Application Security in Practice_ railssecurity.com Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @brynary on twitter.

Ben Orenstein is joined by Avdi Grimm, software developer, author, and podcaster. Ben and Avdi discuss Emacs, Avdi's personal assistant and delegating work. They also discuss naming and finding implicit concepts in your code, encoding processes as objects in their own right, his publishing and podcasting, the pronunciation of Parley, Ruby Tapas, education resources and the benefits of open source languages, his goals, the most civilized way to travel, and what we got wrong about the Law of Demeter. Mandy Moore, Assistance for Software Professionals Ruby Tapas MethodObject Objects on Rails Exceptional Ruby Confident Ruby Ruby Rogues podcast Wide Teams Ruby Rogues Parley GRSIOGR podcast on Law of Demeter, Episode 27: Fabulous new mistakes Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @avdi on twitter.

This week Ben Orenstein is joined by Jeremy McAnally, employee at GitHub, author of Ruby in Practice, Rails 3 Upgrade Handbook, MacRuby in Action, and more. Jeremy and Ben discuss teaching and organizing conferences, remote working for GitHub, the and the company summits, GitHub workflows, their internal tools team. They also talk about standing out from the pack in work, life, and getting accepted to conferences, selecting people to speak at conferences, self-publishing, Jeremy's writing process and future writing plans, work-life balance, how to get a job at GitHub, and much more. MagicRuby Ruby Hoedown La Conf Hubot CodeConf Rails Girls Ruby in Practice MacRuby in Action Rails 3 Upgrade Handbook RedCarpet Markdown parser PrinceXML Securing Rails Seasonal Affective Disorder Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @jm on twitter.

Ben Orenstein is joined this week by Joe Ferris, CTO of thoughtbot. Ben and Joe discuss starting a new Rails project and our Rails application generator, Suspenders, test spies and breaking up your tests, and using Rails beta versions. Suspenders Suspenders app Gemfile Podcast with Bourbon creator Phil LaPier Declaring and Scaling Process Types with Procfile Test spy Trello Minimum viable product (MVP) Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @joeferris on twitter.

This week Ben Orenstein is joined by Nick Quaranto, developer at 37signals and one of the maintainers of RubyGems.org. Nick and Ben discuss the just released Basecamp iOS app, the architecture of the app, the origins of the app and how it became what it is today, and RubyMotion in general. They then move on to discuss the recent RubyGems.org cracking, the mechanism behind it, the process of restoring the service, and how it might affect RubyGems going forward. They then circle back to talk more about RubyMotion, testing, working at 37signals, CoworkBuffalo, OpenHack, and good coffee. #inspect, RubyMotion conference Basecamp for iOS RubyGems.org cracked CoworkBuffalo The On-Call Programmer Kevin Purdy Chemex Coffeemaker OpenHack Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @qrush on twitter.

Ben Orenstein is joined by Dennis Najjar CPA from AccountingDepartment.com. They discuss international companies operating in the United States, the tools of his trade, how AccountingDepartment.com is set up and what their different clients look like, and why it makes sense to outsource your bookkeeping and accounting. They also explore the checks and balances you should have in bookkeeping and accounting, the accounting departments role in an organization and 1099s their purpose, and what to do if you don't get one. AccountingDepartment.com Follow @thoughtbot and @r00k on twitter.

In this week's episode, Ben Orenstein is joined by Steve Snyder, Entrepreneur in Residence at the law firm, Gesmer Updegrove LLP. Ben and Steve discuss Steve's history, his unique position at the law firm, mistakes to avoid, and advice and guidance to entrepreneurs just starting out. Gesmer Updegrove LLP The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't Follow @thoughtbot and @r00k on twitter.

This week Ben Orenstein is joined by Jarrod Drysdale, the author of Bootstrapping Design. Ben and Jarrod discuss the sales and revenue of the book, and his new project, cascade.io. They also talk about learning new things, problem solving, and the differences between programming and design. They also discuss the downside to recurring revenue, successful marketing strategies for his book, advice for people who want to start something new, the concerns of a solo entrepreneur, and how his previous failures help him keep perspective. Bootstrapping Design cascade.io Getting Real 30x500 Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @studiofellow on twitter.