Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

172: Go After the Hard Stuff (Eric Normand)

December 1st, 2015  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 27 secs

Ben and Eric Normand of LispCast and PurelyFunctional.tv talk about the pros and cons of Haskell and Clojure, empathize on some of the pain points of running an educational coding platform, and hypothesize on how the next great programming "killer demo" will present itself.

171: Always Be Hustling (Steli Efti)

November 23rd, 2015  |  Season 4  |  37 mins 39 secs

Ben talks with Steli Efti, CEO and Co-founder of Close, on maintaining energy and passion in speaking, why engineers make great sales people (and how they can be even better), and managing your emotions to be more productive and happy.

170: Make Things People Want (C. Todd Lombardo & Trace Wax)

November 9th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  39 mins 38 secs

Chad talks with C. Todd Lombardo & Trace Wax about their new book, co-authored with Richard Banfield, Design Sprint: A Practical Guidebook for Building Great Digital Products, as well as the process and benefits of design sprints.

169: Purpose Driven Development (Sara Chipps)

November 5th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  36 mins 2 secs

Brenda talks with Sara Chipps on the desire to educate in code, her inspiration to work on hardware, and the troubles of manufacturing.

168: 'Unpronounceable' (Star Simpson)

October 27th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  31 mins 52 secs

Chad Pytel and Laila Winner welcome Star Simpson to discuss PLIBMTTBHGATY (Programming Languages I’ve Been Meaning To Try But Haven’t Gotten Around To Yet), fostering community through meet-ups, and the finer points of taco delivery via drone.

167: A Place For Both (Brenda Storer)

October 12th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  36 mins 46 secs

Ben talks with thoughtbot designer Brenda Storer on fitting both development and design in her job title, tips for public speaking, and introduces a new change to the show.

166: Refactoring Health Care (John Norman)

October 5th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  40 mins 13 secs

Ben talks with John Norman about his process and modified approach to the delivery, payment, and tech of modern managed health care. They also touch on age bias in the programming world, living a purpose-driven life, and dealing with startup growth.

165: Everyone's Welcome Here (Adam Stacoviak & Jerod Santo)

September 28th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  43 mins 5 secs

Ben talks with Adam & Jerod of The Changelog Podcast to discuss their personal interviewing modalities, doing full-time media creation, and a new video project aimed to explore the actual people behind your programming heroes.

164: Transcribing at 260 wpm (Mirabai Knight)

September 21st, 2015  |  Season 4  |  36 mins 50 secs

Ben talks with Mirabai Knight about the technology and uses of modern stenography; including using steno with Vim, and her work on Plover, the open source Steno engine.

163: Play is the Best Way to Learn (Nadia Odunayo)

September 14th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  31 mins 37 secs

Ben talks with Nadia Odunayo about giving non-technical conference talks and full-time pairing.

162: Literal Giant Robots (Brinkley Warren)

September 8th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  23 mins 25 secs

Ben is joined by Brinkley Warren of MegaBots Inc. to discuss the history, build, and strategy behind the MegaBot Mk II, USA's entrant in next years giant robot duel!

161: Listen to Your Users (Jules Coleman)

August 31st, 2015  |  Season 4  |  28 mins 38 secs

Ben and Jules Coleman, founder of Hassle, discuss staying close to the codebase while in a more managerial role, the challenges of rapid growth, and the value of internalizing feedback.

160: Unfollowing the Leader (Drew Neil)

August 26th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  30 mins 49 secs

Ben and Drew Neil discuss freeing up Vim's leader key, the value of visual learning, and using GitHub to crowd source closed captions.

159: Falling Out of Love With Haskell (Mike Burns)

August 17th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  23 mins 2 secs

Ben and fellow thoughtbotter Mike Burns take time out of their Summer Summit schedule to chat about launching offices, the art of classical code, and why Mike no longer loves Haskell.

This episode of Giant Robots is sponsored by Digital Ocean. Simple and fast cloud hosting, built for developers. Use the code GiantRobots for a $10 credit towards your new account.

158: Producing...Stuff (Thom Obarski)

August 10th, 2015  |  Season 4  |  31 mins 4 secs

Ben is joined by trepidatious producer, Thom Obarski, to talk all things media at thoughtbot, compare working in tech to entertainment environments, and bestow some beginner advice on starting one's own podcast.

This episode of Giant Robots is sponsored by Digital Ocean. Simple and fast cloud hosting, built for developers. Use the code GiantRobots for a $10 credit towards your new account.

157: Between Frustration and Enlightenment (Tom Stuart)

August 3rd, 2015  |  Season 4  |  46 mins 17 secs

Ben is joined by Tom Stuart to talk about incorporating computer science topics into Ruby, his process of preparing talks, enriching your development career with a bit of computer science knowledge, and gushing about how amazing computers truly are.

This episode of Giant Robots is sponsored by Digital Ocean. Simple and fast cloud hosting, built for developers. Use the code GiantRobots for a $10 credit towards your new account.