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Published: Oct. 2, 2018, 10 a.m.

Panel:\xa0

• Aimee Knight
• Joe Eames
• Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Ethan Brown In this episode, the panel talks with Ethan Brown who is a technological director at a small company. They write software to facilitate large public organizations and help make projects more effective, such as: rehabilitation of large construction projects, among others. There is a lot of government work through the endeavors they encounter. Today, the panel talks about his article he wrote, and other topics such as Flex, Redux, Ruby, Vue.js, Automerge, block chain, and Elm. Enjoy!Show Topics:2:38 \u2013 Chuck: We are here to talk about the software side of things.Let\u2019s dive into what you are looking at mid-year what we need to know for 2018. You wrote this.3:25 \u2013 Ethan: I start off saying that doing this podcast now, how quickly things change. One thing I didn\u2019t think people needed to know was symbols, and now that\u2019s changed. I had a hard time with bundling and other things. I didn\u2019t think the troubles were worth it. And now a couple of moths ago (an open source project) someone submitted a PR and said: maybe we should be using symbols? I told them I\u2019ve had problems in the past. They said: are you crazy?!It\u2019s funny to see how I things have changed.4:47 \u2013 Panel: Could you talk about symbols?4:58 \u2013 Aimee: Are they comparable to Ruby?5:05 \u2013 Ethan talks about what symbols are and what they do!5:52 \u2013 Chuck: That\u2019s pretty close to how that\u2019s used in Ruby, too.6:04 \u2013 Aimee: I haven\u2019t used them in JavaScript, yet. When have you used them recently?6:15 \u2013 Ethan answers the question.7:17 \u2013 Panelist chimes in.7:27 \u2013 Ethan continues his answer. The topic of \u201csymbols\u201d continues. Ethan talks about Automerge. 11:18 \u2013 Chuck: I want to dive-into what you SHOULD know in 2018 \u2013 does this come from your experience? Or how did you drive this list?11:40 \u2013 Ethan: I realize that this is a local business, and I try to hear what people are and are not using. I read blogs. I think I am staying on top of these topics being discussed.12:25 \u2013 Chuck: Most of these things are what people are talking.12:47 \u2013 Aimee: Web Assembly. Why is this on the list?12:58 \u2013 Ethan: I put on the list, because I heard lots of people talk about this. What I was hearing the echoes of the JavaScript haters. They have gone through a renaissance. Along with Node, and React (among others) people did get on board. There are a lot of people that are poisoned by that. I think the excitement has died down. If I were to tell a story today \u2013 I would14:23 \u2013 Would you put block chain on there? And AI?14:34 \u2013 Panel: I think it\u2019s something you should be aware of in regards to web assembly. I think it will be aware of. I don\u2019t know if there is anything functional that I could use it with.15:18 \u2013 Chuck: I haven\u2019t really played with it...15:27 \u2013 Panel: If you wrote this today would you put machine learning on there?15:37 \u2013 Ethan: Machine Learning...16:44 \u2013 Chuck: Back to Web Assembly. I don\u2019t think you were wrong, I think you were early. Web Assembly isn\u2019t design just to be a ... It\u2019s designed to be highly optimized for...17:45 \u2013 Ethan: Well-said. Most of the work I do today we are hardly taxing the devices we are using on.18:18 \u2013 Chuck and panel chime in.18:39 \u2013 Chuck: I did think the next two you have on here makes sense.18:54 \u2013 Panel: Functional programming?19:02 \u2013 Ethan: I have a lot of thoughts on functional programming and they are mixed. I was exposed to this in the late 90\u2019s. It was around by 20-30 years. These aren\u2019t new. I do credit JavaScript to bring these to the masses. It\u2019s the first language I see the masses clinging to. 10 years ago you didn\u2019t see that. I think that\u2019s great for the programming community in general. I would liken it to a way that Ruby on Rails really changed the way we do web developing with strong tooling. It was never really my favorite language but I can appreciate what it did for web programming. With that said...(Ethan continues the conversation.)Ethan: I love Elm. 21:49 \u2013 Panelists talks about Elm. *The topic diverts slightly.22:23 \u2013 Panel: Here\u2019s a counter-argument. Want to stir the pot a little bit. I want to take the side of someone who does NOT like functional programming.24:08 \u2013 Ethan: I don\u2019t disagree with you. There are some things I agree with and things I do disagree with. Let\u2019s talk about Data Structures. I feel like I use this everyday. Maybe it\u2019s the common ones. The computer science background definitely helps out.If there was one data structure, it would be TREES. I think STACKS and QUEUES are important, too. Don\u2019t use 200-300 hours, but here are the most important ones. For algorithms that maybe you should know and bust out by heart.27:48 \u2013 Advertisement for Chuck\u2019s E-book Course: Get A Coder Job28:30 \u2013 Chuck: Functional programming \u2013 people talk bout why they hate it, and people go all the way down and they say: You have to do it this way....What pay things will pay off for me, and which things won\u2019t pay off for me? For a lot of the easy wins it has already been discussed. I can\u2019t remember all the principles behind it. You are looking at real tradeoffs.\xa0 You have to approach it in another way. I like the IDEA that you should know in 2018, get to know X, Y, or Z, this year. You are helping the person guide them through the process.30:18 \u2013 Ethan: Having the right tools in your toolbox.30:45 \u2013 Panel: I agree with everything you said, I was on board, until you said: Get Merge Conflicts.I think as developers we are being dragged in...33:55 \u2013 Panelist: Is this the RIGHT tool to use in this situation?34:06 \u2013 Aimee: If you are ever feeling super imposed about something then make sure you give it a fair shot, first.34:28 \u2013 That\u2019s the only reason why I keep watching DC movies.34:41 \u2013 Chuck: Functional programming and...I see people react because of the hype cycle. It doesn\u2019t fit into my current paradigm. Is it super popular for a few months or...?35:10 \u2013 Aimee: I would love for someone to point out a way those pure functions that wouldn\u2019t make their code more testable.35:42 \u2013 Ethan: Give things a fair shake. This is going back a few years when React was starting to gain popularity. I had young programmers all about React. I tried it and mixing it with JavaScript and...I thought it was gross. Everyone went on board and I had to make technically decisions. A Friend told me that you have to try it 3 times and give up 3 times for you to get it. That was exactly it \u2013 don\u2019t know if that was prophecy or something. This was one of my bigger professional mistakes because team wanted to use it and I didn\u2019t at first. At the time we went with Vue (old dog like me). I cost us 80,000 lines of code and how many man hours because I wasn\u2019t keeping an open-mind?37:54 \u2013 Chuck: We can all say that with someone we\u2019ve done.38:04 \u2013 Panel shares a personal story.38:32 \u2013 Panel: I sympathize because I had the same feeling as automated testing. That first time, that automated test saved me 3 hours. Oh My Gosh! What have I been missing!39:12 \u2013 Ethan: Why should you do automated testing? Here is why...You have to not be afraid of testing. Not afraid of breaking things and getting messy.39:51 \u2013 Panel: Immutability?40:00 \u2013 Ethan talks about this topic.42:58 \u2013 Chuck: You have summed up my experience with it.43:10 \u2013 Panel: Yep. I agree. This is stupid why would I make a copy of a huge structure, when...44:03 \u2013 Chuck: To Joe\u2019s point \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t just \u201cthis was a dumb way\u201d \u2013 it was also trivial, too. I am doing all of these operations and look my memory doesn\u2019t go through the roof. They you see it pay off. If you don\u2019t see how it\u2019s saving you effort, at first, then you really understand later.44:58 \u2013 Aimee: Going back to it being a functional concept and making things more testable and let it being clearly separate things makes working in code a better experience.As I am working in a system that is NOT a pleasure.45:31 \u2013 Chuck: It\u2019s called legacy code...45:38 \u2013 What is the code year? What constitutes a legacy application?45:55 \u2013 Panel: 7 times \u2013 good rule.46:10 \u2013 Aimee: I am not trolling. Serious conversation I was having with them this year.46:27 \u2013 Just like cars.46:34 \u2013 Chuck chimes in with his rule of thumb.46:244 \u2013 Panel and Chuck go back-and-forth with this topic.47:14 \u2013 Dilbert cartoons \u2013 check it out. 47:55 \u2013 GREAT QUOTE about life lessons.48:09 \u2013 Chuck: I wish I knew then what I know now.Data binding. Flux and Redux. Lots of this came out of stuff around both data stores and shadow domes. How do you tease this out with the stuff that came out aro

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