The Bike Shed

Steph and Chris recap their favorite things of 2019 and 2020 and share their 2021 list. Happy Holidays, y'all! Steph: * Feature flags and calm deploys * Creating observable systems * Debugging * Working in seasons * Don't forget the fun “The longer I’m in the software game, the more I want things to be calm” - Steph Chris: * Pushing logic back to the server * Svelte (https://svelte.dev/) * Remote work (but maybe hybrid!) * Vim * Joining a startup as CTO This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Listen to episodes from 2020 and 2019

Steph started a new project and shares details about the new tools she's using, including working on a remote dev environment. Chris shares a journey with Lograge and Rails flash messages as he strives to capture user-facing errors. They also discuss "silencing" flaky tests, using Graphviz to visualize data dependencies, and porting Devise views to use Inertia and Svelte. It's also interesting how different their paths have been this year! This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Joel Quenneville (https://twitter.com/joelquen) GitHub - roidrage/lograge: An attempt to tame Rails' default policy to log everything (https://github.com/roidrage/lograge) Graphviz (https://graphviz.org/) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of The Bike Shed! Transcript: CHRIS: Tech talk nonsense and songs, that's what people come to The Bike Shed for, variations on th

Fellow thoughtboter Edward Loveall joins Steph to cohost and talk about alternative frontends and his own that he created: scribe.rip: an alternative frontend to Medium, learning about what it's like to be a manager/non-IC, and helps answer a listener question re: how do you think about empathy in your work? This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Empathy Online: Edward Loveall (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/empathy-online) Scribe (https://scribe.rip/) GitHub - mendel5/alternative-front-ends: Overview of alternative open source front-ends for popular internet platforms (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, etc.) (https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of The Bike Shed! Transcript: STEPH: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing grea

Steph gives an update about RSpec focus and how she often forgets to remove the focus feature from tests. She figured out two solutions: one using Rubocop, and the other from a Twitter user, suggesting using a GitHub gist. She also suggests that if you're one of those people who misses being in an office environment, you check out soundofcolleagues.com for ambient office noise selection. Chris has been struggling to actually do any coding and is adjusting to doing more product management and shares some strategies that have been helping him. They answer a listener question about dealing with large pull requests and how it's hard to recognize a good seam to break them up when you are in the thick of one. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Twitter note re: rspec-retry (https://twitter.com/jasonrudolph/status/1458416077726158852) soundofcolleagues.com (http

Chris finally got his new computer!

Steph talks about starting a new project and identifying "focused" tests while Chris shares his latest strategy for managing flaky tests. They also ponder the squishy "it depends" side of software and respond to a listener question about testing all commits in a pull request. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. rspec-retry (https://github.com/NoRedInk/rspec-retry) Cassidy Williams - It Depends - GitHub Universe 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMWh2uLO9OM) Say No To More Process (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/say-no-to-more-process-say-yes-to-trust) StandardRB (https://github.com/testdouble/standard) Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of The Bike Shed! Transcript: CHRIS: My new computer is due on the fourth. I'm so close. STEPH: On the fourth? CHRIS: On the fourth. STEPH: That's so exciting. CHRIS: And I'm very excited. But no, I don

Chris regains several of his developer merit badges and embarks on a perilous CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) adventure. Steph shares highlights from Plucky, a management training course, including ways we can "click" and "break apart" from our current role, and how to have hard conversations. They also discuss how software development processes change at different team sizes, processes that break down as teams grow, and processes that are resilient at any team size. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM (https://scoutapm.com/bikeshed). Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. The Nightmare Before Christmas - What's This (https://youtu.be/QLvvkTbHjHI) Giant Robots Smashing into other Giant Robots - Plucky with Jen Dary (https://www.giantrobots.fm/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=plucky) Plucky (https://www.beplucky.com/) Services are Not a Silver Bullet (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/services-are-not-a-silver-bullet) Become a Sponsor (

Steph talks about binging a few Things Worth Learning podcast episodes and particularly enjoyed an episode that featured one of thoughtbot's design directors, Sameera Kapila. Sam shared her expertise about management and inclusion, and Steph shares her favorite parts. Chris shares the story of a surprising error and the resulting journey through database transactions and Sidekiq that eventually resolved the issue. He also shares some follow up on the broken build and the merging process changes they introduced (spoiler, the process changes have been rolled back). Leading Inclusively, with Sameera Kapila - Things Worth Learning Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiV6_3pZFc0) How to Skim a Pull Request (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/a-smelly-list) Isolator (https://github.com/palkan/isolator) aftercommiteverywhere (https://github.com/Envek/after_commit_everywhere) timefora_boolean (https://github.com/calebhearth/time_for_a_boolean) Transcript: STEPH: Oh man, I'm about to stop eating my pop-tart. I'll put it

Chris evaluates the pros and cons between using Sidekiq or Active Job with Sidekiq. He sees exceptions everywhere. Steph talks about an SSL error that she encountered recently. It's officially spooky season, y'all! sidekiq-symbols (https://github.com/aprescott/sidekiq-symbols) Transcript: CHRIS: Additional radiation just makes Spider-Man more powerful. STEPH: [laughs] Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. Hey, Chris, what's new in your world? CHRIS: Fall is in the air. It's one of those, like, came out of nowhere. I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to happen. But now it's time for pumpkin beer and pumpkin spice lattes, and exclusively watching the movie Hocus Pocus for the next month or so or some variation of those themes. But unrelated to that, I did a thing that I do once

Longtime listener and friend of the show, Gio Lodi, released a book y'all should check out and Chris and Steph ruminate on a listener question about tension around marketing in open-source. Say No To More Process, Say Yes To Trust by German Velasco (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/say-no-to-more-process-say-yes-to-trust) Test-Driven Development in Swift with SwiftUI and Combine by Gio Lodi (https://tddinswift.com/) Transcript: CHRIS: Our golden roads. STEPH: All right. I am also golden. CHRIS: [vocalization] STEPH: Oh, I haven't listened to that episode where I just broke out in song in the middle. Oh, you're about to add the [vocalization] [chuckles]. CHRIS: I don't know why, though. Oh, golden roads, Golden Arches. STEPH: Golden Arches, yeah. CHRIS: Man, I did not know that my brain was doing that, but my brain definitely connected those without telling me about it. STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: It's weird. People talk often about the theory that phones are listening, and then you get targeted ads based on what yo

Chris talks feature flags featuring Flipper (Say that 3x fast!), and Steph talks reducing stress by a) having a work shutdown ritual and b) the fact that thoughtbot is experimenting with half-day Fridays. (Fri-yay?) Flipper (https://featureflags.io/2016/04/08/flipper-a-feature-flipper-feature-toggle-library/) Drastically Reduce Stress with a Work Shutdown Ritual (https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/08/drastically-reduce-stress-with-a-work-shutdown-ritual/) Iceland's Journey to a Short Working Week (https://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ICELAND_4DW.pdf) Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle (https://www.burnoutbook.net/) Transcript: STEPH: Hey, do you know that we could have an in-person recording at the end of October? CHRIS: I do. Yes, I'm planning. That is in the back of my head. I guess I hadn't said that to you yet. But I'm glad that we have separately had the same conversation, and we've got to figure that out, although I don't know how to do noise cancellation and whatnot in

Steph talks about a new GitHub feature and Twitter account (@RubyCards (https://twitter.com/RubyCards)) she's really excited about and Chris talks about his new job as a CTO of a startup and shifting away from writing code regularly. GitHub (https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/developing-in-codespaces/web-based-editor) RubyCards (https://twitter.com/RubyCards) Resilient Management (https://resilient-management.com/) The Manager's Path (https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth/dp/1491973897) Transcript: CHRIS: Oh God, my computer is so stupid slow. I need a new computer. STEPH: Come on, little computer, you can do it. You know you could just buy a new one. You don't have to wait for the fancy-schmancy M1. CHRIS: I want to wait for the fancy. I want it so bad. STEPH: [laughs] CHRIS: Do you know how long I've had this computer? And if I can hold out one more month, I want the fancy stuff. I've waited this long. Why would I give in now when I'm right on the cusp of victory? STEPH: One

You know what really grinds Chris' gears? (Spoiler Alert: It's Single-Page Applications.) Steph needs some consulting help. So much to do, so little time. Sarah Drasner tweet about shared element transitions (https://twitter.com/sarah_edo/status/1431282994581413893) Article about Page Transitions API (https://developer.chrome.com/blog/shared-element-transitions-for-spas/) Svelte Crossfade layout demo (https://svelte.dev/repl/a7af336f906c4caab3936972754e4d6f?version=3.23.2) Svelte Crossfade tutorial page (https://svelte.dev/tutorial/deferred-transitions) (Note - click "Show Me" on the bottom left) Transcript: CHRIS: I have restarted my recording, and we are now recording. And we are off on the golden roads. Isn't software fun? STEPH: Podcast battle. Here we go! Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learn

On this episode, Chris talks about testing external services and dissects a tweet on refinements for Result. Steph talks about thoughbot's recent improvement to their feature flag system. Links: refinements For Result (https://twitter.com/alassek/status/1430683412264857600) Faking External Services in Tests with Adapters by German Velasco (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/faking-external-services-in-tests-with-adapters) Testing Interaction with 3rd-party APIs (https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/videos/testing-interaction-with-3rd-party-apis) Transcript: CHRIS: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way. So, Steph, what's new with you? STEPH: Hey, Chris. Well, today is Summit Day at thoughtbot, and it's the day where all the bots gather, and we hang out, and we chat, and we play games. And it's a lo

In this episode, Steph and Chris talk about things they've changed their minds about over the course of their careers as software developers. Steph talks about as it turns out, arm chair rests are good, feature flags and comments are also good, she's changed her mind about how teams structure the work that each person is doing at once, and believes strongly in representation in the field. Chris is not a fan up upgrading his operating system and when he first started out, he gravitated towards learning dynamic languages, and since then, much prefers functional languages, static typing or more broadly, static analysis. He also no longer believes in the 10x engineer, and also very much believes that URLs matter on the internet. So basically, don't call them single-page applications; call them client-side applications instead! Arq (https://www.arqbackup.com/) Karabiner-Elements (https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/) Kent C. Dodd’s Epic React Course (https://epicreact.dev/) The Art of Code Comments by Sarah Drasne

This week Chris talks about Bifunctor optics and introduces an app he's been liking recently called CleanShot X, which is a replacement for the built-in screenshot utilities on OSX. Steph talks about her experience using New Relic Browser Stats to troubleshoot a slow page and burnout. Who's feeling it? (Raise your hand.) How do we identify it? What do we do about it? Svelte Is Beloved! - Stack Overflow Survey (https://twitter.com/sveltesociety/status/1422372693827985409?s=21) Bifunctors (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41073862/what-are-bifunctors/41075765#41075765) CleanShot X (https://cleanshot.com/) Next.js Image (https://nextjs.org/docs/api-reference/next/image) Transcript: CHRIS: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. And we're off the rails already, everybody. It's going to be a good one. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about deve

This is the sweeps week episode, the epic crossover episode, the mega episode! We have a very special episode as Chris, and Steph teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the hosts of Remote Ruby, Rails with Jason, and Brittany Martin, the host of the Ruby on Rails podcast. They cover the origins of their shows, their experiences as hosts, and why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving. Remote Ruby (https://remoteruby.transistor.fm/) Rails with Jason (https://www.codewithjason.com/rails-with-jason-podcast/) Ruby on Rails podcast (https://5by5.tv/rubyonrails) *Transcript: * STEPH: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. This week we have a very special episode as Chris, and I teamed up with the hosts of three other podcasts to bring you one giant, mega Ruby episode! In this episode, you'll hear from the

Chris gives a DB sessions update and talks bifunctors & command objects. Steph shares the coolness of a gem she's been using called after_party, and excitedly gushes about her new laptop. (Chris is hoping to hold off on replacing his until the end of the year and then they can compare!) The two then answer a listener question on retrospectives and how they've seen productive ones run, while giving some of their own helpful opinions on dos and don'ts. They're talking to you, Grumpy Goose! dry-monads gem (https://github.com/dry-rb/dry-monads) attr_extras gem (https://github.com/barsoom/attr_extras) after_party gem (https://github.com/theSteveMitchell/after_party) What Went Well? - Bike Shed 123 (https://www.bikeshed.fm/132) What I Believe About Software - Bike Shed 172 (https://www.bikeshed.fm/172) Is Agile Over? - Bike Shed 299 (https://www.bikeshed.fm/299) Running a Retrospective - Upcase (https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/videos/running-a-retrospective) Transcript: STEPH: Cool. [laughter] CHRIS: Good. No, I li

Tune in as Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb, an observability platform, Charity Majors joins Chris to drop some knowlege bombs such as: Thinking of observability as being about the unknown unknowns: Allowing for high cardinality, high dimensionality, ad hoc queries at any point in time. Comparing instrumentation to a muscle: It's a habit that needs to be developed and fostered. Sincere continuous deployment: 15 minutes or bust. And bunches more, since y'all know you hear her name come up at least once during every other episode! Honeycomb.io (https://www.honeycomb.io/) o11ycast (https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/o11ycast/) Charity's blog (charity.wtf) (https://charity.wtf/) Charity on twitter (https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy) Charity's post on cost of not doing continuous deployment (https://charity.wtf/2021/02/19/how-much-is-your-fear-costing-you/) Charity's post - The Engineer Manager Pendulum (https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/) Transcript: CHRIS: Hello, and w

What do you get when you mix a worm and a hammerhead shark? Also ants. Steph made some cool new discoveries in bug-land. She also talks about deploys versus releases and how her and her team has changed their deploy structure. Two words: feature flags. Chris talks about cookies: cookie sessions, cookie payloads, cookie footprints, cookie storing. Mmm cookies! The convo wraps up with lamenting over truthiness in code. Truthy or falsy? What's your call? Flipper (https://www.flippercloud.io/) Bike Shed - Ask a Question Form (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdaFfPYoWmtV3IR3eQRjNz731GJ_a2X6CpZFxKjdPZeztGXKA/viewform) Transcript: STEPH: At the top of my notes for today, I have marauder ants and hammerhead worms. [laughs] CHRIS: I'm sorry, what? I lost you there for...not lost you, but I stopped following. I...what? Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Chris Toomey. STEPH: And I'm Steph Viccari. CHRIS: An