Podcast
Elixir Outlaws Podcast
Episode 87: All Benefits and No Tradeoffs
This week kicks off with a discussion of Amos’ reading list. Soon, the Outlaws speculate about the Elixir benchmarks José Valim has been teasing. Chris explains his frustration with “modern infrastructure” and programmers choosing complex solutions they don’t need.
Episode 86: Time is Problematic
Chris has been drawing maps for his Dungeons and Dragons game, and he’s pretty proud of them. Amos is trying to order events and has questions about hybrid logical clocks, leading to a discussion of what ordering even is and why it’s such a problem in distributed systems.
Episode 85: Showin’ Up and Sayin’ Words
Chris has introduced Amos to Japandroids, resulting in discussion about embarrassing punk music. Chris is thirsty for some Elixir news, and Amos wants to know how Chris gets things done. The guys discuss how they cultivate their personal skill sets, how they’re both bad mentors, and how to read white papers. Chris teases his latest project, which may or may not ever be seen by other people.
Episode 84: The G stands for Garbage
Chris has a soundboard and he’s not afraid to use it. This week, Amos and Chris discuss planning for failures, overload, distributed transactions, and resilience.
Episode 83: The Seven Levels of Shell
This week, the hosts are joined by friend of the show Jeff Weiss. They discuss when it’s better to build your own solution, TLA+, fountain pens, and writing letters.
Episode 82: Rapid is Relative
This week kicks off with a large dose of 2020 ennui. Chris recommends that they move on rapidly since no one wants to listen to complaints about the state of the world. It turns out that Chris is currently using LiveView. The consensus is that LiveView is pretty cool even though it took 4 hours to get a modal to work.
Episode 81: That’s Not Math
Anna has a new espresso machine and both Chris and Amos are very jealous. Chris wonders how Anna is going to make good coffee without someone judging her. Amos is hiring employees and wants advice on how to conduct better interviews.
Episode 80: The Ish is What Matters
This week starts with a discussion of Dungeons and Dragons and how great it is. Amos and Chris agree that roll20 is janky, but – like emacs – it’s lovably janky.
The main discussion is about modeling problems using data structures instead of processes. The guys agree that manipulating data with pure functions is a good thing and that the tricky part is where to put this data when you’re done. Chris cautions against the desire to put all of your data into a single global process. Databases are sucky global variables, but at least they’re global variables with rules.
Episode 79: Providing Value
Chris and Amos discuss contracting and how it’s different than working for a product company (beyond the obvious tax implications). Chris believes product companies only pay contractors when they absolutely have to. The main topic this week is software quality, if it’s a real thing, and if it so, how do we get more of it?
Episode 78: Strategically Planned Coffees
Chris solicits feedback from the other hosts on his notion that business logic isn’t a “real thing,” Anna and Amos discuss the degree to which Chris might be a pedant. The show wraps up with a discussion on how to change the way programmers can grow and think differently about problems.