Best Codebasics Podcasts (2024)

1
433: Riffing with Kasper Timm Hansen 37:20

26m ago37:20

37:20

Have you ever wondered how improvisation can revolutionize coding? In today’s episode, Stephanie sits down with Kasper Timm Hansen to discuss his innovative “riffing” approach to code development. Kasper is a long-time Ruby developer and former member of the Rails core team. He focuses on Ruby and domain modeling, developing various Ruby gems, and …

1
432: The Semantics and Meaning of Nil 38:13

4d ago38:13

38:13

The term ‘nil’ refers to the absence of value, but we often imbue it with much more meaning than just that. Today, hosts Joël and Stephanie discuss the various ways we tend to project extra semantics onto nil and the implications of this before unpacking potential alternatives and trade-offs. Joël and Stephanie highlight some of the key ways progra…

1
431: Developers Are Professional Question Askers 38:54

11d ago38:54

38:54

Stephanie shares her newfound interest in naming conventions, highlighting a resource called "Classnames" that provides valuable names for programming and design. Joël, in turn, talks about using AI to generate names for D&D characters, emphasizing how AI can help provide inspiration and reasoning behind name suggestions. Then, they shift to Joël's…

1
430: Test Suite Pain & Anti-Patterns 40:57

18d ago40:57

40:57

Stephanie and Joël discuss the recent announcement of the call for proposals for RubyConf in November. Joël is working on his proposals and encouraging his colleagues at thoughtbot to participate, while Stephanie is excited about the conference being held in her hometown of Chicago! The conversation shifts to Stephanie's recent work, including comp…

1
429: Transforming Experience Into Growth 43:38

25d ago43:38

43:38

Stephanie has a newfound interest in urban foraging for serviceberries in Chicago. Joël discusses how he uses AI tools like ChatGPT to generate creative Dungeons & Dragons character concepts and backstories, which sparks a broader conversation with Stephanie about AI's role in enhancing the creative process. Together, the hosts delve into professio…

1
428: Ruminating on Ruby Enumerators 35:44

1M ago35:44

35:44

Joël explains his note-taking system, which he uses to capture his beliefs and thoughts about software development. Stephanie recalls feedback from her recent RailsConf talk, where her confidence stemmed from deeply believing in her material despite limited rehearsal. This leads to a conversation about the value of mental models in building a compr…

1
427: RailsConf Recap and Conversing About Coupling 37:03

2M ago37:03

37:03

Joël and Stephanie talk RailsConf!. Joël shares how he performed as a D&D character, Glittersense the gnome, to make his Turbo features talk entertaining and interactive. Stephanie's talk focused on addressing test pain by connecting it to code coupling, offering practical insights and solutions. They agree on the importance of continuous improveme…

1
426: Bringing "Our Selves" to Work 33:04

2M ago33:04

33:04

Joël shares his preparations for his RailsConf talk, which is D&D-themed and centered around a gnome character named Glittersense. Stephanie expresses her delight in creating pod-related puns within thoughtbot's internal team structure, like "cross-podination" for inter-pod meetings and the adorable observation that her pod resembles "three peas in…

1
425: Modeling Associations in Rails 29:39

2M ago29:39

29:39

Stephanie shares an intriguing discovery about the origins of design patterns in software, tracing them back to architect Christopher Alexander's ideas in architecture. Joël is an official member of the Boston bike share system, and he loves it. He even got a notification on the app this week: "Congratulations. You have now visited 10% of all docki…

1
424: The Spectrum of Automated Processes for Your Dev Team 36:47

3M ago36:47

36:47

Joël shares his experience with the dry-rb suite of gems, focusing on how he's been using contracts to validate input data. Stephanie relates to Joël's insights with her preparation for RailsConf, discussing her methods for presenting code in slides and weighing the aesthetics and functionality of different tools like VS Code and Carbon.sh. She als…

1
423: Cognitive Strategies for Coders 39:52

3M ago39:52

39:52

Stephanie is back with a book recommendation: "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows. This book has helped to bolster her understanding of complex systems in environmental, organizational, and software contexts, particularly through user interactions and system changes. Joël describes his transformative experience watching last week's total solar…

1
422: Listener Topics Grab Bag 35:23

3M ago35:23

35:23

Joël conducted a thoughtbot mini-workshop on query plans, which Stephanie found highly effective due to its interactive format. They then discuss the broader value of interactive workshops over traditional talks for deeper learning. Addressing listener questions, Stephanie and Joël explore the strategic use of if and else in programming for clearer…

1
421: The Idealistic vs. Pragmatic Programmer 41:01

3M ago41:01

41:01

Stephanie revisits the concept of "spiking"—a phase of exploration to determine the feasibility of a technical implementation or to address unknowns in feature requests—sharing her recent experiences with a legacy Rails application. Joël brings a different perspective by discussing his involvement with a client project that heavily utilizes the dry…

1
420: Test Database Woes 28:16

4M ago28:16

28:16

Joël shares his recent project challenge with Tailwind CSS, where classes weren't generating as expected due to the dynamic nature of Tailwind's CSS generation and pruning. Stephanie introduces a personal productivity tool, a "thinking cap," to signal her thought process during meetings, which also serves as a physical boundary to separate work fro…

1
419: What's New in Your World? (Extended Edition) 37:13

4M ago37:13

37:13

Stephanie introduces her ideal setup for enjoying coffee on a bike ride. Joël describes his afternoon tea ritual. Exciting news from the hosts: both have been accepted to speak at RailsConf! Stephanie's presentation, titled "So, Writing Tests Feels Painful. What now?" aims to tackle the issues developers encounter with testing while offering action…

1
418: Mental Models For Reduce Functions 42:50

4M ago42:50

42:50

Joël talks about his difficulties optimizing queries in ActiveRecord, especially with complex scopes and unions, resulting in slow queries. He emphasizes the importance of optimizing subqueries in unions to boost performance despite challenges such as query duplication and difficulty reusing scopes. Stephanie discusses upgrading a client's app to R…

1
417: Module Docs 39:32

4M ago39:32

39:32

Stephanie shares about her vacation at Disney World, particularly emphasizing the technological advancements in the park's mobile app that made her visit remarkably frictionless. Joël had a conversation about a topic he loves: units of measure, and he got to go deep into the idea of dimensional analysis with someone this week. Together, Joël and St…

1
416: Multi-Dimensional Numbers 39:31

5M ago39:31

39:31

Joël discusses the challenges he encountered while optimizing slow SQL queries in a non-Rails application. Stephanie shares her experience with canary deploys in a Rails upgrade. Together, Stephanie and Joël address a listener's question about replacing the wkhtml2pdf tool, which is no longer maintained. The episode's main topic revolves around the…

1
415: Codebase Calibration 30:54

6M ago30:54

30:54

Stephanie has a delightful and cute Ruby thing to share: Honeybadger, the error monitoring service, has created exceptionalcreatures.com, where they've illustrated and characterized various common Ruby errors into little monsters, and they're adorable. Meanwhile, Joël encourages folks to submit proposals for RailsConf. Together, Stephanie and Joël …

1
414: Spike Tasks 31:46

6M ago31:46

31:46

Joël shares his recent experience with Turbo, a JavaScript framework that simplifies adding interactivity to websites without extensive JavaScript coding. Stephanie gives an update on her quest to work from her office more, and the birds have arrived—most notably, chickadees. Stephanie and Joël address a listener question from Edward about the conc…

1
413: Developer Tales of Package Management 33:33

6M ago33:33

33:33

Stephanie shares her task of retiring a small, internally-used link-shortening app. She describes the process as both celebratory and a bit mournful. Meanwhile, Joël discusses his deep dive into ActiveRecord, particularly in the context of debugging. He explores the complexities of ActiveRecord querying schemas and the additional latency this intro…

1
412: Vertical Slices 32:23

6M ago32:23

32:23

Joël shares a unique, time-specific bug he encountered, which causes a page to crash only in January. This bug has been fixed in previous years, only to reemerge due to subsequent changes. Stephanie talks about her efforts to bring more structure to her work-from-home environment. She describes how setting up a bird feeder near her desk and keeping…

1
411: Celebrating and Recapping 2023! 38:40

7M ago38:40

38:40

Stephanie is hosting a holiday cookie swap. Joël talks about participating in thoughtbot's end-of-the-year hackathon, Ralphapalooza. We had a great year on the show! The hosts wrap up the year and discuss their favorite episodes, the articles, books, and blog posts they’ve read and loved, and other highlights of 2023 (projects, conferences, etc). O…

1
410: All About Documentation 32:02

7M ago32:02

32:02

Joël shares his experiences with handling JSON in a Postgres database. He talks about his challenges with ActiveRecord and JSONB columns, particularly the unexpected behavior of storing and retrieving JSON data. Stephanie shares her recent discovery of bookmarklets and highlights a bookmarklet named "Check This Out," which streamlines searching for…

1
409: Support & Maintenance and Rotating Developers 28:07

8M ago28:07

28:07

Stephanie recommends "Blue Eye Samurai" and a new ceramic pot (donabe) for cooking. Joël talks about the joy of holding a warm beverage in a unique mug. Stephanie discusses her shift to a part-time support and maintenance role at thoughtbot, contrasting it with her full-time development work. She highlights the importance of communication, document…

1
Deep Down the Netcode 3:15:43

8M ago3:15:43

3:15:43

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at [https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast](https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast) Join the Discord! - [https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX](https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX) Buy some Merch! - [https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/](https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/) * * * The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamema…

1
408: Work Device Management 32:57

8M ago32:57

32:57

Joël recaps his time at RubyConf! He shares insights from his talk about different aspects of time in software development, emphasizing the interaction with the audience and the importance of post-talk discussions. Stephanie talks about wrapping up a long-term client project, the benefits of change and variety in consulting, and maintaining a balan…

1
407: Tech Opinions Online with Edward Loveall 36:44

8M ago36:44

36:44

Stephanie interviews Edward Loveall, a former thoughtbotter, now software developer at Relevant Healthcare. Part of their discussion centers around Edward's blog post on the tech industry's over-reliance on GitHub. He argues for the importance of exploring alternatives to avoid dependency on a single platform and encourages readers to make informed…

1
You got a light? 3:50:19

8M ago3:50:19

3:50:19

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX Buy some Merch! - https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/ **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn…

1
406: Working Solo 32:27

8M ago32:27

32:27

Joël got to do some pretty fancy single sign-on work. And when it came time to commit, he documented the ridiculous number of redirects to give people a sense of what was happening. Stephanie has been exploring Rails callbacks and Ruby debugging tools, using methods like save_callbacks and Kernel.caller, and creating a function call graph to better…

1
405: Retro: Sandi Metz Rules 31:58

9M ago31:58

31:58

Stephanie discovered a new book: The Staff Engineer's Path! Joël's got some D&D goodness. Together, they revisit a decade-old blog post initially published in 2013, which discussed the application of Sandi Metz's coding guidelines and whether these rules remain relevant and practiced among developers today. The Manager’s Path The Staff Engineer’s P…

1
Cool as a Rockerboy 3:19:54

9M ago3:19:54

3:19:54

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX Buy some Merch! - https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/ **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn…

1
Lost in the Codebase Part 2 44:07

9M ago44:07

44:07

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX Buy some Merch! - https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/ **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn…

1
Lost in the Codebase Part 1 2:56:16

9M ago2:56:16

2:56:16

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX Buy some Merch! - https://component-cast.myspreadshop.co.uk/ **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn…

1
404: Estimation 22:49

9M ago22:49

22:49

Joël was selected to speak at RubyConf in San Diego! After spending a month testing out living in Upstate New York, Stephanie is back in Chicago. Stephanie reflects on a recent experience where she had to provide an estimate for a project, even though she didn't have enough information to do so accurately. In this episode, Stephanie and Joël explor…

1
403: Productivity Tricks 37:49

10M ago37:49

37:49

Stephanie is engrossed in Kent Beck's Substack newsletter, which she appreciates for its "working thoughts" format. Unlike traditional media that undergo rigorous editing, Kent's content is more of a work-in-progress, focusing on thought processes and evolving ideas. Joël has been putting a lot of thought into various tools and techniques and reali…

1
402: Musings on Mentorship 37:56

10M ago37:56

37:56

Joël describes an old-school object orientation exercise that involves circling nouns in a business problem description. The purpose is determining which nouns could become entities or objects in a system. Stephanie shares she's working from the Hudson Valley in New York as a trial run for potentially relocating there. She enjoys the rail trails fo…

1
When The Reaves Come Calling 3:49:54

10M ago3:49:54

3:49:54

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at [https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast](https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast) Join the Discord! - [https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX](https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX) * * * The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Roussea…

1
401: Making the Right Thing Easy 31:24

10M ago31:24

31:24

Stephanie has another debugging mystery to share. Earlier this year, Joël mentioned that he was experimenting with a bookmark manager to keep track of helpful and interesting articles. He's happy to report that it's working very well for him! Together, they discuss tactics to ensure the easiest route also upholds app health and aids fellow develope…

1
A Lack of Tact 3:58:07

11M ago3:58:07

3:58:07

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
400: How To Search 36:02

11M ago36:02

36:02

Joël shares he has been getting more into long-form reading. Stephanie talks about the challenges she faced in a new project that required integrating with another company's system. Together, they delve into the importance of search techniques for developers, covering various approaches to finding information online. Domain Modeling Made Functional…

1
399: Scaling Code Ownership and Accountability 34:16

11M ago34:16

34:16

Stephanie experienced bike camping. Joël describes his experience during a week when he's in between projects. Stephanie and Joël discuss the concept of code ownership, the mechanisms to enforce it, and the balance between bureaucracy and collaboration. They highlight the challenges and benefits of these systems in large codebases and emphasize tha…

1
398: Developing Heuristics For Writing Software 34:07

11M ago34:07

34:07

Want a cool cucumber salad? Joël's got you covered. Stephanie has evolved and found some pickles she enjoys. Experienced programmers use a lot of heuristics or "rules of thumb" about what makes their code better. These aren't always true, but they work in most situations. Stephanie and Joël discuss a range of heuristics, how to use them, how to com…

1
Into the Fray 4:00:30

11M ago4:00:30

4:00:30

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
Corpo Greed, What the Corpos need 3:45:51

11M ago3:45:51

3:45:51

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
Chrome Body, Steel Mind 3:50:31

11M ago3:50:31

3:50:31

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
The Hunt Begins Part 2 1:53:03

11M ago1:53:03

1:53:03

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
The Hunt Begins Part 1 1:41:10

11M ago1:41:10

1:41:10

Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Saint" Augustine Aidyn Rousseau - Adalinda Price "Jackalope" Shannon - Corbin "Umbr…

1
Welcome to Night City 3:39:45

11M ago3:39:45

3:39:45

Welcome to Night City, a beautiful, dangerous place filled with lust and profit. Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/componentcast Join the Discord! - https://discord.gg/NVmHBXNfBX **************************************** The Cast: Beth Dillingham as Gamemaster DM Lake - Leon "Mars" Marston Mr Mizzx - Dantae "Little Sa…

1
397: Dependency Graphs 42:53

11M ago42:53

42:53

Stephanie is consciously trying to make meetings better for herself by limiting distractions. A few episodes ago, Joël talked about a frustrating bug he was chasing down and couldn't get closure on, so he had to move on. This week, that bug popped up again and he chased it down! AND he got to use binary search to find its source–which was pretty co…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Codebasics Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide