Episodes

  • Today, we bring a very special guest, one whose face you might recognise, one that appears on your homepages with a sporadic video and seemingly disappears. His name is Benjamin Burke, or simply Ben, he’s the co-creator of KRAZAM, a channel that consists of sketches that combine grotesque and absurdist humor with technological anxiety, satirizing the tech industry and the modern alienation of the corporate life in general.

    In this episode, which admittedly is a bit different from the usual, we’ll focus on KRAZAM and its origins, creative process, and what future plans and ambitions the duo has. Both Ben and Shiva started in software engineering, met in college and started doing sketches just for fun, not expecting this project to explode in popularity in the way it did. Ben will also share their unique approach to content and why KRAZAM prioritizes loyal viewers over virality, comedic inspirations. Stay tuned!

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    KRAZAM'S Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KRAZAM/videos

    KRAZAM's X/Twitter: https://x.com/krazamtv

    KRAZAM'S Website: https://www.krazam.tv/

    Krazam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/KRAZAM

    Ben's X/Twitter: https://x.com/bb_fresh

    Ben's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bnjmnbrk/

    Shiva's X/Twitter: https://x.com/shivakilaru

    Shiva's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shivakilaru/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 - Intro

    01:58 - KRAZAM Origin Story

    03:59 - How Much More Footage Is Left After the Recordings?

    05:12 - Are Both Ben and Shiva Programmers?

    06:46 - Inspiration Behind "The Hustle"

    08:47 - Has Ben Read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations"?

    09:25 - The Actual Introduction to KRAZAM

    10:49 - Microservices

    14:04 - Sending Birthday Messages Is HARD

    19:06 - On Shiva Not Being in the Microservices Video

    20:48 - Favorite KRAZAM Videos

    22:22 - Most Underrated KRAZAM Video

    32:00 - KRAZAM's Viewers Are Very Loyal

    36:03 - Ambitions for the KRAZAM Channel

    39:04 - How Did You Know KRAZAM Had Product-Market Fit?

    40:59 - Ben's Comedic Inspirations

    43:08 - KRAZAM Does Not Aim for Virality

    46:47 - Was It Stressful to Do a Live Talk?

    49:40 - KRAZAM's Video Release Frequency

    51:46 - Competitive Excel

    55:34 - Site Reliability Engineer Video

    57:50 - AI Bots on Spotify

    01:00:27 - Self-Hosting and The Good Old Days

    01:02:31 - What's the Churn in the Industry?

    01:05:21 - Where to Find Ben and KRAZAM

  • Lane chats with Chris Ferdinandi—creator of Go Make Things and ADHD for the Win—a frontend dev, educator, and all-around expert in making JavaScript (and learning) simpler. Chris has built a career helping devs cut through the noise, level up their skills, and embrace ADHD-friendly ways to stay focused and productive.


    We dive into his journey from discovering his own ADHD to reshaping how people learn to code. We talk about why so many devs have ADHD, how gamification can actually help (when done right), and how today’s tech is messing with our attention spans. Plus, we get into the psychology of learning and what actually works when it comes to staying engaged and motivated.


    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm


    ADHD ftw! : https://adhdftw.com/backend-banter/

    Go Make Things: https://gomakethings.com/

    https://bsky.app/profile/cferdinandi.bsky.social

    https://mastodon.social/@cferdinandi


    00:00 - Intro

    01:58 - Why so many devs have ADHD

    03:21 - Quick explanation of ADHD

    07:10 - Is ADHD actually more common now?

    17:41 - ADHD, dopamine, and why we can’t put our phones down

    20:50 - Trying meds for ADHD – what’s it like?

    22:34 - How ADHDftw got started

    24:21 - Why finishing big projects is so damn hard

    25:54 - Best content styles for ADHD brains

    28:40 - Gamification: What works and what’s just hype?

    34:16 - Which gamer type fits ADHD folks best?

    39:27 - Is TikTok basically junk food for your brain?

    41:45 - Must-read books on focus and getting stuff done

    43:43 - Where to find Chris and his content

    46:26 - Is ADHD a gift or a curse?

    59:30 - Brutally honest feedback for Boot.dev

    01:18:58 - Outro


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  • We’re joined by Danny Thompson, currently Director of Technology at This Dot Labs and technical leader and organizer of the Dallas Software Developers Group, where he fosters vibrant local tech ecosystem through workshops, cohorts, and meetups.

    With a passion to help others learn and find jobs, Danny shares his stories and insights that he gained throughout his extensive and fascinating career! From working as a cashier to now giving talks and organizing meetups for which people fly out to attend, Danny talks about how he got into coding in the first place and his progression, his advice to new developers, how does AI impact jobs now and his perspective on how it will change in the future and a lot more!

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player - https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Danny's X/Twitter: https://x.com/DThompsonDev

    Danny's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dthompsondev/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 - Intro

    02:14 - How Danny Got Into Coding

    05:08 - Meetups and Affordable Conferences

    23:37 - Overview of This Dot Labs

    29:28 - Building Apps on Top of Stripe

    30:30 - Businesses Focus on Functionality Over Aesthetics

    33:00 - Danny's Career Progression

    38:39 - Pros and Cons of Product vs. Consulting

    43:12 - This Dot Labs Regarding AI

    46:46 - Interest Rates &. AI: Impact on Developer Jobs

    55:31 - The Pressure to Perform at a High Level

    57:51 - Why Recruiters Do Not Call You Back

    01:03:41 - Getting Feedback After Interviews

    01:04:49 - Danny's LinkedIn Courses and Where to Find Him

  • This week on Backend Banter, we’re joined by Ryan Fleury, a talented game developer currently working with Epic Games on their Rad Debugger project. Ryan shares his journey from building games to creating powerful developer tools, offering insights into arenas, memory management, and the fascinating world of programming from the ground up.

    In this episode, we dive deep into memory management, exploring the differences between stack, heap, and arenas, and how they shape modern development. We discuss the trade-offs of various allocation strategies, the magic of pointer stability, and how arenas simplify managing lifetimes in both games and other applications. Along the way, Ryan shares his approach to developing tools, insights into game development workflows, and practical tips for clean and efficient programming.

    Learn back-end development: https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Ryan's Socials:

    Rad Debugger: https://github.com/EpicGamesExt/raddebugger

    Website: https://www.rfleury.com/

    X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanjfleury

    Timestamps:

    00:00 - Intro

    00:54 - Ryan Fleury's Path to Game Development

    02:49 - From Engines to Debugging Tools

    06:51 - Arenas Explained: Memory Management Basics

    16:51 - Arenas vs. Garbage Collectors

    27:40 - Real-World Applications of Arenas

    31:39 - Why Pointer Stability Matters

    42:57 - Dynamic Allocation Made Simple

    48:48 - How Arenas Streamline Development

    01:01:38 - Debugging Tools and the Rad Debugger

    01:09:43 - Where to find Ryan

  • We're back for Backend Banter Season 2, and we bring a very special guest, José Valim, the creator of the Elixir Programming Language, one of the most popular and loved functional programming languages of today. (Fun fact: it's used in production at Discord).

    We cover the nitty-gritty of the language, ranging from simple topics such as the decision behind not making Elixir be statically typed, into the more complex cross-machine communication. We go over how Elixir's features compare with those of other languages, work habits of today's developers, José's own day-to-day development, and a lot more!

    Today's talk encompasses a great variety of themes, so grab your coffee and tune in!

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Livebook & Elixir Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pas9WdWIBHs

    Elixir Programming Language: https://elixir-lang.org/

    Livebook: https://livebook.dev/

    Elixir In Action Book: https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-third-edition

    José's Socials:

    X/Twitter: https://x.com/josevalim

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josevalim

    GitHub: https://github.com/josevalim

    Timestamps:

    00:00 - Intro

    01:06 - Embarrassing Stories with Foreign Languages

    02:58 - Who is José Valim? (and Elixir's Popularity)

    06:51 - Does José Use Phoenix a Lot?

    08:28 - Why Isn't Elixir Statically Typed?

    16:51 - External Input vs. Internal Code Logic

    28:16 - Quick Overview of BEAM languages

    31:23 - Elixir’s Equivalent to Golang’s Goroutines & Channels

    42:43 - Cross-Machine Communication in Standard Libraries

    49:15 - Do You Need RabbitMQ When Writing Elixir?

    54:53 - Built-In Features in the Standard Library

    01:01:52 - Why People Are Too Used To Work The Hard Way

    01:04:22 - José and DHH

    01:08:01 - Favorite Elixir Features & Immutability

    01:17:49 - Purity in Functional Programming

    01:21:35 - Where to find José

  • Today, we bring you the final episode of the first season of Backend Banter! It’s a wrap up for now. With 69 episodes behind us, we want to tell you the story of Boot Dev and how far we’ve come from our beginnings, and for that, we bring Allan Lires, the first official employee and the second person to work on our platform!

    We’re going to cover our entire timeline, achievements, hardships, how Lane and Allan were able to go all-in on building Boot Dev and our visions and plans for the future.

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Allan's X/Twitter: https://x.com/AllanLires

    Boot.Dev Discord: https://discord.com/invite/EEkFwbv

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:01 Last episode of Season 1 of Backend Banter

    01:45 Boot.dev Story and what this episode will be about

    02:26 How and when Allan was hired to work at Boot.dev

    05:33 Timeline on Boot.dev

    08:53 Guessing game

    10:34 The Rebranding Process

    12:43 Going Full-time

    14:56 What was the curriculum in the beginning?

    18:38 What was the original vision for Boot.dev

    19:17 Being honest about how long it'll take you to learn to code

    22:48 Setting expectations for difficulty

    29:55 On learning the fundamentals

    34:42 The Long Term vision of Boot.dev

    41:30 Old gamification features and why we changed them

    50:26 The Track is Never Complete

    55:01 We cover a lot of the basics that traditional colleges don't cover

    01:00:06 Why do we want to remove JavaScript from the learning course

    01:06:12 Million Lessons Completed in a single month

    01:08:28 You got to be comfortable being uncomfortable

    01:13:25 Where to find Allan

  • Today we welcome Chuck Carpenter aka Charles The 3rd, co-host at Whiskey Web and Whatnot.

    As two content creators in the tech scene, we discuss if and how celebrity developers and tech influencers are a good thing for the community, how we should be careful when choosing technologies based on influencers’ opinions, why so many people nowadays want to speedrun their whole career and how that could be self-sabotage, and a lot more!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Whiskey Web and Whatnot: https://whiskey.fm/

    Charles' X/Twitter: https://x.com/charleswthe3rd

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    01:27 Does Charles listen to his own podcast episodes?

    03:33 Are celebrity developers a good thing?

    09:11 Podcasts are usually centered around a business

    10:06 We are essentially entertainers

    14:04 Tech choices being influenced by creators

    17:37 Why ThePrimeagen stood out from other tech influencers

    20:26 Career speedrunning

    23:44 The biggest miss when starting something

    24:51 What is wrong with Full-Stack application frameworks?

    29:03 How Frankenstein is the Boot.dev web application stack

    37:41 Rolling your own stuff vs using a provider

    46:01 It's easy to screw up your architecture

    50:53 What is Charles building with in 2024 and what is his preferred stack

    56:39 Does it seem like people don't talk about security anymore?

    01:00:30 Accessibility

    01:02:02 The amount of people that are "kinda" interested in cybersecurity

    01:11:03 Have some patience

    01:11:37 Where to find Charles

  • In today’s episode, we bring back Aaron Francis. If you haven’t watched our previous episode with him, he is a software developer, fellow content creator and co-founder of Try Hard Studios. In the past he’s been an accountant at a Big 4 but now he focuses on Laravel, web development and all things business and video.

    This episode will step away from the usual tech focused content and we’ll talk a bit more about the business side of things, how you have to balance entertainment and education when creating courses, Aaron’s High Performance SQLite course, building a personal brand through the discomfort of centering it around yourself, how good presentation matters and how proactiveness puts you miles ahead of the majority, so stay tuned!

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Aaron's X/Twitter: https://x.com/aarondfrancis

    Aaron's Website: https://aaronfrancis.com/

    High Performance SQLite: https://highperformancesqlite.com/

    Screencasting: https://screencasting.com/

    Mostly Technical Podcast: https://mostlytechnical.com/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    01:32 Podcast listening going up when having a kid

    02:25 Podcast about earning the first million

    08:54 You have to choose the entertainment vs education levels

    10:37 You have to shape your material to the platforms

    16:40 Long hour videos vs 2 minute ones

    20:16 Are the videos in the High Performance SQLite in linear order?

    24:19 Figuring out the metrics

    28:06 Building courses on other domains

    31:46 Building brands is difficult

    35:55 quick disclaimer

    36:30 Personal brand vs company

    37:57 Is this sellable?

    40:23 Do you need an audience?

    44:26 The strategy is simple but it is also hard to execute

    49:31 The presentation matters a LOT

    51:54 On being proactive

    57:00 Where to find Aaron

  • In today’s episode, we bring Adam Argyle, a CSS Dev Rel at Google, content creator, co-host at CSS Podcast, Bad At CSS Podcast and host of GUI Challenges. He’s also the creator of a bunch of tools and utilities for the front-end.

    We’re going to touch on a lot of hot topics, regarding the difficulty and power of CSS, how programmers most of the time underestimate and dismiss it as something trivial when in reality it’s one of the hardest things to master in the programming world. We also go over AI, the barriers between designers and developers and a bunch of other topics.

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Adam's Website: https://nerdy.dev/

    Adam's X/Twitter: https://x.com/argyleink

    Adam on Chrome For Developers: https://chromeextensionsdocs.appspot.com/authors/argyle/

    The CSS Podcast: https://thecsspodcast.libsyn.com/

    Bad at CSS Podcast: https://badatcss.com/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:51 CSS Wizard has entered the chat

    02:37 HTML and CSS are not programming languages

    07:44 There's a case for complex things using CSS

    10:28 CSS is declarative by nature

    17:58 Writing CSS is a pain

    20:43 AI isn't a threat to CSS

    21:19 Breaking barriers between designers and developers

    26:33 Getting to an entry-level competency on the backend is a bit more difficult when compared to the frontend

    31:37 Adam's backstory

    33:40 Knowing everything

    34:56 The majority of the complexity lives on the frontend a lot of the times

    38:48 South Park Reality

    39:49 BFF vs BOF (Backend for frontend vs Backend of the Frontend)

    47:03 CSS is typed in the browser

    51:28 Take on why are there so many mormons and ex-mormons in the webdev and tech influencer scene?

    54:08 Where to find Adam

  • In today’s episode, we welcome Matt Pocock, an educator, content creator and engineer who used to be a voice coach. Now, he teaches Typescript on his YouTube channel and is building Total Typescript, the most comprehensive TypeScript course available out there.

    We talk about his transition from a completely unrelated field into tech, the importance of great communication, TypeScript’s future, AI tooling and job hunts! A lot more else is covered in this video, so get cozy and tune in into this gem of an episode!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Matt's X/Twitter: https://x.com/mattpocockuk

    Total Typescript: https://www.totaltypescript.com/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    01:15 What did Matt do before becoming a dev?

    03:15 Career Transitions from a non-math background

    04:02 What makes a good programmer?

    06:46 Math knowledge > great communication?

    08:55 On writing elaborate PR's

    09:58 OCaml my Typescript

    11:00 What is Typescript's Future?

    14:21 Python type hinting and JSDoc

    20:36 null vs undefined

    25:02 interfaces vs type aliases

    32:35 Does Matt have any rules of thumb when working with types?

    37:14 How do you build nice encapsulated components with no external dependencies?

    43:43 AI tooling integration

    46:15 Will there be fewer jobs?

    52:00 How often do you use classes?

    54:29 Where to find Matt

  • In today’s episode, we welcome Lawrence Lockhart, a former hospitality manager turned full stack software developer. Apart from his tech job, he’s also a developer advocate, a teaching assistant at a coding bootcamp and a tech meetup leader, so you know he spends a lot of his time helping others build and transfer their existing skills into tech, being a powerful voice in the tech space for upcoming developers.

    Today we talk briefly about how he managed to switch from hospitality to tech, and how that wasn’t as easy as a lot of people online make it out to be, the importance of local and in-person jobs as opposed to starting off remote, how learning with purpose is essential if you want to make progress and advice for people starting out!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Code Connector: https://codeconnector.io

    Lawrence's X/Twitter: https://x.com/LawrenceDCodes

    Lawrence's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawrencedlockhart

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:44 When did Lawrence start to be more involved in the online tech communities?

    02:23 How did Lawrence meet James Q Quick

    04:42 Transition from a Blue Collar job into Tech

    10:59 6 months is not the standard anymore to get in the industry

    13:44 The Timeline Discussion

    15:56 Kelsey Hightower

    18:09 Has Lawrence worked as a dev in non-tech companies and where he works now

    23:33 It's IMPORTANT to go for local market and in-person jobs first

    24:27 How networking actually works

    28:46 Learning with a purpose

    36:43 You shouldn't be trying to minmax your career path

    39:43 Advice to people that are unsure in their skills

    43:51 How to approach interviews

    49:31 You have to practice interviewing

    54:48 Learn the thing or get out

    58:33 Disagree and commit

    01:01:45 Where to find Lawrence

  • In today’s episode, we bring Spiro Floropoulos, a senior developer and architect with over 20 years of experience. This episode is an unusual one, as Spiro recently got laid off due to a bizarre chain of events that involved HTMX, overworking, and technical debt.

    But we’ll learn from this story, as we want to shed some light on how situations that Spiro described could be avoided, namely how the tech industry is obsessing over developer experience and why that’s detrimental, why abstractions should be teaching you the technology as opposed to just doing the work for you, why you should be able to train your junior devs and much more!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Spiro's X/Twitter: https://x.com/spirodonfl

    Spiro's Website: https://spirofloropoulos.com/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:35 Why are we having this conversation

    01:33 How was HTMX involved in this?

    03:38 Spiro's background

    05:58 Why are we focusing so much on developer experience?

    13:38 The Tech Industry as a whole is headed down the wrong path

    16:17 Abstractions teaching you about the underlying technology rather than hiding it

    18:47 What are the long-term consequences of unresolved technical debt?

    26:46 There's things you can't blame frameworks for

    28:27 We have to slow down

    30:46 What happened after the introduction of HTMX into the project?

    40:26 Hiring juniors is great, but you should have the resources to train them

    47:00 The Technical Debt

    50:32 The more complex the feature became, the bigger the struggle with HTMX

    53:42 The reasons why Spiro was let go

    57:10 Instead of Agile we should treat our programmers like adults

    57:31 HTMX was instant and testing ability was better

    01:01:21 Is Spiro looking for work?

    01:02:00 Where to find Spiro

  • In today’s episode, we go to war with Sam Selikoff, co-host of the Frontend First podcast, and specialist on everything Frontend related.

    We have an amazing conversation where we discuss Sam’s journey, as he also did some backend work in the past, we talk about abstractions, what JavaScript is doing differently from other languages and frameworks, why the frontend should be driving the backend and not the other way around, and finish it off with a discussion about RSCs (React Server Components).

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Frontend First: https://frontendfirst.fm/

    Sam's X/Twitter: https://x.com/samselikoff

    Sam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/samselikoff

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:51 Who is Sam Selikoff

    02:12 Abstractions - Should you go a level deeper?

    06:37 What was Sam's talk about

    10:51 What is JavaScript doing differently?

    19:10 Do you want the frameworks to push more features out of the box for backend work?

    24:04 Strong opinions on a library level

    30:29 Shipping more standardized interfaces

    37:06 The frontend should be driving everything in the backend

    39:12 Your types should flow from the database to the frontend, but not the product decisions

    46:53 React Server Components

    58:49 Where to find Sam

  • Today we bring Thomas Ballinger, a developer at Convex, an open-source backend for application builders. We will be discussing mainly databases, and why at Convex they use Rust and Typescript.

    We'll also talk about systems scalability, infrastructure and go over different practices regarding abstractions

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Convex: https://www.convex.dev/

    Thomas' X/Twitter: https://x.com/ballingt

    Thomas' Website: https://ballingt.com/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:33 Thomas' background

    02:29 Convex - what it is and why should you use it?

    03:16 What are query planners?

    06:32 SQL is a very high level language

    07:43 The primary differentiator of Convex

    10:49 Who are Convex's biggest competitors?

    14:20 How do you build the infrastructure

    17:11 What type of database is Convex?

    19:18 Why is Convex written in Rust?

    23:35 Cheap abstractions

    25:47 Productivity suffering from compile times

    29:47 The different approaches for a backend developer to build scalable systems

    32:28 Backend for Frontend

    37:21 You want to be close to your data

    42:13 Are there plans to support other languages at Convex?

    47:06 Does the schema update the autocompletion in the editor

    48:31 Naming and behavior of the queries with Convex

    51:06 Why sqlc is great

    52:28 Why TypeScript is a great "shortcut" for Convex

    59:34 Where to find Thomas

  • Today we bring anothe returning guest, Adam Elmore! An AWS Hero, Teacher and fellow content creator! You might notice today's talk is a bit different, as we don't cover too much technical details but we do cover a lot of other interesting topics that permeate our everyday lives, such as kids and family time, religion and purpose in life...

    But don't worry, we also share some hot takes on indie hackers, business models of education platforms and finally content creation and how it can help you propel your career!

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Adam's Twitter: https://x.com/adamdotdev

    Adam's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamdotdev

    ProAWS: https://www.proaws.dev/

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    01:42 Terminal Coffee

    06:42 Kids' books

    09:00 How serious is the Terminal Coffee business

    12:51 Indie Hackers

    19:11 Books

    23:42 The March of Time

    25:56 Commitment to the lessons

    27:21 The problem with course platforms

    28:31 ProAWS

    35:45 The education industry isn't as cutthroat as it seems

    39:13 What's Adams plan of attack with the courses?

    40:00 How does streaming affect Adam?

    44:05 Who is Adam's audience?

    44:44 Podcasting

    47:34 Who is TomorrowFM targeted at?

    49:14 Burnout in podcasts

    52:01 Growing up religious

    57:34 Would you say that you've distanced yourself from religion for epistemological or cultural reasons?

    01:03:00 Throwing the religious labels out

    01:13:03 Where to find Adam

  • In today's episode, we bring back James Q Quick. Last time we talked about his best tips to land your first ever job as a developer. Today we talk about James' new startup and how he manages all his new tech adventures with being a parent and also provides some helpful insight as to why having an audience and personal connections in the industry is beneficial - but not strictly necessary to succeed.

    We also talk about AWS, abstraction and the current (healing) state of layoffs, so don't lose hope if you're demotivated in your job search.

    Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Deals for Devs: https://www.dealsfordevs.com/

    James' Website: https://www.jamesqquick.com/

    James' Twitter: https://x.com/jamesqquick

    James' Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JamesQQuick

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:55 On being a parent

    04:28 Idiocracy

    05:47 Deals for Devs

    10:09 Comparison with Dixie Direct

    12:22 How do you quantify the really high quality deals

    15:57 The challenge with a two-sided marketplace

    22:28 Doing stuff manually is actually pretty good

    25:38 Having a personal connection helps A LOT

    29:12 Zeta

    34:05 The Web is being modeled on AWS

    36:38 You shouldn't be learning one JavaScript framework

    38:30 Know how to answer a question if you don't know the technology

    41:43 When you learn to code, how much layers of abstraction you should go?

    43:45 Should passion be required for a job in tech?

    49:02 The state of layoffs

    52:29 The ease of finding a job after a layoff when you're highly talented

    55:58 Do you need an audience to find a job easily?

    58:40 Developers of the world - Interviews in person

    01:02:12 Where to find James

  • In today's episode, we bring back BadCop! Since last episode, she joined Boot.dev's team and is now writing courses with us!

    Today we will be discussing the approaches to writing good educational material, Bash (of course, duh), working outside cloud solutions, SSH, NAS systems, workflows with different editors and cultural shifts in different areas of programming. Enjoy!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    BadCop's Twitter: https://x.com/badcop_

    BadCop's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/badcop_

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Intro

    00:58 BadCop Joined the Boot.dev Team!

    01:15 Writing courses is harder than it looks

    03:45 Lane's approach to writing courses

    05:21 What's the hardest part of writing a course for BadCop?

    09:01 On writing Bash

    13:19 How useful is it to know how to work outside the cloud solutions?

    17:28 SSHing into the home network

    20:49 What is a NAS?

    23:26 Using VTuber Software off the shelf

    25:55 When did BadCop start using NeoVim?

    29:41 IRC talk

    33:20 Cultural shift in the programming space

    38:05 Getter and Setter functions

    42:35 People are overusing the idea of encapsulation

    48:41 Dependency Inversion Principle

    51:11 The VTuber Project

    52:58 Where to find BadCop

  • In today's episode, we welcome Ken Wheeler, a dope programmer, who creates cool projects and just gives them away for free, helping thousands of developers worldwide, a based beatmaker and just in general a cool person.

    In this episode, we talk about AI, React, OCaml, why stressing over specific frameworks is not worth it, advice for new developers, HTMX, SPA's and a LOT of other stuff, so stay tuned!

    Ken's X/Twitter: https://x.com/ken_wheeler

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Introduction

    00:25 Do you hate AI?

    02:10 How diffusion works

    17:47 First impressions with writing Go

    18:29 Where's the line between Backend Development and DevOps

    24:11 Does anyone version their REST?

    24:57 urql

    25:38 Offloading the data work to the other side

    29:55 Wordpress is 80% of the websites

    31:15 HTMX

    33:12 Single Page Apps

    34:02 Is React still your go-to

    36:38 Is it hard to switch from React to Vue?

    39:37 Picking a first language to learn

    40:43 OCaml

    43:12 HEX and raw Binary Data

    44:42 Bluetooth powered crossbow

    52:20 What got Ken into doing talks

    58:45 Where to find Ken

  • In today's episode, we welcome Casey Muratori, a seasoned programmer who specializes in game engine research and development who is currently working on a narrative game about organized crime in the 1930s in New York.

    And oh boy, is this episode packed with valuable knowledge!

    In this talk, we go over the differences between different job positions in the Game Development Industry and how it compares to the Web Development arena, as well as dive deep on the notions of technical knowledge, is it all useful or is some of it just a waste of time? We talk about bloated systems, how we already surpassed the tipping point of code written, so that new exploits will be appearing indefinitely. Casey gives us his opinions on what a programmer should ABSOLUTELY know to be the best at what they do, and a lot of other exciting and interesting topics.

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Computer, Enhance!: https://www.computerenhance.com/

    Casey's Twitter/X: https://x.com/cmuratori

    Timestamps:

    00:28 Casey's Background

    02:43 Game Developer vs Game Designer

    09:08 What are the different ways people should think about careers that exist for game developers

    14:33 Is all knowledge useful or is some of it a waste of time?

    16:16 Computer, Enhance! and Casey's teaching methodologies

    24:00 Devil's advocate about understanding at the hardware level

    29:48 Software is getting slower, bloatier and less performant

    35:42 What is the primary reason behind the rise of slow software

    38:20 Top 3 concepts that people SHOULD know

    43:43 Do you need to know both ARM and x86?

    57:03 30 million line problem

    01:08:29 Is there any way to mitigate these types of problems?

    01:13:39 Where to find Casey

    01:14:50 Which was the best part of Twin Peaks

  • In today’s episode, we bring AnthonyGG, a highly requested guest, a Go developer with over a decade of experience with Golang and a fellow content creator.

    This episode will be all around Web Development with Go - from how Anthony started writing code with Go and why he chose this language, to tooling, migrations, integrations with databases, generics, Go job interviews and much, much more!

    Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev

    Listen on your favorite podcast player:

    https://www.backendbanter.fm

    Anthony's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anthonygg_

    Anthony's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theanthonygg

    Anthony's Twitter/X: https://x.com/anthdm

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Introduction

    00:29 Anthony's backstory, how he learned to code and started writing code professionally

    08:55 Going from go migrate to goose

    13:20 What does Anthony use in tandem with goose/go migrate to interact with databases

    14:46 Bun vs gorm vs sqlc

    18:26 The way boot.dev is running goose at the moment

    20:14 Problems with migration tools

    23:47 Should HTTP handlers explicitly return an error?

    29:05 Building your own middleware and helper functions

    36:00 Generics

    38:09 How often does AnthonyGG use a context package and for what purposes

    44:57 Golang job interviews

    46:12 Developer experience with working with Go on Web Applications

    54:51 You still need community-built tools

    57:08 Where to find Anthony