Steph Viccari - Podcast Details

Shows

The Bike Shed436: Creating Conditions For Your Best Work with Steph ViccariHow can we optimize our time and environment to do our best work as developers? In today’s episode, we are joined by Stephanie Viccari, former co-host of The Bike Shed and Senior Developer at thoughtbot, to unpack the steps for creating work conditions that enhance productivity. In this conversation, we delve into her unique communication style and approach to optimizing productivity within a team. She explains why she decided to hang up her consulting hat and join the product team at Cisco Meraki, her new role there, and how her consulting skills benefit her new position. Tuning in, yo...2024-08-1343 min

The Bike Shed391: Learn with APPLStephanie went to her first WNBA game. Also: Bingo. Joël's new project has him trying to bring in multiple databases to back their ActiveRecord models. He's never done multi-database setups in Rails before, and he doesn't hate it. Stephanie shares bits from a discussion with former Bike Shed host Steph Viccari about learning goals. Four elements stood out: Adventure (try something new) Passion (topic) Profit (from recent learnings) Low-risk (applicable today) = APPL Stephanie and Joël discuss what motivates them, what they find interesting vs. what has im...2023-07-0540 min

The Bike Shed390: The Truth about TruthinessJoël's new work project involves tricky date formats. Stephanie has been working with former Bike Shed host Steph Viccari and loved her peer review feedback. The concept of truthiness is tough to grasp sometimes, and JavaScript and Ruby differ in their implementation of truthiness. Is this a problem? Do you prefer one model over the other? What can we learn about these design decisions? How can we avoid common pitfalls? [EDI](https://www.stedi.com/blog/date-and-time-in-edi](https:/www.stedi.com/blog/date-and-time-in-edi) [Booleans don’t exist in Ruby](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/what-is-a-boolean](https://tho...2023-06-2739 min

The Bike Shed370: Creative Expression in Software DevelopmentStephanie shares that she's been taking an intro to basket weaving class at a local art studio, and it's an interesting connection to computer science. Joël eats honeycomb live on air and shares a video that former Bike Shed host Steph Viccari found from Ian Anderson. It's a parody to the tune of "All I Want For Christmas Is You," but it's all about the Ruby 3.2 release. In this episode, Stephanie and Joël shift away from literature and lean into art. Writing code is technical work, but in many ways, it's also aesthetic work. It's a...2023-02-0738 min

The Bike Shed361: Working Incrementallythoughtbotter Stephanie Minn joins The Bike Shed as co-host! 🎉 Joël and Stephanie talk about continuing on a rewrite and redesign of a legacy Rails app and working incrementally. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Stephanie's listener question Stephanie's older episodes Case Expressions Specialized Vocabulary Mike Burns' smelly list Previous episode about note taking systems Transcript: JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great...2022-11-0830 min

The Bike Shed351: Learning in PublicIt's Joël's first episode as host of The Bike Shed! 👋 Joël has fellow thoughtbotter Steve Polito join him to talk about the benefits and drawbacks of "learning in public" and how there are many, many different ways to do it. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Transcript: JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot. I'm Joël Quenneville. And I'm joined today by fellow...2022-08-2337 min

The Bike Shed350: 21 Bell SaluteIt's Steph and Chris' last show. Steph found a game, and if you've been following the journey, all of the Test::Unit test files are now live in RSpec. JWTs really grind Chris' gears. They wrap up with things they've learned, takeaways they've had, and their proudest podcasting moments. They also thank all the folks who've helped make The Bike Shed happen. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Microservices Transcript: CHRIS: One more round...2022-08-1652 min

The Bike Shed349: Unpopular OpinionsSteph and Chris announce Joël Quenneville as the new host of the show! 🎉 Joël talks about his grand plans for where The Bike Shed is going to go from here. (Okay, maybe not grand plans...!) Together, the group chats about unpopular opinions and hot programming takes. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Follow Joël on Twitter! Welcome him to the show. Joël Quenneville - DRY is harmful for intermediate devs Become a Sponsor of The...2022-08-0940 min

The Bike Shed348: Breaking NewsSteph and Chris share some big news about the future of The Bike Shed. Steph shares an update about integrating with Knapsack Pro. Chris is excited for larger projects that will begin in the next few weeks. They answer a listener's question on keeping backlogs connected to the product vision. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Linear RailsConf 2022 YouTube Playlist Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: CHRIS: We don't need Skype...2022-08-0232 min

The Bike Shed347: Tracking VelocityChris talks about a small toy app he maintains on the side and working with a project called capybara_table. Steph is getting ready for maternity leave and wonders how you track velocity and know if you're working quickly enough? They answer a listener's question about where to get started testing a legacy app. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. jnicklas/capybara_table: Capybara selectors and matchers for working with HTML tables Become a Sponsor of The Bike...2022-07-2638 min

The Bike Shed346: Occasional BiscuitsNatural disaster movies, anyone? It's what Steph's been into, and Chris has THOUGHTS on the drilling in Armageddon. Additionally, a chat around RuboCop RSpec rules happens, and they answer a listener's question, "how do you get acquainted with a new code base?" This episode is brought to you by BuildPulse. Start your 14-day free trial of BuildPulse today. Greenland Geostorm San Andreas Armageddon This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! ...2022-07-1937 min

The Bike Shed345: Fire DrillChris is getting ready to travel, and of course, Sagewell started the day with an incident, a situation, if you will... Steph talks books perfect for vacations and feels sufficiently scarred regarding still working with moving fixtures over to FactoryBot. This episode is brought to you by Airbrake. Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack. Back to Basics: Boolean Expressions Sarah Drasner tweet Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: STEPH: All right, I am now officially recording as well. Let me make sure...2022-07-1249 min

The Bike Shed344: Spinner ArmageddonSteph has an update and a question wrapped into one about the work that is being done to migrate the Test::Unit test over to RSpec. Chris got to do something exciting this week using dry-monads. Success or failure? This episode is brought to you by BuildPulse. Start your 14-day free trial of BuildPulse today. Bartender dry-rb - dry-monads v1.0 - Pattern matching alfred-workflows Raycast ruby-science Inertia.js Remix Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: AD: Flaky tests take the joy out of programming. You push up...2022-06-2838 min

The Bike Shed343: Opt-In To OversharingChris is weathering through a slight lull, a holding period, where his team waits for new features to become available with some of the platforms they integrate with, and as they think out new facets of the platform they're building. Steph has been thinking recently about working in isolation. It's a topic that Joël Quenneville pointed out to her and mentioned. Can engineers work in isolation and be successful? Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: CHRIS: Always be singing. STEPH: I can't remember if I've shared t...2022-06-2130 min

The Bike Shed342: Sky IcingAnother toaster strudel debate?! Plus, the results are in for the most listened-to podcast in the RoR community! :: drum roll :: Steph has a "Dear Gerrit" message to share. Chris has a follow-up on mobile app strategy. The Bike Shed: 328: Terrible Simplicity When To Fetch: Remixing React Router - Ryan Florence Virtual Event - Save Time & Money with Discovery Sprints Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: STEPH: thoughtbot's next virtual event "Save Time & Money with Discovery Sprints" is coming up on June 17th, from 2 - 3 PM...2022-06-1443 min

The Bike Shed341: Fundamentals and Weird StuffSteph and Chris are recording together! Like, in the same room, physically together. Chris talks about slowly evolving the architecture in an app they're working on and settling on directory structure. Steph's still working on migrating unit tests over to RSpec. They answer a listener question: "As senior-level developers, how do you set goals to ensure that you keep growing?" This episode is brought to you by BuildPulse. Start your 14-day free trial of BuildPulse today. Faking External Services In Tests With Adapters Testing Third-Party Interactions Jen Dary...2022-06-0735 min

The Bike Shed340: Solving People Problems with Rob WhittakerSteph is joined by a very special guest and fellow thoughtbotter, Rob Whittaker. Rob shares how he became the Software Development Director for Launchpad II, thoughtbot's Europe, Middle East, and Africa team. They also dive into what it's like to be a Development Director, the differences between mentoring and coaching, working with GitHub Codespaces, and strategies for boosting your creativity and problem solving capabilities. thoughtbot is hiring! ngrok Time Off Book Rob's Codespace Setup Rob Whittaker on Twitter Become a Sponsor of The Bike Shed! Transcript: 2022-05-3150 min

The Bike Shed339: What About Pictures?Steph has a baby update and thoughts on movies, plus a question for Chris related to migrating Test Unit tests to RSpec. Chris watched a video from Google I/O where Chrome devs talked about a new feature called Page Transitions. He's also been working with a tool called Customer.io, an omnichannel communication whiz-bang adventure! Page transitions Overview Using yield_self for composable ActiveRecord relations A Case for Query Objects in Rails Customer.io Turning the database inside-out with Apache Samza | Confluent Datomic About CRDTs • Conflict-free Replicated Data Ty...2022-05-2445 min

The Bike Shed338: Meticulously WrongChris switched from Trello over to Linear for product management and talks about prioritizing backlogs. Steph shares and discusses a tweet from Curtis Einsmann that super resonated with the work she's doing right now: "In software engineering, rabbit holes are inevitable. You will research libraries and not use them. You'll write code just to delete it. This isn't a waste; sometimes, you need to go down a few wrong paths to get to the right one." This episode is brought to you by BuildPulse. Start your 14-day free trial of BuildPulse today. Linear 2022-05-1745 min

The Bike Shed337: Oh, HenryWe've got a tricycle anniversary! 🥳 Will it be ruined by a cockroach? Steph shares an update regarding some of the progress and discoveries that she's helped make with a client in regards to speeding up CI. Chris is finally getting a little bit more back into the code at work and finds himself riding another time management struggle bus. P.S.: Who even names these apps?!?! Children of Time Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule The Backwards Brain Bicycle - Smarter Every Day 133 Clockwise - Time Management For Teams One month on...2022-05-1043 min

The Bike Shed336: Million Dollar PasswordChris came up with a mnemonic device: Fn-Delete – for when he really wants to delete something and is also thinking about password complexity requirements, which leads to an exciting discussion around security theater. Steph talks about the upcoming RailsConf and the not-in-person option for virtual attendees. She also gives a shoutout to the Ruby Weekly newsletter for being awesome. NIST Password Standards 3 ActiveRecord Mistakes That Slow Down Rails Apps: Count, Where and Present Difference between count, length and size in an association with ActiveRecord Ruby Weekly Railsconf 2022 Become a Sp...2022-05-0335 min

The Bike Shed335: Start MessySteph has a question for Chris: When you have no idea how you're going to implement a feature, how do you write your first test? Chris has thoughts about hybrid teams (remote/in-person) and masked inputs. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Preemptive Pluralization is (Probably) Not Evil iMask Mitch Hedberg - Escalator Joke This episode is brought to you by Studio 3T. Try Studio 3...2022-04-2635 min

The Bike Shed334: Name That BikeChris got a bike. Specifically, he bought a bike to use in a triathlon he signed up to participate in. Now he needs to name the bike, and speaking of naming things, a more technical topic that he talks about is the Crispy Brussels Snack Hour. Steph talks about Rescue Rails projects and increasing developer acceleration. They answer a listener question asking, "Why do so many developers and agencies, thoughtbot included, replace the default test suite in Rails with RSpec?" This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for...2022-04-1942 min

The Bike Shed333: TapasBeing pregnant is hard, but this tapas episode is good! Steph discovered and used a #yelling Slack channel and attended a remote magic show. Chris touches on TypeScript design decisions and edge cases. Then they answer a question captured from a client Slack channel regarding a debate about whether I18n should be used in tests and whether tests should break when localized text changes. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy.2022-04-1241 min

The Bike Shed332: Ludicrous SpeedChris is back from vacation and gives hiring and onboarding updates. Steph has an update about the CI slowdown and scaling CI. They tackle a listener question regarding having some fear around potential merge conflicts. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Deckset parallel_tests parallel_tests - important line that may alter the group_by strategy KnapsackPro rspec-queue Vim Conflicted Overview Mastering Git Course on Upcase Git Object...2022-04-0539 min

The Bike Shed331: Git DownSteph celebrates Utah's adoption day and Daylight Savings Time and troubleshoots a CI build time that had suddenly spiked for a client project using TeamCity. She also shares a minor update regarding the work that thoughtbot is doing to scale horizontally and add more machines quickly and efficiently to process more RSpec tests. Chris was alarmed by logs and unknown-unknowns and had some fun using Git down. Git bless his heart! This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project...2022-03-2229 min

The Bike Shed330: Bikeshed BabyBIG NEWS! Steph's expecting a baby boy! 🍼🎉 Aaaand unfortunately, the rest of the show isn't nearly as exciting. Chris talks about admin pagination using Pagy, and Steph wants to delete some code and is nervous that she's going to break something. They answer a listener question from Slash, who asks, "What are the first keyboard shortcuts you teach junior devs?" This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Pagy Upcase advanc...2022-03-1533 min

The Bike Shed329: Fire ModeSteph is excited to be headed on a retreat with her mom in the mountains, but before that, she details how she helped troubleshoot a production issue with her team and appreciated their process. She's also looking into tooling around spinning up more machines to process more RSpec tests. Chris had a developer start their new job at Sagewell and highlights how they involved the new person in rectifying potentially missing and/or confusing existing documentation. He also has a gripe, and that is accounts. Handling too many accounts. Additionally, he talks about triaging an error and...2022-03-0831 min

The Bike Shed328: Terrible SimplicityChris is helping with efforts to introduce security, practices, and policies at Sagewell. Right now, they are refining the usage of 1Password to standardize passwords and secure information. He also shares (what he believes) is a terrible idea around fixing inconsistencies around symbols and strings. Steph shares an update around factories. Also, at Sagewell, Chris is helping to build mobile apps, one for iOS and one for Android, and is considering pursuing having them be all native. Good idea? Terrible idea? Chris and Steph riff on that a bit. This episode is brought...2022-03-0152 min

The Bike Shed327: Estimate CraftingSteph joins Chris in trying new things! For her, it's a new email client – the Newton email client – because she really wants to love her inbox. She also talks about implementing a suggestion from Chris on improving CI speed. Chris continues his search for the perfect to-do list app. (It's not going great.) But he has made hiring progress and is excited to move on to the next step: onboarding. Together they answer a listener question who asked for advice on crafting project estimates for clients. This episode is brought to you by Scou...2022-02-2242 min

The Bike Shed326: Dongle LifeChris is making hiring progress and loves asdf and M1 laptops. Steph is anticipating the arrival of one dongle to rule them all and talks about moving away from having a lot of Bluetooth connections. Two other big things on Steph's mind are education around factories because they're v important and shared examples and how they can be overused. She and Chris agree that it is better to tell stories in tests instead. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open...2022-02-1541 min

The Bike Shed325: PrantingSteph is super excited about changing her schedule to dedicate a full day to focus on being a great team lead. Chris talks about his continued adventures in the world of hiring. Together they answer a listener question about what they consider a “large” table in a database and how they review schema changes. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy. Services down? New Relic offers full stack visibility with 16 diff...2022-02-0835 min

The Bike Shed324: Coding Time!Chris updates us on his new window manager of choice, Moom, and tells us what's good with it. He's also giving yet another task manager a go: OmniFocus. (Sorry Things.) Steph talks about defining test classes in RSpec and readdresses flaky tests to improve CI build time. Chris is worried about productivity. He's still not coding as much as he'd like to be. Steph lends an ear, and together, they discuss potential ways Chris could gain back a little bit of coding time at work. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout...2022-02-0141 min

The Bike Shed323: Doing ThingsSteph talks about winter storms and thoughts on name pronunciation features. Chris talks about writing a query to add a new display of data in an admin panel and making a guest appearance on the Svelte Radio Podcast. Finally, Chris decided that his productivity to-do list system was failing him. So he's on the search now for something new. He asks Steph what she uses and if she's happy with it. How do you, dear Listener, keep track of all your stuff in the world? This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout...2022-01-2545 min

The Bike Shed322: Toxic TraitsHappy New Year (for real)! Chris and Steph both took some end-of-year time off to rest and recharge. Steph talks about some books she enjoyed, recipes she tried, and trail-walking adventures with her dog, Utah. Chris' company is now in a good position to actually start hiring within the engineering team. He's excited about that and will probably delve into more around the hiring process in the coming weeks. Since they aren't really big on New Year's Eve resolutions, Steph and Chris answer a listener question regarding toxic traits inspired by the listener question related...2022-01-1835 min

The Bike Shed321: Leaving BreadcrumbsSteph tells a cute story about escape artist huskies, and on a technical note, shares a journey in regards to class variables and modules inheritance. Chris talks about how he's starting to pursue analytics and one of the things that he's struggling with that he's always historically struggled with is the idea of historical data. He's also noticed a lack of formalization of certain things and is working with his team to remedy that. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the...2022-01-1140 min

The Bike Shed320: Remember The Fun: 2021 RecapSteph 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 Remote work (but maybe hybrid!) Vim Joining a startup as CTO This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open s...2021-12-2134 min

The Bike Shed319: Wins & LossesSteph 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. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of...2021-12-1435 min

The Bike Shed318: Successful Skills with Edward LoveallFellow 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. 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 Scribe GitHub - mendel5/alternative-front-ends: Overview of alternative open source...2021-12-0744 min

The Bike Shed317: Burn The Ships!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...2021-11-3041 min

The Bike Shed316: Constrain and RefactorChris finally got his new computer! 🎉 🎉 🎉 He gives his initial review. He's also super excited that GitHub announced a beta for pull requests merge queue, and even more excited that multiple people who listen to this show very kindly pointed that out to him on Twitter! Steph discovered something that is quite niche, but she's excited to tinker with it more, called CookLang. It's a markup language that's designed for cooking and recipe management so you can store recipes and text files and there's no database required; making it easy to have control over recipes versus storing them in a...2021-11-1639 min

The Bike Shed315: Emotions Are A PendulumSteph 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. 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 Cassidy Williams - It Depends - GitHub Universe 2021 Say No To More Process StandardRB Become a Sponsor of The...2021-11-0941 min

The Bike Shed314: Communication, Testing, and AccountabilityChris 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. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open...2021-10-2640 min

The Bike Shed313: Forty-Seven PercentSteph 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 ...2021-10-1942 min

The Bike Shed312: Spooky StoriesChris 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 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...2021-10-1238 min

The Bike Shed311: Marketing MattersLongtime 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 Test-Driven Development in Swift with SwiftUI and Combine by Gio Lodi 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...2021-10-0537 min

The Bike Shed310: Schedule Shut Down, CompleteChris 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 Drastically Reduce Stress with a Work Shutdown Ritual Iceland's Journey to a Short Working Week Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle 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...2021-09-2839 min

The Bike Shed309: Naming the ChangeSteph talks about a new GitHub feature and Twitter account (@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 RubyCards Resilient Management The Manager's Path 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...2021-09-2135 min

The Bike Shed308: That’s PicanteYou 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 Article about Page Transitions API Svelte Crossfade layout demo Svelte Crossfade tutorial page (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...2021-09-1448 min

The Bike Shed307: Walking ContradictionsOn 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 Faking External Services in Tests with Adapters by German Velasco 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...2021-09-0736 min

The Bike Shed306: If You Want To Go Far, Go TogetherIn 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...2021-08-3145 min

The Bike Shed305: Burnout & BugsThis 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 Bifunctors CleanShot X Next.js Image Transcript: CHRIS: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your...2021-08-1750 min

The Bike Shed304: MEGA Crossover Episode (The Bike Shed x Rails with Jason x Remote Ruby x Ruby on Rails Podcast)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 Rails with Jason Ruby on Rails...2021-08-1134 min

Remote RubyMEGA Crossover Episode (The Bike Shed x Rails with Jason x Remote Ruby x Ruby on Rails Podcast) [00:01:02] Chris, Jason, and Andrew tell us the story behind Remote Ruby and how it started. [00:03:42] Jason Swett tells us the origin of where Rails with Jason came from. [00:04:42] Chris Toomey and Stephanie share the story behind The Bike Shed. [00:07:10] Brittany tells us her story behind The Ruby on Rails podcast. [00:08:07] We find out how Remote Ruby and The Bike Shed are put together and planned out week to week. [00:10:50] Jason Swett and Brittany tell us how th...2021-08-1134 min

The Ruby on Rails PodcastEpisode 379: MEGA Crossover Episode (The Bike Shed x Rails with Jason x Remote Ruby x The Ruby on Rails Podcast)The episode you wanted and deserved! Brittany teams up with her favorite Ruby podcast hosts: Chris Oliver, Jason Charnes, Andrew Mason, Chris Toomey, Steph Viccari and Jason Swett in an epic crossover to discuss the origins of their shows, experiences as hosts, why podcasting is so important in keeping the Ruby community thriving and their shows' legacies. Show Notes & Links: Remote Ruby The Bike Shed Rails with Jason Chris Oliver (@excid3) | Twitter Jason Charnes (@jmcharnes) | Twitter Andrew Mason (@andrewmcodes) | Twitter Chris Toomey (@christoomey) | Twitter Steph Viccari (@SViccari) | Twitter Jason Swett (@JasonSwett) | Twitter Sponsored By: 2021-08-1135 min

The Bike Shed303: Dear Mr. Grumpy GooseChris 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 attr_extras gem after_party gem What Went Well...2021-08-0345 min

The Bike Shed301: Ants in the Cookie StoreWhat 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 Bike Shed - Ask a Question Form Transcript: STEPH: At the top of my notes for today...2021-07-2042 min

The Bike Shed300: Mozzarella Sticks & Knowledge SilosThe big "Three Oh Oh!" What a milestone for this podcast! Aside from celebrating that the show has made it this far, Chris gives some followup on some Inertia.js issues he had been having, and talks about open source licenses and legality and testing against external APIs. Steph has thoughts on mozzarella sticks and what makes good ones; particularly the cheese to bread ratio... They then, together, answer a listener question re: knowledge silos: Jan asked, "Our team (3 pairs) is currently working on two different projects due to that fact we are creating information...2021-07-1345 min

The Bike Shed299: Is Agile Over?Let's talk about Agile! What is it, what do we like, we do we not like? In this episode, Steph and Chris discuss: Broadly, are they fans? What makes this practice work well? What makes this practice work poorly? And also, hit specific topics and practices like Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming. Twitter Poll re: Gotime Podcast - Is Agile's Time Over? The Mortifying Ordeal of Pairing All Day The Real Story Behind Story Points Agile Manifesto & Agile Manifesto -- Principles Extreme Programming Introduction Extreme Programming Explained Ron Jeffries - What is Extreme Programming 2021-07-0646 min

The Bike Shed298: JawsificationChris gives some small updates on working with Svelte. He really likes Svelte so far. Svelte's great. Modals are complicated. He also talks about using a little JavaScript library, called Quicklink. Steph talks about sending data to a third-party system and using feature flags to help deprecate some code. Finally, they both riff on a listener question on consulting. Said listener asked, "Do you think about your work as 'consulting first' or as 'building great software first and then good experiences for your clients will follow naturally?'" Find out their take and give us your own...2021-06-2942 min

The Bike Shed297: We’re Making A Pixar Movie!Chris gives the deets on that new new – (he joined a startup!) and laments about the back button being so complicated. Steph talks about extracting an untrustworthy service and likens the scenario to making a Pixar movie. You don't wanna miss this hero's journey! Eric Bailey's bunny updates Katrina Owen's Therapeutic Refactoring Talk EnjoyHQ User research platform Aurelius also a user research platform Dry Monad (part of dry-rb) Previous Bike Shed discussing dry-monads Railway Oriented Programming Bike Shed "Seeking Calm" Episode Previous Episode Discussing Multi-Step Forms Discussion thread on Inertia repo re: back button cache Transcript: ...2021-06-2248 min

The Bike Shed296: Speedy Performance with Nate BerkopecNate Berkopec is the author of the Complete Guide to Rails Performance, the creator of the Rails Performance Workshop, and the co-maintainer of Puma. He talks with Steph about being known as "The Rails Speed Guy," and how he ended up with that title, publishing content, working on workshops, and also contributing to open source projects. (You could say he's kind of a busy guy!) Speedshop Puma The Rails Performance Workshop The Complete Guide to Rails Performance How To Use Turbolinks to Make Fast Rails Apps Sidekiq Follow Nate Berkopec on Twitter Visit Nate's Website Sign up for...2021-06-151h 03

The Bike Shed295: To the Left, to the LeftAfter the last episode where database switching was discussed, a number of listeners reached out with thoughts. In particular, one listener gave a reproducible example of how to make things better. Chris talks about why he always moves errors to the left, and Steph gives a hot take where she admits that she is not a fan of hackathons and explains why. Steph and Chris also share exciting Bike Shed show news in that we now have transcripts for each episode, and tackle another listener question asking, "How do you properly implement a multi-step form in a...2021-06-0735 min

The Bike Shed294: Perfect DuplicationOn this week's episode, Steph and Chris respond to a listener question about how to know if we're improving as developers. They discuss the heuristics they think about when it comes to improving, how they've helped the teams they've worked with plan for and measure their growth, and some specific tips for improving. Rails Autoscale Rubular regex playground The Pragmatic Programmer Go Ahead, Make a Mess by Sandi Metz Confident Code - Avdi Grimm Therapeutic Refactoring - Katrina Owen Refactoring, Good to Great - Ben Orenstein Transcript CHRIS: There's something intriguing about the fact that...2021-05-2545 min

The Bike Shed293: SportstaphorsOn this week's episode, Chris and Steph share a speedy step to restart your rails server and chat about accessibility improvements and favorite a11y tools. They also dive into a tale of database switching and delight in a new Rails query method that returns orphaned records. Restart Rails server via tmp/restart.txt WebAIM: Constrast Checker IBM Equal Access Accessibility Checker axe™ DevTools AccessLint Assistiv Labs An introduction to macOS Head Pointer Rails date_select Rails strong_migrations Ruby RBS Sorbet - Ruby Type Checker Scout APM Rails 6.1 adds query method missing to find orphan records Tr...2021-05-1841 min

The Bike Shed292: Debugging with Joël QuennevilleOn this week's episode, Steph and Chris are joined by fellow thoughtbotter, Joël Quenneville, to discuss all things debugging. Joël is helping publish a weekly debugging blog series and in this conversation they discuss how the series got started, technology agnostic debugging strategies, writing less bug-prone software, and speculate if Joël moonlights as a hockey coach. Debugging Blog Series 2021 Classical Reasoning and Debugging Monodraw An Elm debugging story Chelsea Troy - PoSD 2: What causes insidious bugs? Follow Joël Quenneville on Twitter Joël Quenneville on the thoughtbot blog post Transcript: STEPH: All r...2021-05-1143 min

The Bike Shed290: Can You See My Secrets?On this week's episode, Chris and Steph discuss testing webhooks, the challenges in replicating third-party data, and troubleshooting unexpected side effects. They also respond to a listener question about secrets management, touring popular solutions and discussing the trade-offs. This episode is brought to you by ScoutAPM. Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you deploy webhook.site git-secret Datomic 1Password Secrets Hashicorp Vault Heroku Secure Key Support The Bike Shed 2021-04-2732 min

The Bike Shed268: Getting Your First-Through-N JobsOn this week's episode, Steph discusses the value of conducting student research when creating course content and Chris revisits a recent architecture decision to use Svelt and Inertia. They also explore the challenges developers face in acquiring their first job and share insights for those looking for their next big role. This episode is brought to you by: ExpressVPN - Click through to can get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package. ScoutAPM - Give Scout a try for free today and Scout will donate $5 to the open source project of your choice when you...2020-11-1052 min

The Ruby on Rails PodcastEpisode 292: 292: Finesse in Quitting (Brittany Martin on the Bikeshed)[Repost from the Bikeshed] On this week's episode, Steph Viccari is joined by Brittany. They discuss Brittany's passion for roller derby and her upcoming Ruby conference talk: "Hire Me, I'm Excellent at Quitting." They also discuss using AWS Serverless, troubleshooting Postgress connection errors and working with Google Pay and Apple Wallet to introduce digital tickets. Links for this episode:The Bikeshed PodcastRubyConf 2019 - Hire Me: I'm Excellent at QuittingBikeshedding with Steph ViccariTN Inspire! "Ramping Up With Roller Derby"Ruby on Rails on Windows is not just possible, it's...2019-10-2342 min

Ruby on Rails Podcast292: Finesse in Quitting (Brittany Martin on the Bikeshed)[Repost from the Bikeshed] On this week's episode, Steph Viccari is joined by Brittany. They discuss Brittany's passion for roller derby and her upcoming Ruby conference talk: "Hire Me, I'm Excellent at Quitting." They also discuss using AWS Serverless, troubleshooting Postgress connection errors and working with Google Pay and Apple Wallet to introduce digital tickets.2019-10-2342 min

The Bike Shed218: Finesse in Quitting (Brittany Martin)On this week's episode, Steph is joined by Brittany Martin, an avid Rubyist and the host of the Ruby on Rails Podcast. They discuss Brittany's passion for roller derby and her upcoming Ruby conference talk: "Hire Me, I'm Excellent at Quitting." They also discuss using AWS Serverless, troubleshooting Postgress connection errors and working with Google Pay and Apple Wallet to introduce digital tickets.@BrittJMartin - Brittany on TwitterRuby on Rails PodcastRubyConf 2019 - Hire Me: I'm Excellent at QuittingBikeshedding with Steph ViccariTN Inspire! "Ramping Up With Roller Derby"RubyConf MY - Rails Against the MachineRuby on Rails on...2019-10-1541 min

React Podcast64: Chris Toomey on TypeScript, GraphQL, and Product ThinkingThis week we sit down with Chris Toomey and address all the holy wars: Elm vs React, TypeScript vs JavaScript, product vs development, and even VS Code vs Vim. This is a pragmatic look at how type systems can improve the way you build and talk about product. In the right hands — these tools can make teamwork a dream. But in the wrong hands, well... Let's just listen close and make sure your hands are the right ones. Featuring Chris Toomey — Twitter, Website, GitHub Michael Chan — Twitter, Website, GitHub Links 2019-09-1900 min

Ruby on Rails Podcast285: Bikeshedding with Steph ViccariSteph Viccari, co-host of the Bikeshed and developer at thoughtbot, shared her insights on developer bootcamps, starting out as a developer, the state of Rails, podcasting and her first experience as a consultant.2019-09-0328 min

The Ruby on Rails PodcastEpisode 285: 285: Bikeshedding with Steph ViccariSteph Viccari, co-host of the Bikeshed and developer at thoughtbot, shared her insights on developer bootcamps, starting out as a developer, the state of Rails, podcasting and her first experience as a consultant. Links for this episode:thoughtbotBlocLaunch AcademyRuby on Rails 6.0 Release Notes — Ruby on Rails GuidesThe Bike Shed PodcastSociety of Grownups | Financial Wellness Courses & ToolsSteph Viccari on Twitter (@sviccari)The Bike Shed on Twitter (@bikeshed)Episode Introduction and Outro by Michael SpringerEpisode Music: "Funkorama" by Kevin MacLeod 2019-09-0328 min

The Bike Shed189: It's Gonna Work, Definitely, No Problems WhatsoeverOn this week's episode, Chris is joined by Steph Viccari to chat about Steph's recent experience working on the Hubspot API ruby wrapper as a client project. They discuss strategies for testing third-party APIs, focusing on VCR and some of the benefits and trade-offs inherent to that style of API testing. Following that they chat about using exceptions for control flow, digging into why this seems to be a common pattern in Ruby API wrappers, what the alternatives are, and even a quick tour to React-land where this pattern is being used for interesting effect. Hubspot ruby gem ...2019-03-0141 min

The Bike Shed172: What I Believe About SoftwareSteph Viccari joins Chris for a conversation starting with a discussion of some deployment and orchestration issues Chris was helping out with, followed by some of Steph's recent experiences with JSONB in postgres and the relative trade-offs of unstructured data. The heart of the conversation revolves around the core processes we use to develop software touching on sprint planning & story points, deadlines, the place for refactoring and code review in the regular cadence of development, and the often lamented retrospective meeting. Aptible - PAAS with strong security and HIPAA compliance Heroku Shield Google hiding www in...2018-10-0555 min