Shows
ZADevChat Podcast70 - BSides Cape Town & infosec with Grant Ongers & Mike DavisChantal and Kenneth talk to Grant Ongers and Mike Davis about infosec and the local BSides conference in Cape Town.Grant and Mike are part of the organizing team behind BSides in Cape Town, and both love working in the infosec space. BSides here is based on, and supported by, the BSides conference in Las Vegas. BSides originated as a community event in Las Vegas and has been running for many years. It happens close to the popular Defcon conference.BSides CT is looking to be a great event, with some amazing hardware badges on offer and the opportunity for...
2017-11-211h 00
ZADevChat Podcast73 - Let's Test with Louise PeroldWe chat to Louise Perold about testing as a means to improve the overall quality of software, and the upcoming Let's Test conferenceKenneth & Len chat to Louise Perold about the art & practice of software testing. Louise reframes testing in a wonderful light, and how testers compliment and support the existing software development efforts. There are many things that simply cannot be tested reliably with automated techniques, and we explore why.Louise has been helping teams write better software since the early 2000's, and is continuing on that journey today with her new consultancy and yearly conference. Louise is one of...
2017-09-1347 min
ZADevChat Podcast72 - Ladies that UX with Inez, Ridhwana & LaraWe chat to Inez, Ridhwana & Lara about the Ladies that UX communities in Cape Town, and as of today Johannesburg.Chantal, Kenneth & Kevin are joined by the dynamic trio of Inez Patel, Ridhwana Khan & Lara Pietersen to talk about UX and the local Ladies that UX meetups in Cape Town and now Johannesburg.User Experience (UX) is an integral part of design, be it in the physical world or the digital world. It is the practice of putting the user first, creating empathy for the users of your systems."If the user can't use it, it doesn't work" -- Susan...
2017-08-311h 12
ZADevChat Podcast71 - Is Intelligence an Algorithm? With Jade AbbottWe chat to Jade Abbott from Retro Rabbit about artificial intelligence, broadly and more specifically about NLP and what that means for us.Chantal, Kenneth & Len talk to Jade about natural language processing, commonly referred to as NLP. What does it take to get a machine to understand what we're saying as people?Jade has always had a fascination with smart machines, from trying to build robots in school and now teaching machines to understand what we're saying. Jade takes a fairly complex topic and helps us come to terms with it. We question whether people, or intelligence, is algorithmic...
2017-08-301h 10
ZADevChat Podcast69 - Pink-IT with Ruddy RibaWe talk to Ruddy Riba about her career as a women in tech, and Pink-IT and what they are doing to help women in tech find a supportive community and grow their networks.Chantal, Kenneth & Len talk to Ruddy about some of the challenges woman in technology face, and what she and her partners in Pink-IT are doing to help get women into tech.Ruddy shares with us the story of growing up far from Johannesburg, getting into university and seeing the immense drop-off rate of young women in just the first few classes at university. Entering her first job...
2017-08-291h 16
ZADevChat Podcast67 - The Imposter Within With Clarice BouwerWe talk to Clarice Bouwer about imposter syndrome, what it is and how to overcome it. Join us as we learn about this and other issues around the often overlooked topics of mental well-being.Chantal & Kenneth talk to Clarice Bouwer. Clarice started the Corporate Programmer blog as a survival guide for her work in a big corporate environment, and has written over 50 great posts. It turns out surviving in a big corporate is all out people & relationships!Inspired by Scott Hanselman's "I'm a phony. Are you?" post, Clarice wrote up her own experiences with feeling like an imposter. This well...
2017-08-281h 01
ZADevChat Podcast62 - Data Of All Shapes & Sizes With Gail ShawWe talk to Gail Shaw about data, in all its shapes and sizes. Gail is a 10 year Microsoft MVP, and has tamed many a database in her career and shares some great insights with us.Chantal, Kenneth & Len talk data with Gail Shaw. From Gail's first 8086 PC, dual majoring in physics & computer science and printed Oracle error codes we join Gail on her journey into the realm SQL Server and how she's conquered it.We get some advice for squeezing a little more performance out of your production database, which might be more obvious than you'd think!Ever wondered about...
2017-08-241h 09
ZADevChat Podcast61 - Provencial wifi & Docker in production with Tim HaakWe talk to Tim Haak about playing with wifi networks covering large parts of Gauteng, and running Docker in production, and how to sanely get started with conquering containers.Kenneth & Kevin chat to Tim about Docker, what it is, how its evolving and how to sanely start packaging your apps in containers for shipping.Heads up! There were some audio syncing issues during post production, but the content is still great! Also, this show was recorded in 2016 and the content held up quite nicely!Containers & Docker are revolutionizing how software gets deployed, and how distributed systems are being built. As...
2017-08-091h 10
ZADevChat Podcast60 - Software, embeddables & biltong with Lance GleasonWe talk to Lance Gleason of Polyglot Programming about the software, embeddable devices, biltong and how the local community stacks up against the rest of the world.Chantal, Kenneth & Kevin chat to Lance about his involvement with the South African tech community. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Lance has definitely made a name for himself in various local communities as a very involved member and connector. It was thanks to Lance that we met and invited Rebecca Franks for [episode 39](/39/), and Mandla and Theo for [episode 36](/36/).From gaming on a Commodore VIC-20 to building software for a family business to working...
2017-06-281h 12
ZADevChat Podcast59 - Morgan 3D Printers with Quentin HarleyWe talk to Quentin Harley, the "crazy inventor" behind the locally built Morgan 3D PrintersThis episode is brought to you by OfferZen, a South African recruitment startup for developers. OfferZen inverts the normal recruitment process. Instead of applying for jobs, 350 tech companies in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, send developers interview requests with upfront salary info. For developers it’s completely free to signup and use. In fact, you get R5000 if you take a job through them. Visit offerzen.com to sign up.Kenneth & Len chat to Quentin about the how the Morgan 3D printers came to be, building th...
2017-05-1758 min
ZADevChat Podcast58 - Kevin Trethewey on building Driven AllianceWe talk to Kevin Trethewey about his history and building up Driven Alliance and putting people before technology.This episode is brought to you by OfferZen, a South African recruitment startup for developers. OfferZen inverts the normal recruitment process. Instead of applying for jobs, 350 tech companies in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, send developers interview requests with upfront salary info. For developers it’s completely free to signup and use. In fact, you get R5000 if you take a job through them. Visit offerzen.com to sign up.Kevin Trethewey is one of the pillars of the local software development co...
2017-05-101h 01
ZADevChat Podcast57.5 - Devconf 2017Live from DevConf 2017! Four conversations on the day.This episode is brought to you by OfferZen, a South African recruitment startup for developers. OfferZen inverts the normal recruitment process. Instead of applying for jobs, 350 tech companies in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, send developers interview requests with upfront salary info. For developers it’s completely free to signup and use. In fact, you get R5000 if you take a job through them. Visit offerzen.com to sign up.Kenneth & Len were invited to DevConf 2017 to cover the day. Kenneth got four recordings in for the show while Len worked the fl...
2017-04-0548 min
ZADevChat Podcast57 - PyCon ZA with Simon Cross, Neil Muller & David SharpeWe venture out into Python country only to discover a healthy, diverse and growing community.This episode is brought to you by OfferZen, a South African recruitment startup for developers. OfferZen inverts the normal recruitment process. Instead of applying for jobs, 350 tech companies in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, send developers interview requests with upfront salary info. For developers it’s completely free to signup and use. In fact, you get R5000 if you take a job through them. Visit offerzen.com to sign up.Chantal, Kenneth & Kevin are joined by Simon Cross, Neil Muller and David Sharpe to talk ab...
2017-03-291h 02
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 56 - After-dark banter with Simon StewartFrom the importance of pet projects to organizing conferences, come join us as we learn a metric ton from a friend of many developers.Chantal, Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Simon Stewart for a journey through his career as a developer. Simon is a respected and loved figure in many tech communities and arguably best known for organizing the fantastic [JSinSA](http://jsinsa.com) conference.How did Simon get here? We start at beginning in Cape Town, travel to Port Elizabeth, jump to Durban and finally land in Johannesburg where Simon lives to this day. We learned that PE...
2016-10-051h 06ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 55 - Machine Learning with Guillaume BelroseWhat can we teach machines? And what can they teach us?Chantal, Kenneth & Len are joined by Guillaume Belrose to chat broadly about machine learning. Guillaume is currently living in Johannesburg, but hails from the Caribbean. After having studied in France he went onto an internship at HP in Bristol, before moving to Durban and finally up to the city of gold. Guillaume is very involved in the community, being a regular attendee at meetups and having presented at local conferences like Devconf and Tech4Africa.We had a great time meandering through the field of machine learning, talking about...
2016-09-281h 03ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 54 - Trail Running with Armand Du PlessisJoin us for a walk down memory lane as we retrace the start of the Ruby community in Johannesburg and end up on the trails of the Aosta Valley.Kenneth & Kevin chat with Armand du Plessis, a long-time Rubyist about his journey from classic ASP to being the CTO of Hornet. We get a small glimpse into life before .net and building applications for Symbian, and a whirlwind tour of building various systems in the mobile money space.Armand has always been a keen early adopter, building an OpenID bridge for Facebook (a precursor to their own Facebook Connect platform...
2016-09-1555 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 53 - Segfault E_TOO_MUCH_COMPUTEIn this age of containers and virtualization, are we losing touch with hardware and the raw performance available to us?Kenneth chats to Kevin & Len about our current understanding of hardware performance and if it matters in this age of containers and virtualization.Spawned by an article on Non-uniform Memory Access in modern multi-CPU architectures, Kenneth realizes that it has been years since he racked up a server or cared about the bare metal at all. How disconnected has he become in the quest for only dealing with servers through API's?Some resources mentioned during the show:* NUMA Deep Dive...
2016-09-071h 04ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 52 - A Series of Long Conversations with Mike HewitsonThinking of a bootcamp as "a series of long conversations" and other gems from teaching software craftsmanship.Kenneth & Len are joined by Mike Hewitson for a talk on the developer bootcamps that Mike helps to facilitate at Investec.Mike shares with us his journey from the army, to the railways, and how he got onto the financial services line. He has had several stops along the way in various insurers and supporting businesses, with some great stories from each stop along the way.One of the moments Mike is most proud of is being part of a team that got...
2016-08-101h 03ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 51 - Who still needs a tester? With Janco Wolmarans and Oz ChihwayiWe reach over the proverbial cubicle wall and chat with the testers!Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Janco Wolmarans and Oz Chihwayi to talk about their experiences of having software testers integrated into a multi-functional software delivery team.Oz shares with us how he went from running batch processes during the graveyard shift to become a software tester and a key member of his team. Janco tells us the most difficult thing he's done in his career is choose a title on LinkedIn!The idea for the show came about after Kenneth saw Janco & Oz give a talk at...
2016-07-281h 05ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 50 - Frolicking Down Memory Lane with Steven McDonald and Pieter GermishuysWe turn 50!Frolicking (verb) - to gambol merrily; to play in a frisky, light-spirited manner. From the Dutch, vrolijk.Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by former panelists Steven McDonald and Pieter Germishuys for a look back at the origin of the podcast, the past 50 episodes and the future of our founding team.From the humble beginnings of just "recording our frequent Skype calls", Steven & Pieter recount the early days of the podcast and the pain of recording Skype calls. Each panelist shared their favourite shows, and Steven asked which shows were the most challenging for all of us.Steven will...
2016-07-201h 06ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 49 - Segfault E_POOR_DEVELOPMENT_PRACTICESWhat poor development practices get under your skin?In the episode Kenneth, Kevin & Len unpack a few poor software development practices that they've seen over and over again.More or less in order they tackled long-lived branches in version control, having too many automated tests, being too reliant on your IDE, copying the first answer from StackOverflow and not questioning enough.Each topic yielded some interesting insights and counterpoints! We hope you enjoy the episode and would love to know what you thought.Only two resources were mentioned explicitly:* Michael Feathers - the deep synergy between testability and good design...
2016-07-151h 03ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 48 - Datomic with Robert StuttafordWhat happens when your database is part of your application?Kenneth & Len are joined once again by Robert Stuttaford from Cognician to talk about Datomic. According to the Datomic website, Datomic is a distributed database designed to enable scalable, flexible and intelligent applications, running on next-generation cloud architectures.Robert shares with us how Datomic became a natural choice for them after switch to Clojure. Before Clojure, ClojureScript and Datomic their site was written in PHP and backed by MySQL.Choosing Datomic was very natural since they've already subscribed to Rich Hickey's "simple vs easy" mindset. Its immutable nature is a...
2016-07-061h 10ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 47 - React and Redux through a fresh pair of eyes with Taariq IsaacsJoin us for a tale of conquering software development as we follow one young star on his journey to taming React.Tonight Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Taariq Isaacs to talk about his journey as a software developer and how he tamed React. Taariq started off his journey at CPUT in their Mechatronics course, a branch of electrical engineering. Not satisfied he started teaching himself through Code Academy and quickly started at codeX where he discovered the joys of programming. One of the early game changers for Taariq was breaking out of the theoretical realm and getting his hands...
2016-06-3053 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 46 - Prolific Idea with Rishal HurbansWe're joined again by Rishal Hurbans to chat about his Prolific Idea initiative, how it came to be, what it currently does and where it's going.We talk about the X-Prize Learning Challenge and the importance of letting kids learn while they're having fun. Kevin and Kenneth reminisce about Sesame Street, Cartoon Network and learning numeracy in computer labs in primary school. Participating in the X-Prize was what lead Rishal to formalise Prolific Idea into a business.The weekly Code Offs that Rishal hosts have been a great success as a learning tool. We talk and walk through how that...
2016-06-2254 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 45 - Angular 2 with Mike GeyserJoin us as we look into our crystal ball to see what is coming in the next major release of the popular Angular framework.Kenneth & Len are joined by Mike Geyser from BBD to talk about the upcoming Angular 2 release. Mike has been a web developer for many years, having uploaded websites to Geocities back in the day! The web has changed a lot since the good old days of "single page websites" and "under construction" GIF's, and in this show we look at Angular 2.This major new version has stirred a lot of controversy since it was announced in 2014...
2016-06-1649 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 44 - Accessibility with Steve Barnett & Justin SlackTaking a hard look at accessibility and learning about the principles of inclusive design.Kenneth & Len are joined by Steve Barnett and Justin Slack to talk about building accessible frontends. We quickly learn that building an accessible website doesn't always mean catering for people with permanent disabilities. We learn about inclusive design as well, thinking about temporary impedances to using websites, color blindness and even catering for slow internet connections and HTML email.Steve & Justin both have considerable experience building websites and they share a goal of promoting and standardizing the practice of building accessible frontends, just like we've defaulted...
2016-06-0852 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 43 - Entelect ChallengeShall we play a game? We dive into artificial intelligence and bots, and their battle for the the ultimate prize.Kenneth & Kevin are joined by Tomislav Ravic, Rishal Hurbans & Hennie Brink from Entelect to talk about the Entelect Challenge and artificial intelligence. The Entelect Challenge is the annual AI vs AI bot challenge. Players can win their share of R200,000 in prize money whilst having fun learning about AI and writing their own bots.We talk about the goals of the challenge, the history, the tech and the broader impact the team hopes to have with this years challenge, including...
2016-06-0144 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 42 - HyperionDev & the CSA with Riaz MoolaWe're having another chat about computing education in the country, this time with a special guest from Durban who is looking to help change the country for the better.Kenneth & Kevin are joined by Riaz Moola from HyperionDev and the Computer Science Association of South Africa (CSASA) to talk about teaching programming online. Riaz is an accomplished young man, sporting two international masters degrees and the leadership skills to tackle the thorny issue of improving the education in the country. Almost by accident Riaz developed an online Python training course for students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which grew into...
2016-05-2531 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 41 - Infrastructure As Code with Charlene TshitokaDoes infrastructure as code pave the way for repeatable, reliable, consistent and testable infrastructure? Join us as we found out.Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Charlene Tshitoka from ThoughtWorks for a talk about infrastructure as code. Charlene has often gravitated towards the infrastructure of software projects, and after having worked on a distributed devops project she was propelled head first into thinking about infrastructure as code and how that can be leveraged to build more reliable infrastructure."Infrastructure as code" is the combination of devops (automation, scaling, consistency) and software development best practices (versioning, modeling, testing, decoupling). Charlene shares...
2016-05-1854 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 40 - The Swift Programming Language with Simon StewartKevin and Len are joined by Simon Stewart to discuss the Swift programming language from Apple. Swift is a modern object oriented programming language intended to supersede Objective-C as the standard language in an Apple developer's toolbox.We talk about some of the quirks in Apple's developer ecosystem before unpacking some of the interesting language features Swift has to offer. We discuss topics such as tuples, pattern matching, generics, error handling and semicolons. There has also been talk about Swift 2.0's Linux compatibility and we discuss some of Simon's R&D into using Swift on the server side as well...
2016-05-0455 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 39 - Android with Rebecca FranksKenneth, Kevin and Len are joined by Rebecca Franks to discuss the world of mobile development for Android, Google's developer platform and her recent Google Developer Expert accolade.We take a dive into all things Android, starting with the Play Store and the impact that's made on the app ecosystem before going into the more technical details of building and testing Android apps and the tooling behind it. We speak through some of the nuances of building against Android's APIs and look at alternatives to Java and the ability to interop with native code through Android's NDK.Follow Rebecca online...
2016-04-2757 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 38 - Testing with Joshua LewisWe tackle the testy topic of automated testing in the life of software projects.Kenneth & Len are joined by Joshua Lewis from nReality (formerly of the JCSE) about the ins and outs of automated testing. We tear through artificial boundaries to unpack the value of testing, as well as potential pitfalls. There are many different testing tools and styles available, and choosing the right approach can be difficult. We even learned about some new terms, and possibly what we've been calling "testing" should be called "checking", who knew? We learned that Kent Beck, the father of TDD, did in fact "...
2016-04-201h 19ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 37 - Data Visualization with Jeff FletcherWe tackle data visualization in its full technicolor glory!Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Jeff Fletcher from IS Research & Innovation to talk about data visualization. Jeff has been working in the internet business for quite some time, from JINX to Telkom, Antfarm to IS, UUNet to 365 and finally back to R&I at Internet Solutions. We met Jeff a few years ago at Jozi.rb where he gave a D3 talk that blew everyone away. Since then Jeff has studied the art of successful data visualization and shares with us all the intricacies of generating effective graphics to communicate...
2016-04-131h 04ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 36 - Sisonke Rising with Mandla Magagula and Theo BohnenIn this weeks episode we share the inspirational story of two developers that have devoted themselves to teaching the disadvantaged youth of two prominent townships, Diepsloot and Olievenhoutbosch, to program.We chat to Theo Bohnen (https://twitter.com/tbohnenjnr) and Mandla Magagula (https://twitter.com/mandlamag) about their Sisonke Rising initiative. Sisonke Rising an impact and value driven community outreach programme that focuses on teaching young people life skills through the vehicle of software development. The aim of the initiative is ensure as many young people as possible are able to collaboratively code and build working software. Formerly called DrivenSpark...
2016-04-0650 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 35 - Kubernetes and Migrating CloudsIn this episode Kenneth turns the table on Kevin and chats about a recent successful migration between clouds and architectures.Kevin and his team at Platform45 recently migrated a well established application (www.resourceguruapp.com) from AWS and EngineYard to Google Container Engine. This was a non-trivial migration from a managed platform and a collection of third-party services to a containerised deployment with minimal external dependencies. We talked about the challenges they faced (turned out to be not too many), the new stack they're building on and how Google Container Engine works. We dive deeply into the various components offered...
2016-03-3053 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 34 - Live From DevConf 2016The ZADevChat crew attended the inaugural installation of DevConf recently and recorded some of the action for our listeners. This episode is made up of live recordings throughout the day as we caught up with attendees, speakers and the conference organisers.If you want to hear more of the backstory to DevConf, pick up Episode 23 where we spoke to Rob MacLean, one of DevConf's organisers.* DevConf - http://www.devconf.co.za/* Episode 23 - https://soundcloud.com/zadevchat/episode-23-devconf-with-rob-macleanThanks to everyone who gave up some time to be interviewed! (in order)Theo BohnenDanie RouxChris DawsonSteven McDonald (ZADevChat alumni / founding...
2016-03-2352 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 33 - Web Frontend Performance with Mannuel FerreiraWe're getting up to speed with the fascinating world of web frontend performance. Concatenation, compression, optimization and more delivered in one speedy package this week!Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Mannuel Ferreira, a web designer and developer from Superbalist.com. Mannuel shares with us some practical experiences he's had at his current job making Superbalist fast, as well as the work he did at World Wide Creative on a recent relaunch of the IOL website. Mannuel has a lot to share with practical tips and tricks to help all of us make our websites performant.Follow Mannuel online...
2016-03-151h 02ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 32 - PHP with Etienne MaraisWe get to work understanding the world of PHP, that scripting language that runs the vast majority of the internet. Is it more than just Wordpress? Join us as we find out!Kevin & Len are joined by Etienne Marais, a senior PHP developer at Superbalist. Before moving to Cape Town, we met Etienne at the Johannesburg Laravel User meetup that he was organizing. Etienne points us to the TIOBE index, Netcraft's survey and Venturebeat's analysis of popular languages on GitHub, consistently showing PHP as one of the most popular languages in use on the internet today. Etienne has been using...
2016-03-1151 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 31 - PolarbearJS and 12Factor Apps with Ben JaneckeJoin us as we explore 12 Factor applications and the Polarbear JavaScript scaffold.Kenneth & Kevin chat to Ben Janecke about his Polarbear scaffold for generating 12 Factor applications using node. The scaffold provides users with a React frontend (with server rendering to boot!) and an Express API. We spend a decent amount of time chatting about our different understandings of the 12 Factor principles and how we've used it over the years since being exposed to it by Heroku, and how it influences our design decisions today still.Polarbear has a home on GitHub at https://github.com/polarbearjs/polarbear and Ben is...
2016-03-021h 07ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 30 - Segfault FebruaryKenneth and Kevin have the first of our Segfault instalments, a monthly banter about things that we find noteworthy but that might not fill an episode (yet).Here are the links to the (majority of the) topics we covered:* Rubyfuza 2016 - http://www.rubyfuza.org/* DevConf ZA 2016, covered on #23 - http://www.devconf.co.za* Go 1.6 release, specifically transparent HTTP/2 support in net/http - https://golang.org/doc/go1.6#http2* Rust 1.6 release, specifically Crates.io not allowing wildcards in dependencies in favour of SemVer - http://blog.rust-lang.org/2016/01/21/Rust-1.6.html* Semantic Versioning - http://semver.org* Tom's Obvious...
2016-02-2449 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 29 - The Spine Model with Danie Roux and Kevin TretheweyWe get to work to make sense of a sensemaking framework for human work systems, and learn how to build stronger teams with better communication.Kenneth & Kevin are joined by Danie Roux (@danieroux) & Kevin Trethewey (@KevinTrethewey) to chat about their Spine model, a sensemaking framework for human systems. Danie & Kevin are both involved in doing consulting work, and have distilled the Spine model from their experience helping teams in various companies. Having its roots in Extreme Programming and NLP, the Spine model is about having the right conversations.For more information on the Spine model:* http://www.spinemodel.info* http...
2016-02-171h 04ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 28 - Hardware Hacking At House4Hack with Toby KurienWe cross borders into the world of physical computing to chat about hardware hacking at House4Hack.Kenneth, Kevin & Len are joined by Toby Kurien (@TobyKurien), one of the early founders of House4Hack, a maker space in Centurion, and chat about Raspberry PI, Arduino, hacking telescopes, sub-orbital flight (ok, not really), home automation and lots more. House4Hack is an open space dedicated to providing enthusiasts with a community and space where they can build physical computing projects and embedded systems.CHANCE TO WIN!Tweet your favorite episode (and mention us) by 15/2 for a chance to get a R256...
2016-02-101h 08ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 27 - Clojure with Robert StuttafordJoin us as we explore Clojure, the robust, practical and fast programming language.Kenneth, Kevin & Len talk to Robert Stuttaford (@RobStuttaford), co-founder and CTO of Cognician, about the Clojure programming language and his experience using it for the last few years. We discuss the language itself as well as some tools. We sing the praises of Rich Hickey, even if it just for his great talks, and stroll around the ecosystem including the obligatory stop at Datomic.Robert really did a great job of guiding us through the landscape and we're very excited about Clojure after this call. We'll definitely...
2016-02-031h 10ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 26 - Open Data And Civic Hacking with Jason Norwood-YoungIn this episode we explore the local world of open data and civic hacking.Kenneth, Kevin and Len are joined by Jason Norwood-Young (@j_norwood_young) from Code4SA (@Code4SA). Jason was a tech journalist in a previous life and "converted to the dark side" to become a developer. He's currently working with Code4SA on various open data and civic hacking initiatives and took us for a whirlwind tour of the space.We touch on a range of topics, from acquiring data from government and civil society, to the tools used to clean and interview the data, to...
2016-01-2752 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 25 - Indie Game Development with Ben Myres and Sean GoncalvesIn this episode we explore the world of indie game development.Kenneth and Kevin are joined by Sean Goncalves (@The_Son_of_Wolf) and Ben Myres (@_benjamming) from Nyamakop (@_Nyamakop), makers of independent games in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.We touch on the difference between "AAA" and "indie" games, tools of the trade, the experiences of releasing a game, and how accurate the Indie Game movie is.Ben & Sean share their experiences and observations and offers a ton of great insights and advice, and many ways to get involved in making games. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that there is a...
2016-01-2046 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 24 - The Rust Programming LanguageIn this episode we turn the spotlight on the Rust programming language.Kevin has been dabbling with it recently and shares his experience of exploring what Rust has to offer."Rust is a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety" - rust-lang.org Len and Kevin pick apart some of language features, the type system, memory safety, thread safety, platforms and its steeper learning curve. We make plenty of casual comparisons between different features of Rust and various other programming languages, including C, C++, Ruby, Java & Go.We also chunk up a bit higher...
2016-01-131h 02
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 23 - Devconf ZA with Rob MacleanKevin, Len & Kenneth chat to Robert Maclean (https://twitter.com/rmaclean) about the first DevConf ZA (http://www.devconf.co.za) happening on the 8th of March 2016 at the Riversands Conference Venue in Johannesburg.Important dates:Mid-January 2016 - Ticket Sales Open18 January - CFP closes8 March - Conference dayThis one day multi-track conference aims to help developers skill up in their respective focus areas, with a strong focus on local presenters sharing knowledge with their local audience. There are still plenty of speaker and sponsor opportunities available. First time speakers are encouraged to submit their proposals and can expect a...
2016-01-0639 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 22 - Season's GreetingsSeasons greetings from Kenneth, Kevin & Len!Thanks for all the support in 2015. Enjoy the break and spending time with loved ones, travel safe!We'll be back early in the new year!"Christmas Rap" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-12-1601 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 21 - Ansible, DevOps And AutomationKevin, Len and Kenneth speak to Andre Sachs and Gabriel Fortuna about using Ansible for automation, and the broader world of devops.Pick list:AndreSysadmin Advent - http://sysadvent.blogspot.co.za/GabrielLet's Encrypt - https://letsencrypt.orgKennethUlysses App - http://ulyssesapp.com/SE Radio episode on Continuous Delivery - www.se-radio.net/2015/02/episode-221-jez-humble-on-continuous-delivery/KevinWeeChat IRC Client - https://weechat.org/Let's Encrypt - https://letsencrypt.orgLenRundeck - http://rundeck.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-12-091h 10ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 20 - Buildstuff.lt with Pieter GermishuysLen, Kenneth and Kevin discuss Pieter's experience at the Build Stuff conference in Lithuania and incentives for attending overseas developer conferencesPicks list:KevinAtom - https://atom.io/Rubyfuza 2016 - http://www.rubyfuza.org/Kennethetcd - https://github.com/coreos/etcdLen99 Bottles of Beer - http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/PieterBuildstuff conference - http://buildstuff.lt/Babun shell - http://babun.github.io/Terraform - https://github.com/hashicorp/terraformPacker - http://packer.io/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-12-021h 07ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 19 - iHub Kenya with Kennedy KiruiLen, Kenneth and Kevin are joined by Kennedy Kirui from iHub Consulting in Kenya to discuss the Kenyan software development community and progress of technology in Africa.Pick listKevinThe Go Programming Language - https://golang.orgKennethSentry - https://getsentry.com/welcome/KennedyReadme - http://readme.ioAndela.comLenThe Explorer's Guild - http://www.amazon.com/The-Explorers-Guild-Passage-Shambhala/dp/1476727392 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-11-2554 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 18 - Elixir with Simon van Dyk and Theo BohnenKevin and Kenneth are joined by Simon van Dyk and Theo Bohnen to discuss the Elixir Programming language and its surrounding concepts and tooling.Pick listSimonProgramming Elixir (book by Dave Thomas) - https://pragprog.com/book/elixir/programming-elixirPundit Ruby gem - https://github.com/elabs/punditTheoGetting Started: http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/Elixir Sips: http://elixirsips.com/ (paid for but there are a couple of free ones)Great blog post I forgot to mention about Elixir vs Erlang: (http://devintorr.es/blog/2013/06/11/elixir-its-not-about-syntax/)Elixir cheat sheet: https://media.pragprog.com/titles/elixir/ElixirCheat.pdfElixir Conf 2015 videos are on YouTubeAlchemist plugin for...
2015-11-1845 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 17 - CouchDB with Garren SmithLen, Kenneth and Kevin are joined by Garren Smith of the CouchDB team to discuss NoSQL, CouchDB 2.0 and PouchDB with a few asides into JavaScript.Pick listLenLearn Python the Hard Way - http://learnpythonthehardway.org/KennethNetflix Scaling - http://www.scalescale.com/the-stack-behind-netflix-scaling/Netflix Culture - http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664Ember-Pouch adapter - https://github.com/nolanlawson/ember-pouchKevinVisual6502 emulator - http://www.visual6502.org/JSSim/Easy6502 Assembly tutorial - https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/GarrenCouchDB - http://couchdb.org/PouchDB - http://pouchdb.com/NPM Browser - http://www.npm-browser.com/Hoodie - http://hood.ie/...
2015-11-1155 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 16 - Usergroups, Conferences And Community with Gabriel FortunaKevin, Kenneth and Gabriel discuss the merits of usergroups, attending conferences and connecting with the programming community.Pick listKennethSamson Meteor Mic - http://www.takealot.com/samson-meteor-mic-usb-studio-microphone/PLID36962660Meetup - http://www.meetup.comGabrielA podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. - http://songexploder.net/Star Wars Sphero Droid - http://www.sphero.com/starwarsRubyfuza 2016 CFP site - http://cfp.rubyfuza.org/events/rubyfuza-2016-cfpKevinSteelseries Sensei - http://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/senseiNeat Bumblebee Mic - http://neatmic.com/bee/bumblebee-microphone Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...
2015-11-0438 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 15 - Code Retreat and Mob Programming with Martin CronjeLen, Kenneth and Kevin are joined by Martin Cronje to discuss Code Retreat, Mob Programming and general skills development ideas.Pick listLenThe Orbit in Braamfontein - Go support local music!KennethKubernetes - http://www.kubernetes.ioStellenbrau Jonkers Weiss - http://stellenbrau.co.za/pages/our-beers.phpKevinExtreme Programming Explained - http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Programming-Explained-Embrace-Edition/dp/0321278658MartinSwift Programming Language guide (download the playground on Swift Tour)https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014097-CH3-ID0Refactoringhttp://martinfowler.com/books/refactoring.htmlGilded Rose katahttps://github.com/emilybache/GildedRose-Refactoring-Kata...
2015-10-2851 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 14 - Docker!@StevenMcD_Code, @PGermishuys and @Lenwnc chat about Docker, what it is and what it can do. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-07-1557 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 13 - Event SourcingSteven & Pieter have a chat about event sourcing and implementing an event sourced system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-06-1538 min
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 12 - Going SoloThe Panel discusses the pros and (mostly) cons of going solo as a developer. We had some honest and informative insights from Simon Stewart.Tonight's Panel:@StevenMcD_code @PGermishuys @SimonStewartFor links to the picks shared during the show, follow @ZADevChat on twitter! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-06-081h 02
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 11 - Feedback and Intro to Functional Dev ThinkingThe panel discusses podcast feedback after the first 10 episodes, future plans and then gets deep into a discussion regarding Functional Programming.For picks, please check out the @ZADevChat twitter feed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-05-251h 25
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 10 - University Education for DevelopersThe panel discusses University education for developers in South Africa and what is right/wrong with it all.Panel:@StevenMcD_code @Lenwnc @JoshiLewis @price_leslieBandwidth sponsored by @CloudAfricaPicks:Len: Piezo audio recorder for OSX (https://www.rogueamoeba.com/piezo/)Steve: Build2015 (http://channel9.msdn.com/events/build/2015)Leslie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWsyrnOBsJsShow mixed and edited by Michael McDonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-05-171h 28
ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 9 - WeThinkCodeTonight's panel discuss the new open and free Developer University coming to South Africa soon: "WeThinkCode"Panel:@StevenMcD_code @PGermishuys @Lenwnc @ArleneMulder @JustinusAThe only pick from this show is: www.borntocode.co.zaFollow WeThinkCode at the following locations:https://twitter.com/wethinkcode www.borntocode.co.za Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-05-0453 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 8 - CSharp 6, Roslyn and Open SourceTonight's panel discuss the upcoming release of C#6, Roslyn and .Net being Open Sourced.The Bandwidth for the show is being sponsored by @CloudAfrica.Panel:@StevenMcD_code @PGermishuys @Lenwnc @RMacLean @GordonBeemingPicks:Len: .Net Repo on GitHub ( https://github.com/dotnet ) C# Design Meeting Notes ( https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/98 )Rob: Apple Core - http://www.apple-cores.com/ - Available at Cape Union Mart Build - https://johannesburg.build15.com/ InterviewZen - http://www.interviewzen.com/Pieter: SpaceMacs - https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacsGordon: GitHub Large Binary support http://buff.ly/1zla5wHSteve: ReThinkDB 2.0 http://buff.ly/1zlahfkRob's blog...
2015-04-2855 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 7 - Working RemotelyTonight's Panel discusses working remotely.@StevenMcD@PGermishuys @lenwnc Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-04-211h 04ZADevChat PodcastEpisode 6 - Team Zero OneTonight we chat to the team behind the newly announced company Zero One!Panel:@StevenMcD_code @PGermishuys @Lenwnc @KennethKalmer @Ridhwana_K @Gee_forrPicks:Len: 1. Ansible ( http://www.ansible.com/home )Kenneth: 1. Shush ( http://mizage.com/shush/ ) 2. Team Zero One! ( http://zero-one.io/ )Gabriel: 1. GTD 2015 revision ( http://www.loot.co.za/product/david-allen-getting-things-done/dcmw-2997-g890 ) 2. MonoDraw ( http://monodraw.helftone.com/ ) 3. AOL Reader ( http://reader.aol.com/ ) 4. Leech Block ( http://www.proginosko.com/leechblock.html ) 5. StayFocused ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en )Ridhwana: 1. EggscellentApp ( http://www.eggscellentapp.com/ )Pieter: 1. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software...
2015-04-1241 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 5 - Long running teams with Paul SainsburyThis episode's panel:@StevenMcD_code @PGermishuys @RathlanPicks:Steve:1 - Game of Thrones Episode 3 by TellTalegames - https://www.telltalegames.com/gameofthrones/ 2 - The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni - http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership/dp/0787960756Pieter:1 - Vagrant - https://www.vagrantup.com/Paul:1 - MeteorJS - https://www.meteor.com/ 2 - Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3339966/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-04-0544 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 4 - DI With Len WeincierToday's panel discusses DI, DI frameworks and touches on how Go handles it.@StevenMcD_code @pgermishuys Len Weincier from https://www.cloudafrica.net/Picks: -------Len: 1 - Go (https://golang.org/) 2 - Atom Editor (https://atom.io/)Steve - Ruby Rogues Ep 200 ( http://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/200-rr-200th-episode-free-for-all- ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-03-2931 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 3 - EmberJS with Kenneth KalmerKenneth joins us to discuss EmberJS. His breadth and depth of knowledge on the topic of ember is not only impressive but very immersive. Although we generally try keep episodes under 45 min, this was too good to cut short.Panel:@stevenMcD_code @pgermishuys @kennethkalmerPicks:Kenneth1 - Ember.land podcast (http://www.ember.land/) 2 - EmberConf Keynote - https://youtu.be/o12-90Dm-Qs 3 - EmberConf 2015 TDD by example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b1vcg_XSR8 4 - Rock 'n Roll with Ember.js - http://balinterdi.com/rock-and-roll-with-emberjs/ 5 - Untappd - https://untappd.com/Pieter:1 - https://zadevelopers...
2015-03-2255 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 2 - Skills every developer should haveFollowing a twitter conversation started by @simonstewart, the panel discusses skills every developer should have.This week's panel is:Steven - @StevenMcD_code Pieter - @pgermishuys Martin - @martincronje Rob - @rmacleanIf you have any feedback, please contact @StevenMcD_code Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-03-1547 minZADevChat PodcastEpisode 1 - New BeginningsIn the first episode, we discuss "New Beginnings" and the pros and challenges that come with them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2015-03-0828 min