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Code && Beyond

Code && Beyond

By Alexander Sulim and Pablo Vicente

Code && Beyond is a weekly podcast with Pablo and Alex, two software engineers with more than 35 years of professional experience combined. We talk about creativity, productivity, problem solving, tools, culture, and anything beyond, but still related to the daily life of a software developer.
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Currently playing episode

Test-driven development

Code && BeyondOct 11, 2021

00:00
28:57
Product discovery
Mar 20, 202348:33
How we relax after work and recharge our batteries
Sep 04, 202226:47
Managing a technical product: The role of a product manager in a development team
Jul 05, 202231:57
Going cloudless: Our thoughts on cloud-based software

Going cloudless: Our thoughts on cloud-based software

Cloud-based software has been a part of our lives for quite some time. So much so, that even some products that currently exist might not have been possible without it. Besides obvious things like apps on our laptops, smartphones and PCs, there are cloud-connected TVs, refrigerators, keyboards and many other gadgets.

While cloud-based software definitely provides many great benefits to consumers and developers, it comes at a cost that goes beyond its price tag. For consumers, there are questions about privacy and personal information, freedom of choice, necessity to be always connected. For developers, it might mean increased complexity of the things they work on.

In this episode of Code && Beyond, we aren't going to fanatically blame or defend cloud computing, but try to analyze what works and doesn't work for us personally, what alternatives we use and why. When would it make sense to go cloudless?

Jun 07, 202218:18
How to solve problems: advice based on our personal experience
May 08, 202225:26
How to onboard new software engineers?
Apr 07, 202229:06
Working as a freelancer, consultant, full-time employee
Mar 16, 202227:45
Code && Chess
Feb 11, 202242:29
Building an effective development environment
Jan 18, 202237:51
From Rocks to Code: How a Geologist Became a Software Developer
Dec 16, 202144:36
Quality in software development
Nov 30, 202120:08
Teamwork
Nov 22, 202122:31
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and software development

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and software development

To celebrate our 20th episode, Code && Beyond welcomed its first-ever guest: Ana Hernández. She helped us explore the topic of search engine optimization or SEO, what software developers should be aware of, how SEO specialists work together with devs and more.

Notes:

-
Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you improve onsite SEO by extracting data & auditing for common SEO issues.
- Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, on web pages, in email messages, and beyond.
- Core Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web.
- Ahrefs is an All-in-one SEO toolset.
- Semrush is a platform for SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC and social media marketing

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Twisterium from Pixabay.

Nov 13, 202148:06
Work under pressure
Oct 26, 202117:17
Productivity tools: Focus
Oct 18, 202129:46
Test-driven development

Test-driven development

Writing tests is like flossing your teeth: everyone agrees it's great  for your health, but not everyone does it right (or even at all). Nobody  denies that it can sometimes be tricky. It requires time, a good  understanding of the context, and access to the right tools. In this  episode of Code && Beyond, Pablo and Alex delve deep into the  topic of testing in software development, discussing not only why and  how, but also common mistakes, and solutions. Let's see how it goes 😃

Notes:

- Armada is a science fiction novel by Ernest Cline.

- Dune is a 1965 science-fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

--- Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Oct 11, 202128:57
Productivity tools: Planning

Productivity tools: Planning

In this episode of Code && Beyond, Pablo and Alex talk about  their experiences with long and short-term planning as software  developers. Also quite unexpectedly featuring some larger topics such as  freedom and how life goals can become distorted once you start chasing someone else's dreams.  

Notes:

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NeoVim
- telescope.nvim is a highly extendable fuzzy finder over lists. Built on the latest awesome features from neovim core. Telescope is centered around modularity, allowing for easy customization.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Sep 30, 202118:50
Monolith vs. microservice

Monolith vs. microservice

On Code && Beyond, we recently touched  on the hot topic of relational and NoSQL databases. To continue with the  trendy themes, this time Alex and Pablo discuss monolith and  microservice architectures. What are the cons and pros of these approaches? Does it make sense to start with microservices in a greenfield project? Notes: - Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program. - NeoVim 0.5+ (Lua stuff). - Practical Microservices.   Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor. --- Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.
Sep 20, 202124:47
Productivity tools: Tasks management
Sep 13, 202131:05
Our stories

Our stories

In this special episode, Pablo and Alex talk about themselves.  Learn about their life, their career, their hobbies, and much more.  Find out things like: How we decided to become software developers How Pablo got a job in London speaking very little English How a book changed Alex's whole life All of this and more in the 13th episode of Code && Beyond. Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor. --- Music by John Yasut from Pixabay.
Sep 06, 202134:09
Relational databases vs NoSQL
Aug 30, 202128:15
Productivity tools: Note-taking

Productivity tools: Note-taking

The first step on the journey to being more productive is to clear your head using a technique called "brain dump". The idea is simple: write down your ideas, tasks, and anything else that is taking up space in your brain, either as digital or physical notes. In today's episode of Code && Beyond, Pablo and Alex share how they organize their notes and which note-taking tools they use. From Evernote and Microsoft OneNote to plain-text files in Markdown format, Obsidian, and more. Notes: - Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. - Notion is a all-in-one workspace. - Bring! The simplest shopping list for sharing. - did.txt file - Microsoft OneNote is a one cross-functional notebook for all your notetaking needs. Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor. --- Music by John Yasut from Pixabay.
Aug 22, 202131:37
Career progression
Aug 16, 202122:60
Leaving the comfort zone

Leaving the comfort zone

In the episode, Pablo and Alex discuss the importance of going out of the comfort zone. Why is it hard to do? How to overcome the fear of leaving the zone of comfort and even extend its borders? All of that and many more with the usual stories from personal experience.

Notes:

Ready Player One is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Aug 08, 202123:25
Remote work
Aug 02, 202125:53
Experiments
Jul 25, 202122:15
Technical interviews
Jul 19, 202127:12
Failures, successes, and learned lessons

Failures, successes, and learned lessons

In this episode, Alex and Pablo talk about epic failures, life-changing successes, and lessons derived from them.

Four very different real-life stories.

Notes:

-
PlantUML is an open-source tool allowing users to create diagrams from a plain text language.
- Insomnia - the collaborative API client.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Jul 11, 202121:05
The API Design-First philosophy

The API Design-First philosophy

This time Pablo and Alex touch on the topic of the HTTP API design. They share a couple of stories from personal experience and explain what The API Design-First approach is and when it might make sense to follow it.

Notes:

-
Stoplight: develop quality APIs with collaborative API-first design.
- marginalia Ruby gem: attach comments to your ActiveRecord queries.
- OpenAPI defines a standard, language-agnostic interface to RESTful APIs which allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the service without access to source code, documentation, or through network traffic inspection.
- AsyncAPI: open source tools to easily build and maintain your event-driven architecture.
- OpenRPC: design and document APIs using JSON-RPC 2.0 and open source tools.
- Monodraw: powerful ASCII art editor designed for the Mac.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Jul 04, 202123:19
Productivity methods and hacks

Productivity methods and hacks

Productivity is one of the evergreen topics. But what does it even mean to be productive? How to tame procrastination? Does that make sense to worry about that at all?

In this episode, Pablo and Alex explore these and other questions, share their personal stories of becoming more productive at work and in their personal life.

Notes:

-
Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top ofa local folder of plain text Markdown files.
- gron transforms JSON into discrete assignments to make it easier to grep for what you want.
- Luca (film)
- asdf is a CLI tool that can manage multiple language runtime versions on a per-project basis.
- Slides in your terminal.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Jun 27, 202131:05
Vim for life?

Vim for life?

Vim is a text editor. It's the same for everyone, and yet everyone has a different story with it.

In this episode Pablo and Alex share their vim-stories, explain why and what they like about the editor, what they wish to see as improvements, and more.

Notes:

-
Hanami is a modern web framework for Ruby.
- dry-rb is a collection of next-generation Ruby libraries.
- Tim Pope on GitHub.
- NeoVim - hyperextensible Vim-based text editor.
- Devbook is a search engine for developers that helps them to find the resources they need and answer their questions faster.

Have any feedback? Send us an email at codeandbeyond@protonmail.com or leave a voice message on Anchor.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Jun 20, 202144:29
Heroes and mentors

Heroes and mentors

In the very first episode, Pablo and Alex talk about inspirational people and those who guide professional development. It's is about heroes, mentors, life influencers, and role models.

Notes:

-
Sandi Metz is an American software engineer and author. She is the author of Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby.
- Robert Cecil Martin, colloquially called "Uncle Bob", is an American software engineer, instructor, and best-selling author.
- Adam Savage is an American special effects designer and fabricator, actor, educator, and television personality and producer, known as the former co-host of the Discovery Channel television series MythBusters and Unchained Reaction.
- Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It. "In this New York Times bestselling “imperative how-to for creativity” (Nick Offerman), Adam Savage—star of Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters—shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully making your idea a reality." GoodReads
- Laura Kampf is a self-employed artist, designer, maker and creator who showcases her craftsmanship and DIY abilities on a self-titled YouTube channel.

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Music by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay.

Jun 13, 202140:21