Episode Transcript
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Brandon Minnick (02:01):
Welcome back to eight bits, everybody, the show
where we interview the peoplebehind the tech. I'm your host,
Brandon Minnick. And with me asalways is the amazing PJ Mets
BJ, how was your week
Pj Metz (02:18):
I only speak in reggae.
Brandon Minnick (02:22):
That's it's two reggae horns. Yes, one for now.
My Week
Pj Metz (02:27):
is great. It's Tuesday.
Tuesday is one of my favoritedays of the week. Actually,
Tuesday and Wednesday are two ofmy favorites. And that sounds
weird. But first off on Tuesday,I get free stuff from T Mobile
for T Mobile Tuesdays, which isgreat. If you don't know what T
Mobile Tuesdays is, then youdon't have T Mobile. But
basically, they give you a bunchof like free stuff on Tuesdays
like it can be, Oh, get a freechicken sandwich from Popeye's
(02:51):
when you use their app and justclick this coupon. Or, for
instance, every week, they giveyou 10 cents off of gas per
gallon from Shell and I've beendoing that since like 2017. And
they keep a tally of how muchmoney you've saved on gas over
that time, which is real nice.
And I like Wednesdays becauseWednesdays used to be short days
(03:12):
when I was a teacher and I justI still like Wednesdays
Brandon Minnick (03:17):
not sponsored by T Mobile yet. But a cannibal
you can send us an email atHello at eight bits.tv and we
will happily respond.
Pj Metz (03:27):
Listen, I will gladly wear the the magenta for y'all
just let us know and we will bea part of that team for sure.
How was your week? Brandon, whathave you been up to? Oh,
Brandon Minnick (03:41):
good, good, good. I mean crazy productive
weekend, nothing to do with techalthough I did did open some
some PRs that we merged into thedinette Malik community toolkit.
But yeah, I had a busy weekendwhere I hung some gutters on the
house. Whoa, no big deal. It'sactually pretty easy.
(04:06):
Surprisingly, I watched you everwatched this old house? Yeah,
you show it Yeah. Really, reallygood. Really helpful. Somebody
recommended that to me when webought our this house our first
house like yeah, you know, justif you can find an episode of
this old house on it, you can doanything. And sure enough, like
(04:27):
needed to hang some guttersbecause where the water was
dripping it was splashing andbasically rotting out the side
of our siding. So that's gonnabe the next project is to fix
that. But yeah, put up somegutters and then Yeah, still
training for the the Napa Valleymarathon that's coming up in
March so after hanging somegutters I reward about rewarded
(04:50):
myself by doing a half marathonbut ran 21 miles. Now was
Pj Metz (04:57):
that including your your warm up runner one warm up,
run vendu 13
Brandon Minnick (05:04):
using this word warm up I mean, I stretch
actually, I bought a fair gun.
Shout out to theragun those
Pj Metz (05:14):
of you guys want to sponsor us first.
Brandon Minnick (05:19):
But, uh, yeah, so I found I got a nice little
routine now where I'll use afair got on my legs to kind of
loosen everything up, do alittle bit of dynamic
stretching, but then I'm not.
And, and yeah, I was pleasantlysurprised. I haven't. I mean,
I've been running the blast pastcouple months training for this
marathon. But I haven't reallydone a race since 2019, which
(05:40):
was the San Francisco halfmarathon. And I almost hit that
same time I finished in about anhour 51. Night. Thank you.
That's a goodthanks, thanks, everybody.
Pj Metz (06:06):
That's always a good feeling when you when you come
back to something after a longtime of not really doing it. And
you're like, Oh, I'm doinggreat. But they can also be
balanced out with sometimesyou've been doing something for
a long time. And suddenly,you're terrible at it. I've had
times where I sit down to drums,I've been playing drums pretty
(06:26):
consistently. And I sit down tojust do it and everything falls
apart. I'm dropping stakes, likeI forget how to do a roll, it
just all falls apart on me. ButI'll go months without it. And
then suddenly, I'll play adrumset. I'm like, Oh, I'm the
best drummer there's ever been.
That's not true.
Brandon Minnick (06:44):
Which I radically sounds a lot like,
like coding. When you look atold code, and sometimes you go
wow, whoever wrote this wasreally smart. Like, oh, that was
me. And then sometimes code andbe like, Wow, whoever wrote this
really didn't know what they'redoing. Oh, that was also me.
Pj Metz (07:01):
You're looking at code.
So you're like, Man, if I everwrite code like this, like, tell
me to retire and they're like,this is yours. You're like, Oh,
alright. Look, I take back whatI said before. Yeah, it's rough
out there, huh? It's rough outthere for yourself.
Brandon Minnick (07:23):
So speaking of which, we have a really, really,
really amazing guest this week.
Mark elbow and he's a opensource developer or release,
we're nudging him towards theopen source. I've I've will say
known Mark or known of mark foryears. We I think we officially
first met just a couple ofmonths ago, when we were both
(07:44):
speaking at a conference. But healso is, has his own podcast is
a I would call him a seniordeveloper, if not principle, if
not higher. But without furtherado, let's bring him on. Mark.
Welcome to the show.
Mark Allibone (08:02):
Hey, guys. Well, thank you for having me.
Brandon Minnick (08:14):
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. For those
who haven't met yet. Mark, whoare you in? What do you do?
Mark Allibone (08:20):
Yeah. Good question. Brian. Sometimes asked
myself the same thing.
Especially when I look at mycode, they asked it right. Or
some years after. So I totallycan relate to that one, though.
So my name is Mike Caliban. Ilive in Switzerland, which is
not Sweden. There's a jokethere, which only Swiss and
Swedish people probablyunderstand. And yeah, I I work
here as a software developerslash project. Manager slash,
(08:45):
technically, sometimes. Thecompany is still growing and we
still have some. Yeah, someobstacles to take. So it's
always fun. You get to wearmultiple hats, even though don't
have one on. I wasn't informedguys. Somebody told me. I mean,
Pj Metz (09:05):
going bald. That's why I wear a hat.
Mark Allibone (09:07):
Okay. I mean, if you listen to the audio, it's
like it's like everybody'swearing a hat in this this room.
Just just me not mine. I just Ifeel left out here. Yeah, no,
it's um it's Well, yeah,
Brandon Minnick (09:21):
I got my I've got my Microsoft hat on. And I
remember when we first startedthe show, it did start out ape
it started out actually as aofficial Microsoft show that
they they ended up not pickingus up for another season. So
never independent. But But yeah,I this is one of my favorite
(09:43):
hats a murder Microsoft hat withI think this was the official
logo in the 80s If I remembercorrectly. It's just one of my
Pj Metz (09:52):
Metallica logo like
Brandon Minnick (09:54):
yes, yeah. And yeah, like somebody called me
out in the comments like wow,like Microsoft employee. have to
wear their own branding andlike, no, just
Mark Allibone (10:03):
absolutely, yeah, yes.
Brandon Minnick (10:07):
I see PJ's grow in Orlando hat and like, I don't
have to wear a hat for I live.
It's just it's a cool. It's oneof my
Pj Metz (10:16):
favorites. It was like 20 bucks at like a tourist trap
shop somewhere. InternationalDrive. And I might be the only
Orlando resident who bought thishat. Everyone else from Iowa or
Canada or some other place thatI've never been. Right. But
Brandon Minnick (10:33):
it's like, I hurt New York, sir, when you're
in New York City. Yeah, but thatperson is not from here.
Pj Metz (10:39):
Now, to be fair, New York Yankees hats aren't like a
ubiquitous thing where like,even New York people really wear
him a lot. But also, everyonedoes. I don't know, this is a
show about hats, by the way.
Those of you just joining us.
Brandon Minnick (10:56):
So So speaking of hats and bad transitions,
Mark, let's go let's go wayback. Because you've been,
you've been coding for a longtime.
Mark Allibone (11:05):
And now you say I'm old.
Brandon Minnick (11:09):
You look great.
Nobody would ever guess. Yourskills and looking at the code.
That's been doing it for awhile. But if we go back, um, we
always love learning what whatinspires folks to get into
coding get into tech? Becausethere's, there's no wrong
answer. So let's jump into timemachine. Let's go back. When did
(11:30):
you first say fall in love withtechnology and start learning to
write code?
Mark Allibone (11:39):
Well, I'm so I, I've been one of those people
that has had access to computerfor a very, very long time.
Because, as a matter of fact, mymy mother, she used to work for
a Swiss insurance company. Andshe used to be a COBOL
developer. So she's retired now.
But she, she she did that. Andshe used to work from home back
(11:59):
in back in the day. So that waslike, early 90s. and stuff. So
it's some kind of a seller,like, you know, up and he had a
lot of stuff, probably there.
But yeah, she just did it, youknow. And so, with that, you
know, we had like these bigfloppies you know, they're like
the small ones with the thingthat slides and there's like the
big ones where you can, you canuse them to find them. And she
(12:24):
used to bring home games forthese things. So like the
Formula One game, I got no ideahow it's called, maybe Moto GP
something. And, and that's how Ifirst got in contact computer.
And yeah, I, that's our commandkey and stuff like that. So a
lot of games. So it was always abit fond of technology. But I
never was like one of thosepeople that went like and then I
(12:46):
discovered that I could writecode to cheat in the games that
Brandon Minnick (12:53):
gameplay. Yeah.
Mark Allibone (12:55):
And, and as my mother, she never taught me how
to write COBOL maybe, maybethat's a good thing. I don't
know. But yeah, so So had incontact with it. So not really
afraid, always found it veryfascinating, mostly to play
games. And then I remember I waslike 14, and then a friend of
mine, he had like this book,books for people that don't
(13:17):
know, they work withoutbatteries. They're really great.
As long as you got daylight, orsunlight, and it was about HTML,
and JavaScript and CSS. So yeah,it was was one of the early
versions, you know, where youput everything into tables, and
you had tables within tables.
And that that was how you wrotewebsites back in those days. And
then you sort of sprinkle alittle bit of JavaScript over it
(13:38):
like nothing super fancy, and alittle bit of Ajax and that was
pretty much it. So I thoughtthat's interesting. So I did a
few things like stuntprogramming, HTML, putting it
there. And yeah, had fun doingthat. But it was nothing really
serious. So that but that waslike the first time where I, I
(13:59):
saw that computers are not justthere to write your homework and
and play games, but you canactually start creating stuff.
And then in Switzerland, this isa bit special. So when I then
here, you might say in a lot ofcountries that I know you go to
school, you go to high school,and then you go to college, and
(14:21):
then you get a job or you gofrom high school and then get a
job, bow. That's how I know howthe education system works in
the US. So please, don't quoteme on that one. And don't Don't
be mad if I got one or twodirections wrong there. And so
in Switzerland, what we can dois we got like primary school,
secondary school. And then aftersecondary school, you got two
(14:42):
paths that you can take, you caneither go the university route,
which you then have to go toanother school and then you go
to uni, or you can go and takean apprenticeship and this is
totally normal here. So we haveapprenticeships for almost every
job that you can imagine. Sofrom people that work on
electricity Plumbing, baking,accounting? Yeah, sales,
(15:02):
whatever we have, we have prettymuch so this is, I think a bit
special for Switzerland. It'salso called the dual system of
education. And so what I did, Ijust, I didn't go down the uni
route because I, I flunked outin French, when I took the test
to go to the middle thing. Idon't want to get into the
grade, that was very low. Yeah,it probably probably deserved
(15:26):
that, because I only learned toproperly do French after that,
because someone said, he can'tbe that you just mingle by every
time in school. And then whenthe real test comes, you Fluke
out so it's kind of discoveredthere. But anyhow, yeah, that's
range, leave it there. And soafter that, I then went and did
an apprenticeship in computerprogramming. So that was one of
(15:49):
the first years that thatapprenticeship was actually even
offered in Switzerland. And ittakes it takes four years. So
apprenticeship, you get paid thewage, but it's quite low. And
usually, like, if you're acompany, you can you can have
apprenticeships, you also getlike some tax deductions in
Switzerland, if you do it as acompany. And basically, what you
do is you are a few days you'rein the company to doing work,
(16:11):
and then you're one or two daysin school. And that's how you
then get educated. And there's asystem like you have to have a
person you company that takessome formal training, so you can
have apprentices in yourcompany, and then that you learn
it. And there's some standards,like you learn the same stuff in
school. But it also depends abit where you're end up as a
(16:34):
company wise, for training thatyou get there. And yeah, that's
that's how I really got intocontact with with developing,
and all kinds of stuff likethat. And in one of my final
years, I then it's a longmonologue, I then in one of my
final years, I actually got towork at a small How do you say
(16:58):
that there was a college andthey have like departments,
college departments, and then Iwent there. And they did a ton
of embedded systems like RealTime Clock management, for power
switching, they developed aprotocol there, I thought, this
is super cool stuff. But Irealized then like if I if I
don't go to university, I get abachelor's degree, I won't be
(17:22):
able probably to do this coolkind of stuff. Like I won't be
able to do programming, but Butall this cool kind of stuff. And
that's why they actually alsowent to university, which is
compared to what I hear aboutprices in the US. We don't have
Pj Metz (17:38):
to talk about that.
I've got three degrees, and Ipaid a lot for him.
Brandon Minnick (17:47):
That's mark, that's, that's fascinating.
Yeah, PJ correct or wrong? You,Mark, you might be our first
guest from Switzerland. So Idon't know if we've ever had the
background of Pj is looking,thinking, but is Yeah. But I
(18:08):
love that concept of the theapprenticeship. And I think
that's something that while thealso not necessarily the US is
the government because it soundslike Switzerland to set up
programs. So you mentionedgetting tax breaks, you
mentioned that all these systemsare in place. We we in the US,
(18:30):
there's there's always been kindof a stigma, or at least less
definitely less there nowadays.
But when I was growing up, itwas yes, you you have to go to
college. If you don't go tocollege, then you're going to be
homeless on the street. Andthat's just not true. Because
there There have always beenapprenticeships in the US,
they've always been more gearedtowards what we'd call
(18:52):
colloquially, blue collar jobs.
So if you want to get highlytechnical, hands on work, like
welding, for example, not everynot everybody can pick up a
welding torch and do it.
Pj Metz (19:10):
Don't recommend as a leader please do not pick up
something you're not trainedfor.
Brandon Minnick (19:21):
Right? Um, but yeah, I remember there was there
was no discussion of that.
Nobody even told me that Ishould or could do that. It was
just Yep, you got to go tocollege. And I feel like
nowadays in the US there hasbecome this shift. Like you
mentioned, like TJ was jokingabout like, college has gotten
so expensive. That is it evenworth it anymore to graduate
(19:41):
with six figures student loandebt. For some reason, the
student loan system or studentloans in this country also, like
the interest rates are well,higher than high in historic
sense, but yeah, like, like youcould get a mortgage for around
3% interest Now, whereas yourstudent loan is going to be
around 8% interest, it's like,why? Like, wow, yes, both are
(20:04):
important, but arguably likeeducation should be most but so
for fighting less and less folksneed to go that that route. Now,
you did mention that there wasthat electronics hardware
embedded systems that you didfeel that nudge towards. If I
(20:26):
didn't get a bachelor's degreein this, then I probably
wouldn't be successful in it.
And I'd love to know more. Sothat where where is that line in
Switzerland? Between? I reallyneed a degree for this. And no,
(20:48):
you know, what I can learn on myown and still be still be okay.
Have a successful career?
Mark Allibone (20:54):
Yeah, well, that's, that's an interesting
question. There's no, there's nohard rule, I would say,
generally speaking, if you get aformal education, there are some
some industries that look more,if you if you have a degree,
like, if you look, medicalcompanies or pharma companies,
they usually they they valuethat quite highly if you have
(21:15):
got a master's or a doctoratedegree. And so they even with a
bachelor you like on the low endprofile, to get in there. But
there are many other jobs whereit is not required to have a
bachelor's degree, or even acertificate. So if you do the
apprenticeship system, you alsoget like a certificate that you
have done this and also teststhat you have to take at the
(21:37):
end, to get that and you can youcan learn software development
on the side, you can go to acoding school and learn it like
that. But let's just say it'slike, for me, usually, there are
people that are way smarter thanme, way better than me and
(21:57):
software development. And Ihaven't got a degree, I mean, I
just, that's just the truth.
Okay, I know where I stand. Butfor me, when someone has it has
a degree, I think, a degree, Idon't know how it's in the US.
But in Switzerland, you have totake a lot of coursework on the
site. So if you do like it, youdo a lot of mathematics. And
usually, for me, it's just like,if you've got a formal degree,
(22:18):
it just means someone can grindtheir way sometimes through that
not so pleasant parts. And youknow, they go a bit more stick,
this is not meaning this is notmeaning that you have to have a
formal education. So someone canjudge your character. But it's
just like, I think I think he'sjust have to, yeah, to a bit on
these not so nice bits until,until he like can can read some
(22:41):
benefits.
Pj Metz (22:44):
There's absolutely a tendency of like, school is so
important, you have to do it.
And in America, it's verydifferent, where school is so
important, you have to do it.
And like Brendan said earlier, Ifeel like people of our age
especially were just expected,that was what was expected. You
have to go to school, you haveto do it. And so now there's a
(23:06):
prevalence of expectation thatyou need that degree. But um, in
our in our comments, just nowthere is an element of a certain
people are allowed a certainamount of like Grace that other
groups are not where you can bejudged on potential based on how
well you fit in, as opposed towhat your past is. And I think
(23:31):
that this is absolutely correct.
We've seen this add in anecdotalevidence, certainly. But you can
see that there are differencesin what opportunities people
get, based on what group they'rea part of. And without that
degree, there's there's, I'mhalf Puerto Rican. Many of my
cousins are a mix of PuertoRican and black. And I remember
(23:53):
talking with my aunt's, myuncle's, my cousins, there was
an expectation that they werealways told, you're going to
have to work twice as hard inorder to get half the
recognition. And that's, I thinkthat's a very true statement.
Certainly in America, certainlyin other countries, but
anecdotally speaking aboutAmerica, some people are given a
(24:14):
pass and it's okay, you're fine.
Others aren't. But that systemyou talked about in Sweden is a
something I actually saw a highschool I worked at, where there
were two tracks for the highschool and it's really rare in
America that that happens. Youwould either say I'm pursuing
college and your track in highschool would change or I'm
(24:37):
pursuing something different.
I'm not necessarily thinkingabout college and there were
things like I'm more like whatBrendon talks about blue collar
jobs. We had a mechanic's room,we had a marine mechanic's
garage where they could work onboats and stuff and this is on a
coastal town. So that'slucrative if you know how to fix
a boat engine then you're goingto be great, but um, that it's
Oh, amazing to talk about theway different systems work in
(25:01):
different places. And that lineBrandon of, uh, when do you need
the degree? When do you not needthe degree? I think it's
interesting that you kind of didboth sides mark where it was
apprenticeship for CS. And thenwell, I want college because I
want to work on these other morecomplex more. It seems more
complex systems. Is thataccurate?
Mark Allibone (25:25):
Yeah, I think so.
So at least at the time, I hadthe feeling it will make sense.
I was also like, in a departmentfrom from that college that I
then later attended. So mighthave been a bit of bias in the
in the room. So these days,these days, I'm pretty sure I
could do the same work. Withoutlet's just say, like, computer
wise, or programming wise, I'mpretty certain you could do the
(25:47):
same stuff. But yeah, it'salways hard to say like, would
you have done it then? And stufflike that? So yeah, coulda
woulda. But yeah, so itdefinitely is interesting. And I
always want to say, for me, it'slike, when people say, well, we
need more college graduates.
Because I mean, because we gotlike the school system in
(26:08):
Switzerland. So it's like, if wecompare ourselves to other
countries, we got less. Yeah,degree, like in percentage wise
and population. So like that?
And it's just like, Well, does,does everybody need a degree? I
mean, do you really need to havea degree to do your job? And
sometimes the answer is no. Andsometimes we say, well, it might
(26:28):
make sense that you get a formaleducation before you can cut up
people or before you constructstuff like to be
Pj Metz (26:42):
not allowed to cut people unless
Mark Allibone (26:45):
you had a bit. I mean, like, then I mean, the
question is like, Yeah, I mean,so a bit of formal education
probably is good in most jobs. Imean, even if you handling
electricians, wiring, I mean,you don't want to get zapped
with those. So So you need youneed some education. But I think
the the question is totallyfair. Like, how much? How much
do you really need? And is it isit always sensible to do like
(27:08):
the the classical computerscience degree routes or stuff
like that? For me, for me, Iwould say yes, it was, even
though I would I am the first toset to tell you, I learned so
much mathematics, maths when Idid it. And I usually like once
I had to do, I had to do someprobability. And then I was
(27:28):
really happy that I could, yeah,pick up that book again, and and
reread how it's done. And thenyeah, it's oftentimes it's just
like understanding stuff, whenyou when you are reading maybe
something or just like, you knowhow it works belief, even though
you'd never really dive intojust things like, knowing the
background or going a bit lowerin the in the tech stack, then
(27:52):
what you're actually working atCan, can be really good to know,
because then, you know, like, Ishouldn't do this, because below
this and that will happen, orthe system has got no chance to
optimize this because how wouldhe know it? And and you if you
only like always, always livelike in your happy place and
stuff like that. You probablywon't know that. But yeah, I
(28:14):
wouldn't say you have to spendtons of dollars to get to know
that because a lot of a lot ofeducation is these days. I mean,
out there also for free. I mean,if you look at YouTube and stuff
like that, yeah.
Pj Metz (28:28):
There's a lot of a lot better chances and education now
for sure. There's, you know,does everyone have the resources
to access that it's becomingmore ubiquitous? Absolutely. But
time is a resource too, but Iabsolutely agree with you. Does
everyone need college for you?
You said, It benefited me. Itworked for me. Did I need it for
the day to day? Not necessarily,but it helped and I think I saw
(28:51):
Joe Carlson who's been on thispodcast before talking about it
for a question someone asked himon Tik Tok. I'm in my CS degree
right now. Should I stick itout? Or should I should I you
know, just go and start workingand get experienced that way.
You don't have to follow Joe onTik Tok for the answer though,
so.
Brandon Minnick (29:15):
Oh, goodness.
So, So Mark, we, we've we've gotyour, your degree. And so
getting into your first job, butwhat what what were you working
on first? What what kind of roledid that company hand to say,
relatively new developer likeyourself?
Mark Allibone (29:38):
So I had like this experience twice. I had one
apprenticeship once aftergraduating, though, I must, I
must say like, after graduating,I had a confidence in my
abilities, which was way overstretched. And I think got that
feedback not in a direct way butin the indirect way of noticing
(29:59):
artists. How much I still haveto learn? And yeah, I remember
when I, when I started my firstjob after after university, a
lot of stuff, I mean, my degreeslike 12 years ago, so stuff
things have changed. I'm nottrying to blame my school. Yeah,
but like we clean code or justlike how to structure projects,
(30:19):
those are not at the top of myhead how I would do that. So
still had a learning curve, Iwould still say I was a junior
back then. And I then started towork for a company that had a
very, very small softwaredepartment, it was me and my
boss. And that was us. And themajority of the company, they
were actually designing computerchips. So these system on a chip
(30:41):
things that then get built inand all the smarts these days.
So yeah, and and we were workingfor for a Swiss bank back then.
And I remember like, people theydidn't know, in that job. They
didn't know where to me. So Iwas, I was just like, Hannah's
like random tasks like, yeah,the they had these new system,
(31:02):
which was, I was a C sharpdeveloper, it was written in
Java. But hey, I did Java duringhigh, high during my education.
So yeah, I can check that Ithink. And yeah, so I was handed
all these random jobs, becauseno one really knew where to
place me and put me and afterthat, I then did different jobs.
And I learned like on the job,but the person that I was with
(31:24):
them, I mean, fun fact, hedidn't have a high school
degree, but he's one of the bestprogrammers I ever, ever learns.
And he taught me a lot ofthings. And he showed me like a
lot of ways how you can improveyour code, how you can style
your code? And also, yes, howyou go about work, when as a
software developer, and thatreally taught me a lot. I mean,
I still had to do a lot of studyon the site by myself, but it's
(31:47):
just like, getting pushed intothe right direction can be
really helpful when you startout. And so he, he, like, built
me up step by step. And then heleft afterwards. So then I was
put into the embeddeddepartments of that company. And
I was like, the only developerthat did not do the low level C
coding there. And I was thenyeah, so working for an external
(32:09):
company. And yeah, so doing Csharp, learn to do test driven
development, did some Ruby andRails on the side because it was
like an internal application.
And yeah, just step by stepgraded up. That's, that's how I
remember starting. And I justknow, like, I think the getting
the first job. That was like,really tough. So when 12 years
ago, that was like 2009, whoeverdid the math. And so, yeah,
(32:31):
2009 2008 was the financialcrisis. So 2009 was not the best
time to look for a job. And Inoticed that so I had some time,
where I was just like applyingto jobs at random. And just like
hoping that one applicationwould stick, then I finally got
a chance because I read in abook, how interfaces work in
(32:52):
comparison to classes. And thenI was asked another coding
interview. And I just could say,you know, in fact, you could
just instantiate that class andjust assign it to the interface.
And that blew my mind. Yeah, Isomehow got the job. Awesome.
Brandon Minnick (33:14):
Yeah. So you mentioned when you first started
out, that kind of that overoverconfidence, that kind of
quickly came crashing back downto earth. And I know, I've
certainly felt that I think alot of a lot of folks in the
industry get that because thereis so much to learn, consume to
(33:38):
know and the expectations can bethere that you have to do and
know all of this. But what wasan example of when you you
realize that you were maybe moremore cough or a bit bigger than
your bridges, for lack of abetter term where you, you got
(33:59):
maybe a task that kind of hityou. Wow, I still have a lot to
learn.
Pj Metz (34:05):
When did your ego learn?
Mark Allibone (34:08):
How well my my ego lends a lot of lessons
sylius Sometimes. So yeah,maybe, maybe these days, it's
more of imposter syndrome. Butnot only that, but yeah, so when
I saw the, I remember, there waslike this one task where that my
boss came up to me, she said,Well, you know, she sets up this
SQL Server, then make a, a dodotnet layer on top and so we
(34:32):
can request it by service. And Iwas like, Okay, I had SQL during
my high school. How hard canthis be? Yeah, a day pass. Not
much was running. And yeah, thatjust that just told me like, I
think there's like this thinglike in in university I remember
like the sentence when you hadquestions or when you questioned
(34:53):
the material, the learningmaterial of the of the teacher
and she's and The Simpsons gotthe sense, you know, not
everybody His, his his has gotthe skills to be an engineer.
And so, after you complete thattraining course you thought,
well, I got the skills of anengineer I can. Turns out, no,
you don't know, you don't know,like the I mean, like, if you're
(35:15):
in real life, you don't justhave like these algorithms or
these theoretical SQL queriesthat you have to write, you
actually have to set the thingup and setting the thing up
means getting your hands dirty,and knowing how to Yeah, beat
the thing into life. Sometimes,things have gotten a lot better
since then. But yeah, I rememberreally struggling back then
getting that thing to run.
Brandon Minnick (35:37):
And, and so what did you do next? So you're
you, you say to yourself, oh,yeah, I can do this. So I know
what SQL stands for. In reality,like, I probably never deployed
a production server. So So wheredo you go next? From there,
you're, you realize that youdon't know enough? And you've
(35:58):
kind of, I would say, dugyourself a hole. But how do you
get yourself out of it?
Mark Allibone (36:05):
Yeah, so I had to there like two ways, I think you
can, you can tackle thisproblem. And I, for a very, very
long time, I always stuck tothis one, like, you got to learn
the basics, you got to you gotto learn the entire stack. And
then when once you understandhow it works, then get to the
practical parts. And the otherthing is, you fire up your
(36:27):
favorite search engine, you lookfor the task at hand, and then
you just follow the firsttutorial or blog post that comes
to hand, you mingle your waythrough it, and then you see
that it runs. And then yourepeat that a couple of times,
until you get like the feel forit. And then once you feel a bit
how this What am I actuallydoing? The question starts
boiling up, then you take thatbook, and then you start to read
(36:49):
up on it. Because you know,like, this might be worth my
time because I'm doing it a lot.
And so for me, it's like, Ithink it's sometimes it's just
like really important to getsomething started. And not to
get like into this trap of well,now I've got now this 600 page
book I just bought on Amazon. SoI just have to read this for
three weeks, and then I'll beable to set up the SQL Server. I
mean, you can do it. I'm notsaying it's wrong, I just say
(37:11):
you probably could follow thatblog post, get the SQL server up
and running in the afternoon, doyour things. And then some will
come along and say that's nothow you write the most optimal.
Okay, yeah, so please show mehow. And but I just think
sometimes you really have to hitthe ground running or just like
try and just be on it. And yeah,and just mingle yourself
(37:35):
through. Instead of always goingdown into the deep end pool dive
and then trying to read up oneverything,
Pj Metz (37:44):
right? You don't have to become an expert. In order to
do it, you have to do it. Andthen you can become an expert
through iterations. Too manypeople are worried about being
being smart enough to do it orknowing how to do it as opposed
to like, just get in there, doit. Get in there and do it, make
it work. Once it works, you canmake it better next time that's
(38:05):
iterations like it's going toget better over time. So you
should you can't make itperfect. Now make it good now
build up to perfect.
Mark Allibone (38:15):
Yeah, I think another thing is like, so the
beginning I really had the lightfor that. And then something I
always had like these gaps inbetween where I didn't really
have someone that I could sayhe, he or she was my mentor to
hold me to show me along theway. And I think if you if you
got someone experience that canjust like notch into the right
direction, as I said before,that can be so helpful. It saves
(38:37):
you so much time just like yeah,no, just read through this post,
it will get you started. Andthen hey, if you're interested,
I can really recommend this bookfor you. I can really recommend
this video for you or this procycles that can be very helpful
to just yeah, get get youstarted and also then become an
(38:57):
expert.
Pj Metz (38:58):
Yeah, man. Absolutely.
Well, speaking of experts, we'vegot a quick ad break that we're
gonna take care and we'll beright back after the ad. i If
you're hearing my voice, thatmeans you've been listening to
or watching eight bits withBrandon MPJ. And we're here to
talk to you about your productand how it can help you in your
(39:21):
life by to do whatever yourproduct does. So if you're an
avid listener of the show, oryou watch us on Twitch, then you
will know that your product yourproduct is right for you.
(39:50):
That's right, y'all. We areaccepting advise if you would
like to advertise on our podcastand reach our many many
listeners. Just send us an emailat Hello Low at eight bits.tv.
And we'd be happy to talk withyou about options, which we will
definitely have ready to talkabout as soon as you message us.
Brandon Minnick (40:10):
Absolutely. So, Mark, we've been, we've been
chatting a lot about, we'll sayyounger mark, and kind of
getting getting into things,learning things, making the
mistakes, and not that we don'tstill do that today. I know, I
certainly still make a lot ofmistakes. But let's, let's fast
forward a little bit. Becausethere are so many cool things
(40:32):
that you are working on today.
And I think to set the stage alittle bit, what is it that and
What technologies do you work ontoday?
Mark Allibone (40:43):
So yeah, so great question. I suppose things to
say to buy some time, right?
Yeah. So first warning today. Somy job right now, my company
works in the industrial IoTfield. And so I, we could go
into that if you want to. Butwhat I do there is I do a speech
on it, call the back end. Andalso, I really, really love
(41:05):
doing mobile apps. So my heartis still pounding for for mobile
applications. I've been doingthem for quite some years. I
remember the first applicationthat it like, that was sort of
mobile was Windows eight, I wasone of those five developers.
Because each application and andthat was like, I thought this is
like so cool. You know, like yougot like your mobile phones, you
know, thing and the whole vibegoing on buying into the whole
(41:27):
ad campaigns of the mobileproviders and stuff like that.
So I realized it and then I getI got into the Xamarin
bandwagon. So but back beforethere was Xamarin Forms, not
when it was so mana bit inbetween. And so yeah, I did a
lot of mobile applications forfor businesses, boring line of
business applications, mostly.
(41:49):
But yeah, that was a lot, a lotof fun. And then I remember
doing when Xamarin Forms cameout like version one Dotto. We
did an app with that. And thatwas interesting. I would say to
put it Yeah, that's okay.
Brandon Minnick (42:06):
It's okay. Just come a long way. And it's better
Mark Allibone (42:11):
now. Yeah, it's I mean, I mean, now it's, I think
it's like compared to that it'slike really amazing. I mean, the
other day, I was talking withSean, I think it was he on this
show. Also recently, Lawrence.
Yeah. So Lawrence, that's,that's a Shawn. And he actually
even made a game with animationsand all that stuff. And I just
remember, like, the version oneauto thing that we did, we had
(42:33):
like a bit of a complex thing inthe table. And it has the
performance just crashed. It wasit was like sluggish, and all
that. But yeah, I mean, thesedays, phones, they got such a
superpower. And yeah, so that's,that's what I really like to do.
And also like, then I thenstarted to talk about Xamarin.
Like, yeah, hey, you know, youreally have to check this out.
(42:56):
I'm that kind of person or yourjob. So when I find something
cool, that will be the guyrunning from cube to cube
showing that
Pj Metz (43:06):
free doughnuts in the kitchen?
Mark Allibone (43:09):
Yeah, that it's taken that to be honest. No, but
so yeah. So I then started to dotalks, like it user groups and
local conferences and starteddoing a blog on the side too,
because I mean, it's like somepeople that come up with you
with a question. And he can, hecan answer it. And sometimes you
just think, man, you know, Ishould really write this down.
Because I get this question.
Like, all the time. It's justlike, Okay, I put it on my blog.
(43:31):
Or sometimes you think like, howdoes this work? I'll just leave
it on my blog. So the next timeI have to do it on my day job
artist, I can, I can sneak peek.
And yeah, I mean, that's how Ican do that more and more. And
then someone asked me if Iwanted to become a Microsoft
MVP. And then since a few yearsback, I have now been in the
(43:52):
Microsoft MVP program, whereI've met a lot of very cool
people that also like into inthe sharing and community spirit
and sharing knowledge, which,which I really enjoy. And it's
also how, how Brad and I, thatwas at a conference, living
living in parallel or in thesame universe, but in parallel
spaces. That was that was reallycool. So yeah, that's what I
(44:16):
love.
Pj Metz (44:18):
I love the idea of like writing down what you're
learning or when people havequestions, you're like, oh, I
should make something thatreaches more people. And I think
that that's something that a lotof people who are getting into
tech now who are juniors, whoare not sure what to do, if you
just start writing what you'velearned, or if you find a
workaround, and you tell a lotof people about it. That's a
(44:41):
great way to one keep learningyourself because it's, you can
learn something and do it butwhen you write about it, that's
when you really solidify thelearning that you did. You're
creating materials for otherpeople who are going to have the
same questions. And it's just agreat way to make your career
better because now Suddenly,you're the person who has
(45:02):
information you're like, oh,yeah, I encountered that same
problem before I wrote a postabout it. Here it is. And having
that information available, iswhat is what makes all of us
better. I can't recommend thatenough for everybody to, to
write what you're learning andshare it with people, you might
think it's really obvious, butsomeone out there doesn't know
(45:23):
it yet. And so sharing thatinformation is just going to
make everyone better. I lovethat, Mark. That's fantastic.
Mark Allibone (45:30):
Yeah, I think I think that's PJ you said it like
really nicely there. Like, Isometimes people come up to me
and say, like, wow, I don't knowif I really should blogging. I
don't know if this is smartenough to put onto a blog post
and just like, do it, if itwould help you, if I also like
if it would help you, like, twohours ago, or two weeks ago,
write it because there will besomeone out there that just
(45:51):
knows that will be you like twoweeks ago, who will be eternally
thankful that someone put a postout there, and you had to like
grab your information from threeor four sources,
Pj Metz (46:01):
document like your writing for you from two weeks
ago. Be like, there's a betterway that there's a bumper
sticker in there somewhere. I'llwork on it, and we'll sell the
merch for sure.
Brandon Minnick (46:13):
Good. And I can't agree more. But question
for you. So if somebody islistening right now and goes,
oh, gosh, yeah, you're right. Ishould do that. But where how?
Actually, PJ, we'll start withyou. Since you brought it up.
What do you recommend forsomebody new to? Do I start a
(46:35):
blog? Do I use a site likemedium? What are the options out
there for us?
Pj Metz (46:41):
So I know that for me, oh, this is advice that I got
early in my career from Brandon.
Write down what you're learningand show people what you're
learning. So one way to do it isto consider learning live on
Twitch because it makes aliteral video. And then if you
discover something there, peoplecan see exactly how you got to
where you are, there's lots ofgreat live coders on Twitch. And
(47:03):
you can be one of them. Anotherplace, if you want to blog is
blogger. It's a free service.
It's pretty customizable, andit's easily integrated with a
bunch of other things. There'salso a lot of early coding
projects I've seen for peoplewho are just learning to code
junior developers and such,where you build your own blog,
(47:26):
and you host it yourself and youmake it exactly what you want it
to be. So not only do you getexperience with coding and
creating a website, but you alsoget to use it afterward. and
have it be present there. Butalso just Twitter. Follow the
people that you want to interactwith interact with people on
Twitter, be a part of theconversation, like, you know,
(47:50):
retweet, retweet with commontalk to people and just meet
people on there. Because if youdiscover something, I've seen
people who start Twitter andshare literally everything
they're learning as they'relearning a new language. And
they end up meeting 1000s ofpeople just through that just be
sharing their experiences. Sothere's lots of places that are
already available Twitch,Twitter, Blogger, or making your
(48:13):
own blog, all great ways to getout there and do it. And
honestly, one of the best placesto interact with our open source
folks and see where they'rewriting and what they're doing
and where they hang out. That'swhat I think that's what I say.
(48:34):
I said, What's the show? And Iknow I've already done three
times this show, but it gets areally good reaction every time.
So until it's old, get ready.
Brandon Minnick (48:46):
Yeah. And market however, where did you
get started with? Was it sharinginformation? Whether it
blogging, tweeting, videoing?
Mark Allibone (48:57):
Podcasting? Yeah.
So I remember there was a I wasfollowing like, the people at
the time. I think it was likeScott Hanselman. He saw the
people today. And and, yeah, soI just I just thought, you know,
get started. And I think it wasa course by Rob Connery. I know,
it wasn't free on Pluralsight.
I'll, I'll have to dig up thelink maybe during some next
(49:20):
talking. And so then he said,Well, you know, like, if you do
a blog, you might want toconsider like, who owns your
content? Because if you'reblogging for yourself, like do
you want to like give it away tosome platform? And so yeah,
that's like one consideration.
And I think the other one isjust like getting started. So
taking out a lot of the hurdlesthat you can get into. So my
first blog was on WordPress, Ithink it's still somewhere out
(49:41):
there. And then I thought, Okay,I have to host it on my own. So
then I took a mini blog fromMatt Christensen Torrance.
Sorry, butchering the name, but,but yeah, one of the most from
and so they're hosted on Azureand stuff like that, and that
was like, you know, theclassical one with a database
and everything. And these days Ihave mine on Akita pages. And
(50:02):
yeah, it's free, but it takes abit more work. It's a Jekyll
engine belief. You writemarkdown files, you push it up
to server, it gets compiled intostatic files, and they host it.
It's I think it's really cool.
But before that, like the also,just like the mini blog, even
though I had to host the entirething on my own, it was it was
(50:25):
like, it was like, a microwavemeal, you know, he just
unwrapped it, you put it intothe thing you started up, it
runs it carefree. And with, withthese markdown files, I mean, I
get the benefit of usingwhatever editor I want, and I
can I can do all that stuff. Butyeah, I noticed someone's put a
character somewhere into one ofthe headers of the Markdown
(50:46):
file. And yeah, Jekyll did notlike that. It didn't get an
error, but my irises featuresthat was no longer there and
stuff like that. So it Yeah, itif you're a developer, I
recommend checking it out. Ifyou if you're just in there for
sharing the content. WordPressmight be great for you or some
one of the ones that PJH hasmentioned. How about you random?
(51:08):
What's your recommendation? No.
Oh, yeah.
Brandon Minnick (51:11):
Yeah, I think for let's see, if you're just
getting started, yeah, thelowest overhead, smallest
friction possible, is going tobe the best route. Because I've
met so many people that theysay, like, I'm gonna start a
blog. Step one, gotta create awebsite. And then all of a
(51:36):
sudden, you feel this, thisweight of the world on your
shoulders that, oh, gosh, thisis gonna be a lot of work. I had
set aside an hour to do ittoday. But I'm not gonna be able
to build a website an hour, letme do it next week, next
weekend, and then next week,turns into next month turns into
next year. And we still haven'tgotten started yet with that.
(51:57):
The website, golden blog posts,right, because the website
doesn't exist. And so, you know,there's Yeah, blogging platforms
that, like we've alreadymentioned, Dev dot two is
another another good option agood one, I can just a great
option. Yeah, you just justright. And, you know, search
(52:18):
engines will pick it up. If, ifyou just include I found,
include a couple keywords, or ifyou're blogging because your app
kept crashing, include thatStackTrace in there, because
somebody else is gonna have thatsame error message. And they're
just gonna drop it into Google.
And actually, this is me, I'mtalking about myself, I've
Mark Allibone (52:39):
never done that when you do that, remove the
file names, you know, your ownnames, because you'll get
better. Yes, yeah. Yeah. And sothat's what that's why Brandon
calls me a senior developer, youknow?
Brandon Minnick (52:53):
Right, I'll see your means is we've had
experience googling it. Andwe've hit that problem before.
So we knew, maybe know how tofix it. But yeah, yeah, don't
don't feel like you have to dotoo much. Getting those words
down, we'll say, theoretically,on paper, just on on a blog post
(53:14):
is enough. Because you canalways move that content around.
It's not like, once you buildthis, you have to keep them on
your website forever. Or if youuse a platform like dev dot two
or medium or GitHub Pages, thathas to stay there forever. You
can, you can always build yourwebsite later. So yeah, I'd
(53:34):
recommend the easiest routefirst, just to get started and
get those ideas down. And thenyeah, if you want to learn how
to build a website, buildingyour own blog, or build your own
website for your blog, greatplace to start. Now, we've only
got a couple minutes left, Mark,the time is flown by. So again,
(53:55):
thank you so much for coming on.
But I would be remiss if wedidn't mention your work in
podcasting. Tell us about thepodcast you're working on now.
No pointers?
Mark Allibone (54:06):
Yeah, so no points is is no point. So you
can also find us on Twitter andour point SEO. And so yeah,
that's a show that I started outwith two of my very good Dutch
friends, Gerald, and Steven. AndGerald has now focused on his
YouTube career. And the I thinkthe Xamarin Forms and these are
in community toolkit is also inthe mountain community toolkit
(54:29):
has now become more of hisfocus. So that's just me and
Steven. And so we have justdecided to mix things up a bit
and actually invite guests on tothe show because we just
literally run out of stuff totalk all it was as we couldn't
listen any more to our ownvoices while editing it. Yeah,
yeah, we need to break it up. Soyeah, so um, yeah. We talk about
(54:52):
tech opinions, and just justgeneral stuff. That is the that
crosses the path of a softwaredeveloper during his life. Yeah,
it was one of the podcasts thatstarted during the pandemic,
maybe maybe you were just lonelyat home, but I really enjoy
doing it. And I'm lookingforward to doing it sometime.
(55:13):
Because I think it's like reallyinteresting that people that you
get to meet I'm sure I don'thave to tell these two YouTube
guys. But it's, yeah, it's it'salways enlightening. And it's
also like giving you a differentperspective on something that
you may have already knew orsomething that you. Yeah. Don't
even know anything about. Andthat's something that I really
like doing podcasts. So that waslike, it is a blog. I don't do
(55:35):
any video. I don't know. Justprobably being too lazy. Maybe
one day I'll
Pj Metz (55:39):
Oh, it's not laziness.
We are. We are way complicatingthings over here on this. But I
think I think it's because thisstarted as a Microsoft show. And
then it kind of turned into apodcast, really, but you don't
have to do video. Don't Don'ttalk yourself down like that.
Mark. You're doing great. You'redoing amazing stuff.
Mark Allibone (56:02):
Thank you right back. atcha.
Pj Metz (56:04):
Oh, this show sponsored by compliments. Yeah,
Brandon Minnick (56:13):
that's fantastic. So like you said,
it's no pointers.io is thewebsite and the Twitter handle
is no pointers. Io one word? Isthat right?
Mark Allibone (56:23):
Yes. That's the thing. Yeah. DMS are open, we
always like to say,
Brandon Minnick (56:28):
yeah, so definitely subscribe to the
podcast. I know, I'm a littlebiased, because I've actually
been a guest on the podcast. ButI had a great time, recommend
folks joining. And also to getnew developers out there. We've
been talking about a lot aboutwriting blogs. PJ also mentioned
streaming on Twitch. Butpodcasting is also incredibly
(56:51):
valuable. There's so muchknowledge out there. I know
selfishly. I learned a lot justby hosting this. Bringing on
incredible people like yourself,Mark Beck can share your
experiences. Yes, we want toencourage more people to get
into tech and that's why we dothis podcast but I also have
(57:12):
grown a lot myself and encouragefolks to do it as well. There's
a lot of free services likeright now we're using a tool
called restream. Mark remind mewhat's the tool that no pointers
uses for recording episodes.
Mark Allibone (57:27):
Yeah, so we use sink caster, which is also Yes,
sir. Yes, yeah. Which is you getyou get the free tier. So I
think if you get like reallyprofessional like you got a
podcasting studio that do a tonof shows then you will have to
up into the pay grade. But Imean, for us we do. We used to
do one show per week. Now we dotwo per month. So it's okay, you
(57:48):
get you also get a video stream.
The beginning was like no videostream, and that was a bit dull.
Brandon Minnick (57:57):
Yeah, love it.
So you don't you don't need arecording studio to start a
podcast. The best advice I heardwas, you know, if you just have
you know, those free Appleearbuds that come with every
iPhone, or at least they used tothose are good enough plug those
in. As long as you have hadheadphones microphones,
something as simple as that.
(58:18):
With a tool like Zen caster,which is free to use. You can
get started as well. Bart, Iappreciate you coming on the
show so much. I feel like wewe've been cut short on time. I
don't know how we just gotthrough it. Feels like a couple
minutes. But some closingremarks. Where can people find
(58:39):
you? On the internet folks wantto follow mark? Where do they
go?
Mark Allibone (58:45):
Well, yeah, you can you can find me at
Marleybone on on Twitter. I'malso I got this handle like I
try to get it everywhere. So youcan also find me on LinkedIn,
and on GitHub. And yeah, that'sthat's just where I'm, I'm
working in a company called Raytechnology. And the tech the
tech industry as is that a crazeright now. So if you if you're
(59:08):
in Switzerland, and you'relooking for interesting job,
industrial it, check us out.
Rick's ecology.com Is that howyou do ads? I don't know. I
mean, PGA Professional. Andthis.
Pj Metz (59:20):
It's really just about having the commercial voice. You
can say anything you want tocommercial voice. It sounds
good. Oh my gosh, I spilled soupeverywhere. And then it's about
like a cleaning product. Youknow, okay, okay, I'll buy that
one. That's right. I'm spillingsoup all the time.
Brandon Minnick (59:37):
Well, Mark, thank you so much again for
joining us this week. And thankyou for listening. Don't forget
to subscribe to the podcast tokeep up to date with our latest
episodes. We're on YouTube. Youcan find us on eight bits on
YouTube on all the majorpodcasting platforms. Leave us a
comment. Let us know what youthink. And we'll see you next
time.
Welcome back to eight bits, everybody, the show
where we interview the peoplebehind the tech. I'm your host,
Brandon Minnick. And with me asalways is the amazing PJ Mets
BJ, how was your week
Pj Metz (02:18):
I only speak in reggae.
Brandon Minnick (02:22):
That's it's two reggae horns. Yes, one for now.
My Week
Pj Metz (02:27):
is great. It's Tuesday.
Tuesday is one of my favoritedays of the week. Actually,
Tuesday and Wednesday are two ofmy favorites. And that sounds
weird. But first off on Tuesday,I get free stuff from T Mobile
for T Mobile Tuesdays, which isgreat. If you don't know what T
Mobile Tuesdays is, then youdon't have T Mobile. But
basically, they give you a bunchof like free stuff on Tuesdays
like it can be, Oh, get a freechicken sandwich from Popeye's
(02:51):
when you use their app and justclick this coupon. Or, for
instance, every week, they giveyou 10 cents off of gas per
gallon from Shell and I've beendoing that since like 2017. And
they keep a tally of how muchmoney you've saved on gas over
that time, which is real nice.
And I like Wednesdays becauseWednesdays used to be short days
(03:12):
when I was a teacher and I justI still like Wednesdays
Brandon Minnick (03:17):
not sponsored by T Mobile yet. But a cannibal
you can send us an email atHello at eight bits.tv and we
will happily respond.
Pj Metz (03:27):
Listen, I will gladly wear the the magenta for y'all
just let us know and we will bea part of that team for sure.
How was your week? Brandon, whathave you been up to? Oh,
Brandon Minnick (03:41):
good, good, good. I mean crazy productive
weekend, nothing to do with techalthough I did did open some
some PRs that we merged into thedinette Malik community toolkit.
But yeah, I had a busy weekendwhere I hung some gutters on the
house. Whoa, no big deal. It'sactually pretty easy.
(04:06):
Surprisingly, I watched you everwatched this old house? Yeah,
you show it Yeah. Really, reallygood. Really helpful. Somebody
recommended that to me when webought our this house our first
house like yeah, you know, justif you can find an episode of
this old house on it, you can doanything. And sure enough, like
(04:27):
needed to hang some guttersbecause where the water was
dripping it was splashing andbasically rotting out the side
of our siding. So that's gonnabe the next project is to fix
that. But yeah, put up somegutters and then Yeah, still
training for the the Napa Valleymarathon that's coming up in
March so after hanging somegutters I reward about rewarded
(04:50):
myself by doing a half marathonbut ran 21 miles. Now was
Pj Metz (04:57):
that including your your warm up runner one warm up,
run vendu 13
Brandon Minnick (05:04):
using this word warm up I mean, I stretch
actually, I bought a fair gun.
Shout out to theragun those
Pj Metz (05:14):
of you guys want to sponsor us first.
Brandon Minnick (05:19):
But, uh, yeah, so I found I got a nice little
routine now where I'll use afair got on my legs to kind of
loosen everything up, do alittle bit of dynamic
stretching, but then I'm not.
And, and yeah, I was pleasantlysurprised. I haven't. I mean,
I've been running the blast pastcouple months training for this
marathon. But I haven't reallydone a race since 2019, which
(05:40):
was the San Francisco halfmarathon. And I almost hit that
same time I finished in about anhour 51. Night. Thank you.
That's a goodthanks, thanks, everybody.
Pj Metz (06:06):
That's always a good feeling when you when you come
back to something after a longtime of not really doing it. And
you're like, Oh, I'm doinggreat. But they can also be
balanced out with sometimesyou've been doing something for
a long time. And suddenly,you're terrible at it. I've had
times where I sit down to drums,I've been playing drums pretty
(06:26):
consistently. And I sit down tojust do it and everything falls
apart. I'm dropping stakes, likeI forget how to do a roll, it
just all falls apart on me. ButI'll go months without it. And
then suddenly, I'll play adrumset. I'm like, Oh, I'm the
best drummer there's ever been.
That's not true.
Brandon Minnick (06:44):
Which I radically sounds a lot like,
like coding. When you look atold code, and sometimes you go
wow, whoever wrote this wasreally smart. Like, oh, that was
me. And then sometimes code andbe like, Wow, whoever wrote this
really didn't know what they'redoing. Oh, that was also me.
Pj Metz (07:01):
You're looking at code.
So you're like, Man, if I everwrite code like this, like, tell
me to retire and they're like,this is yours. You're like, Oh,
alright. Look, I take back whatI said before. Yeah, it's rough
out there, huh? It's rough outthere for yourself.
Brandon Minnick (07:23):
So speaking of which, we have a really, really,
really amazing guest this week.
Mark elbow and he's a opensource developer or release,
we're nudging him towards theopen source. I've I've will say
known Mark or known of mark foryears. We I think we officially
first met just a couple ofmonths ago, when we were both
(07:44):
speaking at a conference. But healso is, has his own podcast is
a I would call him a seniordeveloper, if not principle, if
not higher. But without furtherado, let's bring him on. Mark.
Welcome to the show.
Mark Allibone (08:02):
Hey, guys. Well, thank you for having me.
Brandon Minnick (08:14):
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. For those
who haven't met yet. Mark, whoare you in? What do you do?
Mark Allibone (08:20):
Yeah. Good question. Brian. Sometimes asked
myself the same thing.
Especially when I look at mycode, they asked it right. Or
some years after. So I totallycan relate to that one, though.
So my name is Mike Caliban. Ilive in Switzerland, which is
not Sweden. There's a jokethere, which only Swiss and
Swedish people probablyunderstand. And yeah, I I work
here as a software developerslash project. Manager slash,
(08:45):
technically, sometimes. Thecompany is still growing and we
still have some. Yeah, someobstacles to take. So it's
always fun. You get to wearmultiple hats, even though don't
have one on. I wasn't informedguys. Somebody told me. I mean,
Pj Metz (09:05):
going bald. That's why I wear a hat.
Mark Allibone (09:07):
Okay. I mean, if you listen to the audio, it's
like it's like everybody'swearing a hat in this this room.
Just just me not mine. I just Ifeel left out here. Yeah, no,
it's um it's Well, yeah,
Brandon Minnick (09:21):
I got my I've got my Microsoft hat on. And I
remember when we first startedthe show, it did start out ape
it started out actually as aofficial Microsoft show that
they they ended up not pickingus up for another season. So
never independent. But But yeah,I this is one of my favorite
(09:43):
hats a murder Microsoft hat withI think this was the official
logo in the 80s If I remembercorrectly. It's just one of my
Pj Metz (09:52):
Metallica logo like
Brandon Minnick (09:54):
yes, yeah. And yeah, like somebody called me
out in the comments like wow,like Microsoft employee. have to
wear their own branding andlike, no, just
Mark Allibone (10:03):
absolutely, yeah, yes.
Brandon Minnick (10:07):
I see PJ's grow in Orlando hat and like, I don't
have to wear a hat for I live.
It's just it's a cool. It's oneof my
Pj Metz (10:16):
favorites. It was like 20 bucks at like a tourist trap
shop somewhere. InternationalDrive. And I might be the only
Orlando resident who bought thishat. Everyone else from Iowa or
Canada or some other place thatI've never been. Right. But
Brandon Minnick (10:33):
it's like, I hurt New York, sir, when you're
in New York City. Yeah, but thatperson is not from here.
Pj Metz (10:39):
Now, to be fair, New York Yankees hats aren't like a
ubiquitous thing where like,even New York people really wear
him a lot. But also, everyonedoes. I don't know, this is a
show about hats, by the way.
Those of you just joining us.
Brandon Minnick (10:56):
So So speaking of hats and bad transitions,
Mark, let's go let's go wayback. Because you've been,
you've been coding for a longtime.
Mark Allibone (11:05):
And now you say I'm old.
Brandon Minnick (11:09):
You look great.
Nobody would ever guess. Yourskills and looking at the code.
That's been doing it for awhile. But if we go back, um, we
always love learning what whatinspires folks to get into
coding get into tech? Becausethere's, there's no wrong
answer. So let's jump into timemachine. Let's go back. When did
(11:30):
you first say fall in love withtechnology and start learning to
write code?
Mark Allibone (11:39):
Well, I'm so I, I've been one of those people
that has had access to computerfor a very, very long time.
Because, as a matter of fact, mymy mother, she used to work for
a Swiss insurance company. Andshe used to be a COBOL
developer. So she's retired now.
But she, she she did that. Andshe used to work from home back
(11:59):
in back in the day. So that waslike, early 90s. and stuff. So
it's some kind of a seller,like, you know, up and he had a
lot of stuff, probably there.
But yeah, she just did it, youknow. And so, with that, you
know, we had like these bigfloppies you know, they're like
the small ones with the thingthat slides and there's like the
big ones where you can, you canuse them to find them. And she
(12:24):
used to bring home games forthese things. So like the
Formula One game, I got no ideahow it's called, maybe Moto GP
something. And, and that's how Ifirst got in contact computer.
And yeah, I, that's our commandkey and stuff like that. So a
lot of games. So it was always abit fond of technology. But I
never was like one of thosepeople that went like and then I
(12:46):
discovered that I could writecode to cheat in the games that
Brandon Minnick (12:53):
gameplay. Yeah.
Mark Allibone (12:55):
And, and as my mother, she never taught me how
to write COBOL maybe, maybethat's a good thing. I don't
know. But yeah, so So had incontact with it. So not really
afraid, always found it veryfascinating, mostly to play
games. And then I remember I waslike 14, and then a friend of
mine, he had like this book,books for people that don't
(13:17):
know, they work withoutbatteries. They're really great.
As long as you got daylight, orsunlight, and it was about HTML,
and JavaScript and CSS. So yeah,it was was one of the early
versions, you know, where youput everything into tables, and
you had tables within tables.
And that that was how you wrotewebsites back in those days. And
then you sort of sprinkle alittle bit of JavaScript over it
(13:38):
like nothing super fancy, and alittle bit of Ajax and that was
pretty much it. So I thoughtthat's interesting. So I did a
few things like stuntprogramming, HTML, putting it
there. And yeah, had fun doingthat. But it was nothing really
serious. So that but that waslike the first time where I, I
(13:59):
saw that computers are not justthere to write your homework and
and play games, but you canactually start creating stuff.
And then in Switzerland, this isa bit special. So when I then
here, you might say in a lot ofcountries that I know you go to
school, you go to high school,and then you go to college, and
(14:21):
then you get a job or you gofrom high school and then get a
job, bow. That's how I know howthe education system works in
the US. So please, don't quoteme on that one. And don't Don't
be mad if I got one or twodirections wrong there. And so
in Switzerland, what we can dois we got like primary school,
secondary school. And then aftersecondary school, you got two
(14:42):
paths that you can take, you caneither go the university route,
which you then have to go toanother school and then you go
to uni, or you can go and takean apprenticeship and this is
totally normal here. So we haveapprenticeships for almost every
job that you can imagine. Sofrom people that work on
electricity Plumbing, baking,accounting? Yeah, sales,
(15:02):
whatever we have, we have prettymuch so this is, I think a bit
special for Switzerland. It'salso called the dual system of
education. And so what I did, Ijust, I didn't go down the uni
route because I, I flunked outin French, when I took the test
to go to the middle thing. Idon't want to get into the
grade, that was very low. Yeah,it probably probably deserved
(15:26):
that, because I only learned toproperly do French after that,
because someone said, he can'tbe that you just mingle by every
time in school. And then whenthe real test comes, you Fluke
out so it's kind of discoveredthere. But anyhow, yeah, that's
range, leave it there. And soafter that, I then went and did
an apprenticeship in computerprogramming. So that was one of
(15:49):
the first years that thatapprenticeship was actually even
offered in Switzerland. And ittakes it takes four years. So
apprenticeship, you get paid thewage, but it's quite low. And
usually, like, if you're acompany, you can you can have
apprenticeships, you also getlike some tax deductions in
Switzerland, if you do it as acompany. And basically, what you
do is you are a few days you'rein the company to doing work,
(16:11):
and then you're one or two daysin school. And that's how you
then get educated. And there's asystem like you have to have a
person you company that takessome formal training, so you can
have apprentices in yourcompany, and then that you learn
it. And there's some standards,like you learn the same stuff in
school. But it also depends abit where you're end up as a
(16:34):
company wise, for training thatyou get there. And yeah, that's
that's how I really got intocontact with with developing,
and all kinds of stuff likethat. And in one of my final
years, I then it's a longmonologue, I then in one of my
final years, I actually got towork at a small How do you say
(16:58):
that there was a college andthey have like departments,
college departments, and then Iwent there. And they did a ton
of embedded systems like RealTime Clock management, for power
switching, they developed aprotocol there, I thought, this
is super cool stuff. But Irealized then like if I if I
don't go to university, I get abachelor's degree, I won't be
(17:22):
able probably to do this coolkind of stuff. Like I won't be
able to do programming, but Butall this cool kind of stuff. And
that's why they actually alsowent to university, which is
compared to what I hear aboutprices in the US. We don't have
Pj Metz (17:38):
to talk about that.
I've got three degrees, and Ipaid a lot for him.
Brandon Minnick (17:47):
That's mark, that's, that's fascinating.
Yeah, PJ correct or wrong? You,Mark, you might be our first
guest from Switzerland. So Idon't know if we've ever had the
background of Pj is looking,thinking, but is Yeah. But I
(18:08):
love that concept of the theapprenticeship. And I think
that's something that while thealso not necessarily the US is
the government because it soundslike Switzerland to set up
programs. So you mentionedgetting tax breaks, you
mentioned that all these systemsare in place. We we in the US,
(18:30):
there's there's always been kindof a stigma, or at least less
definitely less there nowadays.
But when I was growing up, itwas yes, you you have to go to
college. If you don't go tocollege, then you're going to be
homeless on the street. Andthat's just not true. Because
there There have always beenapprenticeships in the US,
they've always been more gearedtowards what we'd call
(18:52):
colloquially, blue collar jobs.
So if you want to get highlytechnical, hands on work, like
welding, for example, not everynot everybody can pick up a
welding torch and do it.
Pj Metz (19:10):
Don't recommend as a leader please do not pick up
something you're not trainedfor.
Brandon Minnick (19:21):
Right? Um, but yeah, I remember there was there
was no discussion of that.
Nobody even told me that Ishould or could do that. It was
just Yep, you got to go tocollege. And I feel like
nowadays in the US there hasbecome this shift. Like you
mentioned, like TJ was jokingabout like, college has gotten
so expensive. That is it evenworth it anymore to graduate
(19:41):
with six figures student loandebt. For some reason, the
student loan system or studentloans in this country also, like
the interest rates are well,higher than high in historic
sense, but yeah, like, like youcould get a mortgage for around
3% interest Now, whereas yourstudent loan is going to be
around 8% interest, it's like,why? Like, wow, yes, both are
(20:04):
important, but arguably likeeducation should be most but so
for fighting less and less folksneed to go that that route. Now,
you did mention that there wasthat electronics hardware
embedded systems that you didfeel that nudge towards. If I
(20:26):
didn't get a bachelor's degreein this, then I probably
wouldn't be successful in it.
And I'd love to know more. Sothat where where is that line in
Switzerland? Between? I reallyneed a degree for this. And no,
(20:48):
you know, what I can learn on myown and still be still be okay.
Have a successful career?
Mark Allibone (20:54):
Yeah, well, that's, that's an interesting
question. There's no, there's nohard rule, I would say,
generally speaking, if you get aformal education, there are some
some industries that look more,if you if you have a degree,
like, if you look, medicalcompanies or pharma companies,
they usually they they valuethat quite highly if you have
(21:15):
got a master's or a doctoratedegree. And so they even with a
bachelor you like on the low endprofile, to get in there. But
there are many other jobs whereit is not required to have a
bachelor's degree, or even acertificate. So if you do the
apprenticeship system, you alsoget like a certificate that you
have done this and also teststhat you have to take at the
(21:37):
end, to get that and you can youcan learn software development
on the side, you can go to acoding school and learn it like
that. But let's just say it'slike, for me, usually, there are
people that are way smarter thanme, way better than me and
(21:57):
software development. And Ihaven't got a degree, I mean, I
just, that's just the truth.
Okay, I know where I stand. Butfor me, when someone has it has
a degree, I think, a degree, Idon't know how it's in the US.
But in Switzerland, you have totake a lot of coursework on the
site. So if you do like it, youdo a lot of mathematics. And
usually, for me, it's just like,if you've got a formal degree,
(22:18):
it just means someone can grindtheir way sometimes through that
not so pleasant parts. And youknow, they go a bit more stick,
this is not meaning this is notmeaning that you have to have a
formal education. So someone canjudge your character. But it's
just like, I think I think he'sjust have to, yeah, to a bit on
these not so nice bits until,until he like can can read some
(22:41):
benefits.
Pj Metz (22:44):
There's absolutely a tendency of like, school is so
important, you have to do it.
And in America, it's verydifferent, where school is so
important, you have to do it.
And like Brendan said earlier, Ifeel like people of our age
especially were just expected,that was what was expected. You
have to go to school, you haveto do it. And so now there's a
(23:06):
prevalence of expectation thatyou need that degree. But um, in
our in our comments, just nowthere is an element of a certain
people are allowed a certainamount of like Grace that other
groups are not where you can bejudged on potential based on how
well you fit in, as opposed towhat your past is. And I think
(23:31):
that this is absolutely correct.
We've seen this add in anecdotalevidence, certainly. But you can
see that there are differencesin what opportunities people
get, based on what group they'rea part of. And without that
degree, there's there's, I'mhalf Puerto Rican. Many of my
cousins are a mix of PuertoRican and black. And I remember
(23:53):
talking with my aunt's, myuncle's, my cousins, there was
an expectation that they werealways told, you're going to
have to work twice as hard inorder to get half the
recognition. And that's, I thinkthat's a very true statement.
Certainly in America, certainlyin other countries, but
anecdotally speaking aboutAmerica, some people are given a
(24:14):
pass and it's okay, you're fine.
Others aren't. But that systemyou talked about in Sweden is a
something I actually saw a highschool I worked at, where there
were two tracks for the highschool and it's really rare in
America that that happens. Youwould either say I'm pursuing
college and your track in highschool would change or I'm
(24:37):
pursuing something different.
I'm not necessarily thinkingabout college and there were
things like I'm more like whatBrendon talks about blue collar
jobs. We had a mechanic's room,we had a marine mechanic's
garage where they could work onboats and stuff and this is on a
coastal town. So that'slucrative if you know how to fix
a boat engine then you're goingto be great, but um, that it's
Oh, amazing to talk about theway different systems work in
(25:01):
different places. And that lineBrandon of, uh, when do you need
the degree? When do you not needthe degree? I think it's
interesting that you kind of didboth sides mark where it was
apprenticeship for CS. And thenwell, I want college because I
want to work on these other morecomplex more. It seems more
complex systems. Is thataccurate?
Mark Allibone (25:25):
Yeah, I think so.
So at least at the time, I hadthe feeling it will make sense.
I was also like, in a departmentfrom from that college that I
then later attended. So mighthave been a bit of bias in the
in the room. So these days,these days, I'm pretty sure I
could do the same work. Withoutlet's just say, like, computer
wise, or programming wise, I'mpretty certain you could do the
(25:47):
same stuff. But yeah, it'salways hard to say like, would
you have done it then? And stufflike that? So yeah, coulda
woulda. But yeah, so itdefinitely is interesting. And I
always want to say, for me, it'slike, when people say, well, we
need more college graduates.
Because I mean, because we gotlike the school system in
(26:08):
Switzerland. So it's like, if wecompare ourselves to other
countries, we got less. Yeah,degree, like in percentage wise
and population. So like that?
And it's just like, Well, does,does everybody need a degree? I
mean, do you really need to havea degree to do your job? And
sometimes the answer is no. Andsometimes we say, well, it might
(26:28):
make sense that you get a formaleducation before you can cut up
people or before you constructstuff like to be
Pj Metz (26:42):
not allowed to cut people unless
Mark Allibone (26:45):
you had a bit. I mean, like, then I mean, the
question is like, Yeah, I mean,so a bit of formal education
probably is good in most jobs. Imean, even if you handling
electricians, wiring, I mean,you don't want to get zapped
with those. So So you need youneed some education. But I think
the the question is totallyfair. Like, how much? How much
do you really need? And is it isit always sensible to do like
(27:08):
the the classical computerscience degree routes or stuff
like that? For me, for me, Iwould say yes, it was, even
though I would I am the first toset to tell you, I learned so
much mathematics, maths when Idid it. And I usually like once
I had to do, I had to do someprobability. And then I was
(27:28):
really happy that I could, yeah,pick up that book again, and and
reread how it's done. And thenyeah, it's oftentimes it's just
like understanding stuff, whenyou when you are reading maybe
something or just like, you knowhow it works belief, even though
you'd never really dive intojust things like, knowing the
background or going a bit lowerin the in the tech stack, then
(27:52):
what you're actually working atCan, can be really good to know,
because then, you know, like, Ishouldn't do this, because below
this and that will happen, orthe system has got no chance to
optimize this because how wouldhe know it? And and you if you
only like always, always livelike in your happy place and
stuff like that. You probablywon't know that. But yeah, I
(28:14):
wouldn't say you have to spendtons of dollars to get to know
that because a lot of a lot ofeducation is these days. I mean,
out there also for free. I mean,if you look at YouTube and stuff
like that, yeah.
Pj Metz (28:28):
There's a lot of a lot better chances and education now
for sure. There's, you know,does everyone have the resources
to access that it's becomingmore ubiquitous? Absolutely. But
time is a resource too, but Iabsolutely agree with you. Does
everyone need college for you?
You said, It benefited me. Itworked for me. Did I need it for
the day to day? Not necessarily,but it helped and I think I saw
(28:51):
Joe Carlson who's been on thispodcast before talking about it
for a question someone asked himon Tik Tok. I'm in my CS degree
right now. Should I stick itout? Or should I should I you
know, just go and start workingand get experienced that way.
You don't have to follow Joe onTik Tok for the answer though,
so.
Brandon Minnick (29:15):
Oh, goodness.
So, So Mark, we, we've we've gotyour, your degree. And so
getting into your first job, butwhat what what were you working
on first? What what kind of roledid that company hand to say,
relatively new developer likeyourself?
Mark Allibone (29:38):
So I had like this experience twice. I had one
apprenticeship once aftergraduating, though, I must, I
must say like, after graduating,I had a confidence in my
abilities, which was way overstretched. And I think got that
feedback not in a direct way butin the indirect way of noticing
(29:59):
artists. How much I still haveto learn? And yeah, I remember
when I, when I started my firstjob after after university, a
lot of stuff, I mean, my degreeslike 12 years ago, so stuff
things have changed. I'm nottrying to blame my school. Yeah,
but like we clean code or justlike how to structure projects,
(30:19):
those are not at the top of myhead how I would do that. So
still had a learning curve, Iwould still say I was a junior
back then. And I then started towork for a company that had a
very, very small softwaredepartment, it was me and my
boss. And that was us. And themajority of the company, they
were actually designing computerchips. So these system on a chip
(30:41):
things that then get built inand all the smarts these days.
So yeah, and and we were workingfor for a Swiss bank back then.
And I remember like, people theydidn't know, in that job. They
didn't know where to me. So Iwas, I was just like, Hannah's
like random tasks like, yeah,the they had these new system,
(31:02):
which was, I was a C sharpdeveloper, it was written in
Java. But hey, I did Java duringhigh, high during my education.
So yeah, I can check that Ithink. And yeah, so I was handed
all these random jobs, becauseno one really knew where to
place me and put me and afterthat, I then did different jobs.
And I learned like on the job,but the person that I was with
(31:24):
them, I mean, fun fact, hedidn't have a high school
degree, but he's one of the bestprogrammers I ever, ever learns.
And he taught me a lot ofthings. And he showed me like a
lot of ways how you can improveyour code, how you can style
your code? And also, yes, howyou go about work, when as a
software developer, and thatreally taught me a lot. I mean,
I still had to do a lot of studyon the site by myself, but it's
(31:47):
just like, getting pushed intothe right direction can be
really helpful when you startout. And so he, he, like, built
me up step by step. And then heleft afterwards. So then I was
put into the embeddeddepartments of that company. And
I was like, the only developerthat did not do the low level C
coding there. And I was thenyeah, so working for an external
(32:09):
company. And yeah, so doing Csharp, learn to do test driven
development, did some Ruby andRails on the side because it was
like an internal application.
And yeah, just step by stepgraded up. That's, that's how I
remember starting. And I justknow, like, I think the getting
the first job. That was like,really tough. So when 12 years
ago, that was like 2009, whoeverdid the math. And so, yeah,
(32:31):
2009 2008 was the financialcrisis. So 2009 was not the best
time to look for a job. And Inoticed that so I had some time,
where I was just like applyingto jobs at random. And just like
hoping that one applicationwould stick, then I finally got
a chance because I read in abook, how interfaces work in
(32:52):
comparison to classes. And thenI was asked another coding
interview. And I just could say,you know, in fact, you could
just instantiate that class andjust assign it to the interface.
And that blew my mind. Yeah, Isomehow got the job. Awesome.
Brandon Minnick (33:14):
Yeah. So you mentioned when you first started
out, that kind of that overoverconfidence, that kind of
quickly came crashing back downto earth. And I know, I've
certainly felt that I think alot of a lot of folks in the
industry get that because thereis so much to learn, consume to
(33:38):
know and the expectations can bethere that you have to do and
know all of this. But what wasan example of when you you
realize that you were maybe moremore cough or a bit bigger than
your bridges, for lack of abetter term where you, you got
(33:59):
maybe a task that kind of hityou. Wow, I still have a lot to
learn.
Pj Metz (34:05):
When did your ego learn?
Mark Allibone (34:08):
How well my my ego lends a lot of lessons
sylius Sometimes. So yeah,maybe, maybe these days, it's
more of imposter syndrome. Butnot only that, but yeah, so when
I saw the, I remember, there waslike this one task where that my
boss came up to me, she said,Well, you know, she sets up this
SQL Server, then make a, a dodotnet layer on top and so we
(34:32):
can request it by service. And Iwas like, Okay, I had SQL during
my high school. How hard canthis be? Yeah, a day pass. Not
much was running. And yeah, thatjust that just told me like, I
think there's like this thinglike in in university I remember
like the sentence when you hadquestions or when you questioned
(34:53):
the material, the learningmaterial of the of the teacher
and she's and The Simpsons gotthe sense, you know, not
everybody His, his his has gotthe skills to be an engineer.
And so, after you complete thattraining course you thought,
well, I got the skills of anengineer I can. Turns out, no,
you don't know, you don't know,like the I mean, like, if you're
(35:15):
in real life, you don't justhave like these algorithms or
these theoretical SQL queriesthat you have to write, you
actually have to set the thingup and setting the thing up
means getting your hands dirty,and knowing how to Yeah, beat
the thing into life. Sometimes,things have gotten a lot better
since then. But yeah, I rememberreally struggling back then
getting that thing to run.
Brandon Minnick (35:37):
And, and so what did you do next? So you're
you, you say to yourself, oh,yeah, I can do this. So I know
what SQL stands for. In reality,like, I probably never deployed
a production server. So So wheredo you go next? From there,
you're, you realize that youdon't know enough? And you've
(35:58):
kind of, I would say, dugyourself a hole. But how do you
get yourself out of it?
Mark Allibone (36:05):
Yeah, so I had to there like two ways, I think you
can, you can tackle thisproblem. And I, for a very, very
long time, I always stuck tothis one, like, you got to learn
the basics, you got to you gotto learn the entire stack. And
then when once you understandhow it works, then get to the
practical parts. And the otherthing is, you fire up your
(36:27):
favorite search engine, you lookfor the task at hand, and then
you just follow the firsttutorial or blog post that comes
to hand, you mingle your waythrough it, and then you see
that it runs. And then yourepeat that a couple of times,
until you get like the feel forit. And then once you feel a bit
how this What am I actuallydoing? The question starts
boiling up, then you take thatbook, and then you start to read
(36:49):
up on it. Because you know,like, this might be worth my
time because I'm doing it a lot.
And so for me, it's like, Ithink it's sometimes it's just
like really important to getsomething started. And not to
get like into this trap of well,now I've got now this 600 page
book I just bought on Amazon. SoI just have to read this for
three weeks, and then I'll beable to set up the SQL Server. I
mean, you can do it. I'm notsaying it's wrong, I just say
(37:11):
you probably could follow thatblog post, get the SQL server up
and running in the afternoon, doyour things. And then some will
come along and say that's nothow you write the most optimal.
Okay, yeah, so please show mehow. And but I just think
sometimes you really have to hitthe ground running or just like
try and just be on it. And yeah,and just mingle yourself
(37:35):
through. Instead of always goingdown into the deep end pool dive
and then trying to read up oneverything,
Pj Metz (37:44):
right? You don't have to become an expert. In order to
do it, you have to do it. Andthen you can become an expert
through iterations. Too manypeople are worried about being
being smart enough to do it orknowing how to do it as opposed
to like, just get in there, doit. Get in there and do it, make
it work. Once it works, you canmake it better next time that's
(38:05):
iterations like it's going toget better over time. So you
should you can't make itperfect. Now make it good now
build up to perfect.
Mark Allibone (38:15):
Yeah, I think another thing is like, so the
beginning I really had the lightfor that. And then something I
always had like these gaps inbetween where I didn't really
have someone that I could sayhe, he or she was my mentor to
hold me to show me along theway. And I think if you if you
got someone experience that canjust like notch into the right
direction, as I said before,that can be so helpful. It saves
(38:37):
you so much time just like yeah,no, just read through this post,
it will get you started. Andthen hey, if you're interested,
I can really recommend this bookfor you. I can really recommend
this video for you or this procycles that can be very helpful
to just yeah, get get youstarted and also then become an
(38:57):
expert.
Pj Metz (38:58):
Yeah, man. Absolutely.
Well, speaking of experts, we'vegot a quick ad break that we're
gonna take care and we'll beright back after the ad. i If
you're hearing my voice, thatmeans you've been listening to
or watching eight bits withBrandon MPJ. And we're here to
talk to you about your productand how it can help you in your
(39:21):
life by to do whatever yourproduct does. So if you're an
avid listener of the show, oryou watch us on Twitch, then you
will know that your product yourproduct is right for you.
(39:50):
That's right, y'all. We areaccepting advise if you would
like to advertise on our podcastand reach our many many
listeners. Just send us an emailat Hello Low at eight bits.tv.
And we'd be happy to talk withyou about options, which we will
definitely have ready to talkabout as soon as you message us.
Brandon Minnick (40:10):
Absolutely. So, Mark, we've been, we've been
chatting a lot about, we'll sayyounger mark, and kind of
getting getting into things,learning things, making the
mistakes, and not that we don'tstill do that today. I know, I
certainly still make a lot ofmistakes. But let's, let's fast
forward a little bit. Becausethere are so many cool things
(40:32):
that you are working on today.
And I think to set the stage alittle bit, what is it that and
What technologies do you work ontoday?
Mark Allibone (40:43):
So yeah, so great question. I suppose things to
say to buy some time, right?
Yeah. So first warning today. Somy job right now, my company
works in the industrial IoTfield. And so I, we could go
into that if you want to. Butwhat I do there is I do a speech
on it, call the back end. Andalso, I really, really love
(41:05):
doing mobile apps. So my heartis still pounding for for mobile
applications. I've been doingthem for quite some years. I
remember the first applicationthat it like, that was sort of
mobile was Windows eight, I wasone of those five developers.
Because each application and andthat was like, I thought this is
like so cool. You know, like yougot like your mobile phones, you
know, thing and the whole vibegoing on buying into the whole
(41:27):
ad campaigns of the mobileproviders and stuff like that.
So I realized it and then I getI got into the Xamarin
bandwagon. So but back beforethere was Xamarin Forms, not
when it was so mana bit inbetween. And so yeah, I did a
lot of mobile applications forfor businesses, boring line of
business applications, mostly.
(41:49):
But yeah, that was a lot, a lotof fun. And then I remember
doing when Xamarin Forms cameout like version one Dotto. We
did an app with that. And thatwas interesting. I would say to
put it Yeah, that's okay.
Brandon Minnick (42:06):
It's okay. Just come a long way. And it's better
Mark Allibone (42:11):
now. Yeah, it's I mean, I mean, now it's, I think
it's like compared to that it'slike really amazing. I mean, the
other day, I was talking withSean, I think it was he on this
show. Also recently, Lawrence.
Yeah. So Lawrence, that's,that's a Shawn. And he actually
even made a game with animationsand all that stuff. And I just
remember, like, the version oneauto thing that we did, we had
(42:33):
like a bit of a complex thing inthe table. And it has the
performance just crashed. It wasit was like sluggish, and all
that. But yeah, I mean, thesedays, phones, they got such a
superpower. And yeah, so that's,that's what I really like to do.
And also like, then I thenstarted to talk about Xamarin.
Like, yeah, hey, you know, youreally have to check this out.
(42:56):
I'm that kind of person or yourjob. So when I find something
cool, that will be the guyrunning from cube to cube
showing that
Pj Metz (43:06):
free doughnuts in the kitchen?
Mark Allibone (43:09):
Yeah, that it's taken that to be honest. No, but
so yeah. So I then started to dotalks, like it user groups and
local conferences and starteddoing a blog on the side too,
because I mean, it's like somepeople that come up with you
with a question. And he can, hecan answer it. And sometimes you
just think, man, you know, Ishould really write this down.
Because I get this question.
Like, all the time. It's justlike, Okay, I put it on my blog.
(43:31):
Or sometimes you think like, howdoes this work? I'll just leave
it on my blog. So the next timeI have to do it on my day job
artist, I can, I can sneak peek.
And yeah, I mean, that's how Ican do that more and more. And
then someone asked me if Iwanted to become a Microsoft
MVP. And then since a few yearsback, I have now been in the
(43:52):
Microsoft MVP program, whereI've met a lot of very cool
people that also like into inthe sharing and community spirit
and sharing knowledge, which,which I really enjoy. And it's
also how, how Brad and I, thatwas at a conference, living
living in parallel or in thesame universe, but in parallel
spaces. That was that was reallycool. So yeah, that's what I
(44:16):
love.
Pj Metz (44:18):
I love the idea of like writing down what you're
learning or when people havequestions, you're like, oh, I
should make something thatreaches more people. And I think
that that's something that a lotof people who are getting into
tech now who are juniors, whoare not sure what to do, if you
just start writing what you'velearned, or if you find a
workaround, and you tell a lotof people about it. That's a
(44:41):
great way to one keep learningyourself because it's, you can
learn something and do it butwhen you write about it, that's
when you really solidify thelearning that you did. You're
creating materials for otherpeople who are going to have the
same questions. And it's just agreat way to make your career
better because now Suddenly,you're the person who has
(45:02):
information you're like, oh,yeah, I encountered that same
problem before I wrote a postabout it. Here it is. And having
that information available, iswhat is what makes all of us
better. I can't recommend thatenough for everybody to, to
write what you're learning andshare it with people, you might
think it's really obvious, butsomeone out there doesn't know
(45:23):
it yet. And so sharing thatinformation is just going to
make everyone better. I lovethat, Mark. That's fantastic.
Mark Allibone (45:30):
Yeah, I think I think that's PJ you said it like
really nicely there. Like, Isometimes people come up to me
and say, like, wow, I don't knowif I really should blogging. I
don't know if this is smartenough to put onto a blog post
and just like, do it, if itwould help you, if I also like
if it would help you, like, twohours ago, or two weeks ago,
write it because there will besomeone out there that just
(45:51):
knows that will be you like twoweeks ago, who will be eternally
thankful that someone put a postout there, and you had to like
grab your information from threeor four sources,
Pj Metz (46:01):
document like your writing for you from two weeks
ago. Be like, there's a betterway that there's a bumper
sticker in there somewhere. I'llwork on it, and we'll sell the
merch for sure.
Brandon Minnick (46:13):
Good. And I can't agree more. But question
for you. So if somebody islistening right now and goes,
oh, gosh, yeah, you're right. Ishould do that. But where how?
Actually, PJ, we'll start withyou. Since you brought it up.
What do you recommend forsomebody new to? Do I start a
(46:35):
blog? Do I use a site likemedium? What are the options out
there for us?
Pj Metz (46:41):
So I know that for me, oh, this is advice that I got
early in my career from Brandon.
Write down what you're learningand show people what you're
learning. So one way to do it isto consider learning live on
Twitch because it makes aliteral video. And then if you
discover something there, peoplecan see exactly how you got to
where you are, there's lots ofgreat live coders on Twitch. And
(47:03):
you can be one of them. Anotherplace, if you want to blog is
blogger. It's a free service.
It's pretty customizable, andit's easily integrated with a
bunch of other things. There'salso a lot of early coding
projects I've seen for peoplewho are just learning to code
junior developers and such,where you build your own blog,
(47:26):
and you host it yourself and youmake it exactly what you want it
to be. So not only do you getexperience with coding and
creating a website, but you alsoget to use it afterward. and
have it be present there. Butalso just Twitter. Follow the
people that you want to interactwith interact with people on
Twitter, be a part of theconversation, like, you know,
(47:50):
retweet, retweet with commontalk to people and just meet
people on there. Because if youdiscover something, I've seen
people who start Twitter andshare literally everything
they're learning as they'relearning a new language. And
they end up meeting 1000s ofpeople just through that just be
sharing their experiences. Sothere's lots of places that are
already available Twitch,Twitter, Blogger, or making your
(48:13):
own blog, all great ways to getout there and do it. And
honestly, one of the best placesto interact with our open source
folks and see where they'rewriting and what they're doing
and where they hang out. That'swhat I think that's what I say.
(48:34):
I said, What's the show? And Iknow I've already done three
times this show, but it gets areally good reaction every time.
So until it's old, get ready.
Brandon Minnick (48:46):
Yeah. And market however, where did you
get started with? Was it sharinginformation? Whether it
blogging, tweeting, videoing?
Mark Allibone (48:57):
Podcasting? Yeah.
So I remember there was a I wasfollowing like, the people at
the time. I think it was likeScott Hanselman. He saw the
people today. And and, yeah, soI just I just thought, you know,
get started. And I think it wasa course by Rob Connery. I know,
it wasn't free on Pluralsight.
I'll, I'll have to dig up thelink maybe during some next
(49:20):
talking. And so then he said,Well, you know, like, if you do
a blog, you might want toconsider like, who owns your
content? Because if you'reblogging for yourself, like do
you want to like give it away tosome platform? And so yeah,
that's like one consideration.
And I think the other one isjust like getting started. So
taking out a lot of the hurdlesthat you can get into. So my
first blog was on WordPress, Ithink it's still somewhere out
(49:41):
there. And then I thought, Okay,I have to host it on my own. So
then I took a mini blog fromMatt Christensen Torrance.
Sorry, butchering the name, but,but yeah, one of the most from
and so they're hosted on Azureand stuff like that, and that
was like, you know, theclassical one with a database
and everything. And these days Ihave mine on Akita pages. And
(50:02):
yeah, it's free, but it takes abit more work. It's a Jekyll
engine belief. You writemarkdown files, you push it up
to server, it gets compiled intostatic files, and they host it.
It's I think it's really cool.
But before that, like the also,just like the mini blog, even
though I had to host the entirething on my own, it was it was
(50:25):
like, it was like, a microwavemeal, you know, he just
unwrapped it, you put it intothe thing you started up, it
runs it carefree. And with, withthese markdown files, I mean, I
get the benefit of usingwhatever editor I want, and I
can I can do all that stuff. Butyeah, I noticed someone's put a
character somewhere into one ofthe headers of the Markdown
(50:46):
file. And yeah, Jekyll did notlike that. It didn't get an
error, but my irises featuresthat was no longer there and
stuff like that. So it Yeah, itif you're a developer, I
recommend checking it out. Ifyou if you're just in there for
sharing the content. WordPressmight be great for you or some
one of the ones that PJH hasmentioned. How about you random?
(51:08):
What's your recommendation? No.
Oh, yeah.
Brandon Minnick (51:11):
Yeah, I think for let's see, if you're just
getting started, yeah, thelowest overhead, smallest
friction possible, is going tobe the best route. Because I've
met so many people that theysay, like, I'm gonna start a
blog. Step one, gotta create awebsite. And then all of a
(51:36):
sudden, you feel this, thisweight of the world on your
shoulders that, oh, gosh, thisis gonna be a lot of work. I had
set aside an hour to do ittoday. But I'm not gonna be able
to build a website an hour, letme do it next week, next
weekend, and then next week,turns into next month turns into
next year. And we still haven'tgotten started yet with that.
(51:57):
The website, golden blog posts,right, because the website
doesn't exist. And so, you know,there's Yeah, blogging platforms
that, like we've alreadymentioned, Dev dot two is
another another good option agood one, I can just a great
option. Yeah, you just justright. And, you know, search
(52:18):
engines will pick it up. If, ifyou just include I found,
include a couple keywords, or ifyou're blogging because your app
kept crashing, include thatStackTrace in there, because
somebody else is gonna have thatsame error message. And they're
just gonna drop it into Google.
And actually, this is me, I'mtalking about myself, I've
Mark Allibone (52:39):
never done that when you do that, remove the
file names, you know, your ownnames, because you'll get
better. Yes, yeah. Yeah. And sothat's what that's why Brandon
calls me a senior developer, youknow?
Brandon Minnick (52:53):
Right, I'll see your means is we've had
experience googling it. Andwe've hit that problem before.
So we knew, maybe know how tofix it. But yeah, yeah, don't
don't feel like you have to dotoo much. Getting those words
down, we'll say, theoretically,on paper, just on on a blog post
(53:14):
is enough. Because you canalways move that content around.
It's not like, once you buildthis, you have to keep them on
your website forever. Or if youuse a platform like dev dot two
or medium or GitHub Pages, thathas to stay there forever. You
can, you can always build yourwebsite later. So yeah, I'd
(53:34):
recommend the easiest routefirst, just to get started and
get those ideas down. And thenyeah, if you want to learn how
to build a website, buildingyour own blog, or build your own
website for your blog, greatplace to start. Now, we've only
got a couple minutes left, Mark,the time is flown by. So again,
(53:55):
thank you so much for coming on.
But I would be remiss if wedidn't mention your work in
podcasting. Tell us about thepodcast you're working on now.
No pointers?
Mark Allibone (54:06):
Yeah, so no points is is no point. So you
can also find us on Twitter andour point SEO. And so yeah,
that's a show that I started outwith two of my very good Dutch
friends, Gerald, and Steven. AndGerald has now focused on his
YouTube career. And the I thinkthe Xamarin Forms and these are
in community toolkit is also inthe mountain community toolkit
(54:29):
has now become more of hisfocus. So that's just me and
Steven. And so we have justdecided to mix things up a bit
and actually invite guests on tothe show because we just
literally run out of stuff totalk all it was as we couldn't
listen any more to our ownvoices while editing it. Yeah,
yeah, we need to break it up. Soyeah, so um, yeah. We talk about
(54:52):
tech opinions, and just justgeneral stuff. That is the that
crosses the path of a softwaredeveloper during his life. Yeah,
it was one of the podcasts thatstarted during the pandemic,
maybe maybe you were just lonelyat home, but I really enjoy
doing it. And I'm lookingforward to doing it sometime.
(55:13):
Because I think it's like reallyinteresting that people that you
get to meet I'm sure I don'thave to tell these two YouTube
guys. But it's, yeah, it's it'salways enlightening. And it's
also like giving you a differentperspective on something that
you may have already knew orsomething that you. Yeah. Don't
even know anything about. Andthat's something that I really
like doing podcasts. So that waslike, it is a blog. I don't do
(55:35):
any video. I don't know. Justprobably being too lazy. Maybe
one day I'll
Pj Metz (55:39):
Oh, it's not laziness.
We are. We are way complicatingthings over here on this. But I
think I think it's because thisstarted as a Microsoft show. And
then it kind of turned into apodcast, really, but you don't
have to do video. Don't Don'ttalk yourself down like that.
Mark. You're doing great. You'redoing amazing stuff.
Mark Allibone (56:02):
Thank you right back. atcha.
Pj Metz (56:04):
Oh, this show sponsored by compliments. Yeah,
Brandon Minnick (56:13):
that's fantastic. So like you said,
it's no pointers.io is thewebsite and the Twitter handle
is no pointers. Io one word? Isthat right?
Mark Allibone (56:23):
Yes. That's the thing. Yeah. DMS are open, we
always like to say,
Brandon Minnick (56:28):
yeah, so definitely subscribe to the
podcast. I know, I'm a littlebiased, because I've actually
been a guest on the podcast. ButI had a great time, recommend
folks joining. And also to getnew developers out there. We've
been talking about a lot aboutwriting blogs. PJ also mentioned
streaming on Twitch. Butpodcasting is also incredibly
(56:51):
valuable. There's so muchknowledge out there. I know
selfishly. I learned a lot justby hosting this. Bringing on
incredible people like yourself,Mark Beck can share your
experiences. Yes, we want toencourage more people to get
into tech and that's why we dothis podcast but I also have
(57:12):
grown a lot myself and encouragefolks to do it as well. There's
a lot of free services likeright now we're using a tool
called restream. Mark remind mewhat's the tool that no pointers
uses for recording episodes.
Mark Allibone (57:27):
Yeah, so we use sink caster, which is also Yes,
sir. Yes, yeah. Which is you getyou get the free tier. So I
think if you get like reallyprofessional like you got a
podcasting studio that do a tonof shows then you will have to
up into the pay grade. But Imean, for us we do. We used to
do one show per week. Now we dotwo per month. So it's okay, you
(57:48):
get you also get a video stream.
The beginning was like no videostream, and that was a bit dull.
Brandon Minnick (57:57):
Yeah, love it.
So you don't you don't need arecording studio to start a
podcast. The best advice I heardwas, you know, if you just have
you know, those free Appleearbuds that come with every
iPhone, or at least they used tothose are good enough plug those
in. As long as you have hadheadphones microphones,
something as simple as that.
(58:18):
With a tool like Zen caster,which is free to use. You can
get started as well. Bart, Iappreciate you coming on the
show so much. I feel like wewe've been cut short on time. I
don't know how we just gotthrough it. Feels like a couple
minutes. But some closingremarks. Where can people find
(58:39):
you? On the internet folks wantto follow mark? Where do they
go?
Mark Allibone (58:45):
Well, yeah, you can you can find me at
Marleybone on on Twitter. I'malso I got this handle like I
try to get it everywhere. So youcan also find me on LinkedIn,
and on GitHub. And yeah, that'sthat's just where I'm, I'm
working in a company called Raytechnology. And the tech the
tech industry as is that a crazeright now. So if you if you're
(59:08):
in Switzerland, and you'relooking for interesting job,
industrial it, check us out.
Rick's ecology.com Is that howyou do ads? I don't know. I
mean, PGA Professional. Andthis.
Pj Metz (59:20):
It's really just about having the commercial voice. You
can say anything you want tocommercial voice. It sounds
good. Oh my gosh, I spilled soupeverywhere. And then it's about
like a cleaning product. Youknow, okay, okay, I'll buy that
one. That's right. I'm spillingsoup all the time.
Brandon Minnick (59:37):
Well, Mark, thank you so much again for
joining us this week. And thankyou for listening. Don't forget
to subscribe to the podcast tokeep up to date with our latest
episodes. We're on YouTube. Youcan find us on eight bits on
YouTube on all the majorpodcasting platforms. Leave us a
comment. Let us know what youthink. And we'll see you next
time.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.