March 29, 2022 • 60 mins
This week we are joined by Reshmi Sriram, Program Manager for Azure Static Web Apps at Microsoft!
Come join us to learn about Reshmi's journey through Tech!
https://8bits.tv
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Episode Transcript
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Brandon Minnick (02:02):
Welcome, everybody to another episode of
eight bits, the show where weinterview the people behind the
tech. Learn more about theirjourney. I'm your host, Brandon
Minnick. And as always, I'mjoined by my amazing co host, PJ
Metz. PJ, how's your week?
Pj Metz (02:19):
It's good. Oh, this has been a good week. First off.
It's been a while since we'vebeen on huh? It's
Brandon Minnick (02:25):
yeah. Yeah, for, for those following the
show. If you if you follow thelive streams, you'll know it's
it's been a while since we'vedone a live stream, almost a
month and a half. And that'sbecause we switched we we got a
little burnout. So we moved totwo episodes a month. And
(02:45):
sometimes we'll stack those up.
So the podcast will release themiddle and the end of each
month. And as guests areavailable, we'll interview them
and do it live. But yeah, wehaven't hung out since mid
February, I think was when wedid Matisse interview the last
one. But yeah, good to see youagain. Yeah, you're like a long
(03:06):
time ago.
Pj Metz (03:11):
I'm an annual pass holder for Universal Studios.
Now. That's a big change in mylife. And I just like you all to
be very happy for me. It'sfunny, my buddy and I, who have
lived in Orlando our wholelives. We have annual passes for
Disney. And that's always been athing I had, but he got one for
universities like hey, youshould get one. I was like, Oh,
what am I going to do it too?
When will I have the time? Idon't know. And roller coaster
(03:32):
came out. Want to say last yearcalled the velocity coaster.
It's a Jurassic Park rollercoaster. And it's really fast.
And I've seen ads for it. AndI've been going to universals
website and like clicking buy aticket and waiting and and then
No, I'm not doing it. So all ofmy targeted ads are universal.
(03:53):
stiff. Yes. And it wore on me.
And eventually I was like, I'mdoing it. And I went and I
rolled the roller coaster and Iscreamed the whole time. It was
terrifying. It was amazing. Ilove it. It's a good roller
coaster. And like finally I'mfinally a two part annual pass
filter.
Brandon Minnick (04:14):
You heard it here folks. targeted ads work.
Pj Metz (04:17):
That's right. Y'all love them. Everyone get targeted
at dt. I've seen that commercialfrom Facebook. That's like
targeted ads are helpful. Lookat how good it is for you. And I
was like hard sell there. It's
Brandon Minnick (04:33):
I will say that the hat I'm wearing right now. i
i wish i remember who made itI'd give them a shout out
because I love them. But also atargeted ad it was showed up on
my Instagram feed and was likecheck out this amazing hat that
is waterproof and sweatprooffitness. Like that's exactly
(04:53):
what I'm looking for. How didyou know? I know exactly what
they know. They know me betterthan I know myself. And that's
Pj Metz (04:59):
right Alright, I do want to admit out. I'm currently
panicking because the way Imoved the window that are
restream isn't I can't grab itand move it anywhere and it's
like the wrong clicking. Oh,technology, what have you done
(05:19):
to me?
Brandon Minnick (05:21):
It's so for everybody listening PJ also
produces the show live well weair the show.
Pj Metz (05:31):
The address bar is right up at the top and it's
hidden under the toolbar for formy for my Mac is like, I can do
this. I believe in myself. Holdon. Yeah, you guys are gonna,
you're gonna, you're gonna hearit later. It's just me
struggling.
Brandon Minnick (05:48):
Man in the comment said to hit F 11. F 11,
you might be able to grab it.
Pj Metz (05:55):
Hold on that muted me.
Brandon Minnick (05:57):
Hold on. I knew you're on a Mac. Even have F F
elevens
Pj Metz (06:02):
that it's there. I just have to fn fn to do it.
Brandon Minnick (06:07):
So well. PJ's checking that out? I've got I
worked fun. I got Sure. Oh, wedid it.
Pj Metz (06:19):
Folks, professional show.
Brandon Minnick (06:23):
And we both work in tech. I love I will say
quick sidebar. For especiallyespecially parents are the usual
culprits of this. But they justassume that like, oh, you work
in tech, like you're good withcomputers. And you are better
you can fix my computer. And Imean, probably but we're just
(06:46):
kind of figuring it out as wego. Yeah, I'd say for me, it's
just I'm not afraid to clickthat button. Like, what's this
button do? I don't know, let'sfind out, and then refactor it.
Sometimes you pay the price forthat. But yeah, I do have some
news I want to share. This isbreaking news, like within the
(07:07):
last hour. It's not thatexciting. But you're probably
wondering how we got here. So atMicrosoft, we've been working on
a new tool called dotnet. Maui,if you're familiar with Xamarin,
Maui is the next evolution ofXamarin. It's basically where
(07:29):
we're bringing in support foriOS Android, into dotnet. And
then creating a multi platformapplication user interface, aka
dotnet, Maui. So it's a crossplatform way to create iOS apps,
Android apps, Mac, a Mac, iOSapps, Windows apps, all in C
Sharp, and dotnet. And what I'vebeen working on for the past,
(07:51):
gosh, eight months on a longtime is the dotnet Maui
community toolkit. So it's acompletely open source library
that is built by you thecommunity, where we have all
these cool, helpful tools thatyou can use for your dotnet Maui
apps. And today, we justlaunched our docks. So we've
(08:11):
been hard at work at this,writing all the code for months
now. And also writing the docs.
So we just published the docstoday, you can see him at Doc's
top microsoft.com/dotnet,spelled do t n et slash
community toolkit, or click onthe link in the show below.
Pj Metz (08:31):
That's right. Can you Yeah, the very least you can
copy and paste it. In the chat,you'll see it click it.
Congrats, Brandon, that'sexciting to be at the docks, and
to be able to push that out tothe community and to have them
finally have that kind of accessand, and help that they need and
using this stuff. It's veryexciting. Congrats. It makes
Brandon Minnick (08:52):
effects. It makes it feel very official.
Because the the source code isall open source. But we created
our own organization on GitHubcalled Community toolkit,
because I'm working on thedotnet Maui community toolkit.
But there's also a new toolkitfor when UI and MVVM and just
dotnet stuff in general. There'sa bunch of toolkits, all made by
(09:13):
the community that we put underthe committee toolkit. Org. But
when you do that, you're not inthe Microsoft. org on GitHub. So
sometimes people will come alongand be like, What is this? And
they're like, why should I useit is this official Microsoft
product, but now, we're on theMicrosoft docs so we can say
yeah, here's ourdocumentation@microsoft.com.
(09:35):
We've, we've been trying to.
We've been struggling a littlebit with that branding aspect
lately. But yeah, now we'reofficial. And it's still
working. Still working on thedock still working on the
toolkit. It's all available inpreview and should be released
in May. So we're getting reallyclose.
Pj Metz (09:53):
Wow. Oh man, that is very close. Oh, May is a it's my
one year anniversary of gettinga tech Wow, we're coming up on
almost the year of me havingbeen working in tech. So we'll
have a lot to celebrate it maywell have to do a very special
episode where we all learn animportant lesson. And that
lesson is tech. We will figureout the lesson before and then I
(10:19):
promise, but, uh,
Brandon Minnick (10:21):
it has been great episodes. Yeah, that was
such a cool guest today. Weactually, should I just recently
met, but I feel like we'requickly becoming best friends.
BJ, let's welcome to the showthe program manager for the
Azure static web apps atMicrosoft. Rashmi, welcome to
(10:42):
the show.
Reshmi Sriram (10:47):
Hi, thanks for having me
Pj Metz (10:49):
here. And then I ruined it. I'm sorry. Oh.
Reshmi Sriram (10:56):
Do you want to do a retake?
Pj Metz (10:59):
Though it was perfect.
Reshmi Sriram (11:04):
It's okay, we can always do a retake. We can do
the retake for a bye, maybe.
Pj Metz (11:09):
Let's make some B roll here live for me. Welcome to the
show. Um, thank you so much forbeing here. I'm glad I got to
meet you. And I know Brandonsaid that. Y'all just recently
met. But I have even morerecently met you. So I'm very
excited to have done that. Andvery excited to have you here.
(11:31):
Thank you for coming on. Um, toget started. How about you tell
the folks at home all aboutyourself and what's your about?
Reshmi Sriram (11:40):
Sounds great. So quickly, starting with the
typical welcome that we do inIndia, because I have been told
that I'm the first guest fromIndia. So nervous. So yeah, hey.
Hi, I am Rishi. And I am aprogram manager with the static
web apps team. I will be quicklytalking about that as well. Just
(12:03):
you know, sadly. But yeah, pointbeing I am working with
Microsoft since the last 10months. And this has been my
first time as a program manager.
And my first time as a livestream participants so woohoo.
But yeah, this it's been a veryfun 10 months for me. And
quickly, just rolling back towhat PJ said me is a special
(12:26):
month for us as well in staticweb apps because we are
celebrating our one yearanniversary as well.
Pj Metz (12:37):
Listen, apparently May is just the month where great
stuff happens in in tech justgood. Yeah.
Brandon Minnick (12:46):
And it's my birthday. Oh, I didn't know
that.
Reshmi Sriram (12:51):
And now we have a lot of reasons to celebrate. So
we are going to get treated byBrandon for this right.
Pj Metz (12:58):
Yeah, Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (12:59):
Everybody gets cake for your birthday.
Reshmi Sriram (13:01):
Also Oh, sweet.
Kind of. Yeah, a sweet littlebirdie. Kind of give me a heads
up that to be there in the show.
I need to have some sort ofdecorum. So
Pj Metz (13:14):
that's right. We have we have rules about how we
present ourselves and recipesgot that? Oh, yes.
Brandon Minnick (13:22):
That's right.
We have a strict dress code onthis show. Everybody wears a hat
Pj Metz (13:28):
tails. a walking stick because walking sticks are like
what fancy gentlemen use right?
Do you remember what that was?
The thing is fancy gentleman hadto have like a cane and like a
walking stick. And then it justfell
Brandon Minnick (13:42):
out and a monocle and a pocket watch?
Pj Metz (13:44):
Yeah, why don't back in
Brandon Minnick (13:47):
the 18 Good old 1800s
Pj Metz (13:52):
What happened? We need to go back. Well, maybe not.
Yeah, kids these days don't workon a recipe. I honestly never. I
can't believe you put a hat on.
I never realized until just nowthat Brandon and I are always
wearing hats. I knew I'm a hatperson. But that's because I'm a
My hair is thinning up top andI'm embarrassed so I wear hats
(14:14):
all the time. Also, it's anotherway to show my personality but I
never would have been like yeah,that's the show are the guys
wear hats until
Reshmi Sriram (14:26):
now you how would you trademark
Brandon Minnick (14:29):
actually, that'd be a great logo.
Pj Metz (14:32):
Just made that hat with a very tiny eight bits logo on
it so
Reshmi Sriram (14:41):
and I would get a complimentary one for having
introduced it. Or you guysrealize
Pj Metz (14:46):
it 47% royalties on the back end for Rashmi and whatever
the remainder is for Brandon andthen I'll just take it up and
I'll just I just want to wearthe hat. That's all I'm happy.
Brandon Minnick (15:02):
To be honest, I just do it totally just because
I'm lazy. The show. I'm in theearliest timezone here. So
actually Rashmi and I are on theother side of the world right
now, which is incredible tothink about. And I know that
because when I looked up, shesaid she'd be joining us from
India. I was like, What timewould be there? And it's exactly
(15:23):
12 hours. So we're exactly theother side of the world. So for
me, it's early in the morning.
Well, early, it's, we meet up at930 in the morning, and we go
live at 10. But that's likeearly for for the tech world.
Yeah, I'm just lazy. I don't Idon't want to do my hair. So I
put on a hat. That way, I have agood story. It's just okay,
(15:44):
well, I could do my hair rightnow. Like, or I could make a cup
of coffee. I'm gonna make
Pj Metz (15:50):
a choice. I agree. I agree.
Brandon Minnick (15:55):
So, freshmen love the tangent. But let's
bring it all the way back.
Because on a pitch, we love tolearn about your journey, in
hopes of inspiring others to dothe same. And as our first guest
joining us from India, we haveso many questions, but let's go
(16:15):
way back. Let's start with howdid you first learn to code? And
is that common in India forfolks that go to school?
Reshmi Sriram (16:32):
That's actually a good question. And now that you
speak about it, there's been alot of change of late in the
educational curriculum that hasbeen building by the government.
Oh, by the way, if folks arewondering what this is, this is
called Mehndi. It's kind of atraditional Indian tattoo, which
you kind of have in your handsfor some festive occasions. So
(16:55):
it's not seen guys. It's justlike wearing off. So never mind.
Brandon Minnick (17:01):
Somewhere to handle.
Reshmi Sriram (17:03):
Yeah, it is Hannah. Yeah. That
Pj Metz (17:09):
specific festival? That just happened. Yeah.
Reshmi Sriram (17:12):
It's not any specific festival. But it's kind
of a thing in festivals. So Ihad a couple of family functions
in the last week. So all of us,like all my cousins, all my
relatives have this in a hand.
So it's just wearing off. It'sfun. Yep. Yeah, quickly going
back to where I started, right.
(17:35):
So as a part of the educationcurriculum, it has always been
emphasized that a student learnsall sorts of things, right?
Exposure to anything, cocurricular exposure to coding
exposure to the basic math,science, etc, etc. So yeah,
definitely my first stop hasbeen coding in Visual Basic, I
(17:56):
think, and this is back in mylemon grade. So it's quite a
while back, but that was myexposure to coding. And I was
like, I don't know what'shappening, to be honest. Like, I
didn't know what was happening,because you had like these super
fat monitors, and you had thosesuper slow processors. And I
(18:18):
mean, like, it didn't even makesense why we were doing
something like that. Butusually, those labs were our
escape to play in MSP becausethat was like the only thing
scooping into whether Tito'slike looking somewhere else. So
that's kind of been the firsttime with fiddling around codes.
(18:40):
But I have always been a fan ofplaying in and around what
facilities are there andMicrosoft Like, Command Prompt,
I don't know, like, I havealways been obsessed with trying
to do something or the otherover there. I remember back in
my college days, we had createda hotspot using quantum because
the Wi Fi was not good enough.
There are rooms. So these arelike these tiny bits and things
(19:02):
where you actually like, get ahands on and code but you
actually like get a result outof it. So my start was over
there in school. But quickly, Irealized that I did have a kind
of attraction for it. Definitelycompared to studying the number
of chromosomes that eachorganism has. I'm like, you
know, that Drake meme? It'sliterally like biology. Computer
(19:27):
Science.
Pj Metz (19:37):
Yeah, there's that meme with Jordi LaForge. from Star
Trek instead where he's likeit's almost the exact same face.
And bonus because Georgia forageis fantastic. And Star Trek is
good. Shout out Star Trek. is
Brandon Minnick (19:57):
sponsored by Star Trek.
Pj Metz (19:58):
That's right. CRT monitors that. You mentioned the
old school because I mean, I'vegot a very lovely, lovely thin
flat monitor. Right? But theyused to be gigantic, massive.
Yep. And that's where youstarted. I love that you brought
(20:19):
up MS Paint. I feel like anyonewho ever was in grade school or
in high school and had to dowork in a computer lab. First
thing you open is Ms. Paint, youtake the pencil tool and
scribble everywhere. And thenyou just start filling in spaces
with random Yeah,
Reshmi Sriram (20:35):
yes.
Pj Metz (20:36):
Wow. I don't cross the world. Experience and I love it.
Y'all. makes me so happy. I'mlike you built a hotspot in in
college? Because the Wi Fi youwere like, Let's just build our
own hotspot. Yeah,
Reshmi Sriram (20:53):
yeah. be coded it from the scratch. Thanks,
StackOverflow. I mean, like. Butyeah, it was definitely handy
because the Wi Fi that we hadwas so patchy. So technically,
like if you needed it to reachyour room, the LAN cables that
(21:13):
we had in our school. So beingin a government school, and
India is not a very highlyadvanced and highly facilitated
place to be if I were tosummarize it, but basically,
it's like a first come firstserve thing, right? There are
like 10 Lan cables, and you getyour hands on the first LAN
cable well and good. If youdon't get it, you have to rely
(21:34):
on Wi Fi. And if you want Wi Fi,you don't get it in your room,
you have to go sit outside inthe corridor and get the Wi Fi
but no. Five will be computerscience students.
Pj Metz (21:50):
There's 10 labels, if you get the first one, it's 100
feet, and it goes down fromthere. The last one is just four
feet, you gotta
Reshmi Sriram (22:01):
say yeah, that's kind of like the inception of
where it was. But now inretrospect, when I look back at
the whole journey of where Istarted and where I am right
now, I never thought of it untilI spoke it out right now. But it
feels really great to like, dothat complete circle. And now
I'm back at Microsoft, where Iam literally working for a
(22:23):
Microsoft product. And I startedoff my computer exposure with
basic Microsoft stuff. So yeah,it feels good to have done that
complete circle.
Brandon Minnick (22:33):
Yeah, and who knows, someday in the future
kids will be in their computerclasses learning to code. And
instead, they'll build bebuilding Azure static web apps.
Pj Metz (22:48):
I think that's a very good place to start. I actually
I think static web apps are justa great project to start on.
Because it's it's a little lessdaunting than what I started
with, which was a full ASPdotnet like, with a database.
Thank you, Brandon. I was like,I was like, yeah, man, ASP
dotnet core, and it's gonna havea database, like, Oh, sure. This
(23:10):
makes sense. I can do it. Icould. No.
Brandon Minnick (23:15):
Yeah, cuz. So PJ and I just started that
journey just started about twoyears ago. And I remember
Rashmi, when we're firststarting out as like, there's a
new thing called Azure staticweb apps. Maybe we can use that.
But to be honest, I couldn'tfigure it out. It was it was
(23:36):
also still in, it's still inpreview. It hadn't been
Pj Metz (23:39):
early. Yeah, it was very early. And
Brandon Minnick (23:47):
now it's amazing. Now it's great. This,
this new PM came in about 10months ago, Everything's been
great.
It's a resume, it sounds like,sounds like you chose the path
to go to college. But if we goback a couple years, or a year
(24:10):
or two before that, what is thewhat is it like in India for
your typical secondary schoolstudent? Do most people choose
the path to go to university? Ordo a lot of folks choose to get
a job start working right away?
Or do you have technicalprograms? Fill us in on that and
how all that affected yourdecision?
Reshmi Sriram (24:37):
That's actually a very good question. And I think
I would consider myself blessedenough to have a very clear
route on how I can proceed. ButIndia being very, like in the
stages of developing country,right, it's it's still fighting
for resources among thepopulation that we have one
(24:58):
thing which the government doesDefinitely make sure is trying
to promote education and everyform. But unfortunately,
education is not a privilegeyet. So education is a
privilege. It's not a givenfactor yet for every student,
right. So usually in Indianhouseholds, if I were to say,
(25:19):
it's a very typical, I thinkit's an Asian household thing,
because I've heard it from a fewof my Chinese friends as well.
But usually, your parentsalready, like have a full tree
diagram on what their kids aregoing to do. It wasn't the kid
is born, like the three monthsold, he's holding the pencil.
Artist, okay, artist is a sidejob for 3d to focus on
(25:42):
education, right? Let's takethem up the education guide. So
yeah, it was kind of likealready sketched out for me as
well. And my parents were reallypassionate about me going
towards an MBBS line, becausenone of my family members have
any sort of doctorate or eveneven PhD per se, right? Everyone
(26:02):
has been just like, verystrictly associated to commerce,
science was not like their cupof tea. So my parents are like,
Oh, our girl is going to be thefirst doctor in the family. And
guess what? I chromosomes?
Pj Metz (26:22):
And then you got to biology and you're like, No.
Reshmi Sriram (26:29):
Right? Yeah. So looking back at the education
and how things have been so far.
So in general, how it happens isthe mentality in India for like,
a working class population is toprioritize on education, to have
the basic level of education.
But post that when you kind oflike, do your 12th, right, when
(26:52):
you're done with your juniorcollege, the next step usually,
is to just go for a job. And nowwhen you go to a job, you do
have two options. You eitherlike, actually explore all the
categories and facets in thejob, you learn more, you try new
projects. And sometimes it's sojust so happens that you do not
already click in right, or youyou just enter a domain, and you
(27:14):
realize that this probably isnot what you were looking for.
It's kind of what happened withme as well. So I as soon as I
completed my undergrad in nitCalicut. So and it is National
Institute of Technology, or theunknown. It's kind of like the
premier Institute in India. Sobasically doing a computer
(27:35):
science degree in and it is abad thing. You end up in a good
company. Yes, totally agree. Butwhere I ended, and what I
learned was two different paths,right? I started. And then I go
scale down to C. And then I goscale down to a language called
scheme. I don't know if you guyshave tried that. It's kind of
(27:56):
like based out of list. Oh,yeah, it basically teaches the
basics, you know, like, I justlike went down, down, down all
the way to list. And then wewent back to C++. And this was
my college curriculum. And onceI stepped out, I got a job in
Deutsche Bank as a softwareanalyst. And guess what we are
(28:17):
working on Java, we're workingon Spring Boot we're working on.
I don't know, like so manythings that end within like,
one, one and a half years, I gotexposure to back end, I got
exposure to front end, I workedon React projects, I had my
hands on like everything, and Iwas literally enjoying it,
right? You try out somethingnew, and you're just like, oh,
this is actually not taking, andthen you talk to your manager,
(28:39):
and my manager was reallysupportive is like, Okay, why
don't you try this. And then Ijumped to front. And I'm like,
Oh, this is fun. This isactually something I'm enjoying.
But maybe this is also not whatI want, right? And then I tried
a few things. And then mymanager helped me realize that
probably what I'm looking for,is wanting to stay in the
technical domain, but play to mystrengths. And my strengths was
(29:00):
not exactly coding. But yeah. Ilike how do I make use of what I
am good at, but at the sametime, be able to contribute to
the technical sphere, right? Andthen I kind of like did a sit
through analysis with mymanager. And we realized maybe
what I need is an MBA and alittle more exposure to the
(29:23):
business side and see howexactly can I use my technical
knowledge and my businessknowledge and put it together?
Right? And that exactly is whathappened. I went ahead, did an
MBA and after MBA, I ended upwith a program manager role. And
now guess what I have best ofboth worlds. I am working with
coding. I am working withmarketing. I am working with
(29:45):
strategy, and so many thingsthat actually keeps me happy.
I'm challenging, and it's likeevery day you actually look
forward to tackling somethingnew, maybe like failing. It's
just a part of the process,right? You fail but then the
next thing you do you fail, youget up and you learn a new way
to not fail, right? So I writecode. I just remember seeing a
(30:10):
meme just today morning, it wasbasically a programmer, like
cheering looking at the monitor,like, you find your new arrow,
that means I am progressing
Pj Metz (30:22):
is very exciting. I love that this this idea of
being able to try a lot ofdifferent things and being able
to do that in your career. Thatsounds really awesome to be
like, alright, so I did thisback end, it's not really for
me. And when I'm doing frontend, and I'm learning react, I'm
like, Oh, this is a lot more mystyle and what I what I enjoy,
(30:45):
but even when back in wasn'tsomething you enjoyed, you were
able to learn while you werethere. And that made you better
as you progress. So that's,that's fantastic. One amazing,
amazing story that makes mereally happy.
Brandon Minnick (31:00):
And it's it's funny how will say at least at
least in the US school system,failings bad. Like if you get an
F on something that is terrible.
But like, like you said Rashmiin reality, failings really
good, because that means youtried to do something. I mean,
you didn't, but that's okay.
Because you learned somethingyou learned at least one way not
(31:22):
to do it. And then taking thatlesson that you just learned,
and then reapplying it isbasically life. It's, we're all
just trying to figure stuff out.
And you can't really figureanything out unless you try it
first. And sometimes it works onthe first try. Sometimes it
doesn't. And that's okay. Butyeah, in the, in the US at
(31:44):
least, you're not really taughtthat growing up, you just taught
like you got to get straightA's. You got to go to college,
Pj Metz (31:54):
and failing a test is the worst. It's that that's what
everyone tells you. And that'sthe impression you get growing
up is like, you don't fail, youhave to prove that you're good
now. And it's like, well, theyjust told me about, you know,
fractions two weeks ago for thefirst time already. Um, failure
(32:16):
is a big part of how and I jokedearlier, it's a big part of how
I code. But honestly, I justbuilt a, I'm learning Python, I
just built a bot that sits inyour terminal and just listens
for a specific hashtag, andreturn some information about
the tweet that use the hashtag.
I made like four versions of itthat didn't work before, I found
(32:37):
a way to take some pieces fromall the things that didn't work
and combine it to make it work.
So it's very exciting to fail.
And it's not a joke to say thata new error message is one of
the best things.
Brandon Minnick (32:55):
It's like best and also kind of deflating, but
yeah, you know, you're makingprogress spirits, like so stuck
Pj Metz (33:04):
out, there was another wall behind that wall, but I got
the first one down. And that's abig deal.
Brandon Minnick (33:09):
Or when you recognize the error message, you
go, I know exactly what thatmeans. Before I got to do that,
speaking of the communitytoolkit, I mentioned at the top
of the show, somebody opened upan issue that I just literally
spent a whole day trying tofigure out how to solve on my
(33:31):
new Windows computer. And so assoon as I saw the issue post, I
was like, I know exactly how tosolve that. Here's the link. And
just in case that one doesn'twork, here's another link and
he's like, perfect. And it wasonly because I just solved it
and gone through that myself. Sothe experience the experience
counts folks fail away.
Pj Metz (33:54):
So recipe from from college from the NIT in India.
You got that job doing bagnisaid at Deutsche Bank, you start
doing front end, you findyourself now at a job you said
it brought you full circle backto back to some Microsoft stuff.
So oh, what is it? What is thestatic site generator and Azure?
(34:16):
What is this all about telescopewhat you're doing at work
because like, I You soundexcited about it like you even
like, I'm going to talk about Iwas like, I want you to talk
about it, please.
Reshmi Sriram (34:27):
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I am
not sabotaging the show. Becausejust like okay, you know, very,
very subtle. I'm not promotinganything at all being quick. But
so quickly just starting up onwhat I work on, which is
(34:47):
actually very exciting. So thisis product called static web
apps. So as your static web appsis a tool with which you can
host your static sites. And whenI say static, that does not mean
that you can have all only, youknow, static pages like blogs
and documentations. It's staticbecause you have a very good
segregation of how your websitesare hosted. So your static ends
(35:11):
are hosted separately andavailable across the globe. At
the same time, your serverlessback end is being hosted by
Azure functions. And this splitand host is actually helping us
give a very good, minimallatency to the customers. And
because it is located likegeographically across the globe,
(35:32):
you do not have to worry aboutthe customers having the lags.
And God knows what all thisshows, right, you basically are
able to cater to everyone acrossthe world, even if you are an
XYZ, just a blog situated out ofEurope. And we have a very
strong as your network, we havea very good dependency with all
(35:55):
the other applications, we havea tie up with Azure functions,
which is like our basic back endAPI's, we have a good tie up
with all the database related.
And we do have a lot of featurescoming up over there. So I'll
quickly jump to that soon. Wehave CDN we have managed as your
CDN and are and so now if youare like globally located and
maybe like 10 points, you canamplify 200 different points and
(36:18):
reduce the latency even more.
And everything in Azure, right,the Azure atmosphere has a very
good tie up. So you can justlike make your application
stronger and stronger. And thebest part about our application,
you do have a free SKU, so youdo not have to pay to try it out
for the first time. So I wouldhighly encourage you to go try
(36:41):
out your websites, go try buildanything, we have a lot of
tutorials as well. And you willalso see a lot of good videos to
catch upon. And basically, everyframework that you want any kind
of website that you want, youcan build it, you can try it for
yourself. And I'm really excitedabout the features that are
coming forward to especiallyduring the one year anniversary.
(37:03):
So both PJ and Brandon, I wouldlove for you guys also to do
your hands on over there and letme know how the experiences.
Pj Metz (37:12):
Try it just before
Brandon Minnick (37:18):
it's funny to me, because, uh, so my
backgrounds in mobile, I've beenmaking iOS and Android apps for
years now. And hadn't reallythought I'll say, I put this in
air quotes, teaching PJ build awebsite was the first time I
built a website. And so yeah,when I first heard of Azure
(37:38):
static web apps, you know, as aMicrosoft employee, you hear
rumors swirling when newproducts are being worked on. My
first thought was, what doesthat even mean? Like the static
like static electricity. Andthen once I figured out static
just meant just means itdoesn't, doesn't really change.
It's not really necessarilyinteractive. I started realizing
(38:00):
most websites are static like,eight bits.tv. The website for
this show is a static website.
It's where we post all of ourcontent, you can watch all of
our videos, read thetranscripts, listen to the
podcasts. That would be a staticwebsite, heck, even like
cnn.com, where they post thenews like that's a static
website. And I sort of realized,like, probably most websites can
(38:23):
use Azure static web apps. Isthat Is that accurate? Am I my
close?
Reshmi Sriram (38:32):
You are more than close, you're pretty much
hitting the hammer exactly onthe nail, right? This this
quarter misconception thatpeople have that having a site
static is probably going to bejust HTML content is not the
product that we are catering toright. We are a jam stack
product. And when you talk ofjam stack, the the abbreviation
(38:54):
for jam is basically JavaScriptAPI and markup. So we do have a
very powerful tool whichcombines all three of them. So
basically, like, I'm probablynot very good with the exact
number, but I could say likemore than 60% of the websites
that are hosted right now are agood category for static
websites. The reason being a lotof the content that we already
(39:17):
host on our websites, right,like any sort of landing page
for a company, or any sort ofblog, any sort of even like you
mentioned, right, even if CNNright, you need to refresh the
news. Yes. But ultimately, it'skind of like a static page,
which is being loaded foreveryone. You click on a link,
and you can call it with an API.
But why do you need to have likea very heavily loaded website
(39:37):
just to try hosted? No, you canjust break it down. Very cool,
very simple and be able to do itat a cheaper cost, be able to
have a better latency, be ableto have more availability, be
able to access so manyadditional features that we have
like CDN free TLS certificatesand I Like so many of them, I
(39:58):
can't even count it on myfingers right now. Yeah, this is
pretty much what we have inAzure static web apps. And yeah,
I would love for each each oneof you is there in the call as
well to try it out. And pleasedo let us know on how the
experience has been.
Pj Metz (40:17):
Yeah, I really recommend people do static
websites, it's a great way tojust get practice in. And just
like Rashmi said, when when shewas at school and had to build
her own hotspot, that experienceof creating it, there was
something you said where it waslike, and that's where I did a
lot of learning and listenoutside of your classroom,
whether it's a boot camp,whether it's self taught,
(40:38):
taught, whether it's atraditional education system,
outside of that, when you startto do things on your own, and
have to figure it out without ateacher, their professor to give
you the answer. That's where youreally learn a lot, and that
people call it the real world.
But I don't agree with that. Butlike outside of education,
that's where things really startto make sense for you as a
(40:59):
learner. You know, speaking oflearning, I think it's time to
learn about some advertisementsthat we have, here's a
commercial that we're going tocut to this has been a good
intro to the commercial. Hi, ifyou're hearing my voice, that
means you've been listening toor watching eight bits with
Brandon and PJ. And we're hereto talk to you about your
(41:21):
product. And how it can help youin your life by to do whatever
your product does. So if you'rean avid listener of the show, or
you watch us on Twitch, then youwill know that your product,
your product is right for you.
Brandon Minnick (41:52):
That's right.
If you are interested insponsoring us, you can reach us
via email at Hello at eightbits.tv. We're always looking
for somebody to help becausethis stuff costs money, we love
doing it. And we're happy to doit. But we do have to pay, we
should probably get on Azurestatic web apps. Probably paid a
(42:13):
couple $100 a year for
Reshmi Sriram (42:23):
this, this definitely sounds like a good
tie out for you. You could maybelike give it a shot and see how
it works. And I would love tohear all about your journey and
your experience.
Brandon Minnick (42:34):
Absolutely. So.
So rush me. On the show, wealways try to inspire folks to
get into tech. And like we'vediscussed, it's sometimes not
the easiest thing to do. BecauseI don't know, maybe maybe I'm
not good at math, or maybe Inever learned to code. What What
advice would you give tosomebody who is looking to get
their first job in in tech?
Reshmi Sriram (43:00):
That's, again, a very good question. And I am
sure that a lot of things thatI'm probably going to say right
now are pretty much in andaround what everyone has used in
their life. And a few of them wehave already like very subtly
touched on as well in theprevious discussions. But most
of my tips for anyone who'sjoining new for tech is not
(43:21):
specifically to tech, it's moreabout how you exactly go about
the new challenge that you have.
So the first one that I wouldprobably say is, it doesn't
really matter if you're goingslow, right? It's about
progress. And what mattersreally is you actually put in
that little extra effort everyday, and be consistent. Keep
trying to push harder, you mightthink you know that you already
(43:46):
gave your 100% on a single dayand you have been trying and the
same error is coming five timesand you're probably like, this
is not my cup of tea, this isnot working. But I would suggest
like when when that's the case,you probably like tweak a bit,
try a bit, make that 100% 110%And try look for that new error
message that could probably atleast tell you that now, this is
(44:09):
something different. This issomething where I definitely
know that now I do not have tofail in this way as well. Right.
So consistency is the key, youneed to make sure that you keep
trying and you keep doing a bitevery day so that you can go
towards what you want toachieve. So that would be my
first one. The second onedefinitely is about making your
(44:30):
basic strong. So if you want toenter in tech, what they look
for in general is not about allthe languages and frameworks
that you know, but it's moreabout how well are you with the
basics like how good are youwith data structures and
algorithms? How good are youwith like the pseudo logic, if
you if you have a question howwell can you picture on how do
(44:53):
you solve it? So being able tounderstand the logic is more
important than putting it out ina language, languages are just
like they're literally siblings,right? You know how to do C++,
you are going to learn how to doPython, it's not going to be
hard. So do not fret over whatsort of languages and
(45:13):
frameworks, you know, that'ssomething you can just pick up
on the go. But focus more onbuilding your foundation strong.
And once you build yourfoundation strong, you are like,
definitely towards the rightdirection of succeeding. The
third tip, yeah, I actually havemade a lesson probably like, my
eyes are just sitting there.
(45:34):
Because these are the lessons, Ireally hope like someone told me
long back when I was starting mycareer new, but I really hope
this reaches the right audienceso that they know what they
should be doing. The third thingthat I would say is being
yourself, right? Any any sort ofsituation that you have, there
are like interviews, where youprobably will be given a
(45:55):
challenging question, and youwould be under the pressure of
actually wanting to answersomething, but you actually do
not know what to answer, orthere would be something where
you are disagreeing with theinterviewer, but you do not want
to disagree with them. For thesake of not looking rude or
whatever. I would say, just beyourself, right? Be yourself and
(46:17):
be able to actually put acrosswhat you are. And that exactly
gives the person the idea thatyou're being genuine. Being
genuine really helps. Becauselater on in future, you're not
in a situation where they'll belike, Whoa, you know, he or she
she knows how to fix thesecodes, right? But actually, what
you did was just stack overflow.
Pj Metz (46:42):
Important to know how to find the answer, because no
one automatically has the answerfor everything. So then I know
it off the top of my head is Iknow where to go to find the
answer. Because that gives you apathway towards so much more
that you can do. I talked aboutthis, and I'm in confusion is
(47:05):
this one of learning a talk Igave back in October 2020. It
was all about how you're goingto be confused, you're going to
get lost. But knowing what thevery next step to take is, is
usually the most valuable thing.
Because if you don't know whereto put your foot next, you don't
know what direction to go. Sobeing stuck is one thing. But to
get out of being stuck. It'sabout knowing what not what the
(47:26):
end result needs to be what thevery next thing to do is and
sometimes that's typing in stackoverflow.com and going there and
finding what it is. And that canbe hugely valuable. If every
developer knows it. It's it'sit's not a secret that we are
looking stuff up all the time. Ican't I every day I have to go.
(47:47):
Okay, how do I make a new branchand get and I'm like, get new
branch. And then I'm like, okay,got it. And then I'll hit it
memorized eventually. But rightnow.
Brandon Minnick (48:01):
I feel good.
Did you can I forget whatStackOverflow calls me their
favorites or bookmarks? You canbasically like flag and answer
that. Yeah. And I've done thisfor answers that I've had to go
back and like Google keepstaking me back the same answer.
And so yeah, I just end upbookmark. You didn't
StackOverflow cuz I know I'mcoming back. But yeah,
especially like this gitcommands, like, just, you don't
(48:25):
use every Git command every day.
So
Pj Metz (48:29):
Right? I don't know.
Reshmi Sriram (48:34):
But to quickly add on to PDS point, this, like
a little bit of disagreementover here. I just use my own
point, by the way aboutdisagreeing. But yeah, there's a
little bit of disagreement thatI have with what PJ said about
nuance. Sorry, knowing that whatyour next step is, while it is
good that you know what yournext step is, that's kind of
(48:55):
like not necessary, because Iwould say like in my life, I
suppose I did not know what Iwanted to do when I knew that
that was not my cup of tea,right? So it's never going to be
bad to actually try out multiplethings to actually like, step on
multiple boats and try and seewhat exactly fits you know, even
Cinderella did I mean notCinderella, Cinderella prince
(49:18):
did that right? He tried theshoe or like so many other women
before he's right. Yeah, that'sthe point. Sorry, I just like
broken between who? RandomlyDaniel you think something?
Pj Metz (49:32):
No, that I was just That's amazing. And I think I
think you're absolutely right.
That's that's a perfect, adisagreement with what I said.
It's not just saying, Well, I'mgoing this way now. It's, well,
I'm trying this and I'm exactlylike, so that's fantastic. I
love I love that you said that.
Thank you. That's perfect.
Reshmi Sriram (49:51):
Yeah, it's it's about going right. It's about
not staying stagnant where youare and staying stuck. You're
actually like going tryingsomething new. Maybe Feeling and
then exploring something new.
But the key is to keep going tokeep trying towards reaching
your goal rather than justwaiting for an external help or
just giving up wherever you'restuck. That's, that's not going
(50:12):
to help. And the final tip thatI have, which have been stating,
since the start is, please donot be scared to fail. Failing
is the biggest lesson that youcan have failing might give you
a moment of dissatisfaction, butit's going to give you a
lifetime of happiness, knowingthat it's something that you
(50:35):
don't have to revisit again,because now you know, that's
going to get you to failing,right, at least you have like 10
branches in front of you. Now,you know, you do not have to
take that branch, you have totake other nine branches, right.
So please do not be scared offailing, please do not like stop
from wanting to try somethingjust because it's going to be
scary and you have a risk offailing, but try it out to live
(50:57):
it for the experience, learn thejourney, enjoy the process,
rather than focusing totally onwhat the outcome is, outcome is
going to come. When you reachthat you need to focus on making
sure that you're actuallylearning all the way while
you're reaching the outcome.
Right. So yeah, it's a lot of inHindi, we say Dion. So it's
(51:21):
basically like a lot ofknowledge dump. But it's kind of
like things which I wish someonetold me long back. And now I
would just say I want to shareit with the others as well.
Brandon Minnick (51:34):
Yeah, I love what you said about embracing
the process and enjoying theprocess. Because there's been a
lot of times in my life where Ithought, I thought the goal like
the I thought the end goal waswhen I I'll finally have made it
and I'll feel accomplished, orI'll feel smart or happy, proud,
(51:55):
whatever, whatever emotion, youwant to insert here. And when I
hit the goal, kind of lookaround, you're like, Oh, that
was it. Oh, I just spent, youknow, eight months working on
this. And, okay, I guess I guesswe hit our goal now. But if
everything in life is around theend goal, you gotta cut it end
(52:18):
up, just be a disappointed like,you kind of have to enjoy
embrace the process and makethat what what you enjoy about
doing things. Because once oncethat goal passes, then then it's
gone, it's over. But if you canenjoy it while you're getting
there, then you get to kind ofenjoy that goal for longer and
(52:40):
get to bring it with you alongthe way.
Reshmi Sriram (52:43):
Totally, yeah.
Pj Metz (52:45):
I love that. I really think that there's a, uh, almost
almost a disconnect for people.
Because a lot of times we thinkof goals as the thing to
accomplish, right. But goals arealways in the future. And when
it arrives, it's it's thepresent, but you spent so much
time focusing on what's coming,that when it's actually here.
What what are you are youfocusing on here? Are you still
(53:10):
looking to the future, you know,so be present now, because
that's where you're going tospend most of your time is on
your way to something. So Ithink that yeah, you're exactly
right, Brandon. Exactly. Right.
Brandon Minnick (53:23):
Thanks. I'm so Oh, go ahead, please.
Reshmi Sriram (53:27):
No, it's okay, good.
Brandon Minnick (53:29):
Oh, well, I wanted to bring up because we
are we're so thankful for havingyou on the show. And we're down
to the last five, six minutes.
And I want to make sure wepromote everything you want to
promote. And before the show youmentioned hashtag 100, devs 100
days of code challenge. Tell usmore about that.
Reshmi Sriram (53:50):
Yep, ah, it's basically that's exactly why I
kind of like interrupted acouple of seconds before. But
it's an open source. It's thisguy called Leon oil. He kind of
is leading this 100 days of codechallenge. He has done this
previously during lockdown. Andhe is helping on his bed to try
educate people with the kind ofknowledge that is kind of needed
(54:14):
to get into a tech role. Butit's I have like no connection
whatsoever. But I would reallylove if people do try it out,
especially for the ones who wantto, like enter the tech sphere.
So basically just try follow thechannel. There are a few
challenges, which you have to doevery week. There are a few
(54:35):
lecture videos which you have toattend. But basically throughout
the course throughout theprocess, you're going to be
learning how exactly do youthink like a coder? How exactly
do you put yourself in thatshoes and be able to get into
the tech world that you wantedto crack? So just a small shout
out to the open source platform
Brandon Minnick (54:54):
there. Yeah, I love it. This looks very
impressive. Even I mean, in theopening paragraph on the
website, it says that he ran afully free remote coding
bootcamp that helps 72 Peopleget software engineering jobs.
And those 72 people saw theirsalary increase on average by
(55:17):
$53,000 $1,000. Yeah.
Pj Metz (55:20):
Which that's more than I made as a teacher. And one of
the reasons I got into tech, solike, Yes, go. Bag.
Reshmi Sriram (55:34):
But yeah, it's going to be a fun journey. And
again, it's going to bechallenging, but hey, that's
life, right?
Pj Metz (55:41):
Embrace the challenge.
Brandon Minnick (55:44):
And Russia, we just had a comment from soft
taco Raider asking if learn withLeon. If this Twitch channel is
the same, yes, we add. Yes.
Awesome. Yes, it is. So that'stwitch.tv/learn with Leon, l. E.
AR N. Wi th. Leon. That itsounds like he must do a lot of
(56:07):
live coding on Twitch too.
Amazing.
Pj Metz (56:13):
We love lots of movies, don't we, Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (56:16):
That's right.
That's that's our origin story.
Yeah. All right. Yeah, PJ.
Pj Metz (56:25):
Thank you so much for first of all that advice you
just gave. Thank you for givingpeople listening another way to
expand their skills. Brendon,we're getting close on time. I
think it might be time for thefinal, final final piece of
advice, because this last 50minutes has been all solid,
really good advice. But we gotto we got to ask, What's one
(56:48):
more thing that you that youwish you could tell yourself?
When you were getting started?
That you think other people needto hear? Rush? I was like, oh,
yeah, as a host, I was likeBrandon, yada, yada.
Reshmi Sriram (57:10):
I'm like, maybe I have to be the spectator over
here.
Pj Metz (57:15):
A late night TV host, because I'm a terrible recipe,
final piece of advice. The lastthing you would tell people.
Reshmi Sriram (57:23):
It's a very tricky position you have put me
in because I actually had a listwhich I read out. But the one
piece of advice, which I verypersonally make sure that it
sticks to me, throughout myexperience so far, is always
embrace learning, right? It'skind of that whole growth
(57:45):
mindset. So you do not have tobe the person who knows
everything. There is no one whoknows everything. You need to be
accepting of the fact that thereare more things where you can
learn and where you can improve,where you can explore there,
like so many facets that youhaven't considered right. Make
sure that learning is what isintegral to you as a person, and
(58:09):
it's gonna help you throughoutyour life journey. And yeah, I
think that was like my twocents. But yes, please try
static web apps. That is like mysite, PS.
Pj Metz (58:21):
That too.
Reshmi Sriram (58:24):
Yep. Thank you so much for having me, you guys.
And I am super pumped abouteverything that happened in the
last one hour to be honest, likeit's kind of like my bedtime.
But I have so much energy, Idon't know what to do.
Brandon Minnick (58:38):
Thank you for joining us. Love this
conversation. For people whowant to stay in touch, where can
they find you?
Reshmi Sriram (58:46):
You can definitely catch up with me on
Twitter. So my handle goes atthe rate r e s HSIRA. M that is
rage three RAM. So I amdefinitely available on Twitter
over there. But otherwise, youcan feel free to reach out to me
on email. I am a little confusedwhere as you actually reach out.
(59:11):
So I have been on an Instagrambreak for almost a year. So
maybe not there. But you canreach out to me whenever I will
be back I can definitely getback. But yeah, feel free to
drop out a message to Brandonand PJ. Maybe they can connect
me to you guys. But I would loveto hear from all of you. And I
(59:33):
really hope that they do havequite a few people who are
inspired to try out new thingsand try out anything tech
getting more into this world.
And yes, once again, thank youso much for having me on the
show.
Pj Metz (59:47):
Awesome. Rashmi, thank you so much for being here. This
has been eight bits you canfollow us on Twitch at Metzen
around you can follow us onYouTube at eight bits please
subscribe so you always get thelatest stuff and you can listen
to us at Eight bits.tv Everyonehave a wonderful day and we'll
see you all next time.
Welcome, everybody to another episode of
eight bits, the show where weinterview the people behind the
tech. Learn more about theirjourney. I'm your host, Brandon
Minnick. And as always, I'mjoined by my amazing co host, PJ
Metz. PJ, how's your week?
Pj Metz (02:19):
It's good. Oh, this has been a good week. First off.
It's been a while since we'vebeen on huh? It's
Brandon Minnick (02:25):
yeah. Yeah, for, for those following the
show. If you if you follow thelive streams, you'll know it's
it's been a while since we'vedone a live stream, almost a
month and a half. And that'sbecause we switched we we got a
little burnout. So we moved totwo episodes a month. And
(02:45):
sometimes we'll stack those up.
So the podcast will release themiddle and the end of each
month. And as guests areavailable, we'll interview them
and do it live. But yeah, wehaven't hung out since mid
February, I think was when wedid Matisse interview the last
one. But yeah, good to see youagain. Yeah, you're like a long
(03:06):
time ago.
Pj Metz (03:11):
I'm an annual pass holder for Universal Studios.
Now. That's a big change in mylife. And I just like you all to
be very happy for me. It'sfunny, my buddy and I, who have
lived in Orlando our wholelives. We have annual passes for
Disney. And that's always been athing I had, but he got one for
universities like hey, youshould get one. I was like, Oh,
what am I going to do it too?
When will I have the time? Idon't know. And roller coaster
(03:32):
came out. Want to say last yearcalled the velocity coaster.
It's a Jurassic Park rollercoaster. And it's really fast.
And I've seen ads for it. AndI've been going to universals
website and like clicking buy aticket and waiting and and then
No, I'm not doing it. So all ofmy targeted ads are universal.
(03:53):
stiff. Yes. And it wore on me.
And eventually I was like, I'mdoing it. And I went and I
rolled the roller coaster and Iscreamed the whole time. It was
terrifying. It was amazing. Ilove it. It's a good roller
coaster. And like finally I'mfinally a two part annual pass
filter.
Brandon Minnick (04:14):
You heard it here folks. targeted ads work.
Pj Metz (04:17):
That's right. Y'all love them. Everyone get targeted
at dt. I've seen that commercialfrom Facebook. That's like
targeted ads are helpful. Lookat how good it is for you. And I
was like hard sell there. It's
Brandon Minnick (04:33):
I will say that the hat I'm wearing right now. i
i wish i remember who made itI'd give them a shout out
because I love them. But also atargeted ad it was showed up on
my Instagram feed and was likecheck out this amazing hat that
is waterproof and sweatprooffitness. Like that's exactly
(04:53):
what I'm looking for. How didyou know? I know exactly what
they know. They know me betterthan I know myself. And that's
Pj Metz (04:59):
right Alright, I do want to admit out. I'm currently
panicking because the way Imoved the window that are
restream isn't I can't grab itand move it anywhere and it's
like the wrong clicking. Oh,technology, what have you done
(05:19):
to me?
Brandon Minnick (05:21):
It's so for everybody listening PJ also
produces the show live well weair the show.
Pj Metz (05:31):
The address bar is right up at the top and it's
hidden under the toolbar for formy for my Mac is like, I can do
this. I believe in myself. Holdon. Yeah, you guys are gonna,
you're gonna, you're gonna hearit later. It's just me
struggling.
Brandon Minnick (05:48):
Man in the comment said to hit F 11. F 11,
you might be able to grab it.
Pj Metz (05:55):
Hold on that muted me.
Brandon Minnick (05:57):
Hold on. I knew you're on a Mac. Even have F F
elevens
Pj Metz (06:02):
that it's there. I just have to fn fn to do it.
Brandon Minnick (06:07):
So well. PJ's checking that out? I've got I
worked fun. I got Sure. Oh, wedid it.
Pj Metz (06:19):
Folks, professional show.
Brandon Minnick (06:23):
And we both work in tech. I love I will say
quick sidebar. For especiallyespecially parents are the usual
culprits of this. But they justassume that like, oh, you work
in tech, like you're good withcomputers. And you are better
you can fix my computer. And Imean, probably but we're just
(06:46):
kind of figuring it out as wego. Yeah, I'd say for me, it's
just I'm not afraid to clickthat button. Like, what's this
button do? I don't know, let'sfind out, and then refactor it.
Sometimes you pay the price forthat. But yeah, I do have some
news I want to share. This isbreaking news, like within the
(07:07):
last hour. It's not thatexciting. But you're probably
wondering how we got here. So atMicrosoft, we've been working on
a new tool called dotnet. Maui,if you're familiar with Xamarin,
Maui is the next evolution ofXamarin. It's basically where
(07:29):
we're bringing in support foriOS Android, into dotnet. And
then creating a multi platformapplication user interface, aka
dotnet, Maui. So it's a crossplatform way to create iOS apps,
Android apps, Mac, a Mac, iOSapps, Windows apps, all in C
Sharp, and dotnet. And what I'vebeen working on for the past,
(07:51):
gosh, eight months on a longtime is the dotnet Maui
community toolkit. So it's acompletely open source library
that is built by you thecommunity, where we have all
these cool, helpful tools thatyou can use for your dotnet Maui
apps. And today, we justlaunched our docks. So we've
(08:11):
been hard at work at this,writing all the code for months
now. And also writing the docs.
So we just published the docstoday, you can see him at Doc's
top microsoft.com/dotnet,spelled do t n et slash
community toolkit, or click onthe link in the show below.
Pj Metz (08:31):
That's right. Can you Yeah, the very least you can
copy and paste it. In the chat,you'll see it click it.
Congrats, Brandon, that'sexciting to be at the docks, and
to be able to push that out tothe community and to have them
finally have that kind of accessand, and help that they need and
using this stuff. It's veryexciting. Congrats. It makes
Brandon Minnick (08:52):
effects. It makes it feel very official.
Because the the source code isall open source. But we created
our own organization on GitHubcalled Community toolkit,
because I'm working on thedotnet Maui community toolkit.
But there's also a new toolkitfor when UI and MVVM and just
dotnet stuff in general. There'sa bunch of toolkits, all made by
(09:13):
the community that we put underthe committee toolkit. Org. But
when you do that, you're not inthe Microsoft. org on GitHub. So
sometimes people will come alongand be like, What is this? And
they're like, why should I useit is this official Microsoft
product, but now, we're on theMicrosoft docs so we can say
yeah, here's ourdocumentation@microsoft.com.
(09:35):
We've, we've been trying to.
We've been struggling a littlebit with that branding aspect
lately. But yeah, now we'reofficial. And it's still
working. Still working on thedock still working on the
toolkit. It's all available inpreview and should be released
in May. So we're getting reallyclose.
Pj Metz (09:53):
Wow. Oh man, that is very close. Oh, May is a it's my
one year anniversary of gettinga tech Wow, we're coming up on
almost the year of me havingbeen working in tech. So we'll
have a lot to celebrate it maywell have to do a very special
episode where we all learn animportant lesson. And that
lesson is tech. We will figureout the lesson before and then I
(10:19):
promise, but, uh,
Brandon Minnick (10:21):
it has been great episodes. Yeah, that was
such a cool guest today. Weactually, should I just recently
met, but I feel like we'requickly becoming best friends.
BJ, let's welcome to the showthe program manager for the
Azure static web apps atMicrosoft. Rashmi, welcome to
(10:42):
the show.
Reshmi Sriram (10:47):
Hi, thanks for having me
Pj Metz (10:49):
here. And then I ruined it. I'm sorry. Oh.
Reshmi Sriram (10:56):
Do you want to do a retake?
Pj Metz (10:59):
Though it was perfect.
Reshmi Sriram (11:04):
It's okay, we can always do a retake. We can do
the retake for a bye, maybe.
Pj Metz (11:09):
Let's make some B roll here live for me. Welcome to the
show. Um, thank you so much forbeing here. I'm glad I got to
meet you. And I know Brandonsaid that. Y'all just recently
met. But I have even morerecently met you. So I'm very
excited to have done that. Andvery excited to have you here.
(11:31):
Thank you for coming on. Um, toget started. How about you tell
the folks at home all aboutyourself and what's your about?
Reshmi Sriram (11:40):
Sounds great. So quickly, starting with the
typical welcome that we do inIndia, because I have been told
that I'm the first guest fromIndia. So nervous. So yeah, hey.
Hi, I am Rishi. And I am aprogram manager with the static
web apps team. I will be quicklytalking about that as well. Just
(12:03):
you know, sadly. But yeah, pointbeing I am working with
Microsoft since the last 10months. And this has been my
first time as a program manager.
And my first time as a livestream participants so woohoo.
But yeah, this it's been a veryfun 10 months for me. And
quickly, just rolling back towhat PJ said me is a special
(12:26):
month for us as well in staticweb apps because we are
celebrating our one yearanniversary as well.
Pj Metz (12:37):
Listen, apparently May is just the month where great
stuff happens in in tech justgood. Yeah.
Brandon Minnick (12:46):
And it's my birthday. Oh, I didn't know
that.
Reshmi Sriram (12:51):
And now we have a lot of reasons to celebrate. So
we are going to get treated byBrandon for this right.
Pj Metz (12:58):
Yeah, Brandon.
Brandon Minnick (12:59):
Everybody gets cake for your birthday.
Reshmi Sriram (13:01):
Also Oh, sweet.
Kind of. Yeah, a sweet littlebirdie. Kind of give me a heads
up that to be there in the show.
I need to have some sort ofdecorum. So
Pj Metz (13:14):
that's right. We have we have rules about how we
present ourselves and recipesgot that? Oh, yes.
Brandon Minnick (13:22):
That's right.
We have a strict dress code onthis show. Everybody wears a hat
Pj Metz (13:28):
tails. a walking stick because walking sticks are like
what fancy gentlemen use right?
Do you remember what that was?
The thing is fancy gentleman hadto have like a cane and like a
walking stick. And then it justfell
Brandon Minnick (13:42):
out and a monocle and a pocket watch?
Pj Metz (13:44):
Yeah, why don't back in
Brandon Minnick (13:47):
the 18 Good old 1800s
Pj Metz (13:52):
What happened? We need to go back. Well, maybe not.
Yeah, kids these days don't workon a recipe. I honestly never. I
can't believe you put a hat on.
I never realized until just nowthat Brandon and I are always
wearing hats. I knew I'm a hatperson. But that's because I'm a
My hair is thinning up top andI'm embarrassed so I wear hats
(14:14):
all the time. Also, it's anotherway to show my personality but I
never would have been like yeah,that's the show are the guys
wear hats until
Reshmi Sriram (14:26):
now you how would you trademark
Brandon Minnick (14:29):
actually, that'd be a great logo.
Pj Metz (14:32):
Just made that hat with a very tiny eight bits logo on
it so
Reshmi Sriram (14:41):
and I would get a complimentary one for having
introduced it. Or you guysrealize
Pj Metz (14:46):
it 47% royalties on the back end for Rashmi and whatever
the remainder is for Brandon andthen I'll just take it up and
I'll just I just want to wearthe hat. That's all I'm happy.
Brandon Minnick (15:02):
To be honest, I just do it totally just because
I'm lazy. The show. I'm in theearliest timezone here. So
actually Rashmi and I are on theother side of the world right
now, which is incredible tothink about. And I know that
because when I looked up, shesaid she'd be joining us from
India. I was like, What timewould be there? And it's exactly
(15:23):
12 hours. So we're exactly theother side of the world. So for
me, it's early in the morning.
Well, early, it's, we meet up at930 in the morning, and we go
live at 10. But that's likeearly for for the tech world.
Yeah, I'm just lazy. I don't Idon't want to do my hair. So I
put on a hat. That way, I have agood story. It's just okay,
(15:44):
well, I could do my hair rightnow. Like, or I could make a cup
of coffee. I'm gonna make
Pj Metz (15:50):
a choice. I agree. I agree.
Brandon Minnick (15:55):
So, freshmen love the tangent. But let's
bring it all the way back.
Because on a pitch, we love tolearn about your journey, in
hopes of inspiring others to dothe same. And as our first guest
joining us from India, we haveso many questions, but let's go
(16:15):
way back. Let's start with howdid you first learn to code? And
is that common in India forfolks that go to school?
Reshmi Sriram (16:32):
That's actually a good question. And now that you
speak about it, there's been alot of change of late in the
educational curriculum that hasbeen building by the government.
Oh, by the way, if folks arewondering what this is, this is
called Mehndi. It's kind of atraditional Indian tattoo, which
you kind of have in your handsfor some festive occasions. So
(16:55):
it's not seen guys. It's justlike wearing off. So never mind.
Brandon Minnick (17:01):
Somewhere to handle.
Reshmi Sriram (17:03):
Yeah, it is Hannah. Yeah. That
Pj Metz (17:09):
specific festival? That just happened. Yeah.
Reshmi Sriram (17:12):
It's not any specific festival. But it's kind
of a thing in festivals. So Ihad a couple of family functions
in the last week. So all of us,like all my cousins, all my
relatives have this in a hand.
So it's just wearing off. It'sfun. Yep. Yeah, quickly going
back to where I started, right.
(17:35):
So as a part of the educationcurriculum, it has always been
emphasized that a student learnsall sorts of things, right?
Exposure to anything, cocurricular exposure to coding
exposure to the basic math,science, etc, etc. So yeah,
definitely my first stop hasbeen coding in Visual Basic, I
(17:56):
think, and this is back in mylemon grade. So it's quite a
while back, but that was myexposure to coding. And I was
like, I don't know what'shappening, to be honest. Like, I
didn't know what was happening,because you had like these super
fat monitors, and you had thosesuper slow processors. And I
(18:18):
mean, like, it didn't even makesense why we were doing
something like that. Butusually, those labs were our
escape to play in MSP becausethat was like the only thing
scooping into whether Tito'slike looking somewhere else. So
that's kind of been the firsttime with fiddling around codes.
(18:40):
But I have always been a fan ofplaying in and around what
facilities are there andMicrosoft Like, Command Prompt,
I don't know, like, I havealways been obsessed with trying
to do something or the otherover there. I remember back in
my college days, we had createda hotspot using quantum because
the Wi Fi was not good enough.
There are rooms. So these arelike these tiny bits and things
(19:02):
where you actually like, get ahands on and code but you
actually like get a result outof it. So my start was over
there in school. But quickly, Irealized that I did have a kind
of attraction for it. Definitelycompared to studying the number
of chromosomes that eachorganism has. I'm like, you
know, that Drake meme? It'sliterally like biology. Computer
(19:27):
Science.
Pj Metz (19:37):
Yeah, there's that meme with Jordi LaForge. from Star
Trek instead where he's likeit's almost the exact same face.
And bonus because Georgia forageis fantastic. And Star Trek is
good. Shout out Star Trek. is
Brandon Minnick (19:57):
sponsored by Star Trek.
Pj Metz (19:58):
That's right. CRT monitors that. You mentioned the
old school because I mean, I'vegot a very lovely, lovely thin
flat monitor. Right? But theyused to be gigantic, massive.
Yep. And that's where youstarted. I love that you brought
(20:19):
up MS Paint. I feel like anyonewho ever was in grade school or
in high school and had to dowork in a computer lab. First
thing you open is Ms. Paint, youtake the pencil tool and
scribble everywhere. And thenyou just start filling in spaces
with random Yeah,
Reshmi Sriram (20:35):
yes.
Pj Metz (20:36):
Wow. I don't cross the world. Experience and I love it.
Y'all. makes me so happy. I'mlike you built a hotspot in in
college? Because the Wi Fi youwere like, Let's just build our
own hotspot. Yeah,
Reshmi Sriram (20:53):
yeah. be coded it from the scratch. Thanks,
StackOverflow. I mean, like. Butyeah, it was definitely handy
because the Wi Fi that we hadwas so patchy. So technically,
like if you needed it to reachyour room, the LAN cables that
(21:13):
we had in our school. So beingin a government school, and
India is not a very highlyadvanced and highly facilitated
place to be if I were tosummarize it, but basically,
it's like a first come firstserve thing, right? There are
like 10 Lan cables, and you getyour hands on the first LAN
cable well and good. If youdon't get it, you have to rely
(21:34):
on Wi Fi. And if you want Wi Fi,you don't get it in your room,
you have to go sit outside inthe corridor and get the Wi Fi
but no. Five will be computerscience students.
Pj Metz (21:50):
There's 10 labels, if you get the first one, it's 100
feet, and it goes down fromthere. The last one is just four
feet, you gotta
Reshmi Sriram (22:01):
say yeah, that's kind of like the inception of
where it was. But now inretrospect, when I look back at
the whole journey of where Istarted and where I am right
now, I never thought of it untilI spoke it out right now. But it
feels really great to like, dothat complete circle. And now
I'm back at Microsoft, where Iam literally working for a
(22:23):
Microsoft product. And I startedoff my computer exposure with
basic Microsoft stuff. So yeah,it feels good to have done that
complete circle.
Brandon Minnick (22:33):
Yeah, and who knows, someday in the future
kids will be in their computerclasses learning to code. And
instead, they'll build bebuilding Azure static web apps.
Pj Metz (22:48):
I think that's a very good place to start. I actually
I think static web apps are justa great project to start on.
Because it's it's a little lessdaunting than what I started
with, which was a full ASPdotnet like, with a database.
Thank you, Brandon. I was like,I was like, yeah, man, ASP
dotnet core, and it's gonna havea database, like, Oh, sure. This
(23:10):
makes sense. I can do it. Icould. No.
Brandon Minnick (23:15):
Yeah, cuz. So PJ and I just started that
journey just started about twoyears ago. And I remember
Rashmi, when we're firststarting out as like, there's a
new thing called Azure staticweb apps. Maybe we can use that.
But to be honest, I couldn'tfigure it out. It was it was
(23:36):
also still in, it's still inpreview. It hadn't been
Pj Metz (23:39):
early. Yeah, it was very early. And
Brandon Minnick (23:47):
now it's amazing. Now it's great. This,
this new PM came in about 10months ago, Everything's been
great.
It's a resume, it sounds like,sounds like you chose the path
to go to college. But if we goback a couple years, or a year
(24:10):
or two before that, what is thewhat is it like in India for
your typical secondary schoolstudent? Do most people choose
the path to go to university? Ordo a lot of folks choose to get
a job start working right away?
Or do you have technicalprograms? Fill us in on that and
how all that affected yourdecision?
Reshmi Sriram (24:37):
That's actually a very good question. And I think
I would consider myself blessedenough to have a very clear
route on how I can proceed. ButIndia being very, like in the
stages of developing country,right, it's it's still fighting
for resources among thepopulation that we have one
(24:58):
thing which the government doesDefinitely make sure is trying
to promote education and everyform. But unfortunately,
education is not a privilegeyet. So education is a
privilege. It's not a givenfactor yet for every student,
right. So usually in Indianhouseholds, if I were to say,
(25:19):
it's a very typical, I thinkit's an Asian household thing,
because I've heard it from a fewof my Chinese friends as well.
But usually, your parentsalready, like have a full tree
diagram on what their kids aregoing to do. It wasn't the kid
is born, like the three monthsold, he's holding the pencil.
Artist, okay, artist is a sidejob for 3d to focus on
(25:42):
education, right? Let's takethem up the education guide. So
yeah, it was kind of likealready sketched out for me as
well. And my parents were reallypassionate about me going
towards an MBBS line, becausenone of my family members have
any sort of doctorate or eveneven PhD per se, right? Everyone
(26:02):
has been just like, verystrictly associated to commerce,
science was not like their cupof tea. So my parents are like,
Oh, our girl is going to be thefirst doctor in the family. And
guess what? I chromosomes?
Pj Metz (26:22):
And then you got to biology and you're like, No.
Reshmi Sriram (26:29):
Right? Yeah. So looking back at the education
and how things have been so far.
So in general, how it happens isthe mentality in India for like,
a working class population is toprioritize on education, to have
the basic level of education.
But post that when you kind oflike, do your 12th, right, when
(26:52):
you're done with your juniorcollege, the next step usually,
is to just go for a job. And nowwhen you go to a job, you do
have two options. You eitherlike, actually explore all the
categories and facets in thejob, you learn more, you try new
projects. And sometimes it's sojust so happens that you do not
already click in right, or youyou just enter a domain, and you
(27:14):
realize that this probably isnot what you were looking for.
It's kind of what happened withme as well. So I as soon as I
completed my undergrad in nitCalicut. So and it is National
Institute of Technology, or theunknown. It's kind of like the
premier Institute in India. Sobasically doing a computer
(27:35):
science degree in and it is abad thing. You end up in a good
company. Yes, totally agree. Butwhere I ended, and what I
learned was two different paths,right? I started. And then I go
scale down to C. And then I goscale down to a language called
scheme. I don't know if you guyshave tried that. It's kind of
(27:56):
like based out of list. Oh,yeah, it basically teaches the
basics, you know, like, I justlike went down, down, down all
the way to list. And then wewent back to C++. And this was
my college curriculum. And onceI stepped out, I got a job in
Deutsche Bank as a softwareanalyst. And guess what we are
(28:17):
working on Java, we're workingon Spring Boot we're working on.
I don't know, like so manythings that end within like,
one, one and a half years, I gotexposure to back end, I got
exposure to front end, I workedon React projects, I had my
hands on like everything, and Iwas literally enjoying it,
right? You try out somethingnew, and you're just like, oh,
this is actually not taking, andthen you talk to your manager,
(28:39):
and my manager was reallysupportive is like, Okay, why
don't you try this. And then Ijumped to front. And I'm like,
Oh, this is fun. This isactually something I'm enjoying.
But maybe this is also not whatI want, right? And then I tried
a few things. And then mymanager helped me realize that
probably what I'm looking for,is wanting to stay in the
technical domain, but play to mystrengths. And my strengths was
(29:00):
not exactly coding. But yeah. Ilike how do I make use of what I
am good at, but at the sametime, be able to contribute to
the technical sphere, right? Andthen I kind of like did a sit
through analysis with mymanager. And we realized maybe
what I need is an MBA and alittle more exposure to the
(29:23):
business side and see howexactly can I use my technical
knowledge and my businessknowledge and put it together?
Right? And that exactly is whathappened. I went ahead, did an
MBA and after MBA, I ended upwith a program manager role. And
now guess what I have best ofboth worlds. I am working with
coding. I am working withmarketing. I am working with
(29:45):
strategy, and so many thingsthat actually keeps me happy.
I'm challenging, and it's likeevery day you actually look
forward to tackling somethingnew, maybe like failing. It's
just a part of the process,right? You fail but then the
next thing you do you fail, youget up and you learn a new way
to not fail, right? So I writecode. I just remember seeing a
(30:10):
meme just today morning, it wasbasically a programmer, like
cheering looking at the monitor,like, you find your new arrow,
that means I am progressing
Pj Metz (30:22):
is very exciting. I love that this this idea of
being able to try a lot ofdifferent things and being able
to do that in your career. Thatsounds really awesome to be
like, alright, so I did thisback end, it's not really for
me. And when I'm doing frontend, and I'm learning react, I'm
like, Oh, this is a lot more mystyle and what I what I enjoy,
(30:45):
but even when back in wasn'tsomething you enjoyed, you were
able to learn while you werethere. And that made you better
as you progress. So that's,that's fantastic. One amazing,
amazing story that makes mereally happy.
Brandon Minnick (31:00):
And it's it's funny how will say at least at
least in the US school system,failings bad. Like if you get an
F on something that is terrible.
But like, like you said Rashmiin reality, failings really
good, because that means youtried to do something. I mean,
you didn't, but that's okay.
Because you learned somethingyou learned at least one way not
(31:22):
to do it. And then taking thatlesson that you just learned,
and then reapplying it isbasically life. It's, we're all
just trying to figure stuff out.
And you can't really figureanything out unless you try it
first. And sometimes it works onthe first try. Sometimes it
doesn't. And that's okay. Butyeah, in the, in the US at
(31:44):
least, you're not really taughtthat growing up, you just taught
like you got to get straightA's. You got to go to college,
Pj Metz (31:54):
and failing a test is the worst. It's that that's what
everyone tells you. And that'sthe impression you get growing
up is like, you don't fail, youhave to prove that you're good
now. And it's like, well, theyjust told me about, you know,
fractions two weeks ago for thefirst time already. Um, failure
(32:16):
is a big part of how and I jokedearlier, it's a big part of how
I code. But honestly, I justbuilt a, I'm learning Python, I
just built a bot that sits inyour terminal and just listens
for a specific hashtag, andreturn some information about
the tweet that use the hashtag.
I made like four versions of itthat didn't work before, I found
(32:37):
a way to take some pieces fromall the things that didn't work
and combine it to make it work.
So it's very exciting to fail.
And it's not a joke to say thata new error message is one of
the best things.
Brandon Minnick (32:55):
It's like best and also kind of deflating, but
yeah, you know, you're makingprogress spirits, like so stuck
Pj Metz (33:04):
out, there was another wall behind that wall, but I got
the first one down. And that's abig deal.
Brandon Minnick (33:09):
Or when you recognize the error message, you
go, I know exactly what thatmeans. Before I got to do that,
speaking of the communitytoolkit, I mentioned at the top
of the show, somebody opened upan issue that I just literally
spent a whole day trying tofigure out how to solve on my
(33:31):
new Windows computer. And so assoon as I saw the issue post, I
was like, I know exactly how tosolve that. Here's the link. And
just in case that one doesn'twork, here's another link and
he's like, perfect. And it wasonly because I just solved it
and gone through that myself. Sothe experience the experience
counts folks fail away.
Pj Metz (33:54):
So recipe from from college from the NIT in India.
You got that job doing bagnisaid at Deutsche Bank, you start
doing front end, you findyourself now at a job you said
it brought you full circle backto back to some Microsoft stuff.
So oh, what is it? What is thestatic site generator and Azure?
(34:16):
What is this all about telescopewhat you're doing at work
because like, I You soundexcited about it like you even
like, I'm going to talk about Iwas like, I want you to talk
about it, please.
Reshmi Sriram (34:27):
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I am
not sabotaging the show. Becausejust like okay, you know, very,
very subtle. I'm not promotinganything at all being quick. But
so quickly just starting up onwhat I work on, which is
(34:47):
actually very exciting. So thisis product called static web
apps. So as your static web appsis a tool with which you can
host your static sites. And whenI say static, that does not mean
that you can have all only, youknow, static pages like blogs
and documentations. It's staticbecause you have a very good
segregation of how your websitesare hosted. So your static ends
(35:11):
are hosted separately andavailable across the globe. At
the same time, your serverlessback end is being hosted by
Azure functions. And this splitand host is actually helping us
give a very good, minimallatency to the customers. And
because it is located likegeographically across the globe,
(35:32):
you do not have to worry aboutthe customers having the lags.
And God knows what all thisshows, right, you basically are
able to cater to everyone acrossthe world, even if you are an
XYZ, just a blog situated out ofEurope. And we have a very
strong as your network, we havea very good dependency with all
(35:55):
the other applications, we havea tie up with Azure functions,
which is like our basic back endAPI's, we have a good tie up
with all the database related.
And we do have a lot of featurescoming up over there. So I'll
quickly jump to that soon. Wehave CDN we have managed as your
CDN and are and so now if youare like globally located and
maybe like 10 points, you canamplify 200 different points and
(36:18):
reduce the latency even more.
And everything in Azure, right,the Azure atmosphere has a very
good tie up. So you can justlike make your application
stronger and stronger. And thebest part about our application,
you do have a free SKU, so youdo not have to pay to try it out
for the first time. So I wouldhighly encourage you to go try
(36:41):
out your websites, go try buildanything, we have a lot of
tutorials as well. And you willalso see a lot of good videos to
catch upon. And basically, everyframework that you want any kind
of website that you want, youcan build it, you can try it for
yourself. And I'm really excitedabout the features that are
coming forward to especiallyduring the one year anniversary.
(37:03):
So both PJ and Brandon, I wouldlove for you guys also to do
your hands on over there and letme know how the experiences.
Pj Metz (37:12):
Try it just before
Brandon Minnick (37:18):
it's funny to me, because, uh, so my
backgrounds in mobile, I've beenmaking iOS and Android apps for
years now. And hadn't reallythought I'll say, I put this in
air quotes, teaching PJ build awebsite was the first time I
built a website. And so yeah,when I first heard of Azure
(37:38):
static web apps, you know, as aMicrosoft employee, you hear
rumors swirling when newproducts are being worked on. My
first thought was, what doesthat even mean? Like the static
like static electricity. Andthen once I figured out static
just meant just means itdoesn't, doesn't really change.
It's not really necessarilyinteractive. I started realizing
(38:00):
most websites are static like,eight bits.tv. The website for
this show is a static website.
It's where we post all of ourcontent, you can watch all of
our videos, read thetranscripts, listen to the
podcasts. That would be a staticwebsite, heck, even like
cnn.com, where they post thenews like that's a static
website. And I sort of realized,like, probably most websites can
(38:23):
use Azure static web apps. Isthat Is that accurate? Am I my
close?
Reshmi Sriram (38:32):
You are more than close, you're pretty much
hitting the hammer exactly onthe nail, right? This this
quarter misconception thatpeople have that having a site
static is probably going to bejust HTML content is not the
product that we are catering toright. We are a jam stack
product. And when you talk ofjam stack, the the abbreviation
(38:54):
for jam is basically JavaScriptAPI and markup. So we do have a
very powerful tool whichcombines all three of them. So
basically, like, I'm probablynot very good with the exact
number, but I could say likemore than 60% of the websites
that are hosted right now are agood category for static
websites. The reason being a lotof the content that we already
(39:17):
host on our websites, right,like any sort of landing page
for a company, or any sort ofblog, any sort of even like you
mentioned, right, even if CNNright, you need to refresh the
news. Yes. But ultimately, it'skind of like a static page,
which is being loaded foreveryone. You click on a link,
and you can call it with an API.
But why do you need to have likea very heavily loaded website
(39:37):
just to try hosted? No, you canjust break it down. Very cool,
very simple and be able to do itat a cheaper cost, be able to
have a better latency, be ableto have more availability, be
able to access so manyadditional features that we have
like CDN free TLS certificatesand I Like so many of them, I
(39:58):
can't even count it on myfingers right now. Yeah, this is
pretty much what we have inAzure static web apps. And yeah,
I would love for each each oneof you is there in the call as
well to try it out. And pleasedo let us know on how the
experience has been.
Pj Metz (40:17):
Yeah, I really recommend people do static
websites, it's a great way tojust get practice in. And just
like Rashmi said, when when shewas at school and had to build
her own hotspot, that experienceof creating it, there was
something you said where it waslike, and that's where I did a
lot of learning and listenoutside of your classroom,
whether it's a boot camp,whether it's self taught,
(40:38):
taught, whether it's atraditional education system,
outside of that, when you startto do things on your own, and
have to figure it out without ateacher, their professor to give
you the answer. That's where youreally learn a lot, and that
people call it the real world.
But I don't agree with that. Butlike outside of education,
that's where things really startto make sense for you as a
(40:59):
learner. You know, speaking oflearning, I think it's time to
learn about some advertisementsthat we have, here's a
commercial that we're going tocut to this has been a good
intro to the commercial. Hi, ifyou're hearing my voice, that
means you've been listening toor watching eight bits with
Brandon and PJ. And we're hereto talk to you about your
(41:21):
product. And how it can help youin your life by to do whatever
your product does. So if you'rean avid listener of the show, or
you watch us on Twitch, then youwill know that your product,
your product is right for you.
Brandon Minnick (41:52):
That's right.
If you are interested insponsoring us, you can reach us
via email at Hello at eightbits.tv. We're always looking
for somebody to help becausethis stuff costs money, we love
doing it. And we're happy to doit. But we do have to pay, we
should probably get on Azurestatic web apps. Probably paid a
(42:13):
couple $100 a year for
Reshmi Sriram (42:23):
this, this definitely sounds like a good
tie out for you. You could maybelike give it a shot and see how
it works. And I would love tohear all about your journey and
your experience.
Brandon Minnick (42:34):
Absolutely. So.
So rush me. On the show, wealways try to inspire folks to
get into tech. And like we'vediscussed, it's sometimes not
the easiest thing to do. BecauseI don't know, maybe maybe I'm
not good at math, or maybe Inever learned to code. What What
advice would you give tosomebody who is looking to get
their first job in in tech?
Reshmi Sriram (43:00):
That's, again, a very good question. And I am
sure that a lot of things thatI'm probably going to say right
now are pretty much in andaround what everyone has used in
their life. And a few of them wehave already like very subtly
touched on as well in theprevious discussions. But most
of my tips for anyone who'sjoining new for tech is not
(43:21):
specifically to tech, it's moreabout how you exactly go about
the new challenge that you have.
So the first one that I wouldprobably say is, it doesn't
really matter if you're goingslow, right? It's about
progress. And what mattersreally is you actually put in
that little extra effort everyday, and be consistent. Keep
trying to push harder, you mightthink you know that you already
(43:46):
gave your 100% on a single dayand you have been trying and the
same error is coming five timesand you're probably like, this
is not my cup of tea, this isnot working. But I would suggest
like when when that's the case,you probably like tweak a bit,
try a bit, make that 100% 110%And try look for that new error
message that could probably atleast tell you that now, this is
(44:09):
something different. This issomething where I definitely
know that now I do not have tofail in this way as well. Right.
So consistency is the key, youneed to make sure that you keep
trying and you keep doing a bitevery day so that you can go
towards what you want toachieve. So that would be my
first one. The second onedefinitely is about making your
(44:30):
basic strong. So if you want toenter in tech, what they look
for in general is not about allthe languages and frameworks
that you know, but it's moreabout how well are you with the
basics like how good are youwith data structures and
algorithms? How good are youwith like the pseudo logic, if
you if you have a question howwell can you picture on how do
(44:53):
you solve it? So being able tounderstand the logic is more
important than putting it out ina language, languages are just
like they're literally siblings,right? You know how to do C++,
you are going to learn how to doPython, it's not going to be
hard. So do not fret over whatsort of languages and
(45:13):
frameworks, you know, that'ssomething you can just pick up
on the go. But focus more onbuilding your foundation strong.
And once you build yourfoundation strong, you are like,
definitely towards the rightdirection of succeeding. The
third tip, yeah, I actually havemade a lesson probably like, my
eyes are just sitting there.
(45:34):
Because these are the lessons, Ireally hope like someone told me
long back when I was starting mycareer new, but I really hope
this reaches the right audienceso that they know what they
should be doing. The third thingthat I would say is being
yourself, right? Any any sort ofsituation that you have, there
are like interviews, where youprobably will be given a
(45:55):
challenging question, and youwould be under the pressure of
actually wanting to answersomething, but you actually do
not know what to answer, orthere would be something where
you are disagreeing with theinterviewer, but you do not want
to disagree with them. For thesake of not looking rude or
whatever. I would say, just beyourself, right? Be yourself and
(46:17):
be able to actually put acrosswhat you are. And that exactly
gives the person the idea thatyou're being genuine. Being
genuine really helps. Becauselater on in future, you're not
in a situation where they'll belike, Whoa, you know, he or she
she knows how to fix thesecodes, right? But actually, what
you did was just stack overflow.
Pj Metz (46:42):
Important to know how to find the answer, because no
one automatically has the answerfor everything. So then I know
it off the top of my head is Iknow where to go to find the
answer. Because that gives you apathway towards so much more
that you can do. I talked aboutthis, and I'm in confusion is
(47:05):
this one of learning a talk Igave back in October 2020. It
was all about how you're goingto be confused, you're going to
get lost. But knowing what thevery next step to take is, is
usually the most valuable thing.
Because if you don't know whereto put your foot next, you don't
know what direction to go. Sobeing stuck is one thing. But to
get out of being stuck. It'sabout knowing what not what the
(47:26):
end result needs to be what thevery next thing to do is and
sometimes that's typing in stackoverflow.com and going there and
finding what it is. And that canbe hugely valuable. If every
developer knows it. It's it'sit's not a secret that we are
looking stuff up all the time. Ican't I every day I have to go.
(47:47):
Okay, how do I make a new branchand get and I'm like, get new
branch. And then I'm like, okay,got it. And then I'll hit it
memorized eventually. But rightnow.
Brandon Minnick (48:01):
I feel good.
Did you can I forget whatStackOverflow calls me their
favorites or bookmarks? You canbasically like flag and answer
that. Yeah. And I've done thisfor answers that I've had to go
back and like Google keepstaking me back the same answer.
And so yeah, I just end upbookmark. You didn't
StackOverflow cuz I know I'mcoming back. But yeah,
especially like this gitcommands, like, just, you don't
(48:25):
use every Git command every day.
So
Pj Metz (48:29):
Right? I don't know.
Reshmi Sriram (48:34):
But to quickly add on to PDS point, this, like
a little bit of disagreementover here. I just use my own
point, by the way aboutdisagreeing. But yeah, there's a
little bit of disagreement thatI have with what PJ said about
nuance. Sorry, knowing that whatyour next step is, while it is
good that you know what yournext step is, that's kind of
(48:55):
like not necessary, because Iwould say like in my life, I
suppose I did not know what Iwanted to do when I knew that
that was not my cup of tea,right? So it's never going to be
bad to actually try out multiplethings to actually like, step on
multiple boats and try and seewhat exactly fits you know, even
Cinderella did I mean notCinderella, Cinderella prince
(49:18):
did that right? He tried theshoe or like so many other women
before he's right. Yeah, that'sthe point. Sorry, I just like
broken between who? RandomlyDaniel you think something?
Pj Metz (49:32):
No, that I was just That's amazing. And I think I
think you're absolutely right.
That's that's a perfect, adisagreement with what I said.
It's not just saying, Well, I'mgoing this way now. It's, well,
I'm trying this and I'm exactlylike, so that's fantastic. I
love I love that you said that.
Thank you. That's perfect.
Reshmi Sriram (49:51):
Yeah, it's it's about going right. It's about
not staying stagnant where youare and staying stuck. You're
actually like going tryingsomething new. Maybe Feeling and
then exploring something new.
But the key is to keep going tokeep trying towards reaching
your goal rather than justwaiting for an external help or
just giving up wherever you'restuck. That's, that's not going
(50:12):
to help. And the final tip thatI have, which have been stating,
since the start is, please donot be scared to fail. Failing
is the biggest lesson that youcan have failing might give you
a moment of dissatisfaction, butit's going to give you a
lifetime of happiness, knowingthat it's something that you
(50:35):
don't have to revisit again,because now you know, that's
going to get you to failing,right, at least you have like 10
branches in front of you. Now,you know, you do not have to
take that branch, you have totake other nine branches, right.
So please do not be scared offailing, please do not like stop
from wanting to try somethingjust because it's going to be
scary and you have a risk offailing, but try it out to live
(50:57):
it for the experience, learn thejourney, enjoy the process,
rather than focusing totally onwhat the outcome is, outcome is
going to come. When you reachthat you need to focus on making
sure that you're actuallylearning all the way while
you're reaching the outcome.
Right. So yeah, it's a lot of inHindi, we say Dion. So it's
(51:21):
basically like a lot ofknowledge dump. But it's kind of
like things which I wish someonetold me long back. And now I
would just say I want to shareit with the others as well.
Brandon Minnick (51:34):
Yeah, I love what you said about embracing
the process and enjoying theprocess. Because there's been a
lot of times in my life where Ithought, I thought the goal like
the I thought the end goal waswhen I I'll finally have made it
and I'll feel accomplished, orI'll feel smart or happy, proud,
(51:55):
whatever, whatever emotion, youwant to insert here. And when I
hit the goal, kind of lookaround, you're like, Oh, that
was it. Oh, I just spent, youknow, eight months working on
this. And, okay, I guess I guesswe hit our goal now. But if
everything in life is around theend goal, you gotta cut it end
(52:18):
up, just be a disappointed like,you kind of have to enjoy
embrace the process and makethat what what you enjoy about
doing things. Because once oncethat goal passes, then then it's
gone, it's over. But if you canenjoy it while you're getting
there, then you get to kind ofenjoy that goal for longer and
(52:40):
get to bring it with you alongthe way.
Reshmi Sriram (52:43):
Totally, yeah.
Pj Metz (52:45):
I love that. I really think that there's a, uh, almost
almost a disconnect for people.
Because a lot of times we thinkof goals as the thing to
accomplish, right. But goals arealways in the future. And when
it arrives, it's it's thepresent, but you spent so much
time focusing on what's coming,that when it's actually here.
What what are you are youfocusing on here? Are you still
(53:10):
looking to the future, you know,so be present now, because
that's where you're going tospend most of your time is on
your way to something. So Ithink that yeah, you're exactly
right, Brandon. Exactly. Right.
Brandon Minnick (53:23):
Thanks. I'm so Oh, go ahead, please.
Reshmi Sriram (53:27):
No, it's okay, good.
Brandon Minnick (53:29):
Oh, well, I wanted to bring up because we
are we're so thankful for havingyou on the show. And we're down
to the last five, six minutes.
And I want to make sure wepromote everything you want to
promote. And before the show youmentioned hashtag 100, devs 100
days of code challenge. Tell usmore about that.
Reshmi Sriram (53:50):
Yep, ah, it's basically that's exactly why I
kind of like interrupted acouple of seconds before. But
it's an open source. It's thisguy called Leon oil. He kind of
is leading this 100 days of codechallenge. He has done this
previously during lockdown. Andhe is helping on his bed to try
educate people with the kind ofknowledge that is kind of needed
(54:14):
to get into a tech role. Butit's I have like no connection
whatsoever. But I would reallylove if people do try it out,
especially for the ones who wantto, like enter the tech sphere.
So basically just try follow thechannel. There are a few
challenges, which you have to doevery week. There are a few
(54:35):
lecture videos which you have toattend. But basically throughout
the course throughout theprocess, you're going to be
learning how exactly do youthink like a coder? How exactly
do you put yourself in thatshoes and be able to get into
the tech world that you wantedto crack? So just a small shout
out to the open source platform
Brandon Minnick (54:54):
there. Yeah, I love it. This looks very
impressive. Even I mean, in theopening paragraph on the
website, it says that he ran afully free remote coding
bootcamp that helps 72 Peopleget software engineering jobs.
And those 72 people saw theirsalary increase on average by
(55:17):
$53,000 $1,000. Yeah.
Pj Metz (55:20):
Which that's more than I made as a teacher. And one of
the reasons I got into tech, solike, Yes, go. Bag.
Reshmi Sriram (55:34):
But yeah, it's going to be a fun journey. And
again, it's going to bechallenging, but hey, that's
life, right?
Pj Metz (55:41):
Embrace the challenge.
Brandon Minnick (55:44):
And Russia, we just had a comment from soft
taco Raider asking if learn withLeon. If this Twitch channel is
the same, yes, we add. Yes.
Awesome. Yes, it is. So that'stwitch.tv/learn with Leon, l. E.
AR N. Wi th. Leon. That itsounds like he must do a lot of
(56:07):
live coding on Twitch too.
Amazing.
Pj Metz (56:13):
We love lots of movies, don't we, Brandon?
Brandon Minnick (56:16):
That's right.
That's that's our origin story.
Yeah. All right. Yeah, PJ.
Pj Metz (56:25):
Thank you so much for first of all that advice you
just gave. Thank you for givingpeople listening another way to
expand their skills. Brendon,we're getting close on time. I
think it might be time for thefinal, final final piece of
advice, because this last 50minutes has been all solid,
really good advice. But we gotto we got to ask, What's one
(56:48):
more thing that you that youwish you could tell yourself?
When you were getting started?
That you think other people needto hear? Rush? I was like, oh,
yeah, as a host, I was likeBrandon, yada, yada.
Reshmi Sriram (57:10):
I'm like, maybe I have to be the spectator over
here.
Pj Metz (57:15):
A late night TV host, because I'm a terrible recipe,
final piece of advice. The lastthing you would tell people.
Reshmi Sriram (57:23):
It's a very tricky position you have put me
in because I actually had a listwhich I read out. But the one
piece of advice, which I verypersonally make sure that it
sticks to me, throughout myexperience so far, is always
embrace learning, right? It'skind of that whole growth
(57:45):
mindset. So you do not have tobe the person who knows
everything. There is no one whoknows everything. You need to be
accepting of the fact that thereare more things where you can
learn and where you can improve,where you can explore there,
like so many facets that youhaven't considered right. Make
sure that learning is what isintegral to you as a person, and
(58:09):
it's gonna help you throughoutyour life journey. And yeah, I
think that was like my twocents. But yes, please try
static web apps. That is like mysite, PS.
Pj Metz (58:21):
That too.
Reshmi Sriram (58:24):
Yep. Thank you so much for having me, you guys.
And I am super pumped abouteverything that happened in the
last one hour to be honest, likeit's kind of like my bedtime.
But I have so much energy, Idon't know what to do.
Brandon Minnick (58:38):
Thank you for joining us. Love this
conversation. For people whowant to stay in touch, where can
they find you?
Reshmi Sriram (58:46):
You can definitely catch up with me on
Twitter. So my handle goes atthe rate r e s HSIRA. M that is
rage three RAM. So I amdefinitely available on Twitter
over there. But otherwise, youcan feel free to reach out to me
on email. I am a little confusedwhere as you actually reach out.
(59:11):
So I have been on an Instagrambreak for almost a year. So
maybe not there. But you canreach out to me whenever I will
be back I can definitely getback. But yeah, feel free to
drop out a message to Brandonand PJ. Maybe they can connect
me to you guys. But I would loveto hear from all of you. And I
(59:33):
really hope that they do havequite a few people who are
inspired to try out new thingsand try out anything tech
getting more into this world.
And yes, once again, thank youso much for having me on the
show.
Pj Metz (59:47):
Awesome. Rashmi, thank you so much for being here. This
has been eight bits you canfollow us on Twitch at Metzen
around you can follow us onYouTube at eight bits please
subscribe so you always get thelatest stuff and you can listen
to us at Eight bits.tv Everyonehave a wonderful day and we'll
see you all next time.
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