#4: Josh Goldberg: Building Full Screen Mario to 3M Users, Tech Stack at Microsoft, and TypeScript vs. JavaScript

We caught up with a friend on the pod! ✨ Josh Goldberg is an open-source maintainer in the TypeScript ecosystem based in Philly. In this episode, Josh shared his coding journey, from playing Halo and studying Computer Science to building the viral Full Screen Mario game in 2013 (and getting it taken down by Nintendo after hitting 2.68m unique visitors), moving to Seattle for Microsoft and transitioning to a full-time open-source dev and conference speaker. In between, we discussed every language he used in the classroom, internship, and full-time role (C++, Drupal, PHP, C#, ASP.NET, React, TypeScript), TypeScript vs. JavaScript, linters, his base salary as a Staff Software Engineer (no spoilers) and current earnings, to writing a TypeScript book with O'Reilly and speaking at tech conferences around the world, and much more. Yippee!

This episode goes out to the whole open source community! 🫶

Want to see more Boba Talk? Follow us ⁠⁠@boba_talk⁠ on Twitter! If you like this episode, please leave a review!

Show Notes:

(00:00) Intro + Bobas

(02:30) Perfect Saturday

(7:35) Computer Science at RPI

(11:30) Full Screen Mario and Nintendo

(20:40) Internship: Making a Website

(21:10) Moving to Seattle for Microsoft

(25:40) FAANG vs. Startups

(27:10) TypeScript vs. JavaScript

(29:55) Advice for Learning to Code in 2023

(31:30) "How to Complain Positively"

(33:15) Three Books That Every Engineer Should Read

(36:10) Open-Source Maintainer (typescript-eslint)

(39:00) Salary as a Staff Software Eng vs. Open-Source Dev

(47:30) Importance of Student Organizations

(49:00) Tech Conferences

(50:15) Public Speaking 101

(57:15) Learning TypeScript Book with O'Reilly

(57:40) Choose Your Framework

Episode links:

• 🏫 ⁠⁠Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
• 🕹️ Full Screen Mario
• 💼 Microsoft Sway
• 🍿 ⁠TypeScript Origins: The Documentary
• 🗣️ "How to Complain Positively"
• 📘 Book Rec 1: How to Win Friends & Influence People
• 📕 Book Rec 2: Radical Candor
• 📙 Book Rec 3: Nonviolent Communication
• 💙 typescript-eslint
• 💜 ESLint
• 🔶 Conference: revo.js
• 🌴 Conference: React Miami
• 👾 Choose Your Framework

Learning TypeScript Book:

• Website: ⁠https://learningtypescript.com⁠
• O'Reilly: .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}