The Bike Shed
On The Bike Shed, hosts Joël Quenneville and Stephanie Minn discuss development experiences and challenges at thoughtbot with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and whatever else is drawing their attention, admiration, or ire this week.
Episodes
December 31, 2024 • 31 mins
Happy New Year from The Bike Shed!
Tune in to the one wrapped edition that really matters this holiday season, The Bike Shed Wrapped! Recap the year with Joël and Stephanie as they reminisce over their favourite moments of 2024.
The pair discuss ways they’ve stepped outside their comfort zone to gain a different perspective on their work, the growth they’ve each achieved as a result, and their ambitions for 2025 and beyond.
Discov...
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December 24, 2024 • 28 mins
Stephanie is joined by follow thoughtbot-er Steve Polito as they discuss his latest GitHub resource, Botcasts (https://github.com/thoughtbot/botcasts).
Find out why Steve was so keen to make the app, what he learnt about Hotwire in the process and why he thinks you should stop listening to the show in your current pod-catcher and pick it up in Botcasts instead!
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Try building Botcasts for yourself over on Github (https://github...
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December 17, 2024 • 29 mins
It’s officially the holidays at the Bike Shed! Defrag your hard drives and take a break with Joël and Stephanie as they breakdown different ways to manage your focus during the day.
The pair discuss separating coding time from thinking time when working, the pros and cons of blocking out time for different tasks and clever ways to move seamlessly from one project to the next without losing momentum.
Joël has some more timezone f...
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December 10, 2024 • 39 mins
Joël and Stephanie go back to fundamentals as they pick apart some recent conversations they’ve been having around the office.
Together they discuss the advantages of GraphQL over a REST API, how they utilise JSONB over a regular column or table, and the use-cases for and against a frontend framework like React.
But what’s the theme that ties all these conversations together?
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The article mentioned in this episode was Why I’m ov...
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December 3, 2024 • 37 mins
One of the most challenging things about starting out as a developer is how much you need to master all at once. And with so much to learn, it can be difficult for experts to guide fresh developers and advise them on where to focus first. Luckily, some skills will always be useful, no matter what language you’re coding in. In today’s episode, Stephanie and Joël tackle this topic by unpacking several key evergreen skills that will a...
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November 26, 2024 • 33 mins
How can tests serve beyond just catching bugs in code? In this episode, Stephanie and Joël dive into the various roles that tests can play in a developer's toolkit. Covering all the fundamentals, from aiding knowledge transfer and documentation to ensuring accountability in code reviews, they explore the unexpected ways that tests support developer workflows. They also explain the balance between writing detailed tests for document...
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November 19, 2024 • 37 mins
For developers, impersonation can be a powerful tool, but with great power comes great responsibility. In today’s episode, hosts Stephanie and Joël explore the complexities of implementing impersonation features in software development, giving you the ability to take over someone’s account and act as the user. They delve into the pros and cons of impersonation, from how it can help with debugging and customer support to its prime d...
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November 12, 2024 • 35 mins
When is it time for a rewrite? How do you justify it? If you’re tasked with one, how do you approach it? In today’s episode of The Bike Shed, we dive into the tough question of software rewrites, sharing firsthand experiences that reveal why these projects are often more complicated and risky than they first appear. We unpack critical factors that make or break a rewrite, from balancing developer satisfaction with business value to...
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October 29, 2024 • 40 mins
Does having smaller, more frequent iterations help to ease your cognitive load? During this episode, we discuss the benefits and challenges of working iteratively and whether or not it can prevent costly errors. You’ll hear about juggling individual pieces effectively, factors that incentivize and de-incentivize working iteratively, and how Joël gauges whether or not a project should be broken up into smaller tasks. It can be hard ...
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October 15, 2024 • 34 mins
What’s the difference between solving problems and recognizing patterns, and why does it matter for developers? In this episode, Stephanie and Joël discuss transitioning from collecting solutions to identifying patterns applicable to broader contexts in software development. They explore the role of heuristics, common misconceptions among junior and intermediate developers, and strategies for leveling up from a solution-focused min...
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October 8, 2024 • 32 mins
Learning from other developers is an important ingredient to your success. During this episode, Joël Quenneville is joined by Stefanni Brasil, Senior Developer at Thoughtbot, and core maintainer of faker-ruby. To open our conversation, she shares the details of her experience at the Rails World conference in Toronto and the projects she enjoyed seeing most. Next, we explore the challenge of Mac versus Windows and how these programs...
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October 1, 2024 • 42 mins
What is a program? Your answer to this question will determine the paradigm through which you view programming. During this episode, you’ll come to understand how things change once you develop an awareness of your paradigm, and what. To kick off this episode, Stephanie shares key insights she took from Planet Argon’s 2024 Ruby on Rails survey and dives deeper into her history with Ruby on Rails. Next, we dive into the definition o...
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September 24, 2024 • 39 mins
For a long time, Programming Ruby was the authority in the developing world. Now, a much-needed update has been published. During this conversation, we are joined by Noel Rappin, who shares how his frustration at the idea of static type in Ruby motivated him to investigate why he felt this way, as he published his findings in The Pickaxe Book. We discuss how this book differs from previous material he has published, explore a recen...
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September 17, 2024 • 42 mins
When does it make sense to step away from Rails conventions? What are the limits of convention over configuration? While Rails conventions provide a solid foundation, there are times when customization is necessary to meet specific project needs. In this episode, Joël and Stephanie dive into the tradeoffs of breaking away from Rails defaults. They explore the limits of convention over configuration and share their experiences with ...
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September 10, 2024 • 34 mins
How can asynchronous programming transform your Ruby on Rails applications? Today, Stephanie sits down with Hello Weather co-creator Trevor Turk to unpack asynchronous programming in Ruby on Rails. Trevor Turk is a seasoned software developer known for his work on Hello Weather, a minimalist weather app that delivers essential weather data quickly and precisely. He’s also the creator of Weather Machine, an advanced weather data pla...
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September 3, 2024 • 49 mins
Writing abstractions in tests can be surprisingly similar to storytelling. The most masterful stories are those where the author has stripped away all of the extra information, and given you just enough knowledge to be immersed and aware of what is going on. But striking that balance can be tricky, both in storytelling and abstractions in tests. Too much information and you risk overwhelming the reader. Too little and they won’t un...
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August 27, 2024 • 35 mins
Are you passionate about open source but struggling to find time amidst your daily work? Today on the podcast, Joël Quenneville sits down with Steve Polito to discuss practical strategies for making meaningful contributions to the open-source community, even when your schedule is packed. Steve is a developer with extensive experience in the open-source world seamlessly. He’s known for his ability to integrate open-source contributi...
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August 13, 2024 • 43 mins
How can we optimize our time and environment to do our best work as developers? In today’s episode, we are joined by Stephanie Viccari, former co-host of The Bike Shed and Senior Developer at thoughtbot, to unpack the steps for creating work conditions that enhance productivity. In this conversation, we delve into her unique communication style and approach to optimizing productivity within a team. She explains why she decided to h...
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July 30, 2024 • 28 mins
How easy is it for a layperson to understand your systems? Jared Norman is a software consultant, speaker, and host of the Dead Code Podcast who specializes in building e-commerce applications in Ruby on Rails. This episode follows two recent talks at RailsConf and covers a theme that emerged from both of them: coupling and cohesion. Tuning in, you’ll gain insights on how to create more cohesive components to allow for change and i...
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July 23, 2024 • 47 mins
It's Calls for Proposals (CFP) season, and in the process of helping our friends and colleagues flesh out their CFPs, we came up with a few questions to help them frame their proposals for success. After learning about the importance of finding your audience and angle of approach for your CFP, we dive into today's main topic – our Git and GitHub workflows. Joel and Stephanie walk us through their current workflows before exploring ...
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