In today's episode I got to interview Dave Thomas, co-author of one of the most influential books in our industry: The Pragmatic Programmer.
During the interview, we talk about the potential impact of LLMs (like Claude or ChatGPT) on the software development profession. Will we still be developing in the same way and following the same principles (some of which were actually coined by Dave on his book) in the next 5-10 years?
We attempt to answer that question.

Here are some of the topics we cover, but I encourage you to listen to the whole thing, because Dave is dropping nuggets of wisdom on every one of them.

• Ownership of code in the era of LLMs.
• Learning in the age of AI-driven development.
• Relevance of developers when AI can write the code for you.
• The importance of learning the basics as a developer.
• "Coding as a craft" now that we have AI in the loop.
• The value of developer's time and the implications of AI in that formula.
• Is the curriculum of a developer going to change now that we're using AI-assisted development?

Reach out to Dave

• Email for more dave@pragprog.org
• Book a chat slow with Date: calendly.com/pragdave
• Dave's Website: https://pragdave.me/

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

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Have you considered using AI as part of your dev workflow? Are you aware of all the benefits LLMs can bring to the table?
Some companies fear AI simply because of misconceptions, or just lack of understanding. In this episode I cover the reasons why developers should include LLMs into their workflow and some of the best practices to keep in mind during that implementation process.

Interesting links:

• Episode 2: Is AI going to take your job?
• Cursor: www.cursor.com
• Privacy-aware Copilot alternative: https://codeium.com/
• LM Studio
• Ollama
• GPT4All

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

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To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you

Sometimes as developers we spend way too much time thinking about the "perfect" tech stack for our projects, and while that doesn't exists, there are some considerations that you can take to make a somewhat smart decision when deciding on what tech to use.

Some of the factors that can help you decide on your tech stack are:

• The complexity of your project.
• Your team's expertise with the tech.
• The scalability and growth needs for the product.
• The type of community support you're looking for.
• And the cost considerations (including cost of ownership).

Remember to check out Code-Clash.net if you're looking for some guidance or if you have some questions about potential tech alternatives.

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

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To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you

Where do you prefer to work, smaller startups with very small teams? Or huge multi-national companies where your team is just one of many inside a big department?

Have you tried both worlds?

I have!
And in this episode, I share my own experience of what it's like to work for small, young startups, more mature ones and then making the jump into big, multinational companies.

Is there one better than the other? That's up to you to decide, but in this episode I give you all the tools you need to make that call!

Big shout-out to the "Develop Yourself Podcast" by Brian Jenney for inspiring this episode. If you haven't yet, look it up and subscribe, he has a fantastic take on the industry!

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

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To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
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Unit tests are usually 2nd (if not 3rd) class citizens in any codebase, teams usually work on them only once they're done with all the "important" features.
However, if you do it like that, chances are those tests will eventually start slowing your development process down. They will affect your coding, and your deployment pipelines, affecting your time-to-resolution metrics or even the business by slowing down time-to-market numbers.

In other words, bad tests are a real problem.

In this episode I cover several reasons why optimizing for performance is actually a great idea, and multiple things you can do to improve your unit tests.

Mainly:

• Get rid of your 3rd party dependencies.
• Test only what needs to be tested.
• Optimize the test data.
• Implement selective testing.

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

Rate us!
To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you

Getting burned out by a side project is, sadly, quite common in our industry. While side projects are not mandatory for developers, they are quite common.
Whether your own side project is technical or not is irrelevant, if you're not careful about it, you will end up burned out by it.

So to help you avoid that tragic end, and keep enjoying your side project, I've recorded this episode looking back at my own experience, and how I managed to get burned out myself and the lessons I've learned along the way.

If you're wondering what kind of advice I'm providing, here are the main points covered during the episode:

1. Understand why you're working on it.
2. Learn to recognize the signs of an impending burn out.
3. Properly plan for it and set realistic expectations for you and the amount of time you'll spend on it.
4. Don't isolate yourself from your social circles

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

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To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you

In this new episode of the podcast, I get to talk about how IT (or the dev department) should align with the Business and what strategies are there to do it.

Remember, IT and Business are not always aligned, to the point that sometimes IT is neglected and treated as a second-class department that is there only to follow everyone else's direction.

So in this episode I talk about the benefits that a company can get by aligning both departments and some interesting strategies to do it, like:

• Having open and clear communication channels (more than just a chat or an email account).
• Making sure they have aligned goals.
• Pushing for cross-functional teams with training and workshops designed to teach each department about the other.

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

Rate us!
To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you!

In this information-packed episode, I got to interview Bret Fisher, DevOps expert, YouTuber, Course creator and more.
If you're new to the DevOps space, or just working adjacently to it, this episode covers everything you ever wanted to know about DevOps but were too afraid to ask.

Meet Bret

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BretFisher
• Website: https://www.bretfisher.com
• Bret's Discord: https://discord.gg/devops
• Github: https://github.com/bretfisher
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bretefisher
• X: https://x.com/bretfisher
• Newsletter: https://bret.news

Interesting links

• Bret's course discount coupons (Docker, Kubernetes, etc.): https://www.bretfisher.com/courses
• DevOps Foundations Course on LinkedIn Learning (not Bret): https://www.linkedin.com/learning/devops-foundations
• Bret's opinions on learning DevOps: https://bret.show/devops
• Beginner DevOps roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/devops?r=devops-beginner
• Read the DevOps Handbook, 2nd Edition: https://itrevolution.com/product/the-devops-handbook-second-edition/
• The Origin of DevOps: https://devops.com/the-origins-of-devops-whats-in-a-name/
• SPACE framework for developer productivity: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3454124
• 4 key metrics DORA for tracking velocity and stability: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/using-the-four-keys-to-measure-your-devops-performance
• Open GitOps: https://opengitops.dev/

More reading material:

• The Phoenix Project novel - A fictional story of how one team implemented DevOp: https://itrevolution.com/product/the-phoenix-project/
• Read (and retain!) the 12 Factors: https://12factor.net/

Get in touch!

• X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deleteman123
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-scripting-den
• My newsletter: https://fernandodoglio.substack.com/

Rate us!
To ensure the podcast reaches more developers, make sure to rate it on your favorite podcasting app and in Podchaser!
Thank you!