CodeNewbie
391 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 569 ratingsThe CodeNewbie podcast was born from CodeNewbie, an organization which fosters a supportive, international community of people learning to code. Each season, host Saron Yitbarek delivers stories and interviews from people of diverse backgrounds and expertise about their coding journeys, as well as beginner friendly discussions about the tech you should know about.
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Episodes
Ep. 41 - POODR And Beyond - Part I (Sandi Metz)
June 21, 2015 04:00 - 52 minutes - 44.3 MBSandi Metz describes herself as an "accidental author." Accident or not, her book Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby (POODR) is beloved in the ruby community, and she's used her ability to break down complex coding topics to build the second phase of her programming career, one focused on teaching and speaking. In part I of this two-part interview, she talks to us about life pre- and post-POODR, what makes her a great teacher, and why she it took her four years to write POODR. Show Link...
Ep. 40 - From Cars To Code (Angel Jose)
June 15, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 27.1 MBAngel Jose went from selling cars to a working as a developer in under eight months. He talks to us about making that transition, how he found his job, and how he deals with self doubt as a new programmer. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) The Firehose Project Sensay Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Ep. 39 - From Coding To Venture Capital (Andrew Chen)
June 08, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 31.8 MBHe knew how to code, but when he graduated school, Andrew Chen decided to go into venture capital. Since then, he’s used his technical background to become an advisor and investor in many tech startups, including Dropbox, Product Hunt, and AngelList. He talks with us about how he leveraged his coding skills to being a tech advisor, how he’s maintained a solid blog for over eight years, and why you don’t have to be a great coder to build something great. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbi...
Ep. 38 - Hacker Hours (Aidan Feldman)
June 01, 2015 04:00 - 53 minutes - 22.8 MBWhen developer Aidan Feldman had a line of people waiting for their turn to get coding help from him, he decided to try a different format. Instead of one-on-one tutoring, how about open office hours for anyone coding to come together and work on their skills? And that was the beginning of Hacker Hours. Aidan tells us how he’s built Hacker Hours over the past few years, and how he manages to keep the community accessible and incredibly welcoming. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (spo...
Ep. 37 - From Skates To Code (Aimee Knight)
May 25, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 82.4 MBShe used to be a professional figure skater. And a few years ago, she decided to hang up her skates and trade them in for some code. Software developer Aimee Knight tells us what it was like to transition into tech, how she got her first dev job, and how being a professional athlete has affected her coding journey. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Nashville Software School Treehouse Scholarship Message Systems Baltimore Node School Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Ep. 36 - Creating jQuery (John Resig)
May 18, 2015 04:00 - 2 hours - 138 MBJohn Resig, creator of jQuery, talks about what it was like to build the most popular javascript library and then walk away from it five years later to follow his passion for education. We unpack what it’s like to maintain such a popular toolkit, how he feels about books, how he takes on his own learning, and why he made the Women Who Code twitter list. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) jQuery Pamela Fox jQuery Foundation Khan Academy Labs Women Who Code Twitter List Jenn S...
Ep. 35 - Stellar (David Mazières)
May 11, 2015 04:00 - 57 minutes - 74.5 MBDavid Mazières, Chief Scientist at Stellar, talks to us about his work at the Stellar foundation building software to expand financial access. We also talk about how he uses temporary email addresses to ward off spammers, how he started coding in the fourth grade, and why he doesn’t think you need a computer science degree to make an impact in tech. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Byzantine agreement Proof of work algorithm Bitcoin Bitcoin mining Bitcoin Mining and its En...
Ep. 34 - Newbie Story: LaToya Allen (LaToya Allen)
May 04, 2015 04:00 - 57 minutes - 74.4 MBFor our first Newbie Story, we talk to LaToya Allen, junior software engineer at Avant, a fast-growing Chicago startup. She tells us how she went from bartending to becoming an apprentice, and got her first full-time engineering job in just three weeks. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) 1871 Chicago Women Developers 8th Light Sue Kim Doug Bradbarry Minimax algorithm Repository Pattern Cracking The Interview Code Mike Ebert Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Ep. 33 - Detroit Water Project (Tiffani Bell)
April 27, 2015 04:00 - 59 minutes - 76.5 MBWhen developer Tiffani Bell first heard about the water crisis in Detroit from a news article in the Atlantic, she was shocked. So she rolled up her developer sleeves and put up a page to help people who’s water had been shut off. Now, that page has become a full Y Combinator backed non-profit, and she’s the executive director. We talk about civic hacking, the technical challenges she had to overcome to make it work, and the impact her project has made to the lives of many in Detroit. Show Li...
Ep. 32 - Rockbot (Raquel Velez)
April 20, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 94.2 MBYou probably know her as rockbot, the username that captures her passion for robotics. In this episode, developer Raquel Velez shares that passion with us, telling us all about competing in the DARPA Grand Challenge, how she feels about self-driving cars, and gives us a beginner-friendly walkthrough of how a robot works. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) DARPA Grand Challenge Javascript the good parts Sensor Fusion Rubber Duck Problem Solving Version Control Mechanical Engi...
Ep. 31 - Girl Develop It (Corinne Warnshuis)
April 13, 2015 04:00 - 54 minutes - 68.7 MBCorinne Warnshuis sat in a Girl Develop It workshop to learn to code. Her love for the community and her community-building skills propelled her from coding newbie to Executive Director of Girl Develop It. She talks to us about her mission to make coding more accessible to women, how to be a good ally, and how the diversity movement in tech has impacted her work. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Sara Chipp's episode Vanessa Hurst's episode Girl Develop It Fetch Softworks i...
Ep. 30 - The Not-Bootcamp (Jeff Casimir)
April 06, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 102 MBAt a time when people are lining up to get accepted by a programming bootcamp, Jeff Casimir decided to start one that is non-profit. But he doesn't like the term bootcamp -- he prefers "program." We talk about why he decided to make the Turing School non-profit, the complications of quantifying students' skills, and how Turing School approaches its programming curriculum. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Teach for America Hungry Academy Turing School Github APIs Ruby Objec...
Ep. 29 - A Children's Makerspace (Gokul Krishnan)
March 30, 2015 04:00 - 32 minutes - 38.3 MBGokul Krishnan started the first makerspace in a children's hospital. Working with kids who have chronic illnesses like cystic fibrosis, he created a way for them to be makers. We talk about the benefits of making in the context of being in a hospital, how he approaches learning, and what kinds of tech projects these kids have made. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Project Mach Squishy Circuits Cystic Fibrosis Skype 3D printing Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Ep. 28 - Coding Printers (Kate Donahue)
March 23, 2015 04:00 - 48 minutes - 20.1 MBShe was trained to be a web developer. But months after graduating from bootcamp, she's at Makerbot, helping build the software that their 3D printers need to do their job. It's an interesting change -- she's using python instead of ruby, and learned C++ too. We talk about what it's like to be a software developer in a world of hardware, how the two jobs compare, and what some of the challenges are. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) MakerBot MIT Intro to Computer Science Ha...
Ep. 27 - Intro to Raspberry Pi (Matt Richardson)
March 16, 2015 04:00 - 43 minutes - 45.2 MBMatt Richardson, evangelist for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, talks to us about the little computer that's making hardware accessible to more people. We talk about what the Raspberry Pi is, discuss some beginner friendly projects, and chat about a cool bike-based hardware project he made. If you've been thinking about getting started with the Raspberry Pi, this episode is for you. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) hard drive Micro SD Python on your Raspberry Pi Wolfram + Ras...
Ep. 26 - The Hardware Marketplace (Julia Grace)
March 09, 2015 04:00 - 1 hour - 69.5 MBJulia Grace talks to us about Tindie, the hardware marketplace where creators and hardware enthusiasts can come together to share their goods. We talk about the challenges of building a hardware platform, the different problems these makers are solving, and how software and hardware compare when it comes to accessibility. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Tindie Etsy Jason Huggins Selenium Sauce Labs Raspberry Pi Arduino Arduino Lilly Pad Julia Elman Teen Tech Camp littleBi...
Ep. 25 - From Software To Hardware (Sara Chipps)
March 02, 2015 05:00 - 36 minutes - 37.4 MBIt started at a conference. When Sara Chipps sat in the audience and watched a speaker use JavaScript to interact with a smoke detector, she was entranced. She left with a bag of LEDs, and a new love for hardware that led to her ultimately starting her hardware company Jewliebots. She talks to us about her transition from software developer to hardware CEO, the differences she's seen between building software and hardware, and what it's like to build a product for teenage girls. Show Links Pa...
Ep. 24 - Monsters And Code (Sarah Frisk)
February 23, 2015 05:00 - 51 minutes - 53.4 MBDeveloper Sarah Frisk uses her incredible drawing skills to teach coding tools and concepts like git through her comic, Monster Markup Manual. We talk about her love of drawing, how art and code come together, and how monsters can do a great job of learning to code. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Monster Markup Manual Tavern Wenches jQuery Foundation Chassis Framework CSS Frameworks Google Summer of Code IRC GitHub RPG Maker Mono Carmen Sandiego D&D 24-Hour Comics Day Sa...
Ep. 23 - Ask CodeNewbie (Scott Hanselman, Tiffany Peon)
February 16, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBIn our first live broadcast of the podcast, we brought on developers Scott Hanselman and Tiffany Peon to chat about hot topics in the CodeNewbie community. We talked about finding a dev job, code mentorship, and our thoughts on Zed Shaw’s critiques of programming bootcamps. We recorded live on http://twitch.tv/codenewbie, and we loved having you in the chatroom to ask questions, comment, and join us in the conversation. And we’ll definitely do another live edition of Ask CodeNewbie soon. Hope...
Ep. 22 - Intro to UX (Catt Small)
February 09, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 76.9 MBCatt Small gives us a great intro to UX (user experience) design, including insight on her design process, how she works with users to create great digital experiences, and how code newbies can get started in UX design. She also tells us how she used Leap Motion to design a music instrument you can play using gestures. Lots of great stuff in this episode. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Design with Animation Photoshop Sketch usability testing Framer Axure Advice for New U...
Ep. 21 - Teaching Kids To Code (Rebecca Garcia)
February 02, 2015 05:00 - 56 minutes - 59.6 MBDeveloper Rebecca Garcia had always loved computers. At a young age, she went to MIT's two-week computer science camp. She was surrounded by kids who love to build and make, just like her. But at over $1K a week, it wasn't a very accessible way for kids to learn to code. So when she learned about Coder Dojo many years later, an organization that creates free coding workshops for youth, she wanted in. So she started CoderDojo NYC two years ago, and has been helping kids from ages 7-17 learn to...
Ep. 20 - Accessibility (Joseph McLarty)
January 26, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 66.6 MBJoseph McLarty, developer and accessibility advocate, talks to us about issues of accessibility and how we can create, and remove, invisible barriers that keep people from accessing the web. We talk about tools like screen readers, and how as developers, we can do simple things like use semantic tags that would help many people. We also touch on the legal issues on accessibility, and how we can learn more about the topic and ways we can create a more accessible web for all. Show Links Partner...
Ep. 19 - The Hard Way (Zed A. Shaw)
January 19, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 71.9 MBZed A. Shaw, developer and author of the Learn the Hard Way series, talks to us about how to learn to code, his own approach to learning a new programming language, and why he’s not a fan of programming bootcamps. He also answers a few questions from the CodeNewbie community, including what the A in his name stands for. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Zardoz Learn Python the Hard Way Learn SQL the Hard Way Scala Go Erlang Zed’s bootcamp blog post Lisp Codeland Conf Codela...
Ep. 18 - Autotune, Inclusivity, and Getting A Job (Vanessa Hurst)
January 12, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 92.1 MBVanessa Hurst, founder of CodeMontage, has spent a lot of her career making tech an inclusive space for all people, particularly women. We talk about how she created that space through Girl Develop It, the non-profit she founded, her perspective on managing your career as a code newbie, and particularly about getting that first tech job. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Breast Pump Hackathon Sara Chipps Moto360 Girl Develop It xkcd: How it works Megan Smith So Good They Ca...
Ep. 17 - Getting Involved (Scott Hanselman)
January 04, 2015 05:00 - 55 minutes - 57.7 MBYou may have heard of Scott Hanselman from his own podcasts and his very popular tech blog. We talk to him about how he creates all this helpful tech content, why it's important to be a social developer, and how we can evaluate our own coding abilities. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Keys Left Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Tech Guy Scott's Blog 7-Minute Workout JQuery Pair Programming Root Cause Analysis Nerdist Coding Horror Blog Joel on Software Jekyll Markdown E...
Ep. 16 - Code Ghost (Jenn Schiffer)
December 28, 2014 05:00 - 1 hour - 67.1 MBEngineer and artist Jenn Schiffer talks to us about the Vart Institute, the side project that blends her love of art with her love of javascript. We dive into how she brings those two worlds together, what the difference is between teaching an eight-year old and an eighty-year old how to code (she’s taught both), and about her experience working on the academic side of computer science. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Make 8 Bit Art IRC Montclair State University Casper t...
Ep. 15 - Intro to DevOps (Christopher Webber)
December 21, 2014 05:00 - 58 minutes - 61.9 MBThere's more to coding than just your code. In this episode, we talk to developer Chris Webber about devops, and all of the infrastructure-related things that are also important in getting your app to work. We untangle some devops concepts, like feature flats and the different programming environments, and talk through what a code newbie should know about devops when working on their code projects. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Devops the Title Match What DevOps Means T...
Ep. 14 - On Testing (Noel Rappin)
December 14, 2014 05:00 - 50 minutes - 62.9 MBYou've probably heard of this idea of testing. Or maybe you've just heard of test driven development and you're not really sure what it is or whether or not you should learn about it. In this episode, Noel Rappin, developer and author of the new book "Rails 4 Test Prescriptions" gives us a newbie-friendly explanation of the world of testing. We talk about different types of tests, we walk through an example of how you can approach something with tests first, and why test driven development ca...
Ep. 13 - The Not-So-Amateur Programmer (Lauren Orsini)
December 07, 2014 05:00 - 43 minutes - 53.1 MBIf you're looking for solid, newbie-friendly guides to tech, Lauren Orsini's got you covered. As a tech journalist for ReadWrite, she's written some CodeNewbie favorites, including a great explanation of git and GIthub. We talk about her writing process, how she tackles a new piece of technology and learns it well enough to write about it, and why she calls herself an "amateur" programmer and really needs to stop. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) How to draw an owl Learn P...
Ep. 12 - Mother Coders (Tina Lee)
November 30, 2014 05:00 - 49 minutes - 20.5 MBWhen it was time for lunch, the other students ate and got to know each other while Tina Lee searched for a place to nurse her baby. The only one she found in that coding workshop was the cold, dark, filthy room where the company's developers slept - at least that's what it looked like. And she sat, frustrated that in a workshop that was meant to be inclusive, she still felt very much alone. So she started Mother Coders, the tech education program designed for mothers who want to gain technic...
Ep. 11 - 24 Pull Requests (Andrew Nesbitt)
November 23, 2014 05:00 - 53 minutes - 22.3 MBIt was just a static webpage, telling you to get in the holiday spirit by making open source contributions. But 24 Pull Requests soon became its own open source project, with people adding features to make it fun and easy to make those contributions. We talk to creator Andrew Nestbitt about how code newbies can get started in making open source contributions, why getting involved in open source is a great idea, and how to get over the intimidation you might feel at the prospect of making your...
Ep. 10 - Nitpicks and Devils (Katrina Owen)
November 16, 2014 05:00 - 53 minutes - 22.4 MBShe calls them nitpicks, her term for the code reviews people get on exercism.io. It's a platform that developer Katrina Owen created to help people get mentorship and feedback on their code. It started as a project for her own students, but grew into something much more. Katrina talks to us about building her platform to help people become better programmers, how she went from being a secretary to studying biology to being a programmer, and how code newbies can make the most of exercism.io. ...
Ep. 9 - How To Build A Product (Poornima Vijayashanker)
November 09, 2014 05:00 - 50 minutes - 20.9 MBBuilding a web product was a lot harder in 2006 than it is now. Poornima Vijayashanker tells us what it was like to code back in those days as founding engineer at Mint, an app that later sold to Intuit for $170 million. Since then, she's been helping people better understand the product development process through her blog and company Femgineer. We talk about what code newbies should think about when building a new app, whether for fun or for profit, and how it takes more than code to make a...
Ep. 8 - From Student Project to Big App (William Jeffries)
November 03, 2014 05:00 - 1 hour - 26.9 MBWhen William Jeffries had to think of a project to work on as a bootcamp student, he decided to build an app that could detect and report temperatures in apartments when they dropped below a certain degree. His mission was to help people find heat in the winter, and he called it Heat Seek. In a few months, his student project grew past the classroom walls, getting the attention of city officals, entrepreneurs, and citizens excited to help. William tells us how the technology works, how he bui...
Ep. 7 - Meteor (Ciara Burkett)
October 26, 2014 04:00 - 33 minutes - 13 MBWhen Ciara Burkett saw the movie 'Hackers' at age five, she told her mother she wanted to be just that - a hacker. But it wasn't until exploring liberal arts in college that she remembered her early fascination with tech. So she gave finally it a try. Now a Meteor developer and teacher, she tells us about organizing tech meetups, why she loves the beginner-friendly, javascript framework, and shares some of her own struggles learning to code. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)...
Ep. 6 - Comics and Code (Rachel Nabors)
October 20, 2014 04:00 - 46 minutes - 19.2 MBRachel Nabors started as a cartoonist. But when she needed jaw surgery and didn't have the health insurance to get it, she decided it was time to get more lucrative skills. Now a cartoonist, developer, and speaker, she tells us about her transition into programming, how to tell stories with code, and what it means to be an interaction developer. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Don't Do What You Love CodePen How To Win Friends And Influence People Understanding Comics Lear...
Ep. 5 - Speaking of Speaking (Marty Haught)
October 12, 2014 04:00 - 59 minutes - 24.9 MBMarty Haught, director of Ruby Central, the non-profit that organizes Rails Conf and Ruby Conf has read and reviewed over 1,000 talk proposals, and organize several regional and national conferences for developers. We talk about how to write a great talk proposal, how to make conferences a welcome and inclusive space for all developers, and how to prepare for your next big talk. Show Links Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor) Codeland Conf Codeland 2019
Ep. 4 - Wearing All The Hats (Kinsey Ann Durham)
October 05, 2014 04:00 - 26 minutes - 9.97 MBSelf-taught developer Kinsey Ann Durham didn't stop at learning to code. In two years, she's spoken at tech conferences around the world, started an organization in Kenya to help women entrepreneurs (and of course wrote the software it runs on), and organizes events focused on women in tech in her town in Colorado. We talk about what it was like to give her first tech talk, how to use your coding skills for social good causes, and how she handled someone telling her that she should be a secre...
Ep. 3 - Code Couple (Felicia O'Garro, Jamal O'Garro)
September 28, 2014 04:00 - 59 minutes - 24.9 MBAfter just two months of teaching themselves to code, Felicia and Jamal O'Garro got paid to build and fix other people's websites. And soon after that, they started Code Crew, the community that's taught over two thousand people how to code in just a year and half. We talk about what it's like to work as a couple, how they discovered tech, and how they used their coding passion to build a thriving community of learners. Show Links Digital Ocean (sponsor) MongoDB (sponsor) Heroku (sponsor) ...
Ep. 2 - Coding Like A Boss (Brian Douglas)
September 22, 2014 04:00 - 52 minutes - 22 MBBrian Douglas, rails developer at Izea and graduate of the Bloc program, shares his story of learning to code and finding a job in 7 months, while also getting his MBA, working full time, running the online study group, Ruby Newbies, and having a young son at home. We talk about the different tools he used to learn how to code, how he landed his first programming job, and there may or may not be some unexpected singing. Show Links Digital Ocean (sponsor) MongoDB (sponsor) Heroku (sponsor) ...
Ep. 1 - Bootcamps, Water Coolers, and Hiring Devs (Carlos Lazo)
September 16, 2014 04:00 - 48 minutes - 19.8 MBCarlos Lazo, software developer at Time Inc. and graduate of the programming bootcamp, the Flatiron School, shares his unique programming experiences in the first episode of the CodeNewbie podcast. We talk about working in hardware and software, the difference between studying computer science and actually being an engineer, what he's learned from leading recruitment and interviewing over 100 engineers, and why after all that, he decided to attend a three-month bootcamp to become a web deve...