Hot Takes, Web Technologies, and Learning to Code with Ken Wheeler

Ken Wheeler is a software engineer with well over a decade of experience. He shares stories about his journey into tech, his life, and his hobbies.

Ken fell in love with coding as a kid, building his skills from QBasic to PHP and HTML. He recounts his transition from being a rap producer for a decade to stumbling upon a job listing for a web developer using Flash. After twisting the truth to get through the interview, he spent five years building local restaurant websites with Flash animations. Ken dives into some unfiltered hot takes from TypeScript to CSS and the ongoing debate of sidebar placement in VS Code. He shares his love for inferred types over explicit types, arguing in favor of TypeScript's Hindley-Milner type system.

In this episode, Ken talks to Robbie and Chuck about his thoughts on types, Tailwind and VS Code, his coding journey from QBasic to HTML as a kid, and his technique for landing his first job.

Key Takeaways

[00:48] - Introduction to Ken Wheeler.

[01:56] - A whiskey review: Basil Hayden Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

[19:03] - Tech hot takes.

[40:57] - Ken discusses his New Jersey roots and how he entered the tech field.

[49:51] - Chuck, Robbie, and Ken talk about cars.

[59:00] - Chuck’s plans to move to Italy.

[01:04:41] - Chuck, Robbie, and Ken discuss burgers and sandwiches.

Quotes

[19:20] - “Typescript is good. It's better than Javascript.” ~ Ken Wheeler

[34:50] - “A senior at dickhead.com is not the same as a senior at Google.com.” ~ Ken Wheeler

[37:48] - “Webpack actually isn’t that hard, believe it or not, if you just dig into it.” ~ Ken Wheeler

Links

Ken Wheeler LinkedIn
Ken Wheeler Twitter
OpenAI
Twitter
Formidable
Basil Hayden Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Sagamore Spirit Rye Whiskey
Buffalo Trace Distillery
Pappy Van Winkle
Maker’s Mark
Coors Light
Topgolf
Crocs
Timberland
The Ritz-Carlton
DoorDash
Taco Bell
Tabasco
Cholula
Tailwind CSS
Vanilla CSS
NPM
Shepherd JS
YAML
Serverless UI
Syntax.FM
Beflo
Joe Rogan Podcast
All-In Podcast
Darknet Diaries
Google
Amazon
Webpack
ChatGPT
Vite
NextJS
Airbnb
Ruby on Rails
Django
National Geographic
Juul
Marlboro
Oracle
Salesforce
jQuery
Versace
The North Face
Red Wing Shoes
Thursday Boot Company
Porsche
Jeep
Volvo
Solo Stove
Flex Seal
Inter Milan
Five Guys
Jersey Mike’s USA
In-N-Out
Shake Shack
First We Feast
Arby’s
Burger King
McDonald’s
React Miami
The Primeagen
Chick-fil-A

Connect with our hosts

Robbie Wagner
Chuck Carpenter
Ship Shape

Subscribe and stay in touch

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Whiskey Web and Whatnot

Promos

Top-Tier, Full-Stack Software Consultants

This show is brought to you by Ship Shape. Ship Shape’s software consultants solve complex software and app development problems with top-tier coding expertise, superior service, and speed. In a sea of choices, our senior-level development crew rises above the rest by delivering the best solutions for fintech, cybersecurity, and other fast-growing industries. Check us out at shipshape.io.

---

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/message