We've had some great guests on our podcast, and we've asked each of them for their "Three Top Tips" for new developers. All their advice has been amazing, and a lot of the same concepts have come up time and time again. In this miniseries we're

88: Top Tips review: document what you learn

Nov 9th, 2020 12m 43s

87: Top Tips review: enjoy what you do

Nov 2nd, 2020 13m 48s

86: Top Tips review: just get things done!

Oct 26th, 2020 8m 59s

85: Top Tips review: why should you build your own website?

Oct 19th, 2020 10m 54s

84: Why should you own a rubber duck?

Oct 12th, 2020 24m 55s

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any developer in possession of a bug must be in need of a rubber duck to talk to.There are lots of ways to get "stuck" when programming. It can often be because of something simple, like a syntax erro

83: How do you get started with a new framework?

Oct 5th, 2020 25m 3s

We're trying something new this week. Live-coding is famously risky when giving a talk or presentation, but we figured it might be fun to make things even harder by removing all the visual elements. That's right; we're live coding on a podcast!

82: What is semantic markup?

Sep 28th, 2020 25m 33s

This week we get deep into the weeds of HTML. What tags do we use (and are they the same as the tags we should use)? And who are we wring our markup for? Just browsers, surely?! But what about search-engine crawlers and accessibility tools?So h

81: What is an API?

Sep 21st, 2020 27m 34s

Development (and web-dev in particular) is a field full of initialisms and acronyms. We often take them for granted without thinking too much about these things that we use every day. This week we dive into one of the most common TLIs (Three Le

80: What’s it like behind the scenes of a podcast?

Sep 14th, 2020 26m 2s

To celebrate our eightieth full episode, we pull back the curtain to show you how the sausage gets made. When we were starting out, "meta" episodes like these were a great way to learn how our podcasting heroes ran their shows. Now, we're not c

79: How important are CS fundamentals? (with Vaidehi Joshi)

Sep 7th, 2020 46m 5s

What's this? Another of our heroes joining us for a chat!? You betcha! This week we're joined by the immensely talented and infectiously friendly Vaidehi Joshi. You'll know Vaidehi from her work on the Base.cs blog series and podcast (a must-li

78: How can developers get better at design?

Aug 31st, 2020 26m 3s

If you're a developer you should absolutely know a little bit about design. You don't need to be an expert, but knowing some of the fundamentals of good layout and "usability" will be a massive force multiplier for your work. It's also a genera

77: Should you use boilerplates?

Aug 24th, 2020 24m 50s

Boilerplate code is code that you import into your project to give you a scaffold to build on. It helps get you to the fun stuff faster. Or does it? This week we discuss why you might (or might not) want to use boilerplate, and dig into what pa

76: CSS Revisited (Rapid Fire)

Aug 17th, 2020 31m 31s

It's another rapid-fire multi-question show this week. Ed has some more questions about CSS, and (hopefully) Tom has some answers. Join us as we dive into the intricacies of the box model, and learn why the dev tools are your friend. Remember:

75: Why do you need a website of your own? (with Chris Coyier)

Aug 10th, 2020 51m 17s

It's fan-boy o'clock again this week, as one of Tom's web-heroes joins us for a chat. CSS Trickster and ShopTalkin' podcaster Chris Coyier stopped by for a chat about working as a developer. Chris is full of all sorts of useful advice for aspir

74: How do you get started with testing? (with Brian Okken)

Aug 3rd, 2020 50m 21s

We're joined this week by testing expert (and long-time friend of the show) Brian Okken. Brian literally wrote the book on testing with Python (Python Testing with pytest) and has a lot of strong opinions about the value of testing and testing

73: Why is Python a good starting point for learning to code? (with Michael Kennedy)

Jul 27th, 2020 43m 40s

This week we're joined by Python expert (and super-star podcaster) Michael Kennedy to talk about why Python is such a great language to get started coding with.So why is coding in Python such fun? And why is it so good for beginners and experts

72: CSS Extravaganza!

Jul 20th, 2020 34m 21s

In a tweak to the usual format, this week's show is a frontend-focused rapid-fire question bonanza. Ed's been doing some CSS work this week, and has a lot of questions for Tom (a self-styled CSS expert, whatever that means).What's wrong with `i

71: How should developers market themselves? (with Shawn Wang)

Jul 13th, 2020 55m 18s

This week we're joined by Shawn Wang, Senior Developer Advocate at AWS and author of the excellent Coding Career Handbook. Shawn is a career-switcher; he transitioned into tech in his early thirties after a career in finance. He has written a l

70: Is "become a developer" still good advice?

Jul 6th, 2020 23m 57s

Down on your luck? Become a developer! Don't know what to do for a career? Become a developer! Want to earn the big bucks? "Simply" become a developer... We hear this advice all the time, but how much truth is there to it? Can anyone become a d

69: Why bother with side projects?

Jun 29th, 2020 26m 57s

Side projects (or "side hustles" if you're feeling more entrepreneurial) are a subject that comes up a lot with developers. It can seem like every programmer has seven or eight projects that they're working on in the wings, any one of which cou

68: Are bootcamps worth doing? (with Kirsty Simmonds)

Jun 22nd, 2020 43m 54s

This week we're joined by Kirsty Simmonds, a developer who has successfully survived a coding bootcamp. We love hearing stories about people who have transitioned into tech from other careers, and Kirsty's tale is a good one.As well as giving u

67: How can developers help fight climate change? (with Natalia Waniczek)

Jun 15th, 2020 36m 10s

We're joined for this episode by Natalia Waniczek. Natalia is a web developer building hybrid mobile apps and websites at Elixel. With a passion for environment she's not afraid to voice her opinions and advocate for climate change.It's easy to

66: How do you get started in data science? (with Tom Sainsbury)

Jun 8th, 2020 39m

We were joined for this episode by Tom Sainsbury, a neuroscientist who has a wealth of experience in using programming to deal with data. We discuss the ins and outs of "data science" as a discipline, as well as how it intersects with the world

65: Should new developers get involved in open source? (with Jeremy Walker)

Jun 1st, 2020 1h 4m

It's an exciting show for Ed this week. If you've listened to almost any of our previous episodes, you'll have most likely already heard Ed spreading the Good News (TM) about Exercism.io - an education platform that combines coding exercises an