Rob is diving into Rust and feels like he has to relearn everything. JD has been diving into game engines, and has set up Bevy for their project. He's hacking around to get a gRPC API set up within the engine, and is blown away by learning about Entity-Component-Systems and Data-Oriented Design.

Dev 'n Life

Rust, Bevy game engine, and Data-Oriented Design

JD wonders if it makes more sense to focus on game development, or invest equally in building up a community around the project. Rob's concerned that someone might steal their work, and is not too enthusiastic about the idea of open source. The two start a long discussion around this, diving into the pros and cons of open source, the difficulties of monetization, and their fears and concerns regarding the success of the project.

Open Source, Community, and Monetization

After deciding to try the Shape Up methodology to build the game, JD and Rob sit down to discuss what to build first. Feeling a bit intimidated by the complexity of the project, they discuss reducing the complexity by focusing on singleplayer first and using a game engine. At the end, they make plans for their first bets for the first implementation cycle.

Rust, Singleplayer vs. Multiplayer, and a First Sprint

On their One Year Anniversary, Rob and JD dive deep into the Shape Up methodology and discuss how they can use it for their new project. Rob shares his concerns around finding a good balance between planning and execution, and JD is excited about having focus and direction.

Shape Up for a Two Person Team

Rob is back, and JD catches him up on the latest developments with their game. JD shares some background about the inspiration for the game, considerations for an early prototype, and the technologies he wants to use to build the game. The two discuss Rust, React, and gRPC, and share their concern for the complexities of designing an interesting video game.

Games, Prototypes, and gRPC

Rob is about to move, and JD has been thinking a lot about the intersection of practicing programming and video games. Unhappy with his current approach to start a new side project for everything he wants to learn, he wonders if we can't create a game that provides programmers with a sandbox to try out things in a fun and engaging way.

Gaming, Motivation, and Programming

Rob shares his experience with hey.com, while JD spent the last two weeks playing with Rails and OAuth. He's been using Basecamp to try out the Shape Up methodology, and found a few helpful tools in it. The two get into a huge discussion about 1Password, its business model, and the tension of uploading sensitive data into the cloud.

Basecamp, Rails, and Password Managers

Rob and JD discuss the launch of hey.com, and their plans to switch email providers. Rob is interested in ProtonMail, which JD is considering to leave. The two talk through the pros and cons of each provider, their personal relationship with email, and their hopes for a new service. This one is all about email...

Choosing Email Providers

Rob is still going in depth with elixir, discussing his progress and learns more about processes, concurrency and parallelism in elixir. JD discusses his struggles in finding the project he wants to pursue, leaning towards gamification for learning to code.

Elixir, Concurrency vs Parallelism, Games with Code

The last episode got JD thinking. What projects are important enough to work on, given the limited time we have? How might the science of habit formation help stick to a project? And when do JD and Rob start their business? Big questions that Rob had as well, and that neither has a good answer for yet.

Habits, Projects, Business

This episode has everything. Rob shares a story about the crappy website he had to use to book tickets for a park, JD is starting to plan his summer vacation in a COVID world, and then it gets technical. JD has a better understanding of Domain-Driven Design now, and the two discuss his learning from last week. This leads into a broader discussion about side projects, progress, and experience, and the two share their frustration comparing their progress with popular open source projects.

Aggregate Roots, Entities, and Deliberate Practice

Rob and JD go in depth about software architectures, domain driven design and web frameworks. JD is getting a bit overwhelmed at home, but still managing to dive into his side project and deciding and thinking about the architecture around it, while listening to a lot of Alicia Keys. Rob and JD discuss their, strong dislike for JavaScript because hate is a strong word, discussing all the "bugs/features" that the technology offers along with its crazy types.

Software Architecture and JavaScript Weirdness.

Rob and JD catch up after missing a week. Rob has been learning new things, and has experimented with Phoenix LiveView and nuxt. The two discuss StimulusReflex, a similar solution for Rails, and wonder what the next big thing for Rails might be. Could it be better way to support mobile apps? JD has been looking a bit into Domain Driven Design, and it becomes clear that another episode needs to be dedicated to this topic...

Phoenix LiveView, Rails, and Email

JD introduces a new project he is working an: a Rust CLI to organize files in a sane way. Dreaming of a paperless office, he is looking for the best way to use the local file system to organize thousands of files in a structured way.

A New Project, more Rust, and Music for Coding

Rob is enjoying his new life as a freelancer, while JD struggled through another stage of grief. Both have been using their side projects to ignore the current state of the world, and have found great enjoyment in Rust and Elixir. Rob has been diving into GraphQL and password hashing algorithms, while JD has used Rust to rewrite a small CLI he created five years ago.

GraphQL, Password Hashes, and Rust CLIs

Dev ‘n Life is a podcast by two friends who record their casual conversations about software development, technology, and personal growth. Follow along as Rob and JD discuss their ideas and views on technology and life as they maintain their long-distance friendship.

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Dev 'n Life

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