Podcasts and the idea of a codecation


Some links have been stripped from this article due to age and inaccessibility.

An insight into how I “learn”. I have a 25 mile commute to work. Due to the vagaries of the traffic, it takes between an hour and an hour and a quarter. That’s as much as 2 1/2 hours a day in the car. I fill that time by choosing to listen to a combination of the radio and podcasts. One of which I listen to on a regular basis is Full Stack Radio [fullstackradio.com] in which Adam Wathan [twitter.com] “interviews” (Although I think has an insightful chat is a better description - and in my opinion, that’s to Adam’s credit) In episode 23 [fullstackradio.com], he interviews Chris Hunt, an employee of Github, who introduced me to a couple of really cool sounding ideas (Including jealousy over tricks to solve Rubik’s cubes blindfolded [chrishunt.co - embedded YouTube video].) 2 of those resonated enough with me to blog. These were:

  1. The Codecation [robots.thoughtbot.com]
  2. How Github use pull requests (PR’s) [github.com]

I’ll go into item 2) in a separate blog post as I feel it warrants it own post, but 1) inspired a more interesting thought conception, which I think makes a very powerful piece, particularly for developers who are keen to learn but don’t always have the time (or work/life balance) to be able to do “other code”.

The codcation

I can’t explain the codcation any more concisely than Chris' codecation buddy Ben does on the thoughtfulbot.com link mentioned above so I’m quoting it verbatum below:

How to take a codecation

  1. Find someone you really like or want to know better.
  2. Choose somewhere you both want to go.
  3. Go there, but spend most of your time writing code.
  4. Ship something.

[https://robots.thoughtbot.com/you-should-take-a-codecation]

This sounds like an awesome idea. Several of my colleagues and I at work have often spoken about doing something like that over a long weekend somewhere when our respective partners won’t mind us disappearing for a weekend. So I hear by say at some point within the next year that’s what I’m going to do. A Codecation. Not entirely sure who with/when, but I have ideas on what to learn or to ship (Outline ideas at any rate). I will definitely keep people apprised of what I am doing to do when, and obviously any product or service that comes out of it will also be announced, probably with my usual rush of enthusiasm, only to be forgotten a month later, we’ll have to see. My only stipulation will be, whatever I do my codecation in, it can’t be Drupal based. Write up to follow, and comments as always welcome.

Coincidentally (I can’t remember which way round I discovered the podcasts) but Adam works for a company called Tighten with another Podcaster I quite like Matt Stauffer [twitter.com]. Matt runs the 5 minute geek show [twitter.com] - which deserves a shout out if only for involving family members in the show and is worth a listen. I will see if there is an easy way to publish the podcasts I listen to or have subscriptions to via pocketcasts (My chosen podcasting service). If not I’ll have to manually maintain a list of my regular listens (as it updates constantly).

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