Podcast Orange
podcast November 13, 2017

Podcast # 121 – Another Ducking Episode

Welcome to the Stack Overflow Podcast episode #121 recorded Thursday, November 9, 2017 at Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. Today’s crew includes VP of Stack Overflow Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, SO Engineering Manager Matt Sherman, and me, Producer Jess. Joel is away getting fitted for gutter-drains and tap dancing shoes!…
Avatar for Jess Pardue
Operations Manager (former)

Welcome to the Stack Overflow Podcast episode #121 recorded Thursday, November 9, 2017 at Stack Overflow HQ in NYC. Today’s crew includes VP of Stack Overflow Jay Hanlon, CTO David Fullerton, News Editor Ilana Yitzhaki, SO Engineering Manager Matt Sherman, and me, Producer Jess. Joel is away getting fitted for gutter-drains and tap dancing shoes!

Special thanks to our sponsors: Oracle and Digital Ocean.

Stack Overflow appreciates Oracle’s support for this podcast and for our community. Learn more about all the ways Oracle supports open source, java, and developers like you at oracle.com/developers.

Digital Ocean just launched Spaces – a beautifully simple Object Storage service designed for developers who want a simple way to store and serve vast amounts of data. Digital Ocean thinks developers who try spaces will love it, so they’re making trying it easy. New and existing DigitalOcean customers can you can get a free 2 month trial of spaces by going to do.co/stackoverflow.

This week’s hijinks include:

  • Our Developer Story is Ben Kamens; longtime friend of the company and former VP of Engineering at Fog Creek and Khan Acadamy, where he was also the first employee. He joins us to chat about how he became interested in programming, some of his philosophies behind engineering management, and wanting to leave Khan Academy in order to work on building something that can help reduce the burdens of disease. He also may or may not have been responsible for the greatest desk-based prank ever, played on our very own David Fullerton. Disclaimer: Ben’s also TOTALLY not Batman.
  • Here’s the video of said greatest desk-based prank ever.
  • Jess, along with everyone else on iOS 11, are ranting about the Apple autocorrect bug.
  • We talk way too much about Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. (Can you really talk too much about it though? Shatner’s hair is amazing!)
  • We discuss a new academic paper about How to Ask a Question on Stack Overflow.
  • We play another installment of Start Up or Shut Up. Does Jay come in last this time? Maaaaybe…

Today’s Constitution Question comes from Stack Overflow SRE Manager Tom Limoncelli:

Khan (full name “Khan Noonien Singh”) was the best villain on Star Trek:

Pro: Khan
Con: Not Khan

I’m sure there’s nothing at all confusing about that. Post your thoughts to twitter using the hashtag #stackoverflowpodcast, with either PRO if you think Khan was the greatest Star Trek villain of all time or CON if you’re more of a Q or T’Kuvma type of person. The wittiest answer, whether on the winning or losing side will win a set of SO stickers.

Last week’s winner, to the question of candy corn’s edibility, is Adam Rcheimer.

Thanks Adam! Look for a DM from Ilana in the coming days.

Also thanks to everyone else for listening. Because of the holidays, we’ll only be back for one more episode in 2017. Look for us in mid December. Follow @stackpodcast on Twitter for all Stack Overflow Podcast news!

Links:

  • Apple fixed the bug! (FINALLY. – Jess)
  • Follow @yesthattom on Twitter, and buy his book about Network Administration!
  • Ben Kamens on Twitter: @kamens. Follow him to see what happens next.
  • We do public data dumps so that people (like the Italian researchers above) can play with the data and come up with awesome things! Visit archive.org for our past dumps.

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