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Hosted by alex ford
12 episodes with alex ford
9 episodes with alex ford
5 episodes with alex ford
4 episodes with alex ford
4 episodes with alex ford
5 episodes with alex ford
2 episodes with alex ford
2 episodes with alex ford
In today's episode, I was very excited to sit down with Dr. Ilana Gurevich to discuss the latest, most effective approaches to GI conditions. We explore the usage of sulfur for the gut, the role of the mitochondria in the body's overall health, treating parasites, as well as SIBO and Candida. We'll also share recommended protocols for each condition. Listen now!
We've all been there—stuck in the tension between what we want to do and what we feel we should do. It's the creative struggle. It's the entrepreneur's dilemma. It's the weight of our own expectations. And at its worst, it keeps us trapped in what Alex Ford from The Measurable Genius call's The Pit of Despair—that place where we start believing there's no point and nothing will change. This episode is about learning to choose our hard. Because let's be real: Life isn't free from struggle. But not all struggles are created equal. There's the hard work that leads to something meaningful, and then there's the exhausting grind that keeps us stuck. The challenge is knowing the difference. In this conversation, we unpack:
Alex Ford's Superman: Man of Steel After Tim Burton's Superman Lives was canceled, Alex Ford wrote this script for Warner Brothers, pitching it as the first installment of a planned seven-film series. This concept generated some intrigue, but Ford eventually parted ways with Warner due to creative differences. This version of Man of Steel is separate from both Man of Steel (the proposed sequel to Bryan Singer's Superman Returns) and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel reboot. CHAPTERS Intro 00:00:00 1 – Weathered Indifference00:01:57 2 – One Tough Case 3 – Sharp Edges 4 – Just The Right Time 5 – Superman Is Alive 6 – Damage Report 7 – Deadly Force 8 – Underestimated Enemy 9 – Goodnight Epilogue Written by Tim Maxwell Based on an unproduced film script by Alex Ford Music by George St. Cloud Mixed and edited by Tim Maxwell Produced by Neuverse Creative
As 2024 comes to an end, I'm rounding up some of the best gut health research and advice from the past year! In this compilation video, I'll share some of the best gut supplement recommendations as given by great expert guests – Dr. Allison Siebecker, Herbalist Olivia Amitrano, Dr. Alex Ford, Dr. Josh Axe, and Nutritional Therapist Elliot Overton. You don't want to miss this! Watch full interviews with each expert below.
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) has a powerful impact on your overall health. Thiamine expert Elliot Overton stops by to speak on thiamine's effect on gut conditions, mitochondrial health, and more. Learn how to identify deficiencies and the best thiamine protocol. You don't want to miss this one!
Are you dealing with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)? Does it seem like your current antibiotics or other treatments aren't working? In this episode, I'll dive into four proven and effective treatments that will finally help you heal. Learn more, watch now!
Sharks off the coast of Brazil recently tested positive for cocaine in lab research by The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. It was the first study to detect cocaine in the species. It's not yet known how the drug affect the predators. It's not just sharks ingesting man-made substances. Marine experts have found traces of painkillers, contraceptive pills, anti-depressants and MDMA in other aquatic creatures. Crabs and fish have demonstrated significant behavioural and psychical differences as a result. We get a round up of the research from Alex Ford, a professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth. He explains how recreational drugs and medicines have been found in seawater samples in the U.K. and how that could impact animal behaviour and development. Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld Email: whatintheworld@bbc.co.uk WhatsApp: +44 0330 12 33 22 6 Presenter: Hannah Gelbart Producers: William Lee Adams and Benita Barden Editor: Verity Wilde
Did you know that supplementation can improve depression and anxiety? A surprising new study has found that supplements can also enhance the effectiveness of popular antidepressant medications! Learn more, watch now.
Three exciting new studies have found that probiotics improve diarrhea, constipation, bloating, pain and anxiety! In this episode, I'll break down this new research and help you determine the best protocol for each condition. Watch now!
Curcumin (Tumeric) is one of our favorite supplements! Not only does it benefit your gut and brain health, it's also a powerful anti-inflammatory! Learn about the best dosage and usage of curcumin - watch now!
Whether you need a quick fix for constipation or you've been dealing with it consistently, we've got the most effective solutions for you! In this episode, I'll break down the 4 causes of constipation, how to fix it when it happens, and how to prevent ongoing constipation moving forward. Watch now! Grab your FREE low FODMAP diet guide!: https://drruscio.com/getlowfodmapguide/ MSM supplement from Dr. Kathleen Jane: https://gijanel.com/the-formulas/gi-janel-one Get the Monash FODMAP Diet App: https://www.monashfodmap.com/ibs-central/i-have-ibs/get-the-app/
On this special episode of Tuesday Night IBS, we talk with the co-principal investigator, Alex Ford, MD, from Leeds University in the UK, about the ATLANTIS trial of Amitriptyline for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in primary care, which was funded by the Health Technology Assessment program of the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the TRITON trial using Ondansetron to manage irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea.Dr. Alex Ford is a Professor and Honorary consultant gastroenterologist at St. James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK. His main interest is in the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of disorders of gut-brain interaction, such as irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia. He is an Associate Editor for Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles, including original scientific papers in The Lancet, JAMA, BMJ, Gastroenterology, Gut, Archives of Internal Medicine, and The American Journal of Gastroenterology.
On this special episode of Tuesday Night IBS, we talk with the co-principal investigator, Alex Ford, MD, from Leeds University in the UK, about the ATLANTIS trial of Amitriptyline for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in primary care, which was funded by the Health Technology Assessment program of the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the TRITON trial using Ondansetron to manage irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea.Dr. Alex Ford is a Professor and Honorary consultant gastroenterologist at St. James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK. His main interest is in the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of disorders of gut-brain interaction, such as irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia. He is an Associate Editor for Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles, including original scientific papers in The Lancet, JAMA, BMJ, Gastroenterology, Gut, Archives of Internal Medicine, and The American Journal of Gastroenterology.
Treating small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) can be an unnecessarily complicated process. Today, I want to pinpoint the most common mistakes in SIBO treatments, and guide you towards the best solutions for healing your gut health.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is often diagnosed when symptoms don't have an obvious cause. But anyone with IBS symptoms knows it's a REAL condition. Dr. Alex Ford and I are share what irritable bowel syndrome treatments are getting wrong—and how to start feeling better.
Want to grow your real estate investing business and portfolio? You're in the right place. Welcome to the Property Profits Real Estate Podcast
In Episode #65 of Evolved Marketing Podcast, Andrei Yermejev and Brian Brewer interview Mila Markson and Alex Ford about the launch of Millionaire Wealth Academy. Mila Markson has become a 7 figure affiliate marketer with Legendary Marketer and a Clickfunnels 2 comma club award recipient. Due to popular demand, she has partnered with Alex Ford and launched Millionaire Wealth Academy in order to give you an over the shoulder view of how she does Affiliate Marketing. If you want to see exactly how Mila leverages social media platforms like Instagram to drive free traffic and leads, Millionaire Wealth Academy might be for you. Tune in to todays episode to get more information about MWA straight from the source. Start Here: Free Training Reveals The 3 Secrets To A Wildly Profitable Online Business https://www.evolvedmarketingpodcast.com/mwa Watch us: https://www.evolvedmarketingpodcast.com https://instagram.com/evolvedmarketingpodcast https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089972589405
In Episode 57 of the Joyful Health Show, we talk through the often underestimated yet crucial foundations of health. Join us as we delve into the "first-things-first" principles that form the bedrock of well-being, often neglected in the chaos of modern life and the temptations for quick fixes. In this conversation, Alex shares with us how God turned her heart to a more holistic approach and taught her about five foundations of health that she abides by and teaches in her profession. What You'll Learn: Start Small, Grow Well: Learn why beginning with small, intentional steps in spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being can lead to lasting transformation. Alex shares practical insights on integrating life-giving habits into diverse seasons, ensuring long-term growth. Foundations Over Fixes: Distinguish between temporary fixes and foundational habits. Explore why quick solutions and micromanagement may not lead to long-term health. Discover the wisdom in relying on the Lord for sustainable, life-giving practices. Assessment and Alignment: Hear about the importance of self-assessment and aligning your wellness journey with God's guidance. Alex offers guidance on starting where you are, praying for discernment, and adapting habits organically to your unique season of life. Head here for all of today's show notes including Scriptures, social images, and resources mentioned. Start your week with Mindful Moments for Present People: A 1-minute devotional to debunk diet culture and savor God's abundance delivered to your inbox every Monday. Get Aligned: Returning to God's Perfect Peace in an Anxious World. Connect with intuitive health by grace today with Body Blessings: A 30-Day Course to Praise God with Your Body through Prayer, Intuitive Eating, and Joyful Movement. Learn more at joyfulhealth.co Connect with us on Social Media Instagram: @joyfulhealthco Facebook: Joyful Health Co
In this special episode recorded at Sibos in Toronto, the women from across the fintech space talk about their experiences as founders, developing the regtech space, and making career changes. Chapter 1 Christina Chang, chief operating officer, Minka Chapter 2 Alex Ford, president, North America, Encompass Corporation Chapter 3 Stella Lim, chief operating officer, Partior Chapter 4 Katalin Kauzli, business development director and co-founder, PartnerHUB Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's episode is a conversation with Alex Ford, founder of Cultivate Well. Alex helps us navigate how we should think about our bodies in light of God's good design and what He says in His Word. Did you know that you can trace a biblical view of the body from Genesis all the way to Revelation? Well, you can! Alex shows us in Scripture how we can think holistically about our bodies as a means of stewardship and what it looks like to pursue Christ-centered wellness. Sign up for the Daily Grace Podcast Newsletter and receive the free resource "Scripture for Every Season.” Time Stamps: 0:56 - About Alex 3:04 - Favorite things 4:17 - What is Christ-centered whole person wellness? 8:12 - What does the Bible say about our bodies? 14:25 - Caring for the body and the soul 22:20 - Addressing insecurity and other body image issues 27:18 - How can we pursue Christ-centered wellness? 31:36 - What the gospel has changed for Alex Resources mentioned in this episode: Refresh by David and Shona Murray Connect with Alex: Instagram Website Connect with us: Subscribe to Daily Grace: on iOS, go to our iTunes page and click subscribe. On Android, click this podcast RSS feed link and choose your podcast app. If needed, you can copy this link directly into your favorite podcast app (like Stitcher or Overcast). Or follow us on Spotify! We would love it if you took a few minutes to leave us an iTunes review to help spread the word about Daily Grace! We want to invite more women into our conversations! Download The Daily Grace app: for iOS, click here to download. On Android, click here to download. Visit The Daily Grace Co. for beautiful products for the whole family that will equip you on your journey to knowing and loving God more. Subscribe to The Daily Grace Newsletter and receive free Bible study resources in your inbox. Like The Daily Grace Co. on Facebook. Follow @dailygracepodcast on Instagram for exclusive podcast content and @thedailygraceco for all things The Daily Grace Co. Engage with our Facebook community, “The Daily Grace Co. Community”. Read The Daily Grace blog for encouragement throughout the week that is steeped in biblical truths. * Affiliate links used are used where appropriate. Thank you for supporting the products that support the production of this podcast! * The opinions of guests on the Daily Grace podcast do not represent the opinions of The Daily Grace Co., and we do not necessarily endorse the resources that they recommend or mention on the show. We believe it is valuable to hear from a variety of guests, even if we do not agree in all areas. As always, the statements made by hosts and guests on the show should be tested against God's Word, the only authority on truth.
Alex Ford, Professor and Consultant Gastroenterologist at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK, joins Jonathan to discuss disorders of gut–brain interaction. Ford explains his specific interest in functional gastrointestinal disorders and recent revisions of their aetiology, as well as how conditions of gut–brain interaction affect quality of life and social functioning. Use the following timestamps to navigate the topics discussed in this episode: (00:00)-Introduction (03:16)-Causes of disorders of gut–brain interaction (06:00)-Impact of gut–brain interaction disorders on quality of life (07:32)-The cost-effectiveness of eradicating H. pylori in certain conditions (10:15)-How Ford's MD thesis impacted the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for the management of dyspepsia (12:15)-Ford's experience as a Post-doctoral Fellow at McMaster University in Canada (14:24)-The effectiveness of antidepressants in the treatment of irritable bowel disease (16:50)-Prevalence of disorders gut–brain interaction depending on sex and ethnicity (19:33)-Effectiveness of the low FODMAP diet on irritable bowel disease (23:20)-Mental health disorders in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (28:30)-Ford's three wishes for global healthcare
In Episode #13 of Evolved Marketing Podcast, Andrei Yermejev and Brian Brewer interview Alex Ford. He is a seasoned Affiliate Marketer who's always testing what's new on the market. Listen in as Alex shares his tips to go viral on social media and how to master your mindset on the first 60 days of starting your new business. Not only has Alex achieved financial freedom through affiliate marketing, his kids are now following in his footsteps by getting into the content creation game. Did you love the value that we are putting out in the show? LEAVE A REVIEW and tell us what you think about the episode so we can continue putting out great content just for you! Share this episode and help someone who wants to focus on the evolution of their life and business. Find Alex: https://www.facebook.com/alexfordonline Watch us: Youtube Instagram Tiktok
On this Monday edition of WUL, I talk with Alex Ford. Alex is a veteran digital marketer and he just recently spoke at our latest Mastermind. Today he shares how he got started with this industry, a mini training from his Mastermind presentation, the change he made with his short form content to start going viral, and much more. Follow Alex on Instagram & Facebook
Alex Ford reinjured a knee Friday night but still managed to help lead the Prairie Falcons to victory, just by his presence and leadership skills. https://bit.ly/3VXi5jj #PrairieFalcons #PrairieHighSchool #HighSchoolFootball #HighSchoolWrestling #HighSchoolAthletics #AlexFord #3AGSHL #Perseverance #Leadership #BrushPrairieWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday
An outspoken critic of TikTok says it needs to take responsibility for harmful trends circulating on the app.The parents of two children are suing the social media company after their kids died from taking part in the 'blackout challenge' – in which users choke themselves to the point of unconsciousness.Socialife Chief Executive Alex Ford told Heather du Plessis-Allan its algorithms are designed to promote this type of content, which gets reactions on the platform.“There's an element where parents do need to hold responsibility and educate their children, but I don't think we can really blame 8 or 9-year-old kids for doing these challenges.”LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We've had complaints about the horror themes, so here's a fairy tale to lighten the room. Alex Ford reads. #steampunk #darkFantasy #fairytale Author M.E. Bronstein is a PhD student in Comparative Literature who writes short stories when she should be working on her dissertation. Her writing has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies; Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors; Michigan Quarterly Review: Mixtape; and elsewhere. You can find her at mebronstein.com. When reader Alex Ford isn't rocking around the nation in her band, Ford Theatre Reunion, she's holed up in her guest room following a different passion: recording audio books and editing manuscripts. An avid reader and writer, she delights in helping people bring their creativity to life. You can check out her exploits, mystery bruises, and a most handsome cat on facebook or instagram. www.facebook.com/srslyjohns www.instagram.com/srslyalex Osgoode: Kris Law krislawvo.com Did you know? You can find all our anthologies together here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PFD2PCQ
CJ Hamblin of Mountain View and Prairie's Alex Ford and Faith Tarrant describe what life has been like since winning state wrestling championships over the weekend. https://loom.ly/SQ0YBZg #MountainViewThunder #PrairieFalcons #SetonCatholicCougars #HighSchoolBoysWrestling #HighSchoolGirlsWrestling #MatClassic #TacomaDome #WIAA #StateChampionship #VancouverWa #BrushPrairieWa #ClarkCountyWa #ClarkCountyNews #ClarkCountyToday
It helps to have someone who is brilliant and skilled to bring your vision into being!
Joining the show from Australia, Nadia is delighted to welcome Alex Ford, VP Product & Marketing at Encompass Corporation, to the ground-breaking Women of Fintech Podcast Series. Taking a look at the inspiration behind Encompass, Alex shares the crucial work the firm does to deliver exceptional solutions to a vital sector of the market. Alex also helps us to explore the idea of leadership, identifying the traits it takes to be in a C-suite position, and how they fuel the gender imbalance in FinTech. From the highly topical debate around childcare, to how we can choose to challenge the norm, Alex offers a fascinating take on the marketplace.
To find out the truth behind the mutation stories, Gavin and Jessamy chat with Dr. Emma Hodcroft of nextstrain, Prof. Alex Ford tells us why IBS is misdiagnosed and misunderstood, and Rachel Fleishman MD reads her Wakley Prize winning essay, Dreams Deferred.
Welcome to Episode 466 and Happy New Year! For fiction, we have two tales for you. First, a woman’s world closes in after losing a beloved pet. Then, a man on a lucky streak discovers that the sweet taste of winning eventually goes sour.COMING UPGood Evening: Happy New Year!: 00:01:06R. H. Dixon’s The Hole in the Wall as read by Alex Ford: 00:05:01Roy Bishop’s Hot Streak as read by Dennis Robinson: 00:22:45PERTINENT LINKSSupport us on Patreon! Spread the darkness.Shop Tales to Terrify MerchR. H. DixonAlex Ford on Facebook (srslyjohns)Alex Ford on Instagram (srslyalex)Botched PodcastBotched Podcast on TwitchOriginal Score by Nebulus EntertainmentNebulus on FacebookNebulus on Instagram Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/talestoterrify. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
"headache tablets, statins, things for cholesterol or things for hayfever or contraceptive pill.... they end up into the nearest river...we drink that water. We use this water recreationally" When you pour a medicine down the sink or flush it down the loo, where do the chemicals end up? Professor Alex Ford has been exploring how the behaviour of sea creatures changes when zombie-like parasites thrive in polluted waters, even causing their hosts to change sex. Subscribe for a new episode every week, and share the big idea #lifesolved You can find out more about research taking place at the University of Portsmouth at port.ac.uk/SOLVE. Points of Interest:Professor Alex Ford – Professor of Biologyhttps://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/alex-ford Follow latest research- https://www.port.ac.uk/research Solve Magazine- port.ac.uk/solve https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/magazines/solve-magazine Portsmouth Social Media LinksFacebook - facebook.com/universityofportsmouthInstagram -instagram.com/portsmouthuni/Twitter - twitter.com/portsmouthuniLinkedIn - linkedin.com/school/university-of-portsmouth/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Welcome to Episode 454. This week we board a train in Medicine Hat, Alberta. For fiction, we have one tale for you about a wedding planner with some very… particular clients.Coming UpGood Evening: Haunting at Home and Submissions: 00:01:06Dark Travels: Medicine Hat Phantom Train: 00:04:43Shawn W. Foley’s Wedding of the Century as read by Alex Ford: 00:15:27Pertinent LinksSpread the darkness. Support us on Patreon!The Haunting at HomeAlex Ford @ FacebookAlex Ford @ InstagramOriginal Score by Jared Robinson/Nebulus EntertainmentNebulus @ FacebookNebulus @ Instagram Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/talestoterrify. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this episode, the spotlight is firmly on the USA, as we take a deep dive into the financial crime landscape and what it is that makes it unique. Joining host Alex Ford are two people who know the industry inside out, Pawneet Abramowski (Chief Compliance Officer, CFSB) and Encompass’ Head of Delivery, Dr Henry Balani.
WARNING: Some of the content discussed is not suitable for young audiences. Listener Discretion is advised. Welcome to the world of Conspiracies! In this episode, Alex Ford, from Doulos Theology Podcasting, joins us as a special guest as we discuss the book Conspiracy Theory: A Christian Evaluation Of A Taboo Subject by Doug Van Dorn. This is part 4 and final episode of the series. Book: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theory-Christian-Evaluation-Subject/dp/0986237698/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BAMT37O1OB39&dchild=1&keywords=conspiracy+theory+doug+van+dorn&qid=1597466923&sprefix=conspiracy+theory+doug%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1 Doulos Theology Podcasting: https://anchor.fm/alexander-ford5 Please visit https://www.wrathandgrace.com for great merchandise. Documentaries: https://www.outofshadows.org - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkogF9XD4QM --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theologymatters/support
The twelfth episode of the "My Voices Have Tourettes" Podcast! In this episode, Dan Zerin and Alex Ford talk about Dan’s possible Hypomanic episode, Hypomania, Racoons, Reality TV Shows, C-PTSD vs PTSD, and more. Have a question or topic you want us to discuss in the podcast? Send it to us at info@mvhtshow.com Support the show: paypal.me/mvhtshow Sponsors: Geymsla Studio Facebook.com/GeymslaStudio The Secret Cellar thesecretcellar.is Facebook.com/SecretCellarRVK Instagram.com/secret_cellar_reykjavik Smari's Volcano Sauce smarisvolcanosauce.com Facebook.com/Smarisvolcanosauce Instagram.com/smarisvolcanosauce
WARNING: Some of the content discussed is not suitable for young audiences. Listener Discretion is advised. Welcome to the world of Conspiracies! In this episode, Alex Ford, from Doulos Theology Podcasting, joins us as a special guest as we discuss the book Conspiracy Theory: A Christian Evaluation Of A Taboo Subject by Doug Van Dorn. This is part 3 of the series. Book: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theory-Christian-Evaluation-Subject/dp/0986237698/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BAMT37O1OB39&dchild=1&keywords=conspiracy+theory+doug+van+dorn&qid=1597466923&sprefix=conspiracy+theory+doug%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1 Doulos Theology Podcasting: https://anchor.fm/alexander-ford5 Please visit https://www.wrathandgrace.com for great merchandise. Documentaries: https://www.outofshadows.org - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkogF9XD4QM --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theologymatters/support
The eighth episode of the "My Voices Have Tourettes" Podcast! In this episode, Dan Zerin and Alex Ford talk about Motherless Brooklyn, Tourette Syndrome, Tic Attacks, the differences between Coprolalia, Echolalia, and Palilalia, and more! Mentions: "Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem, Not Another Teen Movie, Episode 2 - Tourette Plus, Episode 6 - Autistic Superstar, The Boondock Saints, Jade O'Connell, Mental Health Film Comment, Helgi Steinar, and Entertainment Drive-Thru. Have a question or topic you want us to discuss in the podcast? Send it to us at info@mvhtshow.com Support the show: paypal.me/mvhtshow Sponsors: Geymsla Studio Facebook.com/GeymslaStudio The Secret Cellar thesecretcellar.is Facebook.com/SecretCellarRVK Instagram.com/secret_cellar_reykjavik Smari's Volcano Sauce smarisvolcanosauce.com Facebook.com/Smarisvolcanosauce Instagram.com/smarisvolcanosauce
WARNING: Some of the content discussed is not suitable for young audiences. Listener Discretion is advised. Welcome to the world of Conspiracies! In this episode, Alex Ford, from Doulos Theology Podcasting, joins us as a special guest as we discuss the book Conspiracy Theory: A Christian Evaluation Of A taboo Subject by Doug Van Dorn. This is part 2 of the series. Book: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theory-Christian-Evaluation-Subject/dp/0986237698/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BAMT37O1OB39&dchild=1&keywords=conspiracy+theory+doug+van+dorn&qid=1597466923&sprefix=conspiracy+theory+doug%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1 Doulos Theology Podcasting: https://anchor.fm/alexander-ford5 Please visit https://www.wrathandgrace.com for great merchandise. Documentaries: https://www.outofshadows.org - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkogF9XD4QM --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theologymatters/support
WARNING: Some of the content discussed is not suitable for young audiences. Listener Discretion is advised. Welcome to the world of Conspiracies! In this episode, Alex Ford, from Doulos Theology Podcasting, joins us as a special guest as we discuss the book Conspiracy Theory: A Christian Evaluation Of A taboo Subject by Doug Van Dorn. This is part 1 of the series. Book: https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theory-Christian-Evaluation-Subject/dp/0986237698/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BAMT37O1OB39&dchild=1&keywords=conspiracy+theory+doug+van+dorn&qid=1597466923&sprefix=conspiracy+theory+doug%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1 Doulos Theology Podcasting: https://anchor.fm/alexander-ford5 Please visit https://www.wrathandgrace.com for great merchandise. Documentaries: https://www.outofshadows.org - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkogF9XD4QM --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theologymatters/support
This time, Alex Ford is joined by Francesca Hopwood Road, Head of RegTech and Advanced Analytics at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to look at the industry from a regulator's perspective.
In this episode, Alex Ford is joined by Charles Delingpole, CEO and founder of ComplyAdvantage, and Refinitiv's Teodora Christova, to discuss the role of RegTech in tackling financial crime.
Welcome to Episode 437. As one contest closes, we’ve got another quick and easy one for you! This week we learn about an island in the heart of Vancouver’s most famous park that comes by its name honestly. For fiction, we have one tale for you about a storm that heals a family.Coming UpGood Evening: Contests and Thank Yous: 00:01:06Dark Travels: Vancouver’s Deadman’s Island: 00:04:56Jonathan Robbins Leon’s Man of the House as read by Alex Ford: 00:13:51Pertinent LinksSpread the darkness. Support us on Patreon!BECKY movie trailerJonathan Robbins Leon @ TwitterAlex Ford @ FacebookAlex Ford @ InstagramOriginal Score by Jared Robinson/Nebulus EntertainmentNebulus @ FacebookNebulus @ Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This month, Alex Ford is joined by Gus Tomlinson, from GBG, and Encompass’ Alan Samuels, to discuss the impact of our ‘new world’ on compliance and how RegTech can help organisations accelerate their processes.
We’ve got a lot to talk about with Alex Ford. Co-host of Take Me There podcast, Alex brings us to the fascinating scam of counterfeit makeup. Did you know that fake makeup is a bigger industry than drugs? Crazy, right?! Also, PLEASE don’t self-inject Botox. It’s not like cutting your own bangs! Research: https://www.takemetherepod.com/ InStyle: Why Women Buy Knockoff Makeup Online James Charles: Real Vs Fake BROKEN on Netflix Allure: How Fake Beauty Products Have Infiltrated Amazon, Target, Etc. Allergan: Counterfeit Injectables Are On The Rise, Here's What You Need To Know Fakespot Kylie Jenner Forcing Her Friend To Buy Fake Kylie For Her Visit scamwowpodcast.com for links to our Patreon, Instagram and more. Send us your scams! scamwowpodcast@gmail.com Or call: 347-509-9414 DISCLAIMER: We are comedians and this is satire. C’mon.
In this month's episode, host Alex Ford, is joined by Chris Skinner, an expert commentator and author on fintech and financial markets, and Matt Neill, Managing Director of transformation consultancy OpTechs. They discuss digital transformation within banks, KYC automation and the role of regtech.
It's a mother of a double feature and we guarantee it won't make you feel all warm and snuggly inside. No, not at all. Alex Ford and Maria Rose narrate. Rated Dark.
Welcome to Episode 415. This week we travel to Montana for a close encounter with visitors from the sky. For fiction, we have two tales for you: about a gift of the heart and a fresh perspective on being used.Coming UpWelcome to Montana: 00:01:06Cooper Anderson’s A Bedtime Story as read by Dan Rabarts: 00:13:48CC Smith’s Peripheral Work as read by Alex Ford: 00:21:22 Pertinent LinksLove what you hear? Support us on Patreon!Cooper Anderson @ TwitterDan RabartsAlex Ford @ InstagramAlex Ford @ Facebook Original Score by Jared Robinson/Nebulus EntertainmentNebulus @ FacebookNebulus @ Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Delighted to be joined on this episode by the fantastic Alex Ford, VP of Operations at Encompass. Alex joins us to share the story of how she came across OKRs and the journey she took into implement them within her organisation. Expect challenges, pitfalls, lessons and more to be shared as we discuss the path that she followed in ultimately leading the company to high growth with OKRs. Ready to be stretched by new ideas? Want to jump to the next level when it comes to OKRs? If the answer is 'yes' then the OKR Coach Academy has been designed to help you. The There Be Giants OKR Coach Academy provides OKR Coach Training to enable the successful application of the OKR methodology within your organisation. As a big thank you to you our podcast listeners we are now offering you 20% off the 100% e-learning Activator Course. To redeem this offer simply enter code 'gianttalk' when you register here.
Welcome to Episode 394. This week we travel to Connecticut to meet a woman with a dark reputation. For fiction, we have one tales for you, that reminds us that nothing is free and some gifts are worse than death.Coming UpWelcome to Connecticut: 00:02:33Rich Larson’s Dark Warm Heart as read by Alex Ford: 00:13:04Pertinent LinksHelp us fundraise for new theme music!Rich Larson @ TumblrRich Larson @ PatreonAlex Ford @ FacebookAlex Ford @ InstagramLove what you hear? Support us on Patreon! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
A young woman makes her debut at Death's masquerade. Rated YA friendly. Alex Ford narrates.
Coming UpGood Evening and Welcome to Kentucky: 00:00:42Annie Neugebauer’s The Glove Box (Stoker Award Nominee) as read by Alex Ford: 00:11:00Bram Stoker’s The Judge’s House as read by Stephen Kilpatrick: 00:26:03Pleasant Dreams: 01:08:39 Pertinent LinksLove what you hear? Support us on Patreon!Annie NeugebauerAnnie Neugebauer @ The Dark CityAlex Ford @ FacebookAlex Ford @ InstagramStephen Kilpatrick See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
All is fair in love and dentistry. A horror story from the badlands of Canada. Mild NFSW. Alex Ford narrates.
A poem for May. Alex Ford narrates.
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:00:42Christopher O’Halloran’s The Phoenix as read by Alex Ford: 00:08:09Ivan Zoric’s Dead Boy Arpeggio as read by Brian Rollins: 00:20:30Pleasant Dreams: 00:53:02Pertinent LinksLove what you hear? Support us on Patreon!Christopher O’HalloranAlex Ford @ FacebookAlex Ford @ InstagramBrian RollinsBrian Rollins @ Twitter See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:00:42Gerri Leen’s Salt the Earth as read by Jake Wachholz: 00:06:21T. J. Berg’s The Walker Street Story as read by Alex Ford: 00:14:23Pleasant Dreams: 00:43:28Pertinent LinksLove what you hear? Support us on Patreon!Film School Rejects’ Best Horror Movies of 2018Gerri Leen: gerrileen.comGerri Leen @ Twitter: twitter.com/GerriLeenT. J. Berg: infinity-press.comAlex Ford @ Facebook: facebook.com/srslyjohnsAlex Ford @ Instagram: instagram.com/srslyalex See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
This episode I get the chance to chat with someone who I've only known through social media. Six years ago, Alex Ford and I connected on Twitter for the first time as I was live tweeting from my Brooklyn home as Superstorm Sandy crashed into New York City. That was the same year Alex decided to retire from the British military and become a professional portrait and wedding photographer. Join me as I chat with my friend about what it was like for him to end his military career and begin a new one as a photographer. What I learn from Alex is his photography is something that literally saved his life. Alex's photos: Show links: Alex Ford Photography Precious Times Photography Alex on Facebook Facebook
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:00:40Liam Hogan's The Tasting Menu (Liars' League, 2010) as read by Alex Weinle: 00:04:08Mercedes Yardley's Loving You Darkly (F(r)iction Issue 8, Summer of 2017) as read by Alex Ford: 00:22:03Pleasant Dreams: 01:00:20Pertinent LinksThe District of Wonders Network Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/districtofwondersMandy trailer @ YouTube: https://youtu.be/rI054ow6KJkLiam Hogan: https://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.com/Liam Hogan @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/liamjhoganMercedes Yardley: https://mercedesmyardley.com/Mercedes Yardley @ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mercedes-M.-Yardley/e/B006B9MFA2/Mercedes Yardley @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mercedesmyMercedes Yardley @ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mercedesmy/Mercedes Yardley @ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LeEIVrQmdAbgbr7Ub_vXwAlex Ford @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/srslyjohnsAlex Ford @ Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/srslyalex/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:42Elias Perry's There Are So Many Monsters (Tales to Terrify original) as read by Jacob Wachholz: 05:03Tray Ellis's Devouring Delios (Tales to Terrify original) as read by Alex Ford: 20:50Pleasant Dreams: 41:09Pertinent LinksThe District of Wonders Network Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/districtofwondersThe Drabblecast Audio Fiction Podcast: https://www.drabblecast.org/Gizmodo's The Gateway: https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-eerie-trailer-for-gizmodos-new-investigative-1826296709Tray Ellis: https://trayellis.blogspot.com/Tray Ellis @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tray.ellis.54Tray Ellis @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrayEllisWritesAlex Ford @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/srslyjohnsAlex Ford @ Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/srslyalex/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:41John Clewarth’s The Elusive Flame (Whispers of Wickedness, 2004) as read by Alex Ford: 03:29J. Ashley-Smith’s Our Last Meal (Sunshine Bright and Darkness Deep, 2015) as read by Dan Rabarts: 15:37Pleasant Dreams: 48:06Pertinent LinksThe District of Wonders Network Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/districtofwondersUnsane: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7153766/John Clewarth: http://www.johnclewarth.com/John Clewarth @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnclewarthAlex Ford @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/srslyjohnsAlex Ford @ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srslyalex/J. Ashley-Smith: http://www.spooktapes.com/J. Ashley-Smith @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spooktapesJ. Ashley-Smith @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpookTapesDan Rabarts: http://dan.rabarts.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Coming UpGood Evening: 00:41Michelle Ann King’s Not with a Bang (Daily Science Fiction, January 2011) as read by Alex Ford: 05:19Jeremy M. Gottwig’s A Sudden Breeze Through an Open Door (In a Cat’s Eye (anthology), October 17, 2016) as read by Jake Wachholz: 14:32Pleasant Dreams: 38:41Pertinent LinksThe District of Wonders Network Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/districtofwondersVox: How audiobooks are recorded: https://youtu.be/KcrAkPNB8jcVICE: Steven Soderbergh's iPhone-Shot Thriller Looks Absolutely Terrifying: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59w73n/steven-soderbergh-iphone-film-unsane-vgtrnVICE: Watch the Trailer for 'Hereditary,' the Horror Movie That Traumatized Sundance: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5vwwy/watch-hereditary-trailer-sundance-horror-vgtrnYouTube: LOCAL58 - You Are On The Fastest Available Route: https://youtu.be/jh09uIN6tl0Michelle Ann King: https://michelle-ann-king.blogspot.co.uk/Alex Ford @ Facebook: www.facebook.com/srslyjohnsAlex Ford @ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srslyalex/Jeremy M. Gottwig: http://www.strangeshuttle.com/Jeremy M. Gottwig @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jgottwigJeremy M. Gottwig @ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremy-Gottwig/100009564767133In a Cat’s Eye anthology: http://poletopolepublishing.com/books/in-a-cats-eye/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Katie Gengler @katiegengler | GitHub | Code All Day Show Notes: 01:23 - Testing 06:20 - ember-try 14:11 - Add-ons; Ember Observer 17:43 - Scoring and Rating Add-ons 25:25 - Contribution and Funding 27:41 - Code Search 30:59 - Data Visualization 32:27 - Change in the Ember Ecosystem Since Last EmberConf? 34:35 - Code All Day 35:39 - What's Next? Resources: ember-qunit liquid-fire capybara Selenium appraisal emberCLI Bower Transcript: CHARLES: Hello everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast Episode 54. I am your host, Charles Lowell, with me is Alex Ford. Today, we're going to be interviewing Katie Gengler. I remember very distinctly the first time that I met Katie, it was actually at the same dinner, I think that I met Godfrey at EmberConf in 2014. That was just a fantastic conversation that was had around the table and I did not realize how important the people that I was meeting were going to be in my life over the next couple of years. But Katie has gone on to do things like identify a hole in Ember add-on ecosystem so she created Ember Observer. There's a huge piece missing from being able to test this framework that spans multiple years and multiple versions and being able to make sure that your tests, especially for add-on authors, run against multiple versions so she created and maintains Ember-try. She's a part of the EmberCLI core team. She's a principal at Code All Day, which is a software consultancy and just an all-around fantastic woman. Thank you, Katie for coming on to the show and talking with us. KATIE: Thanks for having me. CHARLES: One of the things I wanted to start out the conversation with is something that's always struck me about you is there's a lot of people when it comes to testing, they talk the talk but you have always struck me as someone who walks the walk. Not just in terms of you make sure that your apps have tests in them, where your add-ons have tests in them but talking to people about testing patterns, making sure that when there are huge pieces of the ecosystem missing like Ember-try. I remember this as something that I struggled with. I was running up against this problem and all of the sudden, here comes Ember-try and you've been such a huge part of that. I want to know more about kind of your walk with testing and how that permeates so much of what you do because I think it's very important for people to hear that. KATIE: I got really lucky right out of college. My first job was at a place that where people think of mythical themes, XP-focused developers so the first thing I was told is everything is test first, everything is test-driven. I was primarily doing Ruby in Rails at the time but also JavaScript. At the beginning, we didn't have a way to test JavaScripts and there was a lot of missteps in the way of testing JavaScript until we came right around to QUnit. I was QUnit long before Ember even came along. It's kind of bit ingrained in my whole career. Michelle as well. Michelle is my partner in Code All Day. We're both very test focused. I think that's what drew us to start a company together and working together. Every project we're on, we try to write encompassing tests: test drive everything, if we're on it, projects upgrade or any project to fix. We try to write tests as a framework for everything that we're doing so we know whether we're doing something right or not. When it comes to Ember-try, that wasn't entirely my own idea. That was something that Robert Jackson and Edward Faulkner were looking for something right. I remembered that appraisals gem from Ruby. I really enjoyed being [inaudible] gems that I had written Rails so I wanted it to exists for Ember so I just kind of took a promise of to do it. It was extracted from Liquid Fire. I had some scripts that would sort of test multiple versions but it was rough. It wasn't as easy as it is today. CHARLES: Yeah, it does speak to a certain philosophy because if you're coming to a problem and it's difficult to test, you often come to a crossroads where you say, "You know what? I have a choice to make here. I can either give up and not write a test or trying and test some subset of it," Or, "I can write the thing that will let me write the test." It seems like you fall more into that second category. What would you say to people who are either, new to this idea or new in their careers and they butt up against this problem of not knowing when to give up and when to write the thing to write the test. KATIE: I almost never don't write the test so if you're suspicions are true, I will write something to be able to write the test. But there are times that I'm [inaudible] and sometimes I'm just like, "This is not going to be tested. This is not going to happen." Finding that line is pretty hard but it should be extremely rare. It's not when people come to me, I work with a client and they're telling me, "No, it's too hard to write the tests." A lot of times, it's not only how you write the test, spreading the test and learning how to write a test. It's the code you're trying to test that could be a problem. If you have a very complicated code, very side-effect driven code, it's very hard to write the easier sell, which might Ember acceptance tests. What you're really kind of on a level of integration because you do have a little bit of knowledge of what's going on and you have to be within the framework of what Ember tests wanted you to do, which is async is all completed by the time you want to have this assertions and test. That means to look different tools like going back to something like Capybara or Selenium and have some sort of test around on what you're doing in order to replace the code that makes it hard to test it at a lower level to begin with. I think a lot of people are just missing the framework for knowing what to do when their code is intractable or not, necessarily that the testing and the guides that have you tested. I think most people could go through tutorial and do tests for a little to do MVC app perfectly fine. But that's easy when you [inaudible] size of the equation so if you're already struggling with code and you're not quite sure, either in Ember, it can seem very, very hard to write tests for that. I think that's true with Rails as well. I think people that begin in Rails don't understand what they're going to testing, especially if they have an existing app that trying to add test to but unfortunately, Rails not a long ago, kind of got into everybody's heads that your tests go with what you're doing. It's just ingrained part of the Rails community. Hopefully, that will become how it is with Ember. But a lot of people are kind of slowly bring their apps Ember so they really have a lot of JavaScript and they don't necessarily know what to do or they're write in JavaScript have always are written with jQuery and a little bit [inaudible]. They don't understand how to test that. ALEX: How does Ember-try help with that? Actually I want to roll back and talk about what is Ember-try and how does it fit into testing? You mentioned the appraisal gem which I'm not familiar with. I haven't done much Rails in my life or Ruby. But can we talk about what Ember-try is? KATIE: Sure. Ember-try, at the basis, let's you run different scenarios with your test. At some point, I would've said, let's run different scenarios of dependencies for your tests so primarily changing your Ember version and that's pretty much what add-ons do but a lot of people are using it for scenarios that are completely outside of dependencies so different environment variables, different browsers. They're just having one place to have all these scenarios, where if you just put it in travis.yml like your CI configuration, you want it as easily be able to run that locally. But with Ember-try, you can do that locally. I found that it's kind of beyond my intentions, expanded beyond dependencies. Primarily, it lets you run your test in your application with different configurations. I could see running it with different feature flags, it would be what something to be interesting to do, if that's something you use. Primarily, it just lets you try the conversions and appraisal gems let you run test with different gem sets so you have a different gem file for each scenario you possibly had. That was definitely dependency-focus. CHARLES: That sounds really cool. It's almost sounds like you could even get into some sort of generative testing, where you're kind of not specifying the scenarios upfront but having some sort of mechanism to generate those scenarios so you can try and surface bugs that would only occur outside of what you're explicitly testing for, which is kind of randomly choosing different versions of environment, variables, feature flags, dependencies and stuff like that. They didn't thought of that? KATIE: Randomization [inaudible] but Ember-try really does have a kind of general route way of working on and that's we're leading to that. If you wanted to, especially for add-ons, you can specify this version compatibility keyword and your packet at JSON and give Ember and give an Ember string a version and it will generate the scenarios for you and test all those versions. These Ember strings are pretty powerful so you can say specifically versions you want. You can do a range of versions and it will take the latest patch release and a reminder, at least you don't want to be too crazy and test each of those for that add-on. But I can definitely see something random, they're really cool. Some testing thing that's like just tries to do random input into all of your inputs on a page. I've really been meaning to try that out. Sounds like [inaudible]. CHARLES: Yeah, just like to try and break it. I remember a world before Ember-try and I can't speak highly enough about it and the fact that how many bugs it has caught in the add-ons that we maintain because you're always working on the latest, hottest, greatest version of Ember and you're not thinking what about two-point releases back. They're might be not a deal breaker but some subtle bug that surfaces and break your tests and the coverage has just gotten so much better. In fact, I think that they're as brilliant as it is bundled with EmberCLI when you are building an add-on. It's like you now you get it for free. It's one of those things where it's hard to imagine what it was like, even though we lived it. KATIE: And it was less than a year ago. [Laughter] KATIE: Ember-try existed for more than 15 bundle with EmberCLI so since last EmberConf or so. CHARLES: Yeah, but it's absolutely a critical piece of the infrastructure now. KATIE: I'm glad it caught bugs for you. I don't think I've actually caught a bug with it. CHARLES: Really? KATIE: Yeah, but I don't do a lot of Ember re-add-ons. I do a lot of EmberCLI-ish add-ons. It can't change versions of EmberCLI. Not yet, we're working on that. I get some weird npm errors when I tried it but I haven't dug into it much yet. CHARLES: I don't want to dig too much into the mechanics but even when I first heard about it, I was like, "How does that even work?" Just replacing all the dependencies and having a separate node modules directory and bower and I'm like, "Man, there's so many moving parts." It was one of those things where we're so ambitious. I didn't even think it was possible. Or I didn't even think about writing it myself or whatever. It's one of those like, "Wow, okay. It can be done." ALEX: This exists now. CHARLES: Yeah. ALEX: Add-on authors are accountable now for making their add-ons work with revisions or versions a few points back like you said but it makes it so easy. The accountability is hardly accountability, turning Ember-try. It's really amazing. KATIE: What I'm laughing about is that what it actually does is not very sophisticated or crazy at all. For instance, for bower, it moves your existing bower components structure. It's a placeholder. It changes the bower.json run install. Then after the scenario, it put's everything back. CHARLES: But I don't know, it sounds so hard. It's intimidating. You got all this state and you got to make sure you put it all back. What do you do with if something hit you and abort midway. I'm sure you had to think about and deal with all that stuff at some point. ALEX: I kill my tests all the time in Ember-try and I was like, "Oops." I forgot I shouldn't do that just like for this. KATIE: Yeah, it doesn't recover so well. It's pretty hard to do things on process exit in node correctly, at least and I don't think I gotten it quite right. But there is a clean up command. Unfortunately, with the way it interacts with EmberCLIs dependency tracker so when you run an Ember command, Ember checks them to make sure all your dependencies are installed. If you still have the different bower.json and install haven't run, you have to run install before you can run the cleanup command which is kind of a drag. CHARLES: I have one final question about Ember-try. Have you given any thought to how this might be extracted and more generally applicable to the greater JavaScript ecosystem because I see this is something that Ember certainly was a trailblazer in this area. Some of these ideas came from Rails and other places. This is going to be more generally applicable and had you given thought to extracting that? KATIE: Yeah, some of [inaudible] since we first did it because we realized very early on that it doesn't depend on EmberCLI. I didn't even using it as a command line arguments parser which doesn't seem too important. But there are some assumptions we get to make. For it being an Ember app, we know how EmberCLI was structured. Some of those assumptions, I wouldn't really know with the greater node community and I gotten those assumption might not be possible at all because they don't have the standards we have on EmberCLI. It generated EmberCLI. There's generally certain things that are in place in Ember [inaudible] works for [inaudible] so there's no part of it that could be extracted. But I worry about some assumptions about no modules always being in the directory that they are in because then can be link the node modules above it. In EmberCLI, it usually doesn't support that. But other places, obviously have to. I realized that it could definitely happen but I'm not so sure that I'd want to personally support that because it's a little bit time commitment. CHARLES: Right. Maybe if someone from the outside want to step in involuntarily, you might work with it but not to personally champion that cause. KATIE: Definitely. I think it would be really cool and I do think it will end up having its own [inaudible] parser eventually, just to be able to do things like different EmberCLI versions. As long as it's not part of EmberCLI, I think that would be less confusing, though. In theory, that can be done with an EmberCLI still but I'm not clear on that. I've had people talk to me about that and I haven't fully process it yet. CHARLES: Right. Alex you mentioned something earlier I had not thought about but that was the technologies like Ember-try keep the add-on community accountable and keep them healthy by making sure that add-ons are working across a multiplicity of Ember versions and working in conjunction with other add-ons that might have version ranges. Katie, you've been a critical part of that effort. But there's also something else that you've been critical part of that you built from the ground up and that is Ember Observer. That is a different way of keeping add-ons accountable. But I think perhaps, even in a more valuable way, more of a social engineering way and that's through the creation of Ember Observer. Maybe we can talk about Ember Observer a little bit. What it is and what gave you the insight that this is something that needs to be built so I'm going to step forward and I'm going to build it? KATIE: I'm definitely going to refer again back to the Rails community. I'm a big fan of Ruby Toolbox. Whenever I needed to jam, I would go there and try to see what was available in that category kind of way. There's variables that have on there. It will have something like the popularity in the number of GitHub stars and the last time it was updated. You can see a lot of inspiration for Ember Observer in there so maybe I should step back and explain the Ember Observer. Ember Observer is a listing of all of the add-ons for the Ember community. Anything that has the Ember add-on keyword will show up there. We pull it off from npm and it all show you all that kind of information: the last updated, the number of GitHub commits, the number of stars, the number of contributors and we put all of that information and a manual view together to put a score on each add-on. You can look at it and we categorized them as well. If you look at a category, say, you're looking at a category for doing models. You would see all of a different model add-ons and be able to look between them and compare them, decide which ones to use. Or if you're thinking of building something, you can go in there and be like, "This already exists. Maybe I should just contribute to an existing thing." What gave me the idea for is I was looking at Ember add-ons, which just shows you the most recently published add-ons for that Ember add-on keyword everyday and every time I was clicking on these add-ons I go, "They did the same thing," and it just seemed like such a waste in [inaudible]. People were creating the same things and then they started clicking into and I was like, "Why they bother clicking into this. It doesn't have anything. It's just an empty add-on." We're pushing add-ons just to try that out so I thought I'd be nice if something filtered that out and I happened to have some time so I got started and dragged my husband, Phil into it. He's also an Ember and Rails developers so that's pretty convenient and my friend, Lew. Now, Michelle works on it a little bit as well. That's what drove us to build it and it's been pretty cool. I like looking all the add-ons when they come up anyway. I feel like it's not any actual work for me. It's quicker than my email each day to look at the new add-ons. ALEX: How many new add-ons are published every day on average? KATIE: On average, it's probably four to six maybe but it varies widely. If you get a holiday, you'll get like 20 add-ons because people have time off. You know, if somebody just feeling the grind at two and you'll notice that the add-on struck commeasurably too. It would be else that come on the same kind of week. ALEX: You mentioned that an add-on gets a score. Can you explain that score and how you rate at add-ons? KATIE: Sure. The score is most driven by details about the add-ons. There's Ember factors that go into it and it's out of 10 points. Five of them are from purely mechanical things, whether or not there's been more than two Git commits in the last three months, whether or not there's been a release in the last three months, whether or not they're in the top 10% of add-ons, top 10% of npm downloads for add-ons, whether they're in the top 10% of GitHub stars for add-ons. ALEX: I know that I'm a very competitive person but it also applies to software. Not just on sports or other types of competition. But I remember a moment and I'm an add-on author and my add-on had a 9 out of 10. I was just about to push some code and just about to get a release. Even before that happened, it went to a ten. The amount of satisfaction I got is kind of ridiculous. But I like it. I like the scoring system, not just for myself but also for helping me discover add-ons and picking the ones that might be right for me. I'll check out any add-on basically that might fit the description. As long as there's a readme, I'll go check it out. But it still helps along with the categorization. CHARLES: Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you can achieve an 8 out of 10 without it being a popularity contest. By saying there's a certain concrete steps that you can take to make sure that you have test and you have a readme, that's a thing of substance. I don't remember what all the criteria are but you can get a high score without getting into the how many stars or if you're in the top 10%. I think that's awesome. But it does mean that if I see an add-on with a five or something like that, it means that they're not taking my concrete steps or it might not be as well-maintained. You know, that's definitely something to take into account. I'm curious if there are any different parameters you've thought, tweaks you thought of making to the system. Because this gets to second part of that, what things had you considered just throughout out of hand, as maybe not good ways to rate add-ons. KATIE: We haven't thought about everything. I don't particularly like the popularity aspect of it. It did feel necessary to include it in some way. The stars and theory are representative of interest, not as much as popularity but it probably gets into popularity as well then downloads are inferior for popularity. But the problem downloads and I found this happening more and more frequently is that if large companies start publishing their own add-ons, then they have a lot of developers, they are going through the roof on those downloads so they're getting that to a point that just from their own developers and I have no way of knowing if anybody else is using this. CHARLES: Probably their continuous integration with containers, right? Like if it's running on Travis or Circle, it's just sitting there spinning like pumping the download numbers. KATIE: Yeah and that frustrates me quite a bit. But I haven't found another thing that really representative popularity. Unfortunately, with npm you can get the download counts but you can't tell where they came from. There's no way to do that. I simply would like to see the things that are popular, they rate higher than the they currently do, like you said either, it's 10 points go without the popularity coming to affect it. But you do need a collaboration with at least one of the person to get eight points. If you give seven by yourself, you need to have another contributor. If you only have one contributor, you don't get that point because that's trying to be representative of sort of a bust factor but it's not truly there. You can just have one commit from somebody else to get that. CHARLES: Of all the pieces, I think that's totally fair. KATIE: Yeah, there's definitely a few other things I have in mind to bring in to the metrics but we're not quite there yet. I need to entirely refactor how the score is given so it's not exactly out of 10. The idea is to have some questions and some points that are relevant only to certain categories about us. Whether or not in add-ons testing its different versions of Ember, it might have matters for add-on but it's only adding 10 for CLI or whether or not they have a recent release. Might not matter if it's kind of a one-off with the sass plugin or something more of the build tool that doesn't change for everyone. CHARLES: Yeah, I've noticed we have that happened a couple times where we've got a component that just wraps a type of input. Until the HTML is back changes or a major API changes happens in Ember, there's no need to change it. I can definitely see that. How do you market it is like something that changes infrequently. Is it just that add-on author says it's done? You give them a bigger window or something like that? KATIE: There are probably some sort of categories that fall under that. For the input, I think if it's doing something that Ember producing components, it probably want to be upgrading every CLI, at least every three months. I think in that case, it's probably fair to require an update within that period of time. But some of the things that are more close to Broccoli like as they are in Ember add-ons, that make sense to not have that requirement. Maybe not that's the [inaudible] exact example of the kind of questions that [inaudible]. ALEX: In Ember add-on was the first time that I gave back to the open source community. It was my first open source project and Ember Observer really helped me along the way to say what is an open source best practice and I thought that was really cool. Now, it sounds like with some of the point totals, you're leaning towards Ember best practices to help Ember add-on authors along that way. I think that's really awesome and very, very useful. I would not like to see what the Ember add-on ecosystem would look like without Katie. It would be a very different place. KATIE: Thanks. I'm glad it had some help on that and I'm affecting add-on authors. I actually didn't originally think about it when I was first building it and I was really hoping to help consuming of add-ons but it really has kind of driven out people finding add-ons to not build because they contribute to existing ones. Also, driving them for the score because as you said, people get very competitive. I really didn't realize what kind of drive the score to be because to me I'm like, "Somebody else's score me. How dare you?" [Laughter] KATIE: I have had people say that to me, "How dare you score me? How dare you score my add-ons?" Well, it's mostly computerized. Even the review was manual but only thing about it has any sort of leeway is are there meaningful tests. That's really the only thing when I go through an add-on is whether or not that has any sort of leeway for the judgment of the person that's doing the reading. If there's a readme and we're kind of a rubric so that goes if you have anything in there that's other than the default Ember [inaudible] readme. Whether or not there's a build that is based entirely whether or not there's a CI tag in readme, these are for the owner to go look for them [inaudible]. We hope to automate that so I don't have to keep looking for those. A lot of add-ons turned out have to have builds when they didn't have any meaningful tests. They just had tests so that's kind of confusing. CHARLES: What do you do in that situation? You actually manually review it so that add-on would not get the point for tests. KATIE: No, they don't get the point for test and if they don't get the point for test, I put 'N/A' for whether or not, they have built so it doesn't apply. It doesn't mean anything to me if they haven't build their own test. CHARLES: Right, that makes sense. A lot of it is automated but it still sounds like consume some of your time, some of Phil's time, some of Michelle's time. I guess, my question is do you accept donations or a way that people can contribute because I see this as kind of part of the critical infrastructure of the community at this point. There might be some people out there who think, "Maybe, I could help in some way." Is there a way that people can help? If so, I'd love to hear about it. KATIE: We don't have any sort of donation or anything like that. I mean, we should. We consider it primarily just part of our open source works, part of our contributions to the community because we also make a great deal of use out of the community. Fortunately, it's not very expensive to run. It's only $20 a month VPS. Other than time, it's not really consuming very many resources. That may change over time. The number of hits is increasing and we're doing some more resource-intensive things like Code Search and we're running Ember-try scenarios from the top 100 add-ons to generate compatibility tables. It hasn't been the most reliable. Think about if you're trying to do nvm-installed times 100 add-ons, times every day, times the different Ember dependency settings so it's been very much like a game of whack-a-mole but for now, it's not bad. But we probably should think about some sort of donation by then. Maybe something that writes out the exact numerical cost of something like Ember Observer. The API is getting about 130,000 hits a month but that's the API so that's some number of quests per person. [inaudible] tells me something about 12,000 visitors each month. CHARLES: Does Ember Observer has an API? Are there any the third-party apps that you know about, that people built on top of the Ember Observer? KATIE: None that have been kind of public. I know a couple of private companies seem to be hitting the API but it's not a public API. It's really not public yet. I'm literally process of switching over to JSON API and at some point, I'll make some portion of that -- a public API -- but it's pretty hard to support that at the same time. It change Ember server pretty frequently and do any kind of migrations we need to do. Ember add-ons does all the scores from us from API end point. CHARLES: I actually wasn't aware. I remember the announcement of Code Search but how do you kind of see the usage of that? What's the primary use case when you would use Code Search on Ember add-on or Ember Observers? KATIE: I think the primary use case is if you're looking for how to use a feature. If you're creating an add-on and you want to know how to use certain hooks like [inaudible] or something like that. You can do the Code Search for that and see what other add-ons are doing. It's only searching Ember add-ons that have the repository are all set so you'll only find Ember results. That will be nicer compared to searching GitHub. Then I find another use case is more by the core team to see who is using what APIs and whether or not they can deprecate something or change something or something has become widely used since we're pretty excited about that possibility, we've never ever been searching. ALEX: That is brilliant. CHARLES: Yeah, that's fantastic. The other question that I had was this running Ember-try scenarios on the top 100 add-ons and that's something that you're doing now. Are you actually reflecting that in the Ember Observer interface? Is that an information or is that an experimental feature? Or is that reflected all the way through so if I go to Ember Observer today, I'll see that information based on those computations? KATIE: I start playing in the Ember Observer interface. It's only for the top 100 add-ons currently but hopefully expanding that to all add-ons. Especially, for few months but maybe it's not easy to notice. The only on top 100 add-ons would be on the right side bar and there will be a list of the scenarios we ran it with and whether or not it pass or not. There's add-on information there. The top 100, I'll link to right on the main page of Ember Observer so you can see in the front. CHARLES: How do you get that information back to the author of that top add-on? KATIE: We haven't actually done that. It's just on Ember Observer. It's more meant for consumers to be able to see that this add-on is compatible with all these version. We're not using their scenarios. We're using our own scenarios saying Ember from this version to this version, unless they have specified that version compatibility thing and then we'll use those auto-generated scenarios. This might get harder for add-ons that have complex scenarios so it need something else to vary along with the versions like Ember Data or maybe they're using Liquid Fire and Liquid Fire have these three different version and for each versions, it's being used. For those, we'll just have things which are unable to test this. But hopefully, this is still providing some useful information for some add-ons. A lot of add-ons, their build won't run unless they commit. In this case, this is running every night so new Ember versions released will see if that fails. On other side of it, we have a dashboard where we can see which add-ons failed and maybe see if a new commit to something broke a bunch of add-ons. It commits to something like Ember and for CLI Ember-Gate, one of the main things. CHARLES: I know that certainly that right after we get over this podcast, I'm going and running or checking up all add-ons that we maintain and making sure everything is copacetic. If you guys see me take off my headphones and dash out the door, you know where I'm going. KATIE: Got you. ALEX: I just have a further comment that I'm excited for the public API of Ember Observer just because I've been thinking a lot about data visualization lately. I think it would be really cool tool to do a deprecated API, like one of those bubble charts where like the area that's covered by this deprecated API -- I'm doing a bad job of explaining this -- just like the most use deprecated API methods and visualizing that, I think they'll be really interesting to see it. CHARLES: Right, seeing how they spread across the add-on. ALEX: Yeah, or just all add-ons in general. KATIE: I am most nervous about a public API for Code Search, though because it's a little bit resource-intensive so just freaking out a little bit about the potential of a public API for it. But an Ember Observer client is open source. If you want to add anything to the app, that I consider as public think it is. Adding to that, I really do want to figure out some way to have like a performance budget for when people add to the client because sometimes I'll get people who want to add features and I'm like, "That's just going to screw all of it. It's going to be a problem for all Ember Observer and it's going to make everything slower and it's really little slow. But JSON API fortunately, I have kind of a beta version that running and it's going to be much faster, thank God. I probably shouldn't said that either. CHARLES: Definitely we want to get that donation bin set up before the API goes public. Okay, let's turn to the internet now and we'll answer some of the questions that got twitted in. we've got a question from Jonathan Jackson and he wanted to ask you, "Where have you seen the most change in the Ember ecosystem since last EmberConf?" which was March of 2016. KATIE: There was definitely fewer add-ons being published but the add-ons that are being published are kind of, say more grown up things. We've got... I don't know if engines was before or after March. I have no idea. Time has one of those things that engines and then people doing things related to Fastfood so things are coming from more collaborative efforts, I think. This is just my gut-feeling. I have no data on this. Isn't a gut-feeling from looking at add-ons and then there's a lot of add-ons that are coming out that are specific to a particular company. I think that maybe, I hope representative of more companies getting it to Ember but hopefully, they'll make things more generic and share them back. The other problem with the popularity is like about before, where big company is getting itself into the top 100 list, probably with just its own employees only appear over the summer. I tried a few different ways to mutate the algorithm to try to get them out of there but there was no solution there. It's much fewer, novel things. Very rarely do I look at Ember add-ons and I'd be like, "Oh, that's great," but when I do, it's something very exciting. CHARLES: Right so there's a level of maturity that we're starting to see. Then I actually think that there is something in the story too, of there are now larger companies with big, big code bases that have lots of fan out on their dependency tree that just weren't there before. KATIE: Definitely. I don't think some of the large companies were there before but I think some of the largest companies are probably keeping most of their add-ons private so there's kind of mid-range of company that's big enough to donate things or willing to put things open source. A few of these companies that can have a lot of add-ons now and a lot of them are very similar to things that have already existed so you're going to be like, "I don't know why I use this," but they obviously make changes for some reason. CHARLES: The other thing that I want to talk to you about, before we wrap up, is you actually are in partnership in Code All Day. What kind of business is that? What is it you guys do? What's it like running your company, while on the same time, you're kind of managing these large pieces of the Ember ecosystem? KATIE: Code All Day is very small. It's just me and Michelle. It's a consulting company, we kind of partnered together after we left to startup and decided to do consulting together. We primarily do Ember projects, also some Rails and we try to work together and we love test-driven things. It's pretty kind of loose end. We ended up running it since it's just a partnership. We don't have any employees. But Ember Observer will take up a lot of our time and we really had an idea that it might help us get clients that way so I suppose it kind of helps our credibility but it hasn't really been great for leads so much. But fortunately, there hasn't been a big problem for us. We really enjoys spending our time. We enjoy the flexibility that consulting gives us and while that flexibility is what's going to making these things keep running. CHARLES: All right-y. Well, are there any kind of skunkworks, stealth, secret things you've got brewing in the lab, crazy ideas that you might be ready to give us a sneak preview about for inquiring minds that may want to know? KATIE: Some of them are really [inaudible] which is redoing Ember Observer with JSON API instead of currently, it's using ActiveModel serializers, which is a kind of custom API to Rails and [inaudible] fortunately, it's an API now. They're removing something called JSON API Resources so that will get the performance of Ember Observer much better and that's pretty much my primary focus at the moment. I don't really have any big skunkworks, exciting projects. I have far off ideas that hopefully will materialize into some sort of skunkworks projects. CHARLES: All right. Well, fantastic. I want to say thank you, Katie for coming on the show. I know that you are kind of a hero of mine. I think a lot of people come to our community and they see like, "Where's the value in being a member of this community, in terms of the things that I can take out of it? What does it provide for me?" And you demonstrate on a day-to-day basis, asking what you can do for your community, rather than what your community can do for you, to paraphrase JFK. I think you live that every day so I look up to you very much in that. Thank you for being such a [inaudible] of the community which I'm a part of and thank you for coming on the show. KATIE: I'm very happy that I've been here and thank you. I use a lot of your guys add-ons and it's really the community has given so much to me, which is why I ever want to participate in it. It's really great group of people. CHARLES: Yep, all right-y. Well, bye everybody. ALEX: Bye.
Jamison Dance: @jergason | Blog | GitHub | Fivestack | Soft Skills Engineering Podcast | React Rally Show Notes: 00:58 - The Elm Programming Language 01:36 - Who should try Elm? What is the attraction? 03:09 - Scaling an App Across a Team; Conventions 06:19 - Routing 07:48 - Writing Tests 09:38 - Jumping Into Elm from a Component-based Framework 12:20 - Tooling 17:28 - Productivity 19:21 - The Elm Community 25:13 - Could Elm Replace JavaScript? 28:28 - Lessons Learned from Elm to Write Better JavaScript 33:45 - The Elm Syntax 35:49 - Checking Out New Languages and Communities 37:31 - Data Modeling Resources: Elm Packages elm-format Evan Czaplicki: Let's Be Mainstream! User-focused Design in Elm The Elm Guide Elm on Slack The Elm Tutorial Jamison Dance: Rethinking All Practices: Building Applications in Elm @ React.js Conf 2016 Transcript: ALEX: Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Frontside Podcast Episode 49. I am your host, Alex Ford, developer at The Frontside. With me as well is Chris Freeman. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself? CHRIS: Hi, everybody. I'm Chris. I'm also a developer at The Frontside. ALEX: We have a really special guest for today. I'm really excited. Jamison Dance is with us. JAMISON: Hello. ALEX: Jamison runs Fivestack Software Consulting Company, hosts Soft Skills Engineering Podcast, organizes React Rally Conf, and spells 'array.length' incorrectly sometimes. Is this true? JAMISON: It is true, yeah. I think I have a special ESLint plugin to yell at me now when I do that or something. But that has caused some pain in my life. CHRIS: Oh, that was very brave. Thank you. ALEX: We're going to be talking Elm today and writing better JavaScript with Elm. This is really exciting for me. I've gotten the chance to dive into the Elm tutorial a little bit, which is an absolutely beautiful tutorial if you haven't checked it out yet. JAMISON: Yeah, Elm is a programming language that runs in the browser and compiles down to JavaScript. It's a pure statically-typed programming language, which if that doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry. The take away for you is that Elm tries really hard to make it easy to write programs that don't crash and are easier to refactor and easier to work on and maintain, basically. CHRIS: And Elm is a language in of itself but it is pretty specifically intended for front-end development. Is that correct? JAMISON: Right now, there are some long term plans, but yeah. For now, it's front-end for building UIs and applications in the browser. ALEX: I heard about Elm. When should I check it out? Who do you see jumping into this language? JAMISON: I think it's aimed at people that want to build robust applications which is so vague, it sounds meaningless. Maybe I talk about what attracted me to it. The two things where I was interested in functional programming -- that's kind of like the technical language wonk, like geeky side of it. But the other side is I've worked for a while in some fairly large JavaScript applications and I've seen the nightmares that I can create for myself In just building something that works and is just really hard to work on. So the idea of a language that's focused on keeping your productivity high as the application skills and as the team skills was really attractive to me. Like the bio says, if I spell array.length wrong, sometimes I catch it, sometimes I don't, then my program breaks. Elm has a compiler that runs on all your code and basically, make sure that your code cannot crash. You could still have bugs and you can still just make your code do the wrong thing but it helps eliminate whole categories of errors. It just makes them impossible to create in Elm. If you're interested in functional programming or if you're interested in just building stuff that is easy to work with, like this kind of this curve of productivity over time where some environments and some languages start out really high, it's really easy to build something fast at the beginning and then maintaining it is just really hard so the productivity drops over time. Elm is trying to kind of flatten that out so your productivity stays high throughout the lifetime of your application. CHRIS: I actually have a question about that. I'm planning on bringing this up later but you gave me such a good segue that I feel compelled. You mentioned that one of the things that is nice about Elm-type system is that it helps scale an app, especially when it comes to a team. My experience there are kind of true different facets to what scaling an app across a team looks like. One is the categories of bugs that something like [inaudible] compiler helps you catch. But the other is, and this is totally coming from the fact that I use Ember every single day, that conventions also help scale across a team. I'm curious like what I've looked at with Elm, it looks like they definitely have the type system there and error messages there to help quite a bit. But I haven't seen conventions arising yet in terms of a lot of things, about how you build a front-end application. I'm curious, is it that those conventions are there and just haven't found them yet or they're still very much in development? Or is that not even really a goal for Elm in the same way that it might be nothing like Ember or Angular. JAMISON: You mentioned first the kinds of bugs that the compiler will help you catch. I want to talk about that really quickly. If people aren't familiar with what a compiler or type system will do at build time, it checks all of your code to make sure that all of the variables and inputs and outputs from functions match up. So you say this function takes in an 'int' and returns a string and it will go find everywhere that calls that function and make sure that they're always passing in an 'int' and return it, so that it always return a string. It kind of does that throughout the whole flow of the program. It eliminates those kind of areas where you just get the interface wrong. The program is huge. You don't remember all the inputs to a function so you just like passing an object when it expects a string or something and then later on it will explode. You don't get those errors with Elm which is the first kind of thing you're talking about. You mentioned that conventions and I'm not on the Elm core team or whatever. I don't have any special insight but my experience is Elm very much wants to create strong conventions around how you build applications. The Elm architecture is kind of a way to build front-end applications that is basically baked into the language. There isn't like a UI framework for Elm. It is Elm. That to me is a huge point on the strong convention side. There isn't like an Elm fatigue because there isn't a choice between a hundred different UI frameworks in Elm. Some patterns around how you build apps this small, I think are still being established but I think there are strong conventions already and the trend of the Elm community is towards picking strong conventions. You'll see Evan, the creator of the language, He'll talk about how he wants to have one really good library instead of 15 overlapping libraries of varying quality to solve the same problem. Elm has conventions already. The places where it doesn't have strong conventions are I think places that will get filled in but the goal is to pick up the language and you get everything you need to build an application attached to it that's all kind of figured out for you. CHRIS: It's been interesting you mentioned the thing about it's better to have one good library, rather than 15 libraries of varying quality. I've seen that a little bit in practice. One of the things that I started looking for pretty early on when I was messing with Elm was what client-side routing look like. There are a couple of different routing libraries. But if you look at them, you can see that they're actually kind of this progression, like you can see how they have built on each other and they're kind of like building up the stack of abstractions toward one final solution. It's very interesting because it's not like those other libraries that are still there. If you really wanted to use just a regular URL parser and build your own, you could. But you can also see this development towards something that anyone could take off the shelf and start using. JAMISON: Yeah, and Elm has been around, I think it was 2011 when it first started. But really, Elm as like a popular thing that people hear about and use in production is only a couple of year's old maybe. There are still some things that are evolving like that. I think you're right that they're evolving towards convention instead of, in my mind JavaScript values, the proliferation of tons of different ideas and just wild exploration. Elm seems like it values a little more consensus and aligning the community behind one solution. I think it's happening, if it's not there yet, it'll get there, I guess. ALEX: I have a question about writing test in Elm and how that feels different than writing tests in JavaScript because the way I find myself writing tests right now is I understand the language to be fragile and I understand some frameworks have some fragility because of that language so I find myself writing really strong tests that are easy to break. I imagine that maybe in Elm, that's a little bit different with this very strong convention that you're talking about. JAMISON: Yes, some of it is around not having to be as defensive in your testing. If you wanted to get really, really down in the nitty-gritty in JavaScript, there are just an incredible array of different inputs you would have to test to make sure someone doesn't pass in like [inaudible] to this function where you think it's an array or whatever, like you just don't have to write any of those tests because the compiler catches that. We haven't talked about purity at all and this concept in functional programming where your functions can't cause side effects. They can't just go make a network request or write to disc or console.log like right in the middle. The functions take an input and return an output. You can do that in JavaScript. You can write your functions that way but because that feature is built into the language, it's the only way to write functions in Elm which makes it really easy to test functions because you just pass them stuff and you check what they return. In my experience, that makes them easier to test. You still build UIs and you still make network requests so you still construct some HTML at some point in your program. You can if you want to test that the HTML looks right or that elements have certain classes and stuff. But I guess what I'm saying is the tests feel like they're testing the behavior more than the edge cases when I write tests in them just because the compiler eliminates a bunch of weird edge cases you don't have to worry about. ALEX: Coming from a component-based JavaScript framework, what is going to be my experience jumping into Elm? How is that going to feel different for me? JAMISON: That's a great question. Myself and almost everyone I've seen get started in Elm that comes from something based around components that the instinct is to create components in Elm for everything. You have a select box in Ember or React or whatever and you wrap it in components. You can just reuse it everywhere. In Elm, if you try to do that, you will hate it and think Elm is broken and horrible and just sucks. It's because the Elm architecture comes with, I guess, you could call it boilerplate, there's some work you have to do to build a component that can do IO and respond to events and stuff. That work is... I don't know, maybe like a dozen lines of code. Then there's some work to wire those components up together, that's maybe a couple more lines of code. So if you have like 300 components in your Elm application, you'll have... I don't know, like thousands of lines that just wiring stuff together code which won't really buy you that much because in my experience, using components is an attempt to make things understandable and isolate concerns. You get a lot of that from having peer functions and having a strong a static-type system. In Elm, you end up making a lot wider components, instead of having this deep tree of lots of components nested inside of each other. You'll have a much flatter but wider tree. That took a while to get used to but I think it makes sense for the language now. You can still create reusable things but you focus more on creating reusable functions instead of creating components that are black boxes, that you kind of package up and pass around. You can still do reuse but it's a little bit different than reuse in a component-based framework. This is a thing. I would say, in the last year, there's been a lot more discussion on blogposts and screencasts and stuff on a year ago, a couple of people were talking about it but there weren't really lots of great examples of this and now, I think, even the Elm Guide has some examples of reuse without components. ALEX: Yes. One of my favorite things about component-based JavaScript is because I've learned to test them so well. Even though, sometimes they can turn into a configuration ball, I've been able to make them very reliable, even if they are deeply nested so going away from that scares me. JAMISON: Yeah, it totally scared me. It felt wrong and weird and bad. But now, it doesn't. I don't know, I'm used to it, I guess, and I still write a lot of JavaScript. It's not that hard switching back and forth between those two mental models but I definitely had to develop a different mental model when writing Elm code. CHRIS: I'm interested in talking about some of the tooling. I know Elm has a lot of tooling. They have elm-reactor and they have the compiler. But I think I know that you also do the kind of dip into some of the JavaScript tooling if you are getting into bigger Elm application. You're probably still going to need something like a Webpack or Browserify, I guess. I'm curious what's your experience with that has been? JAMISON: You can definitely just write an Elm application and then compile it into this JavaScript file then drop that in a script tag on your page and it will all work. The complexity can get very low. If you want to do more advanced stuff like talking to JavaScript, You can still do all that without any additional tooling, if you would like. If you have a lot of dependencies in your JavaScript or you have a large JavaScript application or code base that you want to integrate with Elm, then you can use something like Webpack or Browserify. In my experience, it's no more painful than Webpack or Browserify. All the rest of that stuff already is. I don't know, there's an Elm Webpack plugin that will run the Elm compiler and allow you to import your Elm application into JavaScript file and I think there are similar stuff for Browserify and some of the other module bundlers. I don't think there's anything radically new on the Elm side as far as bundling up your application or anything like that. It just kind of works like you expect. The places where, I think Elm tooling is cool in ways that I haven't seen that much in JavaScript are in the Elm package manager. If you are building a package yourself, it has automatic semantic versioning built in so they have a type system. They can detect when your interfaces change automatically. If you try and release a version that you change the interface and you don't bump the version, they will like yell at you because that's a breaking change. There's some cool stuff around that that you get with the language having a static-type system. The debugger is a new thing as of a couple of weeks ago. That's built into the language. You might have seen similar stuff in other frameworks but it's all kind of extra add-ons. In Elm, because it has kind of a framework built into the language, they can also build in a debugger for that framework in the language. You can enable debug mode, pull up an application, click around, do a bunch of stuff, and then it'll record a log of all those actions and you can scroll back through them and jump to any point in that timeline to reload the state of the application to that point. You can export that log to a JSON file and then kind of send that around, have someone load that log in, and it'll get your application back into the same state. It's a really good for creating bug reports. You click some button 15 times and then it breaks -- do that, export the logs, send that to someone else. Instead of having to follow all the steps, they can just load your state and then figure out what's broken about that. I think that there are some tooling advances that are enabled by both the language itself, like the static type system and also the focus on strong conventions and frameworks built into the language. Does that makes sense? CHRIS: Yeah, absolutely. As you were talking, I thought about was that some tooling that you lean a lot on in JavaScript is kind of rendered unnecessary by the error messages in Elm. All of the things that you may bring in an extra tool to catch in JavaScript when in Elm will just tell you when it compiles and it will give you this just unbelievably friendly, informative, and easy to diagnosed error message that tells you like, "This is the exact line where this happened. Maybe you mean to do this instead," because it can make all sorts of inferences about, like what you probably meant to do based on the type signature you gave to a function or something. I could see that going a long way toward making a subset of tools just unnecessary in Elm. JAMISON: Yeah, a lot of tooling around JavaScript has sprung up to address... I don't know, not weaknesses but areas where people have identified JavaScript needs a little help now. If that's passive aggressive enough way to say it. The language is 20 years old. It was created way before people were building giant, million line code bases in it. But Elm is much younger and has the benefit of a lot of history and hindsight. It turns out you can avoid a lot of tools if you eliminate their need. I have had that weird feeling where I'm building a JavaScript project and it feels like I'm flying a 747. There's a thousand switches everywhere. I'm like powering up a bunch of different things. It feels like I'm being really productive because I'm configuring ESLint in Webpack, in Flow, and all these different tools. Then I go to Elm and I just start typing and it feels like I'm less productive but I've just skipped so many steps. It is a different feeling. ALEX: Would you say that maybe you feel so productive in JavaScript because it has such a strong community, with so many examples and so much shared code? Elm being a younger community, and this is strictly an assumption, may not be at that maturity level where you can share code and have that particular level of productivity. JAMISON: Yes. There are definitely third party libraries in Elm. There's probably a few orders of magnitude difference in the community sizes between Elm and JavaScript. There are just way more people writing JavaScript. The likelihood that someone will have ended up at your weird feature that you need for some random program is probably a little higher. There are some numbers differences. In my experience, the people that are really into Elm right now enjoy solving their own problems because it does feel like they're a little bit more of your own problems to solve. It's a tradeoff. I was going to say, if you value 100% focus on building business features, JavaScript might be better but I don't necessarily think that's the case. Using a bunch of third party code comes with a cost and some of that cost is you have to understand the API and some of it is you have to kind of take some responsibility for knowing where it breaks down. In Elm, I think that responsibility is lessened by the language because the API is a lot easier to understand when you can look at the types that the API creates and uses. It's a lot harder for it to just break your stuff. I think you could make the argument that even though there's a giant repository of JavaScript code out there, a lot of it might not be great for your program. But if you're using Elm, the smaller amount of code that is out there already could be easier to use and help you even more productive. ALEX: I would like to try to segue into the Elm community now and what that looks like? What is this Elm community? How do you get involved, say, I'm coming from JavaScript or any language and I love it? Maybe my work doesn't use Elm just yet but how can I contribute? How can I continue to write more Elm code for not just my specific use cases? JAMISON: I think my favorite thing about the Elm community is its focus on friendliness and learnability. I call it 'ruthless focus'. They are aggressively committed to building a language that is easy for people to pick up. If you are coming to Elm for the first time, you're pulling your hair out because it looks totally different from JavaScript. That might not make any sense to you. But a lot of the ideas that Elm has come from other languages like Haskell or ML languages and those languages, I would say, are proudly hard to get into. It's like a badge of honor to learn Haskell and then you like bleed to do it and then you enter this elite club where you got to talk about monoids all day. Elm is like a strong negative reaction against that, like they want this to be a language that people can learn and get some of the benefit. Because there are cool things in languages like Haskell so the goal is to take some of those cool things and other cool things from other places too. But put them in a package that is easy for people to pick up without devoting their life to an arcane branch of mathematics. I think they do a really good job of that. I've done Haskell pretty hard a few times and I'll bounce off it some more. I don't feel confused about Elm at all in anyway. In Elm, it's not like I'm some genius that can pick it up. It's that they have eliminated a lot of complexity and made it friendly and easy to learn. I think that carries over into the community. They're really interested in helping people who are new to functional programming or are new to programming in general. They're also just nice. if there's an Elm Slack channel that you hang out in and like any internet chat channel, sometimes people will get a little testy and in the Elm one, they're so good at defusing situations, calming people down, like apologizing, and like being human beings. You don't see a lot of rage-y arguments where people say mean things about each other. I've been really impressed with that. I want to talk a little bit more about what the community is like and then maybe talk about how to get into it, if that's okay. I would say the community is -- I know, it's evenly split but it seems fairly evenly split between people coming from JavaScript's who don't have any functional programming experience and people coming from functional programming who don't have any UI experience. It's interesting seeing those two very different groups come together and they're both attracted to Elm for different reasons and they kind of pull it a little bit in different ways. But it makes an interesting group of people to be around because you learn a lot of cool UI stuff, a lot of cool functional programming stuff. ALEX: Sounds like a recipe for success, really. JAMISON: Yeah. I think if they can make functional programming not have the snootiness that it has sometimes in genders and people, then I think functional programming is great technically. I think the culture around it can be just obnoxious. So I think if Elm can take the good things without the bad things, that's amazing and that's kind of what it's trying to do. As far as getting into the Elm community, are you talking about writing open source or contributing to open source or just where they hang out? ALEX: Yeah, I was talking about contributing to open source but maybe Elm is just a better community for a certain style of contribution and maybe that looks like a blogpost and a coding example of how to do something yourself. JAMISON: Like any new technology, there are definitely in the kind of evangelism phase. If you do write a blogpost that says nice things about Elm, there's like a horde of people that will swarm all over it because they like people to say nice things about Elm. There's a bunch of people like writing books, doing screencast, speaking on it, introducing people to it, and that's well received very well. I think there's at least one podcast on Elm already. So all that to say that I think the community receives kind of education and I guess, you can call it evangelism stuff very well and they're excited about that. If you are interested in contributing to open source, you can actually go to Package.Elm-Lang.org and you can see all of the Elm third party libraries and they all have these GitHub for the backing of its package manager. They all have source links right there. You can just find any random library and get to its source. I think the community is pretty open to contributions from people. If you want to see Elm source code and contribute to it, they're very open to that. This is kind of a culture shock to me coming from other communities where you can't just like show up, submit a patch to Elm core, and then have a discussion, and get it accepted or rejected. They're not super open to direct code level contributions. They would prefer more use case feedback, discussion, and suggestions. Then the core team will take all these feedback in, think about it, come up with a plan, and then implement it, instead of take a lot of little patches from people. Some of the core libraries are a little bit harder to directly contribute code to but they are very open. If you try and use it, you run into something that doesn't work the way you expected and you can create a small example that demonstrates that. They're super open to discussions about that to influence the direction of the API. CHRIS: I think over the course of JavaScript and front-end development, there has been kind of waves of abstraction over JavaScript. There were just libraries and there were things like backbone and then it kind of moved into doing something like CoffeeScript or TypeScript and a couple others where the idea is -- ALEX: Good old Objective-J. CHRIS: Yeah, exactly. You might be transpiling down a JavaScript but there are still very much a clear link between something like CoffeeScript and JavaScript. Elm seems like it is one of a new batch of approaches where we're actually going to just sidestep JavaScript almost entirely. Like it is going to be like JVM bytecode or a browser and we're going to build an entirely new language on top of that. I know there's also a bit like ClojureScript, Scala.js, and PureScript and I'm curious, do you think that is going to be a continuing trend that front-end development is going to land on a mainstream solution that might not actually be JavaScript at all? Or do you see it as eventually circling back and pulling a lot of these features into JavaScript itself? JAMISON: I don't think that front-end development will be Elm in like five years or whatever. I don't think it's going to replace JavaScript at all. I think it might definitely influence tooling libraries or the language itself. The Elm architecture looks a lot like Redux because the Redux author read Elm and they're like, that's cool and then they wrote it in JavaScript. There are other places where like time-travelling debugging. I believe the JavaScript thing came from the Elm time-travelling debugger as well. There are cases where it has influenced JavaScript's already and I think that will continue to happen. Flow is a gradual-type system. You can lay it on top of JavaScript and they have done a lot of work on their error messages influenced by Elm. It's super cool to see all those influences back into the JavaScript community as a whole. I think there are classes of people who are more interested in doing some sprinkling of JavaScript on to pages. They might not even be like programmers really. They're kind of like designers who do a little bit of coding and I don't know if Elm makes sense for that kind of role where you just need to add a little bit of interaction. You can do that but it doesn't seem like a thing that group would focus on. It's just really hard to change the world. I write a lot of JavaScript so I'm bias but it feels like it's the most popular language in the world and being the most popular Language in the world is not a thing that's easily overthrown. But I think it will grow, like programming will look more like Elm does just in general in the future and I think JavaScript will as well. But I also think Elm will continue to grow. There's a lot of excitement about it and there's not a ton of people bouncing hard off of it. There's some people they're looking at it and they're like, "Eh, not yet." Some people just look at it and hate it. But from people that use it, I don't see a lot of those people dropping out. I've seen most of them sticking around. I think the trend is definitely -- Elm will grow. But I don't know if that will take over the world. ALEX: Then what lessons are developers bringing back to say and to write better JavaScript? JAMISON: I think a lot of people are learning about types and data modeling. If you learn programming through JavaScript, the idea that there's this defined shape that your data has and some tool will help you make sure that your data always looks like that is kind of like strange and foreign. I think a lot of people are learning that there's value in that. If you grew up in the MongoDB / Angular world like everything is schema-less, you just kind of slam some JavaScript objects everywhere, it all works, then it breaks, and you don't know why and you need to track it down. But I think seeing the value and thinking a little bit more clearly about what your data looks like and then forcing that through tooling is one lesson. That is taking a little bit more root in JavaScript. All the stuff around functional programming in JavaScript is like achieved buzzword status by now. But there is definitely still some education happening around how it's easier to test peer functions, how they're easier to understand and reuse, and how it's good to write them. I think Elm will continue to push that. Some of it though is there are some ideas you can take from Elm but it's just so much easier to use them to their fullest potential in a language and environment built around those ideas. You can kind of like cram a type system on to JavaScript. It's still really easy to get around and it does not model side effects at all. The elm type system modeled side effects so it helps you reason about where my program can talk to a network, where it can do things that are going to take a while to come back, and kind of sandbox those things into a place where you expect them, instead of have them sprinkled all over your program. CHRIS: I definitely feel that uncanny valley of trying to bring FP -- functional programming -- things back into JavaScript when it comes to pattern matching. That's something that in Elm or Elixir or any number of more functional languages. Pattern matching enables a lot of these higher level patterns that don't always translate super great back to JavaScript land. JAMISON: Yeah, the uncanny valley is a great way to put it. There are a lot of things that you can do that will lead to better JavaScript. But you always have to take the environment that you're working in into consideration. There are just some things you can't do or some things that are going to be more pain than they're worth to do. On the other hand, it is kind of nice to just type console.log wherever you want or type like '$.getJSON' or whatever. The added security that Elm brings comes at a cost of locking you down a little bit and that can be a little frustrating to people sometimes. But I think the payoff is worth it. ALEX: A side story. About six months ago, I tried to get into the Haskell programming book. That's currently being worked on. That's because I want to learn some functional programming lessons, maybe bring them back into my JavaScript, or just learn something new. It's useful to learn a new language and bring it back to your work. Of this 1300 page book, I got just past Chapter 2 and I was in a Haskell book club like everybody held each other accountable to finish this book. I did not make it. I could not figure out how to bring any of these lessons back into my code which is what I wanted to do here. Elm takes that functional programming concept and says, "We're applying it to UI right away." There's no, "How do I apply this? How do I side step this?" No, you're doing it immediately. Really, you're getting me excited to jump back into this tutorial and learn it and check out the community, just to be able to bring this back to my day to day and bring those lessons and do it. JAMISON: Yeah, the first time I tried to learn Haskell, I learned that I could sort an array of integers in memory and that was it. That was as far as my Haskell skills took me so I definitely feel you there. In Haskell, they'll tell you it's a research language so they have a lot of reasons why it kind of works the way it does and learning it takes the pathway it does. Elm is definitely not a research language. It's trying to be incredibly pragmatic so you build UIs. In the guide, that's how they teach you the language. It's the stuff you normally build. Thank you for bringing that up. I think, it's a thing that they focus on. I'm glad you picked it out. ALEX: Yeah, at the learning curve is the syntax but you're still solving those same problems. If you're coming from UI, you already have that context. That is probably the majority of the hard work -- it's solving problems that are meaningful to you. JAMISON: Yeah, for me the syntax, I had learned enough Haskell that the syntax wasn't hard -- how to make HTTP requests and do site-affecting things like that. It was the hang up for me but Elm, there is a way to do it and they show you and that's how you do everything and it all works the same way and it's fairly easy to understand. I don't want to call it easy because that makes people that struggle to feel that but they put a lot of work into making that both robust so it won't break your program and also learnable. CHRIS: One thing I would love to mention about the syntax, I have learned a number of languages, I guess and the Elm syntax was definitely one that threw me the most and it put me off for, I guess it wasn't so much just the syntax, it was the syntax combined with how people do things that I would call more like style choices. JAMISON: The formatting? CHRIS: Yeah, Elm formats things in weird ways. Except that there is a tool called 'elm-format'. Once I've discovered that it has a really great editor integration for a lot of editors, it effectively remove that problem because I discovered that I can essentially write garbage basically in my editor and I can say that anything will make it look beautiful. It's fantastic. It removes such a big barrier for me when I was trying to learn it. JAMISON: Yeah, elm-format, there were some great debates about it while it was being created but now that it exists, it's awesome. Speaking a little bit more of tooling, Elm comes out with new releases of the language with some backwards and compatible changes. But along with that, they release a tool to upgrade your Elm code automatically. It's not perfect and it won't run on 100%. It won't fix everything but with most projects, it fixes everything. Again, the benefit of having such a strict language is there's tools that will just upgrade all your stuff for you. That's pretty awesome. It lowers the cost of evolving the language because they can keep adding new things and changing things without just leaving the community in the dust like we've seen in some other stuff. That's kind of an Ember-ish thing, I guess. Ember has the whole stability... What is it? Something without stagnation? Stability without stagnation? CHRIS: Stability without stagnation. JAMISON: Where you just get all these free upgrades that are really easy to opt into and Elm has that same philosophy. ALEX: What made you decide to check out Elm, to check out this community? Do you like to jump into new languages, new communities, and poke around and see what sticks? Or is there something that attracted you to Elm in particular. JAMISON: Yes to both of those. I do poke around in a lot of new languages. I have a good friend, Sean Hess who's really into functional programming and he's a Haskell true believer. I am not but he is, so he teaches me stuff by Haskell. I think, he told me about it. I might be misremembering though. It might have been just some random blogpost or podcast somebody did a few years ago. But I was already excited about new languages and functional programming and I had tried to learn Haskell and bounced off so the idea of a functional programming language that takes some good ideas from Haskell, that runs in the browser that's new. It was like all the shiny things that I look for altogether in one thing. I tried it and I liked it. I, also was really impressed by Evan Czaplicki, He's the creator of Elm. His philosophy around creating a language and the goals he wanted to accomplish with it. There's a really good talk he gave and called 'Let's be mainstream' which talks about some of the stuff we talked about around if functional programming is pure statically-typed functional programming is so amazing and it has all these people that love it and swear it's the only way to write software, why no one does it? Why the number of people use it is so small? His thesis is basically because the languages that do this are kind of user hostile so he's trying to make it a user friendly, the one that takes all those ideas. I just really liked that philosophy. CHRIS: I want to go back to something that you mentioned a little bit ago and that was data modeling because that is definitely something that I noticed being extremely helpful, any time I'm using a statically-typed language. It is very much something that I brought with me back to JavaScript. But I was wondering, Maybe you could talk a little bit more in depth about what data modeling really means in terms of Elm, the type system, the record type, and that kind of stuff. JAMISON: Yeah, if you've worked with statically-typed languages like Java or C++ or something, you might have an idea of things like classes as a way to model data where you create a class and you say it has all these fields on it. I think, in the Elm type system, I'm going to say it's a lot better than those languages because it has a lot less ceremony and it is a lot more powerful. Elm has type inference which means you don't have to declare the type of everything. It can just figure it out from a lot of places. That's the thing that makes your code a lot friendlier to write. To model data in Elm, there are two main ways to do that. One is with these record types that you mentioned, Chris. You basically declare an object that has a certain shape like I'll make a type called 'user' and it has a user ID and a hash password and... I don't know, a list of my favorite cats or whatever. Then you can just refer to that user type in function arguments or in return types or anything like that. In Elm, because you created that type, it knows that these are all the fields it has. If you try to access a field that's not on there, it'll yell at you because you're doing something that won't work. Because you have to think through all of the different fields that are on your types, it forces you to do a little bit more. It's kind of like the other side of TDD instead of writing test first. You have to think about your data first. You could call it type-driven development, I guess. CHRIS: That's awesome. JAMISON: In my experience, that's helpful. In the same way, TDD is, right? It helps you to do a little bit of design first. Think about how you're going to interact with the program in some way. Instead of writing tests, you're thinking what data do I need here. They also have these things that you could call them -- there are a bunch of different names for them: algebraic data types, I guess. Some people call them tagged unions. They're kind of like enums where you say this type can take any of these finite list of values. But instead of an enum being like an integer, like it is in some languages with a fancy name wrapped around it, the enum types can contain other value. You can say... what's a good example for this? You could say a user is either an authenticated user with a user record inside it or an unauthenticated user. Then when you're using that type in your program, you check, "Is this user type the authenticated user?" Then, if so it has this user field inside of it that you can pluck out and use. Or, "Is it an unauthenticated user?" Those two different things, the super enums, the algebraic data types plus the record types are really powerful for modeling what data looks like in the real world. I haven't run into that many issues where it's been hard to do something I want to do with just those two concepts. Type systems are hard to explain over the air but hopefully, that helped a little bit. ALEX: I thought that was great. CHRIS: I think a good example of the algebraic data type thing is looking at messages in Elm versus actions in Redux. If our listeners are familiar with those, they are very, very, very similar at a high level. But in Redux, you just have string then you do a switch statement or something and you match on some strings. You hope that you synced everything up correctly. JAMISON: Yeah, you say, "This action has a message and then has a payload that looks like this." See if it match against the message and then hope that the payload somebody sent actually looks like you expect it to look. CHRIS: Yeah, whereas in Elm, you can actually say, "My message type is a union of all of these different things," and now, Elm knows exactly what you're saying and you can't accidentally send the wrong payload to the wrong update function or something. It's one of the cases where I found that there's a very, very clear similarity in JavaScript and it highlights, I think a lot of the nice features that Elm brings to that equation. JAMISON: Yeah and there's even more strictness around that, like you have to handle every message type in Elm. So if you say, "This function takes in a message and does something with it," and then you check against what kind of message it is, you have to check every case or Elm won't compile because they don't want you to just blindly miss something, I guess. But in Redux, you could just happily forget a thing in your case statement and then you send a message and it doesn't do anything and then you have to kind of trace through it and debug why that's happening. There's just more helpful stability stuff built in. CHRIS: Cool. I am so incredibly happy with how this podcast went. I'm just excited to start coding and start getting into Elm. I think people and developers maybe at an inflection point with JavaScript and just going and checking out something else that they can immediately apply back to their day to day. I think, it's so incredibly valuable and something that I'm going to be looking to explore very certain. JAMISON: The value pitch is pretty strong because everyone that's written JavaScript has just written code that breaks when things get passed around that they don't expect. I do that all the time and Elm makes that impossible. You can break it in other ways but you just eliminate this class of errors that plagues your existence in JavaScript. If you want to experience that life, check out Elm. It's got a lot of other good things too but just writing code that does not crashes is a pretty strong pitch, I think. ALEX: Jamison, are there any resources that you might recommend for someone who wants to get started with Elm? JAMISON: Somebody mentioned the guide a few times. Everyone says that about every language, check out the official tutorial or whatever, and they have wildly varying quality. The Elm guide is the thing that worked a ton on. It's pretty good, I think and geared towards people that have no knowledge of Elm, no knowledge of functional programming stuff. That's a Guide.Elm-lang.org. Then there's a Slack channel. If you just go to Elm-lang.org, it will have links to the Slack channel and there are lots of helpful friendly people there. I think those are the two best resources because with those, you can find all the other stuff. CHRIS: There's also another one that I really like to mention which is the elm tutorial. I think, it's Elm-tutorial.org. I found it to be a really great compliment to the official Elm Guide. I think it walks through a little more in building a full app where the Elm Guide kind of touches on a bunch of different related topics. But they're not necessarily one narrative. The Elm tutorial did a really good job of tying all that together for me. JAMISON: Yeah and this is been around for a long time and has kept it up through the evolution of the language. This is good stuff. ALEX: Jamison, thank you for coming on the Frontside Podcast. We really appreciated talking to you. JAMISON: Thanks for having me. ALEX: If you love Jamison's voice, you should check out his React Conf talk from 2016 also about Elm. It's a wonderful talk. Go check that out as well. JAMISON: Thank you. Can I pitch my other stuff too? Is that kosher? ALEX: You can absolutely pitch it. CHRIS: Soft skills engineering! JAMISON: Yeah, I do a podcast called Soft Skills Engineering with my friend Dave Smith where we talk about all of the non-technical stuff in writing code. It's like you [inaudible], you can submit questions, and we answer them. If you're interested in talking about building software together, you should talk to the Frontside first. But after that, you can find me at Fivestack.computer. That's where my consultancy lives. Consults is maybe a strong way of describing it. That's like saying the three toddlers standing on top of each other in a trench coat is like an adult. But if you want to work together, then check that out. ALEX: Great. All right. That wraps it up for us. Thank you very much for listening and we'll talk to you next week.
In this episode, Yehuda Katz, co-founder of Tilde, OSS enthusiast, and world traveler, talks about what's in store for Ember. Yehuda Katz: @wycats | blog | GitHub Transcript: ALEX: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Frontside Podcast, Episode 46. My name is Alex Ford, subbing in for our usual hosts, Brandon and Charles, today. We have an awesome episode. We have a really special treat for you. Co-creator of Ember, Yehuda Katz is joining us today. Hello, Yehuda. YEHUDA: Heyo! ALEX: We also have a first time Frontside podcaster, Chris Freeman. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself? CHRIS: Hey, everybody. ALEX: We've also got a podcast Frontside favorite, Robert DeLuca. ROBERT: Favorite? I don't know if you say that. Hey, everyone. How are you doing? ALEX: I'm really excited about our guest today. Yehuda was just in Austin a couple of days ago. He gave a great meet up talk and a deep dive into Ember and it looks like you're going on-tour with that talk, Yehuda. Is that what I saw from your website schedule? YEHUDA: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly. I change it up every time, largely because things happen. So if I say this thing is 'active' or 'in progress', and then it actually shifts, I have to change it up. I've been talking a little bit about what's up on what we were working on. ALEX: Do you want to give us a brief outline as to what's going on in that talk for those podcast listeners who might not be able to attend? What's going on with Ember? What's new? What is it that you're trying to get across here? YEHUDA: Sure. Actually, the talk I gave in Austin was, you're right, it was basically a deep dive. It was really focusing on a few targeted things that we're working on. I would say that at a high level, we're basically working on a couple of things. One of them is generally more integration with the ecosystem, things like ES6 modules, classes, components that look more like HTML and more graphic components and things like that, also improving EmberCLI so it's more integrated with other tools that people are using. A lot of that stuff has to do with the fact that Ember started a long time ago now, like five years ago or so. And so, I think we've actually done a pretty good job of keeping up with things. For example, we adopted ES6 modules and promises a while ago now, and I think generally speaking, we tend to keep up with the ecosystem. But because we've been around for so long, there are certain things like classes, where it took a while for that feature to catch up with the functionality that we were using in Ember. Decorators landed a little while ago as a stage 2 feature in TC39, and that lets us really take a bigger chunk of the functionality that we have in our class model. I make it work for everybody with class syntax and that's something we're pretty excited about. So that's one area just generally taking things where Ember had its own stuff and try to integrate a better ecosystem. Another big area is this mobile readiness and also, a lot of that has to do with the fact that things like service worker have just recently landed. For example, AppCache was a nice feature in some ways. Some people at Google will kill me for using the word 'nice' in AppCache in the same sentence. [Laughter] YEHUDA: But AppCache was trying to accomplish something for a long time. I think it did some version of what it was trying to do. But really, using AppCache is a default behavior for all users having - there's too many caveats to make it work well where service worker, because it's more of level one and more directly controllable is a better fit for something that we could ship with all Ember users. We basically want to use Ember and EmberCLI, you build an application, you get a good mobile experience out of the box. Some of that has to do with trimming down parts of Ember that we don't need to be using in simple applications. Some of it has to do with service workers, some of it has to do with things like Glimmer 2, just making the performance better. But generally, that's the other [inaudible] so it's basically mobile readiness on the one hand and just integrating better with the one ecosystem are both big picture things we're work on. ALEX: Something that you brought up in your talk where private Ember methods and how a lot of people use private methods and you have to keep them around, what you we're just talking about that was unifying around the conventions of programming in Ember. Whatever JavaScript people bring in to Ember, you want to try to incorporate that as the language moves forward which is, I think, a really interesting problem. Also, something you could talk about a little bit further is what you look for in the way people use Ember going forward and how you have to kind of bend the framework to allow it to be backwards compatible. I'm curious what that decision making is like. YEHUDA: What you're talking about and what I talked about yesterday is what we call 'intimate APIs' and that basically means APIs that we never intended to be public. But for some reason or the other, people got their hands on them and started using them. I gave a somewhat elaborate example of funky case yesterday. But basically, the way we approach generally dealing with compatibility is pretty similar to how the web itself does it. First off, there's a thing that we mark as a public API. We just don't break it unless we make a major version which is very rare. We have basically one of those the entire Ember, and I don't think there's anyone coming in the near future. One option is if we don't like something, we just break it. That's very uncommon. Another option, and this is way more common, is that we try to build -- it's for public APIs -- we try to build a new API and we try to nudge people away from the old one. One approach for nudging that is probably the most common is deprecation. So, deprecations themselves don't violate semantic versioning because we're allowed to say, "Please don't use this anymore." The one area that's annoying about deprecations is that if backup code that powers the old feature has to still stick around. And so something that we've been working on around that aspect, around deprecations is something we called svelte build, which is basically the idea that we'll mark every deprecation with the version, that it will start to be deprecated in and people can ask for, "Please don't include any code that was deprecated out of 2.4, or 2.5, or 2.6, or whatever." Then, we'll automatically slip it away. You could think of it sort of like as a reverse feature flag. CHRIS: Wow, that's actually super interesting. I didn't know that. YEHUDA: We haven't finished it up yet but the RFC that talked about it and actually some old guy who actually wrote the RFC along with 1.13 when I noticed that 2.0 was going to end up being a pretty painful release for a lot of users. We did a lot of things around 2.0 to make things less painful, like we made sure that 1.13 contained all of the deprecations that you could possibly need, as well as all the new features. So if you went to 1.13, you could look at all the deprecation warnings, switch to the new functionality. As long as you have no deprecations left, 2.0 was just the exact same code without any of the deprecated features. But as we're working on that, I realized that there is no real reason to give people such a heartbreak, if we could instead just slip away the code. So that's one approach and I think, more or less deprecations, and then eventually, svelte builds are the normal path. With regard to intimate APIs, those are cases where people came to rely on very specific timing or very specific API, very specific details in some internal API and for those things, if we know that a lot of people use them -- usually they get used to like a couple of add-ons. Maybe Ember Wormhole, which is really popular, we'll use it. Then it's really hard for us to remove those things. Those APIs are harder to maintain compatibility for because the exact details of what they even did was never really well-defined in the first place because they were never documented. So usually what we'll do is we'll look at the usage of the API. We'll come up with a new API that is satisfying the exact same use case, and then we'll deprecate the old API. The policy these days is that you have to go through an LTS release so we'll make sure it's deprecated. Let's say, you want to deprecate something now, make sure it's deprecated in 2.8. And you'll know that if you were actually doing the whole song and dance that deprecate what is intrinsically a private API, so it would be within our rights to say like, "Sorry guys. You used the private API. We're not going to help you." But we really think it's important that for Ember, if something feels like a breaking change, that we're not doing it willy-nilly. If somebody upgrades to 2.9 and all of the sudden, Wormhole stops working, they're not going to understand that the reason that happened was because Wormhole did a bad thing. We basically need to do a clear pass. So we'll do a deprecation in LTS release, then we'll wait a couple of releases before removing it. Then usually what happens is, in the meantime, we'll go ahead and we'll submit pull request for the big add-ons that we're responsible for, and we'll also try to talk and write down why it happened. Historically, we've done that a few times and it's worked okay. There was an example of this, which is the lookup factory API in Ember which is really a boring API but it's used by a bunch of high profile add-ons. So the reasons why we needed to deprecate it were silly. They were just a bunch of bad behavior in the old thing that was making everything super slow. We can make things faster by giving people exactly the same functionality without exactly but identical guarantees. So there were some 'guarantees' which don't even make sense for private API. But there were some things that in theory, the API did that we didn't want to support because of performance reasons. And so, we gave people a new API that is, for all intents and purposes, identical. All users will be able to use it in identical way. But it doesn't have exactly the same weirdness and that weirdness was pretty expensive. ALEX: So you've trained Ember developers to be on the 6-week release cycle? They're looking at the blog posts. They're looking to upgrade but you've been involved in a lot of open source projects where I'm sure that wasn't really the case. Say, jQuery has a huge API and obviously, some things have to be deprecated on that and you were on the jQuery core team, I should mention. YEHUDA: Rails has the same story whereas API releases every year, more or less. ALEX: So, I'm just curious. The fact that you have Ember developers, I would like to think bingeing on your word and hinging on those updates, how would you go about, say, the Rails API? Or the jQuery API? Maybe, now you're involved with Rust, and maybe the plan is to have Rust on a 6-week release cycle. I'm curious, if you don't have your developer's attention, as you do the Ember developers, how do you deprecate an API like that? YEHUDA: That's a good question. How do you deal with deprecations if you're releasing quickly? I think there's a couple of important points to make here. First of all, Rust is on the 6-week release cycle. Sometimes, as the same kind of story with intimate APIs, it's much less common with a strong-type system like Rust. I guess, important things to point out, first of all, deprecations don't intrinsically break things. When we talk about intimate APIs and deprecations happening pretty quickly, those are APIs that are large, if someone is not paying super attention to Ember, they're probably not using those APIs, like they would not have known to use them in the first place. They might be using an add-on that use those APIs and the intimate API deprecation process causes the add-ons to update relatively quickly. In terms of regular deprecations, those deprecations stick around forever so you could come back a year later. For the most part, you could make an app that was 2.2 and upgrade it to 2.9 as long as you upgrade the add-ons that you are using at the same time and everything will work. We also realized that some people can't upgrade every six weeks and that LTS release process which is basically a six-month process, more or less. It basically gives us a communications channel to people who want to pay less attention. The way that that works is that, every four release cycles, so that six times four is 24 weeks -- about half a year. Every 24 weeks, there's another release. We assume people are on that release channel. Some people operate at 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8. Some people go directly from 2.4 to 2.8. For those users, we [inaudible] ecosystem, please make sure you support the last LTS release, which means that if your user's on 2.4, and 2.8 comes around, you know that you could have stuck to 2.4 and generally got add-on support and when 2.8 comes around, you should probably upgrade. Also, with intimate APIs, we make sure we always deprecation them one LTS release before we move into an LTS release. Now, what that means is that if we want to remove something by the 2.8 LTS, we have to have already deprecated it in 2.4. If we want to remove something by 2.12, we have to remove it at 2.8. So six months is still not quite the one-year Rails release cycle but it's starting to get to a reasonable state. Also, I would point out that the LTS releases, the support policy for them is that they're four cycles long. We do bug fix support for six cycles and security releases for 10. What that means is that we're actually supporting LTS releases. We were supporting two at a time for security patches -- two and half basically -- and we're supporting one and half at a time for critical bug fixes. The one and a half basically means that when 2.8 comes out, you have two release cycles which is basically three months to upgrade. If you're on 2.4, and 2.8 comes out, it's not like, "Oh, my God. Panic! I got to upgrade right now." You can take a few months to upgrade. Basically, 2.4 came out, you got all the deprecations you need to care about. You had six months to deal with deprecations and then another three months after that. Even in terms of intimate APIs, where in principle, like Rails and jQuery don't even care about those things for the most part -- ah, jQuery cares about it even more. But most projects will get private APIs and say, "Sorry you used the private API. Why did you do that?" Ember is a rare project in that we actually deprecate things that we know where we actually use them. We have a process for dealing with them. Even that process, like I said, it's not a six-week process. We don't deprecate something and remove it. We deprecate something and then give it a pretty long horizon before removing it. ROBERT: I'm curious. You brought up that you are the common element between jQuery, Rails, and Rust. I know that there are, at least, between Rust and Ember and from Rails to Ember, there have been a lot of commonalities and lessons learned in how the projects themselves are managed. But I'm also curious with Rails, Ember is clearly pretty heavily influenced by Rails, which you were doing before. You've been working on Rust quite a bit and I'm curious, does your usage of Rust, even though it's a very low-level language, does that influence Ember at all? Does that change how you think about the framework or JavaScript in general? YEHUDA: The number one thing that I got out of all those projects that I think used to be a thing is something like a conventional reconfiguration idea which is really not - I think the mentioned of reconfiguration is probably not even the best description of what it is. I think the idea that communities that are all working together on the same thing to build that thing bigger and better and better and better and build ecosystems around that thing, those communities are able to build much higher than communities that ask every single developer to put together a bunch of pieces themselves for profit. That's the basic idea. If you look at Rust, which is conceptually very low-level, you'll find that there are things like Cargo, which is a tool that not only builds your thing and not always package manager but it has a convention -- not only a convention -- it has a built-in support for documentation. So you're on Cargo docs, you get all your documentation for all your dependencies. You run Cargo bench. That's a built-in thing that runs your benchmark. You run Cargo test that runs your test. To mark your documentation as being Rust code, it will automatically run your tests for you when you run Cargo test. We will build your examples for you and make sure your samples keep compiling. There's all this stuff in Cargo that you would not necessarily consider, like it's basic [inaudible] helping you get your workflow the same. Then there's things like Rust format which you've been working on and there's been a huge debate in the community about exactly how much configuration we want to allow in Rust format. But the irony of it is something that most people agree with is that we should try to come up with some kind of default style for Rust that everyone agrees to, that most people can pick up and use the Rust products where it's often used. Then there's things like Futures and [inaudible], where the goal of those libraries is really to make there be a single central way that everybody does [inaudible] in Rust. These are all things that if you look at like C or C++, which are languages that are sort of in the same low-level in this space, in the same kind of area, you'll find that those languages have billions of ways in doing all of those things and there's so many different styles and so many different workflow tools, so many different things that you can make in then a million things that [inaudible]. Even the Rust is conceptually low-level, it doesn't really affecting every single environment as some sort of things that everyone doesn't need to do themselves. I think, an important thing that people don't always get about convention configuration is that it's not just that everybody doesn't have to do all of those things and it saves you some time, it's that when everyone is doing the same thing, it's a lot easier to build another level on top of that. For example, a fast food is a great example of this in Ember. The fact that everyone initializes their application using an Ember initializer, the fact that services were these global things that are sort of global- there's no better word than 'services' but global services, the different components could share the fact that those are all going in the same place. The fact that the way we manipulate DOM is always in a constraint single area. Almost things mean that when it comes out and to build something like fast food, it's pretty easy to take almost any Ember application and make it run in the fast food environment because we know what we're looking at, and that's something that isn't necessarily true about other tools. For me, Chris, the number one thing that, I think, all of those sharing, including jQuery, actually, like jQuery said, "There's so many different ways that people do DOM manipulation, why don't we unify it into one thing that I everyone can use?" You know, the 'jQuery plugin', which is something that has falling out of favor over time. The reason it was so popular was largely because people knew, "Okay, I'm dealing with jQuery object. If I just put a plug into the jQuery object, it makes sense." People understand how to use it. I think that's something that a lot of projects that I used to share and it's also something that is not close to ubiquitous. It's very uncommon, actually. So that's one thing -- the conventional configuration story. I think, another major aspect of all this, and this is something that jQuery and Rails do not share, but Rust and Ember have the RFC process, which more or less, is just a wave as a community of saying, "The way that we agree to add new features to the project is not something coming down the [inaudible] with a tablet every year." At a conferencing, we have agreed to add these features but sometimes people are core team, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes, they're actual contributors, coming with an idea, write their view down in a format that we all know how to do with. Then there's a community discussion about it. Sometimes it takes a very long time. Sometimes it's not. But then we eventually come to a conclusion about what it is that we're doing. Eventually, the core team agrees to merge the RFC. I think one of the nicest things about RFC process is that it produces an artifact that you can come back to a year, two years, three years later. If you say, "Oh, I wonder why they've made that decision. I wonder why that's the thing that they did," and the reason why this is great is that the RFCs are not gospel. They're not something that we should hold onto forever. But at the same time, we don't want to reel it again, things that we already discussed that in-depth over and over and over again. If a person comes back and they say, "Oh, why do they do that? The modification of RFC, why are these instructions directors are like that?" If they go back and look at the RFC and the thread associated with it, and the thing that they want to bring up is something that was already discussed, it's really no reason to bring it up again. But maybe someone have thought of a different idea or a different reason to dislike or to disagree with the decision that was already made. That was already discussed. That's a much better rationale for bringing up for re-litigate. In other words, re-litigating is actually good but if you re-litigating five times a day, on every decision, that's not why you move. So RFCs, by their very nature, the fact that the core team is doing things in public like anybody else and everybody else is also participating in that same process, the fact that artifact tells you, more or less, exactly what was discussed, makes it really easy to decide when is a good time to revisit some of the questions. ALEX: Do you find that poll request has the same process as an RFC and it's an artifact you can go back to, it's a place to have communication that is visible to everybody, unlike say, this micro message service such as Slack where context is just lost for the public. I'm curious if you want to see that modeled in poll requests or if an RFC is where something like that belongs. YEHUDA: I think, poll requests are great. I remember that when I was somewhat like the first user on GitHub who's not a founder of GitHub. I remember one of the things that excited me about GitHub early, although, the very beginning, didn't have poll request yet. but one thing that excite me about poll request is that before poll request, every single time I would use an issue tracker so they were like a billion issue trackers like [inaudible] whatever, and at that time I called it 'patch management'. I want something that helps me manage patches because the actual discussions are not the higher of it. The higher of it is something that submitted a request for me to merge in this patch. How do I merge it? How do I discuss with them? Those things were always really hard so I might ask people to upload patch files or whatever. It's hard to remember how bad things were but the number one thing that was just so obvious but also so terrible about the ecosystem before GitHub was patches were like old mailbox approach. Like you'll make a patch, and hopefully, get it to the right place at the right time. So I think, poll request and comments of poll request and many of the improvements that have been made for poll request are great. The reason, I think, RFC are really important in addition to poll request is that, by the time someone actually took the time to write some code and submit it, it's very easy to look at it and say, "Well, I don't necessary agree on all the things here but I don't want to give a person a hard time that will do the work," whereas somebody submit some idea early on and they say, "I have this idea --" It's actually a lot easier to sort of get into details at that point and say, "Don't do this. If we should do this or it doesn't fit that well with this other RFC or this other poll request that's already open --" But once somebody actually does start and actively working on the feature, I think, poll request are great, like most open source project these days. Ember doesn't ever committed anything to master. Everything goes to poll request, and even core team stuff. I also find that when I submitted a poll request or anybody in the core team, there are almost always people who are not in the core team that saves or fix in the poll request, for various reasons. Of course, poll request also are the usual mechanism by which people run things like CI and linting tools and things like that, called quality tools. I think, the poll request workflow is really good. In terms of other messaging services, I think, there just sometimes the need to have conversations that are faster than poll request and I don't really have any problem with check conversations. But I definitely agree that it has a deep conversation. This is something that happened in the [inaudible] a lot where we having this conversation with the core team and somebody will say like, "We should really move this out into a public discussion, or move it into RFC. If you don't agree with this thing that somebody said public, can you say [inaudible]." So I totally agree that if there's a thing that people want to say in private about something but it's just in private for convenience, it's not private or transient for any good reason, actually getting out there onto the issue or the poll request and say your opinion and letting the conversation back and forth happen there is, for the exact same reason as you said, very useful. In fact, Aaron Turon from Rust brings this point out repeatedly. We just had a conversation this past week about the fact that we have sort of a normal Rust project that, let say in the core team room and it's a technical topic, and it doesn't have anything sensitive about it, people always say like, "Hey, can you move that into Rust Internals," which is a public room. Or like moving this course, we have internals at Rust-Lang.org and I keep thinking Ember could use it. Basically, this sort of a hierarchy of private to public or transient to sort of a free-form discussion forum like this course to something like a GitHub issue, something like an RFC to something like poll request. There's like a hierarchy of how much of those artifacts are easy to search and find. But I think, you're totally right that there's no reason why, things like the core team needs to exist because at some point, the buck has to stop somewhere. Somebody has to make decisions. Somebody has to actually responsible for laying out the cross-cutting vision for the entire project. But those things are actually pretty lightweight. The core team when it's doing its job, it's just sort of making an omnibus of everything that the community is thinking at a particular point and making it more concrete. While, I think that's important that there are spaces which are core team spaces, or spaces that are transient, I think, a lot of questions that people have in the Ember slots are important that people who can just jump in and ask them. I think, getting things out into both public and more of permanent artifacts spaces is good. ALEX: Rob, you are a co-runner of Ember ATX and I was hoping you could speak on the fact that we've gotten some core team members down to Texas to come talk. It's nice that they're able to share their message with what's going on in the core team. But also, they're doing work. They're seeing how real people use Ember and then taking that back to the core team. I was wondering if have just want to comment on that and your work on bringing some really excellent people who make decisions down to Austin. ROBERT: As a meet up runner, like a co-runner, I guess. It's me, Jeff, and Lydia that run Austin Ember ATX. We really like to try and bring people that are deep into Embers core into Austin to talk about the framework that these people work in daily. It's always awesome because whenever you get them there in the flesh, you can ask questions. I guess, we can go back to where Slack is, like you have the higher bandwidth communication but it's even higher bandwidth when you're in person. Getting those people to talk to people that are actually working on the framework daily is I think, hugely important and that's why we work really hard to try and bring out people that work on the core. YEHUDA: For what it's worth, I think that Rails and Ember shares a common core value, like other projects have, more or less. Ember core team people almost exclusively actually work on Ember apps as part of their jobs so I work on skylight. Having some responsibility in the real world for apps that you are working. It's a big difference in just [inaudible]. I definitely noticed a few. Sometimes, I'll be working on a project for a while, like when I was working on Rails for 18 months and never actually used Rails. I mean, I used it but not for anything significant during that time. I, sometimes, get into a rut where I'm working on Ember a lot and I haven't had a chance to work on an app at all. Then, you go back to work on that for a day and it's like, "Oh, my God. There are so many obvious things that I can make better here." Like the kind of things that you would think about when you're working on your framework stuff is not necessarily- as quick it gets, the quickest things that you can fix. The Ember welcome page is a good example of this. I think, when someone is training, it's very easy for them to notice that it would be great if there was some kind of welcome screen for people. But it's not something that a framework author would necessarily think of on your own. Similarly, getting down to places that are not my usual haunts and hearing people bringing stuff that I just hadn't heard before. Like things, "Oh, that's a good idea. But I haven't heard that." A lot of that just come from the fact that the core team has a lot of different kinds of users in it so the people doing training, there are people doing apps or people doing consulting, there are people doing rescue projects in that kind of combos is pretty good. There's a long tale of all kinds of stuff, like people using web sockets for network people using React. People are trying to do Redux in Ember, who knows? That long tale is impossible to represent all that long tale. In a core team, we try to get as much as possible. It's impossible to represent all of them so going out there and talking to people doing weird stuff and weird doesn't meant pejoratively, just unusual stuff. Like Ember, really wants to be pretty flexible under the hood. Even though, it's a pretty conventional tool, we want it to be flexible under the hood so I kind of no way of flexibility is but sometimes, I'll talk to somebody and I'll be like, "Oh, in retrospect, that particular thing, I thought that was flexible as missing as little knob that we can add." So I really enjoy it. CHRIS: Since you've been pretty heads down on Glimmer 2 and you are actually traveling out and talking to people, I'm curious, are you noticing any common themes from the feedback that you're getting recently in terms of what users are saying? Do you have an indication of what the next move might be? Or what people are asking for? YEHUDA: For Glimmer specifically? CHRIS: For Ember in general, or Glimmer specifically. But I imagine, you're probably getting general Ember feedback. YEHUDA: Yeah. I talk about this a little before like the two big areas of interest are mobile readiness and better integration with the ecosystem. Integration is the wrong word. There's nothing wrong with Ember to that extent but people want classes. I think, those are the biggest picture things. I actually noticed a couple, somewhat interesting things when working with Ember. We ship the Glimmer Beta six weeks ago and we're doing another beta just because there's a couple of bugs that we got that were trickling and we want to make sure we get it right. I've actually noticed the people have on the one hand, the story of Glimmer is that we're pretty similar to React in the sense that you should think of what we're doing as a top down, you render the whole time and that there are some nice [inaudible] that use Ember.set or the set API, then we are able to do what people should do with component update automatically for you. For [inaudible], then we know, "Oh, this whole area, doesn't need anything to be updated." If you think about it that way, if you think about it as how can we render [inaudible] around set, I think, you'll notice that Glimmer updates are always faster than React's updates. But people have come to really rely on the sort of quasi-guarantee that if you didn't update something, it doesn't change the DOM associated with it, or even execute code associate with it. I find it sort of interesting. This is like meta problem, which is React actually got some things right about how to make this story performance. Part of that has to do with not assuming that you need as much bookkeeping as Ember always assume that you need. In exchange, you get much faster initial render and you have to do more work around updates. We actually have a pretty good story here. Ember.set is pretty nice because it lets us use API that our users are used to, say, generate [inaudible] upon updates for you and that's nice. But people get very upset when things run that they didn't expect, which of course, is not how React people think about it. The way React people thinking about it is, of course, [inaudible]. That's the whole API. It runs until you told not to. In Ember, things run at people who don't expect to get very angry. I think, you have to be one that I'm thinking about and that's a lower [inaudible]. But in terms of low-level, like thinking about how to shift the mental model of an Ember user so that we can get away with less and less bookkeeping upfront. I still do too much bookkeeping as part of initial render but in order to keep reducing the amount of bookkeeping, we need people to get into mindset of things are fast initially and the tradeoff is that your updates are slower, unless you do whatever. There are mighty things like React does this wasted time debugging tool or they basically tell you, "Hey, you didn't tell us not to render this but it never render," so you should try and do that. To be honest, I think, having to write something once your component updates, that exactly, "Do I [inaudible] is not okay. I'm not willing to do that." But there are a lot of things that approximate that were more similar to Ember existing APIs that we can find. I guess, my medium-term goal here is to make it so that we have the sweet spot so that the initial render is always very efficient. I think, we're getting closer. There's still some back problems that we can deal with so. Initial render is very efficient, fast components are fast, and more or less, you get good updates performance until you reach a certain amount of scale and then the escape valves are much nicer [inaudible] before an update. They're basically little [inaudible] where you say, "You know this thing can't change." It would be hard for me to explain. It would feel like it's [inaudible] we talk about. We've had a bunch of discussion about different escape valves, and the thing I'm most interested in is finding once that feels semantic. Should there a component update doesn't feel like you're describing anything other than React's API. I'm more interested in things that feel like you're talking about your app or your data. ALEX: Yeah. ROBERT: Keeping with the Glimmer 2 topic. Glimmer 2 is written in TypeScript, right? YEHUDA: Yep. ROBERT: Do you see that creeping its way more into the Ember community? I guess, I kind of want to get your general thoughts on TypeScript and what your experience was writing in Glimmer 2. YEHUDA: I actually really like that. But the story with TypeScript was that I was writing the Glimmer 2 originally in regular JavaScript and I came back from a long trip. I want to show Godfrey what I've done and I was having trouble explaining some of the interfaces. I happen to know that TypeScript is a lot of it is just interface so I'll just use their syntax and I think, I open the playground and I type in some TypeScript interfaces. Then I was like, "Oh, it's annoying that if I reload, I'll lose it so let me copy the interface into the ReadMe, basically and to the app." Then over time, like not very much time, I was like, "Oh, it's very annoying that now that I have this, I really wish I could just use it inside of the code." So we started doing that. It took us maybe a week of actually being to be able to use TypeScript for real. But honestly, the code base is pretty big at that point, and the actual was not so bad. A lot of the reason why it was at the time, TypeScripts like VS Code, TypeScript was still younger and it wasn't a slam dunk. For example, in today's TypeScript, you can just have JavaScript files in your directory and just tell it to [inaudible] that works. At that time, you couldn't so you have to really change all the files and there are some things like TypeScript requires you to specify in classes. It requires you to specify all your fields and I think that's fine, that's good for TypeScript. But you're not going to have already done that in JavaScript so you can't just like rename all your JS files with TS and have a nice day. So it took as a little over a week, I think, and we also have to write the Broccoli TypeScript thing during that same period of time. That was another thing we have to do. ROBERT: Yeah, that's a [inaudible]. YEHUDA: Then, with TypeScript change the compiler API a few times so we have a bunch of [inaudible] to do. But other than that initial like [inaudible] to get it working, I would say that it was every single point in time, there was always a [inaudible] win, in terms of what we had to do to make TypeScript happy and what wounds that we got out of it. You get things like, obviously, people know about code completion. I personally like code completion. I think, it's helpful. But I think, jumps to definition is actually more important feature than code completion. Just like what is this method? I want to look at it. You can jump directly to it. Also, for me, the code completion of parameters is way important the code completion of method names so when someone teaches you about code completion, they will usually show you, "Oh, look [inaudible]." It gives you the list of all method names, and you're like, "Well, that's fine. But I probably know all of those method names." But you don't necessarily know all the parameters. Especially, once you start using types, the parameter or information is actually quite rich, like it's telling you this is a component definition, this is a string or this is whatever. All that stuff, I think, I basically come to realize from using TypeScript that Microsoft has done a really good job with [inaudible] code of distilling down to just what part of ID experience is really good and just bring you that to an editor, that feels a lot like Atom or Sublime, or other than that. So if you get like a pretty good ID experience, without all of [inaudible]. ALEX: I've seen some talk on GitHub about people who want to write their Ember add-ons on TypeScript and I did not know Glimmer 2 was written in TypeScript until just now. I'm glad that was brought up. But we as Ember developers have been trained to use convention over configuration. The convention is Ember is not written in TypeScript. We're starting to see convention now where logic has crept into the template, or it's not as much as convention as people are doing it right now. I'm curious what your thoughts on that and more is treating Handlebars as a programming language and something that we're seeing now in real production Ember code, so what is the path going forward there because it is happening? YEHUDA: Yeah, I agree. I just want to say, I didn't actually answer the previous question in full. I think my expectation is we have no interest in ever making TypeScript as rudimentary part of Ember. I think Ember should always work and work nicely with regular JavaScript. I don't want to do anything that would lean to heavily on people having TypeScript around. Certainly, I don't want to do with Angular did, which they use the types as semantic markers for dependency injection and something like that. But I do anticipate things like Ember-metal for sure, Ember runtime being written in TypeScript because anything that's pretty low-level and a lot of algorithms benefits a lot from clearly delineating interfaces. I think, another thing people don't realize is that there are all these [inaudible] interfaces floating around your code in JavaScript. But like you are in a class, it's pretty easy to document what the class does. But if you have an interface, it's not really any good mechanism for describing it and it can become very [inaudible] and it's Like, "Please give me an object as these methods on it and build these methods." It's funny because you don't realize until you start using TypeScript that it's a very recursive problem. It's like, it has these three methods on it have these six parameters and these parameters have these interfaces and those have these. So you can actually start describing a very complicated thing and it's like those complicated things didn't exist before, they were just very implicit. The explicitness of the interfaces is not you can write [inaudible]. You can write the three interfaces and have the methods with all types of networks [inaudible]. I think, I expect Ember-metal, Ember runtime, other low-level parts Ember, certainly the component library now it's like directly linking in with Glimmer and Glimmer were written in TypeScript so that stuff would really benefit with TypeScript. In terms of Ember itself, using TypeScript, I think we have sort of a medium term goal of letting Ember apps use TypeScript if they want. I would say that making that story really nice, pretty much leans on ES6 modules and ES6 classes so we have some of the ES6 modules but there's still a lot of Ember [inaudible] whenever module story. In terms of classes, were still using the old-style class system and that class system is actually just really hard to get the types working in TypeScript. It's hard, period. But like React has a similar problem and there's lot of advance features that only really exists in [inaudible] express ES5 class [inaudible] and TypeScript doesn't have all the features. My expectation is that sort of along the same path as getting ES6 classes. We will also get a lot of TypeScript support in Ember and I think a lot of people are interested. A lot of people have work on Glimmer now and they're like, "I would love to use it in my app so we'll probably have that happen." Coding your templates, was the other question. I sort of have a mixed feeling about this because on the one hand, I actually do want Glimmer to be the programming language in production way. So either templating engines are just using the programming language embedded like the ERP. Or they are like Mustache or like the general templating engine -- forget what that thing is called -- but there's a bunch of template engines that use like the curly syntax and those things aren't very rigorous in terms of how they think about scope. Like lexical scope, it turns out to be a pretty important thing about how programming language work. If you have a shitty scope story, people don't have a good sense of what's going on so like the Angular 1 templating story was you basically find your scope on wherever and you attach to a part of your template and that basically means that if you're looking at just temple, you have no idea what the actual variables mean, anyway, because any part of it could be choking up the scope to be whatever. I start with Handlebars but have refined a lot overtime and I'm pretty happy with it now. The Glimmer templating engine is basically defines a programming language. It has scoping story. If you want a variable, name it. Use the as-pipes syntax and you get some variables there. Your function, your output, your components, and your helpers are functions and sometimes it's written in JavaScript, just like in Ruby cellular functions that are written in C. But ultimately, just like a C extension, it can't magically change the scope of Ruby program, helper or component in Glimmer. It can't magically change the scope of your template. With all that needs, if you look at a Glimmer template, it's actually really clear what are the names mean. That sound boring but ultimately, that's one of the things that needs to you look up at a lot templating engine and not only really know what's going on. I don't understand what's going on, without thinking of what every single one of those custom helpers is doing. I think Jinja is the name of the templating engine in Django. If you look at some of the templating engine like that or even like Handlebars before Ember 2.0, you really have to go that like 'for x and y' is a magic syntax that needs a particular thing. Because a lot of these templating engines are very flexible in the sense that they let users have or whatever, any particular piece of syntax could actually be creating random names that mean whatever. I've just found, having worked through that in the Ember community, I'm very happy that we took the time to get that stuff solid. One of the nice side effects of that is that it makes some of the usual optimizations that people do on code work very nicely. Once we know all the names mean and know all the scopes mean, things like in lining specialization from invocation. This component is invoked here. It has these parameters, but those parameters are all strings and I can see the receiving end. The receiving end just fix those strings into attributes or something. At compilation time, like to combine all into one thing. This is an optimization that we haven't done yet because we been working on compatibility. But there's a lot of normal 'programming languages standard optimizations' that we can do because we design Glimmer to be a programming language. The fact that we've done that is actually mean the root cause of people doing more programming language stuff in their templates, in older versions of Ember before, we had done such a good job of rationalizing everything. You would start doing that stuff and you would start hitting clips where the behavior didn't work the way expected for some reason, then you just use a sub-expression as something and then depending on exactly which things you put into the slots, maybe it didn't update on the inside of the template. We always consider those things as bugs so we would fix the bugs that we encountered. There's an explosion of different kinds of things in a programming language and if you don't model variables as variables basically, then it's hard to know callbacks are callbacks, variables as variables. There's a lot of doubt so they would start using the APIs as part of them [inaudible] hit someone and they would pull back. But today, the implementation of Glimmer, especially with Glimmer 2 is extremely [inaudible] standard, and what that means is that you want to do very [inaudible], parenthesized expressions with as type something and then you want to go and take that and send to the component and you have that and you put that value and put it to a service and you do all that and it works. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea for your template to be in a large program. That's generally that. I think that's main question that you asked me and it is generally, for things to get really complicated. But I think there is a reason for it and I think it's something we're doing to make it better. I think, the reason for it is that, if you think about the Glimmer core language, the main escape of what you have to get complicated expressions out of Glimmer and back into a reasonable place is helpers. Let's say you have a big bunch of [inaudible], and/or whatever people are doing inside of their Glimmer templates and it's like a multi-line thing and you want to pull that out to a more reasonable place. The natural way to do that is to make a helper. But it's also pretty common that you have a complicated piece of expression that isn't reusable. It's not being reusable for multiple places and helpers in Ember right now are global so you may have this big block. Another [inaudible] of computer's property, but computer property's don't have a nice- like I have a few internal parameters and I just do something that they always require you do something against it, the components off of this, and that is usually what's you are doing. You're usually have what is effectively a function with a bunch of parameters in it and those parameters combine some way like with 'and', 'or', maybe there's some comparisons like 'greater' or 'less than' or whatever. One of the things that comes out of module modification RFC and makes everyone pretty excited is the ability to have helpers in your templates that are local so it's a helper that is just sitting right next to your template. I think, those kind of things -- helpers that are right next to your template -- will give people who like you do not want to see so much code in your template, a much nicer story to explain to people why we're doing it, and what we should do instead. A template has a three-line, fifteen is privacy expression and you want to convince the person not to do it. The re-factor is literally just to make a local helper, put the code in there and use the local helper. I think that's the better story to explain to people than, "Hey, I don't like that. It feels bad. What should I do?" CHRIS: This brings up an interesting point that we actually encountered recently at The Frontside, we use helpers a lot and are frequently trying to get them to do all sorts of weird things. But recently, it occurred to us that one kind of blocker was that you can't compose helpers. We had an existing helper and we kind of needed to make a helper on top of it and it suddenly dawned on all of us that, "Oh, we can't go up a level." We can't build a helper and its abstraction over another one because you kind of have to hit the dump. You have to have a component or a template or something to invoke that. Is that's true? YEHUDA: I would expect that you could call the function with the arguments that looked ugly but I would suspect and I would say that you can call it and just pass the parameters and hash these [inaudible] and -- ALEX: Like a helper that invoke or something? Because to write a new helper, you would have to go back to JavaScript. YEHUDA: That array an object. I expect that to work. Do you just need a helper calling another helper? ALEX: Well, a helper composing, like composing several helpers into a bigger helper and then just calling in the template, much like how you might write some functions and that write a function that closes over them or something. YEHUDA: Are we talking about a helper that takes the helper? ALEX: I guess it could be. I guess, higher order helpers could be a thing in this case. YEHUDA: Helpers that call helpers are helpers that close over helpers really should just- helpers are more or less functions. It would just be able to use them directly. I think, what you're saying is an interesting Ember phenomenon. I actually don't know which of two categories this discussion is in. Basically, either. Either there is some good reason why this turns out to be difficult and there's like a missing API that usually fix it. Like in general, my mental model here is you're talking about a function so if you can just [inaudible] the function, it really should work and in that, it is hard. There's something weird. Basically, what I'm saying is either there are some 'gotcha' that how it was structured right now, that's like an accident. That means they're not exactly as much like functions as we think or the mental model that you have using them doesn't make you think of them like functions. So you think that there are hard to compose but actually there are functions. Basically, those two things are equally likely Ember. I think that's unfortunate. ALEX: I think that with them, you can certainly combine them in a template and you could even pass one into the other. What we ran into an issue was, similar to functions, if you are writing like an npm library, you may write five functions and only export one of them. That one function will compose the other four and call them. In some cases, you may not realize, do you want to export that composed abstracted function until much later and it's okay, because you just import the function from somewhere else, then you say like, "All right. I'm just going to consume this function from another and now I have this combination put together." Well, with a helper, if you already have a helper that does something and then you realized, "Oh, actually, I need to build an abstraction on top of this helper in a new helper," we so far have not found a good way to combine them like that. YEHUDA: So probably, it will not succeed and having this conversation through to the completion year. I'll just say for listeners, what I find surprising about this, although, I can believe that there is something that makes it true is that helpers in Ember are really just functions and increasingly they really are like helpers in Glimmer are functions. They have a weird arguments signature. They take positional parenthesis in array and named arguments as dictionary and that's a convenience basically because otherwise, you have to scrape of the last parameter and try to figure stuff out. So that's a signature issue. But generally speaking, helpers are supposed to be functions and if there's something that you could do with regular functions you can't do them with helpers, that sounds to me like something is wrong. Like I said, I can definitely believe I should talk to Chris about this and he should write a blog post about it. I can definitely believe that there is something that makes it true but it's hard for me to imagine what it is. CHRIS: Well, I'm glad to talk to you about it offline. YEHUDA: Yes. We will figured it out. ALEX: Yehuda, thank you for this deep dive into open source process into Ember. I could drill deeper into your brain and just extract as much knowledge as I can. I hope to be able to do that someday soon. We're going to wrap up for today. Thank you very much for Yehuda Katz and your time. YEHUDA: Yeah. Thank you. I apologize for people who didn't understand half the things I said. ALEX: Yeah, it's a podcast for everybody. But we have a lot of Ember developer's listening and I'm sure that they loved it and hated it all up so thank you very much.
There's a huge shortage of senior developers, and one (often overlooked) way to fill those positions is by bringing up some junior developers. But how do you mentor junior devs when you have so much work to do? How can you make sure that your new hires get the support they need? This week, Charles Lowell is joined by Stephanie Riera, Lydia Guarino, and Alex Ford to talk about the challenges companies face when hiring junior devs, what steps you can take to make sure the on-boarding and training process goes smoothly, and how keep new developers productive and frustration-free. Follow the Frontside crew on Twitter: Charles Lowell Alex Ford Stephanie Riera Lydia Guarino Show Links: So You Just Finished a Bootcamp, Now What? Lydia's tweetstorm: Where do junior devs fit?
Thank you for listening to this podcast, where Frontline Gastroenterology Trainee Editor Dr Philip Smith talks to Dr Alex Ford, associate professor and honorary consultant in gastroenterologist, at Leeds University and St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK. The podcast is an accompaniment to the Frontline Gastroenterology Twitter Debate (#FGDebate) held on Tuesday 13th January 2015, 8-9pm GMT, entitled, 'Frontline Neurogastroenterology: Evidence based therapeutics in irritable bowel syndrome’. Prior to the debate Dr Ford said: 'Over the last 10 years I have been involved in clinical research into functional gastrointestinal disorders. Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are highly prevalent, and possible aetiologies range from the benign to the life-threatening, but functional causes such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are commonest. This condition affects up to 10% to 20% of the general population, and if individuals seek medical advice for these symptoms this group of patients comprises up to one in ten of those referred from primary care to gastroenterology clinics. Diagnostic symptom-based criteria for IBS exist, and a positive diagnosis is encouraged but, despite this, many individuals undergo investigation to exclude serious underlying pathology, and other management costs are substantial due to consultations and prescribed drugs. Inevitably, excessive expenditure in one disease area, such as this, has implications for the provision of resources in other, equally important, areas of health care. Greater knowledge of the natural history of IBS, why individuals consult with symptoms, whether to perform investigations to exclude potential underlying organic diseases, and which treatments are effective is needed, in order that clinicians can direct scarce resources more efficiently. Our debate will hopefully touch on some of these issues' The purpose of the podcast is to 'fill any gaps' the #FGDebate may have left. Dr Ford has also provided the slides he used in #FGDebate to help those interested understand the issues associated with therapeutics in IBS. We hope you enjoy this and that it is informative. View the slides: http://goo.gl/dmvMzR Don't miss the next #FGDebate with Professor Mark Pritchard, professor and head of the Department of Gastroenterology and honorary consultant gastroenterologist at the University of Liverpool, on Tuesday 10th February 2015, at 8-9pm GMT. The topic is 'Frontline Gastrointestinal NETs: The approach to diagnosis and initial management'.
Two articles on bmj.com look at helicobacter pylori; a systematic review and meta-analysis examines if eradication treatment reduces rates of gastric cancer, and an uncertainties article asks who we should be testing and treating for the infection. Two of the authors of those articles, Alex Ford from the Leeds Gastroenterology Institute, and Paul Moayyedi from the Gastroenterology Division of McMaster University, join us to discuss the bacterium. Read the full articles www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3174 www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3320
I interview Alex Ford, the Publishing Director from JustTrains.net regarding their rail simulator products plus add ons and also a
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