Podcasts about Asim Hussain

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Asim Hussain

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Best podcasts about Asim Hussain

Latest podcast episodes about Asim Hussain

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Transparency in Emissions Reporting

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 27, 2025 53:14


For this episode of TWiGS, Chris and Asim discuss the latest developments in emissions reporting, AI energy efficiency, and green software initiatives. They explore the AI Energy Score project by Hugging Face, which aims to provide an efficiency benchmark for AI models, and compare it with other emissions measurement approaches, including the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) for AI. The conversation also touches on key policy shifts, such as the U.S. executive order on AI data center energy sourcing, and the growing debate on regulating the data center industry. Plus, they dive into the Beginner's Guide to Power and Energy Measurement for Computing and Machine Learning, a must-read for anyone looking to understand energy efficiency in AI.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Wooden Data Centers

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2024 55:34


This Week in Green Software, host Chris Adams and Asim Hussain, Executive Director of the GSF discuss the latest developments in sustainable software, exploring topics like Microsoft's innovative use of cross-laminated timber in data centers to reduce embodied carbon, the environmental challenges of generative AI hardware, and the groundbreaking Real Time Cloud dataset. They delve into the impact of new international energy efficiency directives, the interplay between geopolitics and sustainability, and surprising developments in China's approach to sustainable technology. Packed with insights, this episode offers an in-depth look at the intersection of technology and climate action.

Art of Boring
Banks Around the World: What Makes Top Financial Institutions Stand Out | EP171

Art of Boring

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 6, 2024 52:48


In this episode, Mawer portfolio managers and analysts discuss what they fundamentally look for in a bank as an investment. Specifically, how they view banks and the industry trends, as well as local dynamics, and ultimately what makes each of these businesses both unique and attractive. David Ragan discusses Scandinavian banks, highlighting Handelsbanken's smart lending and DNB's stability. Josh Samuel analyzes DBS in Singapore, emphasizing its low cost of funds and high ROE. Grayson Witcher focuses on J.P. Morgan in the U.S., noting its strong management and unique financial assets, while Alex Romaines examines First Citizens Bank in the U.S., which capitalized on market turmoil. Mark Rutherford covers Canadian banks, noting their conservative strategies and high ROE. Siying Li discusses HDFC Bank in India, and Asim Hussain explores Mitsubishi UFJ in Japan, emphasizing their unique upward-sloping yield curve. Key Takeaways: The ideal bank investment is stable, lends to reliable clients, and operates in a rational, well-regulated market. Diversification in lending, funding, and economic exposure helps prevent insolvency and builds resilience, crucial in a highly leveraged industry. The Scandinavian banking environment is stable and well-regulated, with rational competition and prudent lending. Banks like Sweden's Handelsbanken and Norway's DNB provide consistent returns, low loan losses, and steady growth, supported by smaller, consolidated markets and strong economic stability. DBS in Singapore sustains strong net interest margins and 15–16% ROE. Strong management boosts investor returns through higher payouts, reducing risks from limited growth in foreign markets. U.S. banks face intense competition with little brand differentiation, often competing on interest rates alone. While experienced in managing risk, they are vulnerable in recessions. Banks trade at lower valuations than other sectors due to weaker competitive advantage. J.P. Morgan stands out in the U.S. market due to its strong management, high returns, low leverage, and strategic acquisitions during downturns. It diversifies through unique assets, investment banking, and asset management, enhancing resilience. The U.S. banking industry is fragmented and competitive, with a history of crises. Fragility creates opportunities for well-managed banks trading below intrinsic value. Canadian banks are highly consolidated and operate with a leveraged model, lending and raising equity. They now generate significant revenue from wealth management and insurance, reducing dependence on loan spreads. Strong regulatory relationships foster stability, with banks earning attractive returns while supporting economic growth. HDFC Bank, India's largest private bank, has strong management and benefits from a growing economy. With low non-performing loans and high ROE, it continues gaining market share from public sector banks, despite short-term challenges from its recent acquisition. Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan's largest bank, has a rich history and significant market share. With an upward-sloping yield curve and a focus on digitalization, it stands to benefit from rising interest rates, driving potential profit growth despite past challenges in the Japanese banking sector. Host: Andrew Johnson, CFA, Mawer Institutional Portfolio Manager Guests: David Ragan, CFA, Mawer Portfolio Manager, Joshua Samuel, CFA, Mawer Equity Analyst, Grayson Witcher, CFA, AB Mawer Portfolio Manager, Alex Romaines, CFA, Mawer Equity Analyst, Mark Rutherford, CFA, Mawer Portfolio Manager, Siying, CFA, Mawer Equity Analyst, Asim Hussain, CFA, Mawer Equity Analyst For more details and full transcript visit: https://mawer.com/the-art-of-boring/podcast This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts. Founded in 1974, Mawer is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore. Visit Mawer at https://www.mawer.com. Follow us on social: LinkedIn -   / mawer-investment-management Instagram - / https://www.instagram.com/mawerinvestmentmanagement/

Environment Variables
Remembering Abhishek Gupta: How does AI and ML Impact Climate Change?

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2024 43:07


In this episode, we honor the memory of Abhishek Gupta, who was an instrumental figure in the Green Software Foundation and a Co-Chair of the Standards Working Group. Abhishek's work was pivotal in the development of the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification, now adopted globally. His tireless efforts shaped the future of green software, leaving an indelible mark on the industry. As we remember Abhishek, we reflect on his legacy of sustainability, leadership, and friendship, celebrating the remarkable impact he had on both his colleagues and the world. We are airing an old episode that featured Abhishek Gupta, Episode 5 of Environment Variables. Where host Chris Adams is joined by Will Buchanan of Azure ML (Microsoft), Abhishek Gupta; the chair of the Standards Working Group for the Green Software Foundation and Lynn Kaack, assistant professor at the Hertie School in Berlin to discuss how artificial intelligence and machine learning impact climate change. They discuss boundaries, Jevons paradox, the EU AI Act, inferencing and supplying us with a plethora of materials regarding ML and AI and the climate!

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Obscuring AI's Real Carbon Footprint

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 19, 2024 43:36


Host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain to dive into The Week in Green Software, exploring the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence and how the growing adoption of AI technology affects carbon emissions, as well as the growing complexities in the measurement and reduction of these. They discuss a primer on AI's direct environmental footprint, regulatory trends in Europe and the US, and the complexities surrounding the renewable energy credits tech companies use to offset emissions. The conversation touches on real-time cloud data initiatives, carbon accounting in AI, and the future challenges of balancing sustainability with technological innovation.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: AI's Power Problem

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2024 53:01


In this episode of Environment Variables, host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain to dive into the complexities of AI's growing energy demands and its environmental impact. They discuss innovative approaches to sustainability, such as using fungi to manage building waste in data centers and the potential for greener materials and practices. The conversation also covers software optimizations to reduce AI's carbon footprint, emphasizing that energy inefficiency cannot be outsourced. They highlight the importance of integrated sustainable practices in tech development, particularly in the face of increasing AI power consumption projections.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Carbon Hack 24 Recap

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2024 63:50


TWiGS host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain the executive director of the GSF to talk about the recent hackathon hosted by the GSF : Carbon Hack 24. Asim goes through some of his favourite projects that featured work with the Impact Framework including some surprising choices! They also cover some interesting news from the world of cloud service providers and the new CSDDD developments. Asim also talks about how mushrooms are out and bread is in!

hack carbon digital ocean chris adams twigs finops gsf hetzner cloud service providers green software foundation green software asim hussain djangocon
Environment Variables
AI Legislation

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2024 48:54


This week, Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain and Anne Currie for an engaging chat on the present and future of legislation around AI and Green Software. Our guests share their hot takes on various topics such as the usefulness of proxies in measurement. With backgrounds in climate and tech, and a future full of green energy, they share their insights into what we might expect, and hope for, from the future.

Microsoft Partner Podden
Mät miljöpåverkan för mjukvara med Impact Framework

Microsoft Partner Podden

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2024 29:52


Hur mäter man hur stor miljöpåverkan ens mjukvara orsakar? Och går det ens att jämföra olika tjänster med varandra när dom har olika funktioner. Och hur mäter man ett OpenSource-projekt om det i produktion körs i helt olika miljöer? Den här typen frågor försöker Impact Framework from Green Software Foundation besvara. Vi fick hjälp av Asim Hussain, Executive Director at Green Software Foundation, för att prata om detta. Welcome to Impact Framework | Impact Framework (greensoftware.foundation)Carbon Hack 24 | Online | 26th Feb to 15th March (greensoftware.foundation) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Environment Variables
BETA Impact Framework

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2024 43:29


Asim Hussain is joined by guests Srini Rakhunathan and Navveen Balani, the technical leads on the Impact Framework. They delve into how this innovative tool effectively models, measures, simulates, and monitors the environmental impacts of software across various platforms. The conversation explores the framework's unique ability to handle diverse environments, from cloud systems to mobile devices, with an emphasis on the practicality and necessity of measuring software emissions accurately. Highlights include intriguing insights into integrating the Impact Framework with SCI Open Data and the future of green software development. This episode is packed with valuable information and thought-provoking discussions that offer a glimpse into the future of sustainable software.

Environment Variables
Driving Climate Change Solutions with AI

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2024 16:21


In this episode we take a look back at another talk from our Decarb 2023 Event while we're all on the New Year break at the GSF. Titled Driving Climate Change Solutions with AI, Charlotte Degot of CO2 AI and Diana Dimitrova from Boston Consulting Group talk about the Third Annual Carbon Emissions Survey titled Why Some Companies are Ahead in the Race to Net Zero.

Environment Variables
Introducing the Impact Framework

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2023 38:23


In this episode of Environment Variables, we dive into a key highlight from Decarbonize Software 2023, featuring Asim Hussain's talk on the Green Software Foundation's newly introduced Impact Framework. This innovative framework aims to model, measure, simulate, and monitor the environmental impacts of software. Asim begins with an insightful overview of the framework's capabilities and objectives. Later, project leads Srinivasan Rakhunathan and Navveen Balani join the discussion to delve deeper into its applications and potential. This episode offers an essential understanding of how the Impact Framework is set to revolutionize the way we assess and mitigate the ecological footprint of software development and use.

framework green computing green software foundation asim hussain
Cyber Security Inside
182. Uncovering Insights from Listeners' Top Voices in Sustainability 2023

Cyber Security Inside

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 27, 2023 16:04


In this episode of InTechnology, Camille delves into a roundup of our most popular listener topics on sustainability in 2023. The first topic is green software with Asim Hussain, Director of Green Software and Ecosystems at Intel. The second covers electricity mapping featuring Olivier Corradi, Founder and CEO of Electricity Maps. Finally, on this roundup is energy efficiency in the cloud with Lily Looi, Intel Fellow as well as Chief Power Architect of Intel's Xeon product line.  Listen to the full episode (EP 137) - WTM: Green Software with Asim Hussain. Listen to the full episode (EP 147) with Olivier Corradi – How Green Is Your Electricity? Listen to the full episode (EP 148) - WTM: Energy Efficiency In The Cloud with Lily Looi.   The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.

Green IO
#27 Ayahuasca, consensus, and standards to green software with Asim Hussain

Green IO

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2023 55:37


Meeting Asim Hussain, the Green Software Foundation's Director, is always an uplifting experience and this episode makes no exception. A patchwork episode where we talked about: When we finally have the chance to meet with Asim Hussain the Director of the GSF, the episode becomes a crazy mailbag one where we talked about:

Environment Variables
We Answer Your Questions Part 2

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 16, 2023 46:26


Host Chris Adams is joined by executive director of the Green Software Foundation, Asim Hussain as they dive into another mailbag session, bringing you the unanswered questions from the recent live virtual event on World Environment Day that was hosted by the Green Software Foundation on June 5 2023. Asim and Chris start with a discussion on the complexities of capturing energy consumed by memory, I/O operations, and network calls in the SCI. They explore real examples of measuring SCI on pipelines of CI/CD, showcasing projects like Green Metrics Tool and the Google Summer of Code Wagtail project. The conversation shifts to the carbon efficiency of GPUs and their environmental impact, touching on the tech industry's increasing hardware demands. They also address the potential for reusing cooling water from data centers, considering various cooling designs and their impact on water consumption.

Code Together
Sustainability and Software - Designing a Framework for Software Sustainability

Code Together

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2023 54:40


Asim Hussain joins Tony to discuss a wide range of topics around sustainability.  They talk about Asim's experience in the sustainability field and what software efforts exist around sustainability.  They also discuss how energy efficiency is measured for data centers, the metrics the Green Software Foundation have proposed and other broad topics around maximizing the value of sustainability efforts. Guest: Asim Hussain - Green Software Foundation Asim is a developer, author and speaker with over 20 years experience working for organizations such as the European Space Agency, Google, Microsoft and now Intel where he is the Director of Green Software. He's also the Executive Director and Chairperson of the Green Software Foundation, a global industry consortium with a mission to create a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and best practices for building green software.  Learn more:  Green Software Foundation https://greensoftware.foundation   Environment variables (GSF Podcast) https://podcast.greensoftware.foundation    SCI (software carbon intensity) specification https://greensoftware.foundation/articles/software-carbon-intensity-sci-specification-project   Climate Action .tech https://climateaction.tech   Data Center Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) https://www.nrel.gov/computational-science/measuring-efficiency-pue.html   Google PUE reporting https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/efficiency/   The Green Web foundation https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org   CO2.js https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/co2-js/    

Environment Variables
We Answer Your Questions!

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2023 56:04


On this episode of Environment Variables, host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain as they dive into a mailbag session, bringing you the most burning unanswered questions from the recent live virtual event on World Environment Day that was hosted by the Green Software Foundation on June 5 2023. Asim and Chris will tackle your questions on the environmental impact of AI computation, the challenges of location shifting, the importance of low-carbon modes, and how to shift the tech mindset from "more is more" (Jevons Paradox). Chock-full of stories about projects implementing green software practices, and valuable resources, listen now to have your thirst for curiosity quenched!

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Open Source Innovations with Tom Greenwood

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 7, 2023 37:50


TWiGS host Chris Adams is joined by special guest Tom Greenwood from Wholegrain Digital, to bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. They discuss insights from The State of Green Software report, the cost reduction strategy of Amazon's Prime Video, Atlassian's sustainability program, Wholegrain Digital's Employee Activism Policy, the open-source Falcon LLM, and the innovative approach of heating swimming pools with servers. They also highlight upcoming events like the GSF's UN World Environment Day Event (today!) and the London Open Source Data Infrastructure Meetup. Tune in for a deep dive into the intersection of technology and sustainability.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: AWS & Scope 3 Emissions Data

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2023 39:45


Host Chris Adams is joined by the GSF's Asim Hussain on this episode of The Week in Green Software. They discuss some interesting news about Amazon, AWS and their scope 3 GHG protocol emission data. We also find out how Python has got its Mojo back and we have a very exciting tool from Catchpoint WebpageTest for measuring site's carbon footprint. Finally, some great green software events that you can be part of!

Environment Variables
Fact Check: Ola Fagerström and Microsoft's Surface Emissions Estimator

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2023 45:25


In this episode, we have a very special guest for an episode of Fact Check on Environmental Variables, Ola Fagerström from Microsoft Surface joins host Asim Hussain to talk about his work on the Microsoft Surface Emissions Estimator - an important tool that helps measure the carbon footprint of the device. Ola talks about how difficult it was to take into account everything from materials used, to manufacturing, to packaging, and even end-of-life disposal to give an accurate estimate of the emissions produced by each device; and how these principles can be applied to other areas of green software development.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: The Hidden Cost of AI

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2023 40:59


This week host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain and Environment Variables regular Sara Bergman to discuss the hidden costs of generative AI. What's really at the tip of this iceberg and how far down does it go? They also discuss just how thirsty AI chatbots really are and developments in platform engineering. Finally, we share some opportunities for development from the world of green software.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Netflix, Refurbishment and Anti-Greenwashing Laws

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 5, 2023 44:20


On this episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams and Asim Hussain discuss the latest research on streaming emissions from Netflix and DIMPACT, the environmental impact of refurbished tech from Back Market, The European Commission's Right to Repair Law and their proposal for an Anti Greenwashing Law which is being echoed across the channel with the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill. Asim also discovers an alternative to central heating with his hot TV! The usual exciting resources and events in the show notes from TWiGS, Environment Variables and the Green Software Foundation.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Web 3.0 and Energy Standards for Software

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2023 41:14


In this the latest episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by first time Environment Variables guest Tammy McClellan and regulars Anne Currie and Asim Hussain. They discuss the concept of greenwashing; what it is and how companies can avoid it, and why green IT is no longer an option for the tech sector. They cover various statistics about the environmental impact of data centers and cloud computing, the importance of optimizing code and algorithms to reduce emissions, and how developers can't just rely on hardware to reduce emissions. The hosts also touch on some valuable resources to further your knowledge in the world of Green Software - links below!

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Greenwashing

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2023 33:05


In this the latest episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by first time Environment Variables guest Tammy McClellan and regulars Anne Currie and Asim Hussain. They discuss the concept of greenwashing; what it is and how companies can avoid it, and why green IT is no longer an option for the tech sector. They cover various statistics about the environmental impact of data centers and cloud computing, the importance of optimizing code and algorithms to reduce emissions, and how developers can't just rely on hardware to reduce emissions. The hosts also touch on some valuable resources to further your knowledge in the world of Green Software - links below!

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: How Green is Your Cloud?

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2023 50:37


TWiGS returns this week with host Asim Hussain being joined by (now guest) Chris Adams. They talk about the environmental impact of the cloud and while some of the big cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure, and Google Cloud, have introduced initiatives designed to increase the sustainability of individual data centres and reduce their overall carbon footprints, will it be enough to help reduce carbon emissions produced by cloud computing? They also cover Microsoft's Surface Emissions Estimator and a recent paper surveying the factors that influence the emissions of machine learning.

Environment Variables
The Week in Green Software: Generative AI & The Environment, The Cloud & DevSusOps

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2023 46:15


The Week in Green Software (or TWiGS) is back with a new format! This time host Chris Adams is joined by Anne Currie and Asim Hussain to talk about news about AI and the environment (with a particular focus on Chat GPT and Bing), the environmental impact of the cloud, the Corporate Sustainable Software Market report, and some exciting opportunities to explore, learn, and contribute to green software.

Cyber Security Inside
137. What That Means with Camille: Green Software

Cyber Security Inside

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 30, 2023 19:17


In this episode of What That Means, Camille gets into green software with Asim Hussain, Director of Green Software Engineering at Intel and co-founder of the Green Software Foundation. They talk about how green software offsets carbon emissions and how it can improve sustainability for the future. The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.

director green software intel intel corporation green software foundation asim hussain green software
Environment Variables
Accessibility and Green Software

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 11, 2022 31:17


This episode is taken from a recent panel discussion from the Green Software Foundation's Global Summit of 2022. EV regulars, Chris Adams and Asim Hussain are joined by Anne Currie, Chris Lloyd-Jones and Elise Zelechowski as they discuss Accessibility and Green Software. What's driving interest in Green Software? What ESG principles are being adopted by companies and what is needed to drive accountability and accessibility in this sphere? Where does the main driver for Green Software come from within an organisation?

Environment Variables
The Price of Oil and Gas and Green Software

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2022 40:05


This week Asim Hussain and Chris Adams are joined by Sara Bergman of Microsoft and Henry Richardson of Watttime.org to discuss the current global surge in oil and gas prices. Why is the price of oil and gas so damn high at the moment? How does intermittency influence the price surge? Are high gas prices actually good for society as a whole? How does Green Software come into play? All this including a wrap-up of the Green Software Foundation Summit.

Environment Variables
How does AI and ML Impact Climate Change?

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 13, 2022 40:25


This week Chris Adams takes over the reins from Asim Hussain to discuss how does artificial intelligence and machine learning impact climate change. He is joined by Will Buchanan of Azure ML (Microsoft), Abhishek Gupta; the chair of the Standards Working Group for the Green Software Foundation and Lynn Kaack; assistant professor at the Hertie School in Berlin. They discuss boundaries, Jevon's paradox, the EU AI Act, inferencing and supply us with a plethora of materials regarding ML and AI and the climate!

Environment Variables
How can Open Source Help Reduce Software Emissions?

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2022 46:59


In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guest Chris Lloyd-Jones; Head of Open Technologies at Avanade and co-chair of the Open Source Working Group at the Green Software Foundation, and Dan Lewis-Toakley; Green Cloud Lead at ThoughtWorks and co-chair of the Open Source Working Group at the Green Software Foundation. They discuss the benefits of open source versus closed source, what tools are already out there and how open source can help reduce software emissions.

Environment Variables
How do we make Green Changes in Organisations?

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later May 16, 2022 48:51


In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guest Anne Currie; Tech Ethicist at Container Solutions and Lecturer in Tech Ethics at the University of Hertfordshire. What are the real factors that drive organisations choices around increasing efficiency within their organisation? What needs to happen for senior leaders to make sacrifices for sustainability? Can regulation push for real change inside organisations? They discuss the role of middle managers, developers and their love for ops people!

Environment Variables
Carbon Aware Computing

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2022 39:39


In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guests Scott Chamberlin formerly of Microsoft and Henry Richardson of Watttime as they discuss how time-shifting, location-shifting, curtailment and other terms are important to Carbon Aware Computing. How can we build sustainable software that reduces the impact on the environment and how these decisions may just lie in the hands of the developers instead of the CSR teams.

Environment Variables
Welcome to Environment Variables

Environment Variables

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2022 0:54


Join your host Asim Hussain on Environment Variables, a podcast from The Green Software Foundation, and a bunch of experts from varying software and tech fields. In each episode we'll talk about the latest news regarding how to reduce the emissions of software and how the industry is dealing with its own environmental impact.

The InfoQ Podcast
Microsoft's Asim Hussain on Designing Software for Sustainability and the Green Software Foundation

The InfoQ Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2021 26:19


Sustainable Software Engineering is an emerging discipline at the intersection of climate science, software, hardware, electricity markets, and data center design. In the most recent InfoQ Trends Report on architecture, the InfoQ team added designing for sustainability for the first time, suggesting that it's emerging because people are realizing that the software industry is responsible for a level of carbon usage comparable to that of the aviation industry. The question then is what can we do as individual developers and architects, if anything, and what role does the broader shift to the Cloud have? Charles Humble explores the topic with Microsoft's Asim Hussain, green cloud advocacy lead and chair of the Green Software Foundation. They discuss techniques such as demand shifting, as well as the current challenges that the Green Software Foundation is aiming to address. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3jyBEx8 Subscribe to our newsletters: - The InfoQ weekly newsletter: www.infoq.com/news/InfoQ-Newsletter/ - The Software Architects' Newsletter [monthly]: www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter/ Upcoming Virtual Events - events.infoq.com/ QCon London: https://qconlondon.com/ - April 4-6, 2022 / London, UK QCon Plus: https://plus.qconferences.com/ - Nov 1-12, 2021 - May 9-20. 2022 InfoQ Live: https://live.infoq.com/ - Feb 22, 2022 - June 21, 2022 - July 19, 2022 - August 23, 2022 Follow InfoQ: - Twitter: twitter.com/infoq - LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/ - Facebook: www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom/ - Instagram: @infoqdotcom - Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq

GOTO - Today, Tomorrow and the Future
How Microsoft is Leading the Way to Sustainable Software • Asim Hussain & Preben Thorø

GOTO - Today, Tomorrow and the Future

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2021 22:27 Transcription Available


This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted 2021.https://gotopia.techFind plenty more information here:https://principles.greenhttps://aka.ms/sse/learnhttps://greensoftware.foundationRead the full transcription of this interview here:https://gotopia.tech/articles/microsoft-leading-the-way-to-sustainable-softwareAsim Hussain - Green Cloud Advocacy Lead at Microsoft, Chairperson at Green Software Foundation and co-organiser at https://climateaction.techPreben Thorø - CTO of Trifork SwitzerlandDESCRIPTIONDive into the impact software has on CO2 emissions, the tools and initiatives that can lead to sustainable software, and some of the important progress made so far in this conversation with Preben Thorø, CTO of Trifork Switzerland, and Asim Hussain, Green Cloud Advocate at Microsoft.https://twitter.com/GOTOconhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/goto-https://www.facebook.com/GOTOConferencesLooking for a unique learning experience?Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at https://gotopia.techSUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily.https://www.youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1

You've Been Warmed
Microsoft's Net Zero 2030 Target & Greening Cloud Computing w/ Asim Hussain, Green Cloud Advocacy Lead at Microsoft

You've Been Warmed

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 24, 2020 44:50


Today's You've Been Warmed episode features Asim Hussain - Green Cloud Advocacy Lead at Microsoft. Asim is a developer, trainer, published author and conference speaker with almost 20 years of experience in the tech space with stints at the European Space Agency, Google and now Microsoft. He also teaches tech course on Udemy - an online course marketplace - where he has over 37,000 students.Asim is also an organizer for Climate Action Tech - an online community of people who work in the tech sector and want to change companies from within, particularly when it comes to addressing climate change.You might think initially - 'What does it mean to be a green cloud advocate?' - usually when we think about the cloud & the internet in general, we perceive them as intangible, not as something that would have an immediate impact on the environment. It turns out, however, that cloud computing accounts for about 3% of our total greenhouse gas emissions - which is roughly the same as the entire aviation industry.Asim was very eloquent in explaining how we can reduce these emissions, as well as developing applications that consume less (and are more efficient). We also discussed Microsoft's recent net zero by 2030 announcement along with their Sustainability Calculator and how they identify their Scope 1,2 and 3 emissions throughout their entire supply chain and plan to address them each. Finally, we dove into Climate Action Tech, why people who feel lonely in the fight against climate change should join and how the community supports every member and organizes to create positive changes.ASIM & CLIMATE ACTION TECH LINKSAsim's Website - https://asim.dev/Asim's Twitter Profile - https://twitter.com/jawacheClimate Action Tech Website - https://climateaction.tech/TIMECODES6:42 - His Background & How It Led To His Green Cloud Advocacy Position11:30 - What Does It Mean To Be A Green Cloud Developer16:47 - The Environmental Impact Of Cloud Computing20:16 - Can You Track This Externality?22:35 - Microsoft's Net Zero Target & Sustainability Calculator25:30 - Scope 1,2 And 3 Emissions32:25 - The Climate Action Tech Community (CAT)38:50 - Science vs Business vs Politics vs SocietyRELEVANT LINKS MENTIONEDMicrosoft's Net Zero by 2030 announcement - https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/01/16/microsoft-will-be-carbon-negative-by-2030/Microsoft's Sustainability Calculator - https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/power-bi/coi-sustainability.sustainability_dashboard

The New Stack Podcast
Microsoft's Asim Hussain - The Making of a Green Developer

The New Stack Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 23, 2020 29:22


Listen to all of our podcasts here: https://thenewstack.io/podcasts/ There's a common misconception that the individual consumer's actions will dramatically affect climate change. That we should recycle more and avoid plastic straws and bottles. These are nice-to-haves, but they don't make an impact on the systemic contamination of industries like agriculture, travel, and, yes, tech. On the other hand, when scandal strikes tech, we point blame at the top, and we don't drill down into the individual responsibility. What we found with the Volkswagen emissions scandal is that even the person who writes the code can be culpable. If we each bear some individual responsibility in the code we release, is there power in the green developer? In this episode of The New Stack Makers, we sit down with Microsoft Green Cloud Advocacy Lead Asim Hussain to talk about what a green developer is. And we try to uncover what does that actually look like for a web developer, a machine learning engineer, a DevOps person, or a department with a huge fleet of Internet of Things fleet devices. Hussain says to start it's not about a lack of motivation. “They care, they want to do something. And one of the questions I get asked a lot is from developers and all kinds of developers working on all different aspects of applications are, What can I do now?” Hussain said that then they end up only focusing on their own role when they should be looking at things end to end. He continued that “I used to think full stack meant like a website to a database. And now I understand full stack means like, from user behavior to how electricity is bought and sold on a grid.” In fact, Hussain predicts a whole new role emerges: sustainable software engineer. Or even better a multi-department team that looks to piece together the full software development lifecycle, from sourcing hardware materials to powering data centers to the deprecation of the tools and devices. This can start with just ardent, cross-functional green-conscious volunteers who make themselves know in an organization and who try to piece together this lifecycle. That's how it started with Microsoft, growing into a 2,000-person green team. Where do you get started? Hussain says to start by examining the carbon efficiency and the carbon intensity of your application. Hussain points to little moves that have a big impact like choosing when to run your workloads, which “depending upon the renewable mix and the energy grid, you can, just by changing when you run a workload, you can reduce the carbon emissions by 48 percent per application.” And don't just assume this is for the most modern microservices, he says this can even be more impactful when you are running certain jobs on legacy applications. Hussain continues to talk about the creation of a green public agreement. He also offers Microsoft's sustainability calculator which allows you to start to measure because, as we've learned with the agile movement, you can't improve what you can't measure.

Podcast proConf
#54 AngularConnect - ProConf на карантине | Angular 9 | Ivy | Нейронки наступают | Как делать ревью

Podcast proConf

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2020 122:40


Таймкоды: 07:30 - Keynote | Igor Minar & Stephen Fluin (https://youtu.be/6Zfk0OcFGn4) 25:00 - How Angular works | Kara Erickson (https://youtu.be/S0o-4yc2n-8) 32:10 - The secrets behind Angular’s lightning speed | Max Koretskyi (https://youtu.be/nQ8oJ1rpwIc) 35:00 - My Journey on the Angular Team | Manu Murthy (https://youtu.be/XV_2XJ0rZC8) 45:00 - The Architecture of Components | Erin Coughlan (https://youtu.be/pg8guVVwiMk) 01:02:30 - It's Alive! Machine Learning Writes Your Code! | Dominic Elm & Uri Shaked (https://youtu.be/eWhd48A3j6Y) 01:16:30 - Quantum NgRx Facades | Sam Julie (https://youtu.be/eq8n7iuHxQo) 01:24:40 - The art of humanizing Pull Requests (PR’s) | Ankita Kulkarni (https://youtu.be/WoYyFOXEFOI) 01:50:00 - Profiling Angular apps like a Shark | Gil Fink (https://youtu.be/4RzpYxurU88) 01:53:40 - How to save the world... one line at a time? | Asim Hussain (https://youtu.be/2c3IzLxxLfM) Мы в соцсетях: 1. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProconfShow 2. Telegram: https://t.me/proConf 3. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvasfOIImo7D9lQkb1Wc1tw 4. SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/proconf 5. Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/by/podcast/podcast-proconf/id1455023466

soundcloud architecture telegram angular my journey it's alive asim hussain angular connect uri shaked stephen fluin kara erickson
Now You're Talking
Now you're talking with Asim Hussain

Now You're Talking

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2020 23:35


I was joined in the studio by YouTube star Asim Hussain AKA SuperRebel. With over 150k subscribers to his channel Asim is using his knowledge and expertise in online media and marketing to support businesses. We talked about how and why he started his own YouTube channel and picked his brains on how we can all post better videos and be more successful in online marketing. For more details on how Asim’s company can take your business to the next level visit www.mme-london.com.

asim hussain
IT Career Energizer
Build Your Personal Brand and Broaden Your Horizons with Asim Hussain

IT Career Energizer

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2019 25:11


GUEST BIO: Asim Hussain is a developer, trainer, published author and conference speaker. He has worked for companies including the European Space Agency, Google and others. In January, he became Microsoft’s EMEA Lead for Regional Developer Advocacy. Asim is also Director of CodeCraft TV, providing online content, courses and training on JavaScript, Angular and general Web Development. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Asim Hussain. He is a well-known conference speaker, mentor and author, who has been working in the industry for nearly 20 years. Asim started his career working for the European Space Agency. Over the years, he has worked across many different industries using a range of languages including C++, Java, Python and JavaScript. Today, he is Microsoft’s EMEA Lead for Regional Developer Advocacy. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­(1.05) – So Asim, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Asim explains that he has been working in the IT industry for about 19 years. Over that time, he has worked in many different sectors, using a range of languages. Right now, he is the lead developer advocate for the EMEA region, at Microsoft. This is a recent promotion that he is both excited and nervous about. Asim explains that his new role enables him to continue with his teaching and educational work. This is a passion of his, which led to the creation of CodeCraft.tv. He began teaching online about 4 years ago, when he released about 6 courses that mainly covered working with JavaScript. He is part way through open-sourcing them. Asim is now a big believer in open source education. It brings benefits to the teacher as well as the students. (3.11) – So, why did you go into advocacy and development courses? Asim explained he got the bug when he was listening to a podcast in the car. While listening to it the speaker said something that was totally wrong about a subject Asim knew a lot about. Naturally, this frustrated him, but also motivated Asim to get out there and share his knowledge. That day, the idea for his first course was born. (4.28) – Phil asks Asim to share a unique IT career tip. Asim says that it is very important to be public about what you are doing. From the very start of your IT journey, share what you are learning and your experiences. Asim believes that if, for the past 19 years, he had consistently written a blog article per week his blog would now be more valuable than his house. When you look at someone who is well-known and respected in the industry, you will usually find out that they have been blogging, for many years. For the first year, you will be writing in a vacuum, so will get very little value from doing it. But, if you persist it will become an invaluable asset. Fairly quickly, it will start to grow at a very fast rate. (5.57) – Phil asks Asim to share his worst career moment with the audience and explain what he learned from that situation. The biggest mistake Asim made was when he was working in the finance industry. At that time,  he had a dual role. He was responsible for developing new systems, but, also had to keep the existing one running smoothly. To do this, he had two terminals open, one for development, the other for the production server. He would multitask. Running tests on new software on one terminal, while monitoring and maintaining the live system on the other. For the most part, this approach worked really well. However, one day, it led to near disaster. At the time, he smoked, so would regularly pop out for a cigarette. One day, he did exactly that. Before he left the office, he typed make into what he thought was his development terminal and left. Unfortunately, Asim had typed make into the wrong terminal. So, he had inadvertently started a job on the production server. That process consumed 100% of the CPU’s power and left the traders unable to do their job. Worse than that, it was just as the markets were about to close. For the bank’s trader’s this was a disaster. Closing is always a crazy busy and critical time of the day. They were unable to close their trades. Potentially, the company could have lost tens of thousands because of Asim’s simple mistake. Fortunately, the opposite happened. The trades they had been unable to close ended up making the bank money. Naturally, that episode reminded Asim of the need to be careful, at all times. (8.16) – Phil asks Asim what his best career moment has been, so far. For Asim, his biggest successes have come along recently. For example, getting involved in public speaking has been a highlight. This has led to so many other good things for Asim, including the chance to join Microsoft, in a role that he really enjoys. Writing his first book has also been a highlight. He released it for free, which was nerve-racking, especially when you consider that it took him 3 months to write. However, giving it away turned out to be a great approach. It really got him noticed and led to even more speaking opportunities. Asim says that releasing his book for free has been his biggest career win, to date. He really enjoys people coming up to him and thanking him for not charging for his book. In particular those from a developing country who tell him they could not have afforded to learn what he taught in that book any other way. (11.34) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The pace of change is both exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, you are constantly worried about being relevant. But, at the same time the possibilities this fast-paced change brings is exciting. Asim started with C++, moved onto Java, then Python. Today, he is using mostly JavaScript. There is plenty of variety when you work in IT. Right now, the intersection between machine learning and JavaScript is a particularly interesting field. There are enough different roles and challenges to keep you occupied for the rest of your career. With the added benefit that if you were to do something else, you would very likely still be able to use your machine learning JavaScript interface knowledge. (13.54) – What drew you to a career in IT, Asim? For Asim, it all started when he was a child. His sister studied computer science, so he started playing with her computer. At first, he just played the game. But, soon completed it and got bored. So, he put the BASIC tape in, read the manual, and started programming. As children, Asim and his brother set up a web agency. So, it was only natural for him to pick an IT-related degree subject. (16.06) – What is the best career advice you have been given? Asim says that is probably – admit your mistakes, something that he learned at the European Space Agency. When something goes wrong in space, that is it, you have potentially just wasted a couple of billion dollars. So, for the space industry, it is vital that people admit when they have made a mistake and do so straight away. It means that the problem can be sorted out before it is too late. It is important to own up to problems, as well as mistakes. The moment you do that, the solution starts to become apparent. Asim went on to say that he trusts people who admit their mistakes more than he does those who say they never make them. Usually, they are either hiding them, or are simply not doing enough, just playing it safe. (17.30) – If you were to start your IT career again, now, what would you do? Asim explains when he was younger; he followed the money, when he should have been paying attention to his brand. Today, he would work first on developing and improving his personal brand. That stays with you and benefits you forever, unlike the money which you usually end up wasting anyway. (18.14) – Phil asks Asim what career objectives he is currently focusing on. Right now, his new role at Microsoft is Asim’s main focus. His plan is to help to drive some thought leadership into the advocacy space. In particular, he wants to build genuinely strong connections between developers, across the world. Asim also wants to change the emotional response people have towards Microsoft. On a personal level, he wants to achieve these things by using more empathy and authentic connections. His aim is to come up with something that is truly innovative. (19.40) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Asim says being able to explain things to others has helped him throughout his career. Being able to put himself in other people’s shoes and understand how they work helps him to find the right language and mediums to use when sorting out bugs or developing something new. Good communication skills help you with many different aspects of your career. For example, when you have to make a presentation, perhaps to sell a new product, it is not hard to find the right language. Learning to think through somebody else’s eyes is very beneficial. The more you do it, the easier it gets. (21.45) – Phil asks Asim to share a final piece of career advice. When it comes to your career, do not over think things. It is all too easy to become overwhelmed by the fact there are so many different paths you can take. Don’t let that happen, just pick one and do that. If you find you don’t like it, that is not a problem, you can easily change direction. BEST MOMENTS: (4.56) Asim – "Be very, very public about what it is that you do." (5.21) Asim – "If I was writing a blog article a week, when I was 20, I think my blog would be worth more than my house today." (10.32) Asim – "Releasing that book for free, and out in the open was, I would say, the biggest win." (11.53) Asim – "What's exciting about this field is also terrifying about this field, which is that everything changes all the time." (13.04) Asim – "The intersection between machine learning and JavaScript is a very interesting field." (17.00) Asim – "Admit your mistakes, own up to problems. Once you own up to them, you own up to the solution as well." (18.05) Asim – "Always pick your personal brand, because that is worth a lot more to you, and it will stay with you." CONTACT ASIM: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jawache LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jawache/ Website: https://codecraft.tv  

My Angular Story
MAS 066: Asim Hussain

My Angular Story

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2019 41:00


Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Asim Hussain Episode Summary In this episode of My Angular Story, Charles hosts Asim Hussain, EMEA Regional Lead for Developer Relations at Microsoft and founder of CodeCraft. Listen to Asim on the podcast Adventures in Angular here. When Asim was 11 years old, his father bought a computer and Asim wrote his first program in Basic. Since then, Asim has been developing for about 20 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. Asim has migrated from AngularJS to Angular and has shared a course  on AngularJS Migration on codecraft.tv. Check out Asim’s free Angular book and his other courses here. Listen to the show to find out more about Asim’s current work on bringing machine learning APIs into the browser natively and other exciting projects. Links Adventures in Angular 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain codecraft.tv AngularJS Migration Free Angular book Asim's Twitter Asim's GitHub Asim's Medium Asim's LinkedIn https://devchat.tv/my-angular-story/  Picks Asim Hussain: The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown  Charles Max Wood: Purple Seat Cushion modern medicine inflatable donut cushion

All Angular Podcasts by Devchat.tv
MAS 066: Asim Hussain

All Angular Podcasts by Devchat.tv

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2019 41:00


Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Asim Hussain Episode Summary In this episode of My Angular Story, Charles hosts Asim Hussain, EMEA Regional Lead for Developer Relations at Microsoft and founder of CodeCraft. Listen to Asim on the podcast Adventures in Angular here. When Asim was 11 years old, his father bought a computer and Asim wrote his first program in Basic. Since then, Asim has been developing for about 20 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. Asim has migrated from AngularJS to Angular and has shared a course  on AngularJS Migration on codecraft.tv. Check out Asim’s free Angular book and his other courses here. Listen to the show to find out more about Asim’s current work on bringing machine learning APIs into the browser natively and other exciting projects. Links Adventures in Angular 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain codecraft.tv AngularJS Migration Free Angular book Asim's Twitter Asim's GitHub Asim's Medium Asim's LinkedIn https://devchat.tv/my-angular-story/  Picks Asim Hussain: The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown  Charles Max Wood: Purple Seat Cushion modern medicine inflatable donut cushion

Devchat.tv Master Feed
MAS 066: Asim Hussain

Devchat.tv Master Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2019 41:00


Sponsors Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus CacheFly Host: Charles Max Wood Special Guest: Asim Hussain Episode Summary In this episode of My Angular Story, Charles hosts Asim Hussain, EMEA Regional Lead for Developer Relations at Microsoft and founder of CodeCraft. Listen to Asim on the podcast Adventures in Angular here. When Asim was 11 years old, his father bought a computer and Asim wrote his first program in Basic. Since then, Asim has been developing for about 20 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. Asim has migrated from AngularJS to Angular and has shared a course  on AngularJS Migration on codecraft.tv. Check out Asim’s free Angular book and his other courses here. Listen to the show to find out more about Asim’s current work on bringing machine learning APIs into the browser natively and other exciting projects. Links Adventures in Angular 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain codecraft.tv AngularJS Migration Free Angular book Asim's Twitter Asim's GitHub Asim's Medium Asim's LinkedIn https://devchat.tv/my-angular-story/  Picks Asim Hussain: The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown  Charles Max Wood: Purple Seat Cushion modern medicine inflatable donut cushion

Real Talk JavaScript
Episode 11: Web Accessibility with Jen Luker

Real Talk JavaScript

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2018 47:43


Recording date: 2018-11-13 John Papa https://twitter.com/john_papa Ward Bell https://twitter.com/wardbell Dan Wahlin https://twitter.com/danwahlin Jen Luker https://twitter.com/knitcodemonkey Resources: section 508 https://webaim.org/standards/508/checklist The a11y project https://a11yproject.com/ Jaws https://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS ARIA https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA The https://www.starbucks.com/careers/ Starbucks career site WCAG https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ Jen helped author https://www.npmjs.com/package/eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y Husky https://www.npmjs.com/package/husky Google A11y https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/accessibility/ Lighthouse https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk?hl=en Azure text to speech https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/text-to-speech/ amazon polly https://aws.amazon.com/polly/ Amazon Polly on Dan's blog: https://blog.codewithdan.com/8-tips-for-maximizing-your-productivity/ *Someone to follow * Gleb Bahmutov https://twitter.com/bahmutov Tejas Kumar https://twitter.com/TejasKumar_ Rick Strahl https://twitter.com/RickStrahl Transcript { credit to Jen Luker } (Intro Music) 0:00:06.6 Voiceover Welcome to Real Talk JavaScript, the weekly talk show with advice and insight into the technologies and practices currently being used to build web applications in the real world. Each week John Papa and Ward Bell talk to industry experts about their experiences writing, deploying and maintaining web applications in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. And now, here are your hosts, John and Ward. 0:00:40.0 John Papa Welcome back to Real Talk JavaScript, this is Episode 11: Accessibility in JavaScript Apps and this week I’ve got my co-host, Dan Wahlin. How’s it going, Dan? 0:00:48.8 Dan Wahlin Going great, John. 0:00:49.9 John Papa And Dan, today we have a special guest of Jen Luker. How’re you doing, Jen? 0:00:54.6 Jen Luker Doing pretty well today. How are you? 0:00:56.0 John Papa We’re doing pretty good, thank you very much. Jen is a Senior Software Engineer at Formidable, BookBytes Podcast co-host, RxJS Learning Team member, and eslint-plugin-react-native-a11y core contributor. Jen has spent a majority of her career as a full stack developer but has a particular fondness for frontend technologies, thus why she’s here today. And she trains others in ReactJS and Accessibility, and enjoys removing obstacles that slow down productivity and loves optimizing webpack builds. When she’s not finding solutions or mentoring others, her spare time is spent spinning yarn from raw wool and knitting. She’s even better known to 3D print her own tools for the job. 0:01:33.3 Dan Wahlin Nice! 0:01:34.0 John Papa Welcome to the show, Jen. 0:01:35.2 Jen Luker Thank you! 0:01:36.0 John Papa There’s a lot in there. I mean, you’re not- 0:01:37.9 Jen Luker Yeah… 0:01:37.9 John Papa Just a JavaScript coder with ReactJS. It looks like you do a lot of teaching, and knitting! That’s pretty cool. 0:01:44.1 Jen Luker Haha, it’s… I like to say that I’m a knitter first and then a programmer second. So, it’s definitely a large part of my life. 0:01:53.3 John Papa You mean you do something besides coding all day? 0:01:56.1 Jen Luker It happens. 0:01:56.9 John Papa & Dan Wahlin (laughing) 0:01:58.9 Dan Wahlin You know, I have heard more and more people with knitting now. I, like, I hear that, I also do a lot of training, and I hear that all the time now, so it must be a big upcoming... trend I guess, I don’t know. 0:02:11.5 Jen Luker I think it has a little more to do with the fact that what we do as developers is often fleeting. It’s something that exists online, it’s not something tangible. Knitting is a programming language that sticks around long enough for you to wear it. So it’s- 0:02:28.9 John Papa I see. 0:02:30.4 Jen Luker Definitely caters to those that need that tangible aspect in their lives. But one of the coolest things I’ve seen knitting be used for, not just, you know, cryptography World War II, but also things like using it as a programming simulator for people that don’t have access to computers, such as people in Third World countries. So it’s definitely something that caters to the mind of programmers. 0:02:56.6 Dan Wahlin Interesting. Yeah, I’ve… Some of the people, too, have also mentioned it just helps them, it’s very relaxing they said. I don’t know how to knit, I haven’t tried it, but it looks fun. 0:03:04.3 John Papa So now, when we see Dan at his next conference, right before his talk, with a ball of yarn and some needles, we’ll know exactly why that happened. 0:03:10.7 Dan Wahlin Yeah. I’ll say, “Jen inspired me!” 0:03:13.0 John Papa & Dan Wahlin (laughing) 0:03:14.1 Jen Luker Well, you do know that at React Conf they actually had a fiberarts circle that I ran, so I ended up teaching quite a few people to knit, and crochet, and spin at that conference. So- 0:03:24.2 Dan Wahlin That’s so cool! 0:03:25.2 Jen Luker It is a possibility. 0:03:26.3 John Papa Huh! 0:03:26.8 Dan Wahlin There you go. 0:03:27.4 John Papa That is so cool. Yeah, I think we all have different ways of dealing with non programming mindsets. Like, what do you do when you’re not coding? And some people exercise, some people meditate, some people draw, some people play music, some people knit! So, I think it’s great to have something to kind of work different parts of your brain. 0:03:47.0 Jen Luker Definitely. 0:03:47.7 John Papa Hey, Dan! You had a question for us to kick things off about accessibility. 0:03:50.7 Dan Wahlin Yeah! So, I think we hear a lot… I used to work, one of my first jobs out of college was at a government agency and so there it was kind of required to learn about section 508 and things. But with corporations and with a lot of the developers I work with, I’ll have to admit I think we’re a little more in the dark on… 0:04:11.2 What are some of the ways, like, if I were to say, “Hey Jen, what are the key ways from a high level that I could add some accessibility things and like, who can I help with that?” Because I think a lot of us, we think, “Oh, well I just add a title to an image and call it a day.” 0:04:28.0 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:04:28.5 Dan Wahlin And I suspect there’s a lot more to it than that. 0:04:30.6 Jen Luker There is a lot more to it but there’s different ways of approaching accessibility on the web. One of the ways is technologically, which is oftentimes what developers deal with, but that’s only 30-50% of the problems you’re going to find in accessibility issues. The other half is going to be content and context and verbiage and language and ways that you say things that make it easier for people that have different disabilities, like neurological issues, or language barriers from interacting with the content on the site. 0:05:08.5 To deal with the technological side though, I tend to point people towards the aXe, Chrome, and Firefox extensions to begin with because it not only runs like, a technological audit on your site, but it also gives you more information. There’s always links that explain why there’s a problem, why the types of people that you’re focusing when you fix an issue, and different ways that you can fix an issue. So it’s a really great educational tool for just getting started. 0:05:43.6 John Papa Excellent. 0:05:44.2 Dan Wahlin Yeah, see, you already hit on a couple things like, you mentioned neurologically how maybe people interpret or have the context for different text. And I actually have a son with some disabilities so I’m very sensitive to this whole, you know, concept. It’s amazing how when you’re not around it, you just don’t think about it. But when you’re around it, it becomes, you know, your whole world. A big deal. So, you know, that’s when I hadn’t ever heard of- Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Is that related to the context you put into, like, the site, then, that helps them understand it better? Or how’s that work? 0:06:18.5 Jen Luker It is. Something that they recommend, or things that I’ve seen regarding recommendations for the level of content does vary depending on who your audience is. If you are a technical journal then chances are you’re going to be catering to a much more technical audience. However, if you’re a generic website you may want to keep your verbiage as low-level as possible, like anything between a third grade level to a high school level education, to allow for people to better understand the words that you’re actually putting on a page, and what the words are trying to tell you. 0:07:00.0 Like, you’ve got one side where you have people with ADHD that is not going to make it to the end of a 6-paragraph description of what it is you’re supposed to do. And then you have people on the other side of the spectrum that really need step-by-step instructions of what it is they need to do to get through your form. So trying to find that happy medium, or trying to find a way of giving a TLDR and then a longer context for different sides of that issue, is also something you may want to look at. 0:07:31.1 Dan Wahlin Interesting, yeah. I’ll have to admit that’s something that I haven’t really, you know, you mentioned third grade through, maybe, high school level and I think, as developers, we, especially if we’re in charge of putting some of the content, you know, out there ourselves, that’s something that I don’t think I’ve really thought through as to, you know, who’s my target that’s going to be reading this? As far as, you know, you think of, “I know these words and I’m sure everyone else will know these words.” But it sounds like you’re a lot better off if you can kind of reign that in a little bit, make it more focused. 0:08:02.3 Jen Luker Something that I’ve found that’s extremely different for even a dev when they’re onboarding into a new company is learning the names of things, and learning the acronyms for things. So if you’re using customized names for your products or your processes or you’re using acronyms, then you’re already losing part of your audience who just doesn’t understand what those things mean. 0:08:28.6 John Papa So, I think that’s a great point. This isn’t just for accessibility for, even for people like, let’s just say vision-impaired on one side. This is for anybody who doesn’t necessarily know your vernacular. 0:08:38.8 Jen Luker Exactly. 0:08:39.8 John Papa You go to a new company, what’s the first thing they do? “Hey, today we’re going to use the TLC with the EBY and then we’re going to talk with the XJ Bots.” And you’re like, “...What does any of that actually mean?” 0:08:49.4 Jen Luker I recently onboarded with a company and someone was very nice enough to put together a cheat sheet of acronyms for me and it was five pages long. 0:08:57.5 John Papa (laughs) 0:08:58.0 Dan Wahlin Wow! (laughs) 0:08:59.0 John Papa When I went to Disney one of my first things they did, like my first week there, was I got a book like that, too. 0:09:05.3 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:09:05.8 John Papa And the funny thing at Disney was the every TLA, which is a three-letter acronym which is kind of funny, the first letter of all of them begin with D for "Disney". Which really- 0:09:14.3 Jen Luker Yeah. 0:09:13.8 John Papa Only left two letters for all the rest. (laughs) 0:09:16.8 ALL (laughing) 0:09:17.9 John Papa I don't know if it's changed since then though. (laughs) But let's, let's start back. So on that same note, there's something I've seen a lot of over the years, and when I first encountered this, it's not an acronym but it's an abbreviation, I didn't know what the heck it meant. But, and maybe there's other people in the same boat so I wanted to talk about it with you. A-11-Y. 0:09:39.1 Jen Luker Yes. 0:09:40.0 John Papa Can you explain what that is and why people see that? 0:09:42.6 Jen Luker So back in the days of Twitter when there were only 140 characters, writing out a really long word like "accessibility" which is 13 letter long, took up a lot of space. So due to Twitter and their awesome audience, they shortened it to A11Y which is A-, the first letter in "accessibility", 11 letters, and then Y-, the last letter in "accessibility." You see the same thing with "Kubernetes" with K8S, or "internationalization" which is I18N. So any of those really long words end up getting shortened to first letter, number of characters in between first and last letter, and last letter. 0:10:26.0 John Papa Yeah, that's... that's kind of funny, you know? Once I realized that, I started going, "You know, I've been using I18N for years and I didn't know why it was called that." 0:10:33.1 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:10:33.2 John Papa Until I discovered it through A11Y, 'cause we, our nickname for it when we were talking about it was "ally". 0:10:39.0 Jen Luker Which I think is highly appropriate. 0:10:40.7 John Papa Yeah, yep. It kind of is a... 0:10:42.8 Dan Wahlin It fits it. 0:10:43.6 John Papa It kinda worked for us, too. 0:10:44.8 Dan Wahlin Yeah. 0:10:45.3 John Papa So, Dan, you're really D1N and Jen, you're J1n. It doesn't really work for our short first names, does it? 0:10:50.8 Dan Wahlin & Jen Luker (laughing) 0:10:52.0 Jen Luker Well, Jen is already shortened. 0:10:53.9 John Papa Yeah, yeah. It doesn't really help. What if your name is Al? What do you do? You only have two letters. 0:10:58.4 Dan Wahlin Yeah, there you're out of luck. 0:10:59.3 Jen Luker First and last. 0:11:01.0 John Papa A0L I guess? AOL! There you go! That's what AOL stood for. 0:11:05.4 Dan Wahlin Al. 0:11:06.4 John Papa The secret has been revealed, right here. 0:11:07.5 Dan Wahlin Who knew? 0:11:08.3 Jen Luker (laughs) 0:11:09.0 John Papa (laughs) So accessibility. One of the things I think that was really eye-opening to me was understanding how many people this actually affects. When I first started getting into it many years ago on some large projects the things that were introduced to me were,"Well, we're doing this because there are, you know, millions of people who are affected by this and we're really trying to make the web more accessible." You know, it sounds like a grandiose thing, but that was true. We were trying to make our websites more accessible to all these people who either couldn't use our websites, or they could but with much difficulty. 0:11:43.0 Jen Luker Right. 0:11:43.6 John Papa Now, what kind of scale is this really at? Is it just one guy down the street? Or is it, you know? How big is this? 0:11:48.8 Jen Luker Well the World Health Organization estimates that about 15% of the entire world has some sort of disability. This is a highly conservative number. Not everyone wants to identify with the fact that they have a disability. There's definitely a level of taboo that comes with the word "disability." So- 0:12:13.3 Dan Wahlin Yep, I can vouch for that. 0:12:15.6 Jen Luker Right? So there's a lot of people that will not identify with that label and therefore the 15% is, in fact, a very limited number. You know, if you're looking just in the U.S. they estimate, as of the 2012 census so it's been a while, 19% of people, so almost 1 in 5. If you're looking at other numbers we're looking at 8% of you men who are colorblind of some fashion, and it's not an on and off switch, there's a varying degree. There's also people with multiple versions of color blindness. There are people with very slight color blindness so it's almost unnoticeable. The range is quite large and about 1% of women also are colorblind. So you're looking at about 4.5% of the population as a whole just for one type of disability. 0:13:10.8 John Papa That's fascinating, and it hits, at part for me, that's at home, too. 'Cause I also identify as being partially colorblind, I guess you could say. I'm on that scale. 0:13:19.8 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:13:20.4 John Papa I don't have full blown color blindness because I can still determine some colors but others I have struggles with. 0:13:25.8 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:13:26.4 John Papa But I've also found that when I identify with this I get a lot of backlash from people of, "Well you're not really colorblind." Or, you know, there's a lot of disbelief. It's almost like it's become, "Oh, I'm sorry." So I can totally empathize with you on why people wouldn't want to identify with any of these things ‘cause it's almost like they put them in a category of, "Oh, well... the pity category." 0:13:48.0 Jen Luker Right? And there's differences in color blindness. It's not just grayscale in everything. There's the red/green, there's blue/green, there's you know, the trichotomy side, there's... there's a lot of different variations, and then there's some people that can see the differences between but the colors are all still muted. The more muted they are the less likely you're going to be able to tell the difference between them which really starts to rear its ugly head when you're looking at images or text color changes. So, it gets complicated fast. 0:14:25.8 John Papa Is this the real answer to what color that dress is on the internet streams? 0:14:29.6 ALL (laughing) 0:14:31.5 Dan Wahlin Oh my gosh. 0:14:32.5 Jen Luker That's a whole other fascinating concept- 0:14:34.6 John Papa (laughs) 0:14:34.9 Jen Luker When it comes to how each person perceives color- 0:14:39.2 Dan Wahlin Yeah. That was- 0:14:39.1 Jen Luker And how no one actually perceives them the same way. 0:14:41.5 Dan Wahlin That was pretty freaky, actually. 0:14:42.9 John Papa Yeah, I know. (laughs) Yeah, I get that a lot from folks on, themes for example. I like to create themes for VS Code or for other tools and when you create a theme people get very personal over what theme they choose. And the reason I created my own is because I like mine to look the way I look and it makes me feel good, it makes me more productive, but not everybody likes one theme. There's probably, you know, 100 great themes out there. It's because everybody looks at things differently and they have varying degrees of sensitivity to the colors, too. 0:15:14.0 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:15:14.4 John Papa So, you're building an app and you have to pull accessibility in. What kind of apps should use accessibility? 0:15:21.1 Jen Luker All of them. 0:15:22.0 John Papa Good answer. (laughs) 0:15:23.5 Dan Wahlin Yeah, it's a good one. I was gonna say, "Great answer." 0:15:24.3 Jen Luker (laughs) 0:15:25.0 John Papa What does it cost for money? I mean, I a business manager now. Does it cost more money? How much more time is it going to take? Do I need to teach my people how to build web apps for accessibility? What kind of things are affected by it? I don't have time for this, no, let's not do it. I bet you've heard all these things? 0:15:40.3 Jen Luker Oh yeah! Absolutely. 0:15:41.7 John Papa How do you answer those? 0:15:42.9 Jen Luker Well, there's a couple different ways. The not so passive-aggressive way is to find the person closest to them that's colorblind and then sit them down and say, "Can you explain to them why we're not going to write the website in a way that they can use it? This person in that company that works for you." That tends to drop, you know, that tends to pull up some people's shorts. 0:16:06.6 But the other ways is you can start talking about those financials. If you're looking at the return on investment take those 15% of the population. If you are, you know, a $10 million company, by making your website accessible it's an $11.5 million company, and that's just your slice of the 15%. Only 1 in 10 websites is accessible, which means you still have the opportunity to corner the market in your region, your demographic. That means that that 15% could very well be larger than the rest of the people that use your website. 0:16:53.4 Dan Wahlin That's an interesting concept from a, you know, purely financial standpoint. I’d never even thought about that, even cornering your own market. 0:17:00.1 John Papa And that's what a lot of people make decisions on, right? If you're gonna make more money, it's still making- Think like a business manager. You're telling me my $10 million app I can pull in $11.5 million instead; an extra 1.5 million a year, which is, pick some fake numbers for a minute. 0:17:13.9 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:17:14.5John Papa What's the cost though? Of building that app, what's the additional cost? 0:17:18.7 Jen Luker If you're designing it from the ground up it's very little additional cost. So a lot of the major issues have to do with color contrasts. Other ones have to do with making sure, you know, as you've said before, title tags on HTML or hrefs or ALT tags on images. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the platform, HTML, is inherently accessible and we, as JavaScript developers, go ahead and run through and override it and make it inaccessible. So, sticking closer to the platform is usually enough to cover the majority of accessibility issues. 0:18:03.4 John Papa Let's take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. 0:18:05.8 Voiceover Looking to learn more about the state of software security? Check out VeraCode’s recently released report, "State of Software Security Volume 9." This year's report highlights the more important open source vulnerabilities and the latest dev sec-ops trends. Dev sec-ops, by the way, is kind of like "devops" plus "security". This is VeraCode’s most developer-focused volume ever. So don't miss out. Get your copy today by visiting www.VeraCode.com/SOSS for State of Software Security. That's www. v-e-r-a- code.com slash S-O-S-S-. 0:18:47.0 John Papa And we're back. Jen, you were just talking about how you can stick to the platform and that might help you build accessible apps. Can you kind of explain what you mean by that? 0:18:55.4 Jen Luker I usually mean by using semantic HTML as much as possible for the reasons it's made. For instance there's a lot of... A lot of developers that still would rather use a div over a button, but the complexities inmaking a div accessible like a button go deeper than you'd expect. So it's not just adding a highlight, adding text or a keyboard interaction. It's also weird things like, in some versions of ios, if you don't add a cursor pointer in the CSS, ios won't detect that it's a link, even if you tell it that it is. 0:19:39.0 John Papa Hmm. That's interesting. 0:19:40.0 Dan Wahlin Yeah, I don't think I've run into that, myself. 0:19:42.5 John Papa Oh, we hear about semantic HTML a lot, right Dan? About, "Don't use divs everywhere!" But yet, I don't know about you, but a lot of apps I get called in to look at it's like, div craziness. 0:19:52.5 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:19:53.2 Dan Wahlin I call it div soup. 0:19:54.7 John Papa (laughs) Div soup! 0:19:55.0 Jen Luker (laughs) 0:19:56.4 Dan Wahlin Yeah. How much, so Jen, are there numbers out there, and I'm sure there are, for people- 'cause I know probably the only program I've heard of would be for people with vision, you know, various issues from they're completely blind to partially. How many different apps are out there? What, is there a number one app that you use to actually read these pages to them? Like, I've heard "JAWS", is that still a thing these days? 0:20:21.1 Jen Luker JAWS is definitely a huge things, particularly for windows systems. Other screen readers would be just the default screen reader that Mac uses. Chrome has its own that you can implement, too. There's a dozen major, major players. 0:20:44.0 Dan Wahlin Okay. 0:20:46.1 Jen Luker So, and not all of them, just like the browsers, read the text or the website in the same way. Even ios and android devices have different readers of their own. So, each one kind of reads things a little bit differently. It's important to be aware of those differences once you start really digging deep into accessibility, especially if you're trying to customize something away from semantic HTML. 0:21:13.5 Dan Wahlin Now does, you mentioned, I mean, the thing that I think most developers probably have heard of are title attributes, and like you mentioned, the ALT on images, things like that. One that probably most people have come across, and you're going to have to correct me if I say this wrong, I've already said "ARIA?" [pronounced are-ee-uh] 0:21:30.7 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:21:31.3 Dan Wahlin Is it ARIA [pronounced are-ee-uh] or ARIA [pronounced air-ee-uh?] Is it ARIA [pronounced are-ee-uh]? 0:21:32.6 Jen Luker I call it ARIA [pronounced are-ee-uh]. It's WAI-ARIA [pronounced why-are-ee-uh]. 0:21:34.2 Dan Wahlin Okay then. I'm going with you then. So, okay. See, I'm right, everyone! 0:21:38.6 John Papa & Jen Luker (laughing) 0:21:39.3 Dan Wahlin 'Cause Jen says! 0:21:40.8 Jen Luker Ha! 0:21:42.1 Dan Wahlin Now that's one I've only seen a few of the, I guess you could say core attributes that you can do with ARIA, but do those play a, I would assume, a pretty big role then? With some of the screen readers out there? 0:21:54.3 Jen Luker Yes and no. Going back to semantic HTML, if you're using just HTML then there's really no need for the ARIA roles. The roles themselves are built in to the platform-specific HTML; however, if you are deviating from that plan or you are using something a little closer to HTML5 then ARIA can play a role in making sure that exactly what you want read to a screen reader is defined. So, usually the first rule of ARIA is "Don't use ARIA." But there's definitely a place for it. 0:22:40.9 Dan Wahlin Okay, good to know. Yeah. I think that's one area that, you know, I'm comfortable with the semantic tags and it's good to hear that those are still the, kind of, I guess, goal. 0:22:51.3 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:22:52.1 Dan Wahlin But I'm not as familiar with the ARIA stuff. You know, you'll see it, for instance, even in some of the, if you use Bootstrap all, the CSS. 0:22:59.2 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:22:59.5 Dan Wahlin I've noticed they'll add it here and there. If you use Font Awesome I've noticed there'll even be some ARIA-type stuff. But kind of one of those where you copy and paste it and don't really know what it does, you know, without looking it up more. 0:23:10.5John Papa You bring up a great point there with Font Awesome, Dan. Font Awesome, if my memory serves me right, you take a icon tag, right? The i and then you almost always have to stick in an ARIA attribute into there because you're effectively making a button, sometimes, out of that. So you're making a button out of an icon, which isn't really a button, and maybe you don't want it to be inside of a button control. Which almost always leads to end up using the ARIA attributes on there. Is that a bad thing, Jen? Or is that, I mean, 'cause that's what I see a lot out there. I mean, just 'cause I see it doesn't mean that it's right. 0:23:45.7 Jen Luker For the most part what you want in a button is text; however, we often use icons for those buttons. If you can possibly wrap it in a button control that would be better than just trying to add ARIA items to the icon itself. However, that is a way to get around that. Ideally you'd add a button, you'd tell the button its title and its value and that's what ends up getting read instead of just an empty icon. 0:24:20.0 John Papa Yeah, I hear you. Ideally, I try to do that as well, and I'm actually trying to pull up some code of where I've done this before to kind of get sense for, you know, "Why did I do that as opposed to actually using a button, in that case?” And I think sometimes it's more about styling and maybe it's just about effort. Like, you could put it inside of a button. If you didn't really want it to look like a button you could then restyle the button so it didn't look that way. 0:24:44.7 Jen Luker It is so easy to restyle a button- 0:24:48.1 John Papa Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:24:47.8 Jen Luker So that it doesn't actually look like a button. 0:24:49.4 John Papa Yeah. 0:24:49.9 Jen Luker It is so easy. It's like three lines of CSS and suddenly it's just your icon. 0:24:55.9 John Papa I think you're right on that. I mean, and that's actually gets back to a thing of, Daniel you'll laugh at this, it makes me think of Silverlight. (laughs) The old Silverlight days. 0:25:04.2 Jen Luker (laughs) Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:25:05.3 John Papa Where everything was described as a lookless control. And I kind of wish, in some ways, HTML was like that. 0:25:11.8 Dan Wahlin Yeah. 0:25:12.4 John Papa Whereas, out of the box, a button has a certain look and a feel. I wish it didn't. Like, you had to add those things because I feel like because there already is a standard way these things are represented... Like, you stick a button on a page you get a certain look, and it's almost never exactly what you want it to look like anyway. So maybe if there was a lookless feel to these HTML elements- 0:25:32.6 Dan Wahlin Or at least an option for that, right? 0:25:34.7 John Papa Yeah! 0:25:35.0 Dan Wahlin Where if you want it out of the box, great. But if you don't, here's how you can start from scratch and just add your own CSS in. Which wouldn't be too bad because we typically use, especially for public facing, you know, reset-type CSS, stylesheets anyway. So you could just kind of say, "Nope. Start from scratch and here's what I'm using." 0:25:52.3 John Papa Yeah. 0:25:52.8 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:25:53.1 Dan Wahlin But on that topic, Jen. Is, you know, for your... You obviously specialize in this and I saw in some of the info John was sharing with me that you worked on a website that implemented some automated accessibility testing to meet, is it WCAG? Is that how you say the standard there? 0:26:10.5 Jen Luker Yeah. 0:26:11.1 Dan Wahlin WCAG 2.0? Okay. 0:26:12.5 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:26:13.4 Dan Wahlin Can you tell us more about, kind of that process? And what you need to do there? 0:26:17.6 Jen Luker I actually worked on the Starbucks Careers Site project that was recently released. The benefit of that project is that when they started with a rewrite they started from design up with the intention to comply with WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility. So it was literally baked in from the design up and everybody was on board with engineering it to be as accessible as possible. So it was very much a collaborative effort between the design team, the different developers that worked on it, and even the engineering managers and the product owners. It was a really great process. 0:27:05.2 As far as the testing goes, we actually went through a few different layers of testing. The very first one is we implemented the eslint-jsx... or the eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y ... ESLint plugin. That (laughs)- 0:27:24.8 John Papa Oh, sorry, wait. Just let me make sure I got that one right. It's the eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y, right? 0:27:30.9 Jen Luker Yes! 0:27:31.8 John Papa Okay. Perfect. (laughs) 0:27:32.8 Dan Wahlin Say that 10 times fast. 0:27:33.7 Jen Luker I know. 0:27:34.0 John Papa Exactly. 0:27:34.9 Jen Luker It's really long. Especially when you start talking about the fact that I wrote another one for React Native. So... 0:27:39.4 John Papa (laughs) 0:27:40.0 Jen Luker It's even longer. That was kind of the first line of defense. It was utilized right there with Prettier, which was great. We used husky to run Prettier and the accessibility linter at the same time before someone could push code to the repo. In addition to that, we moved on to using axe-core as implemented into Jest for unit testing. And then we also use axe-core in Enzyme for end-to-end testing once the content was compiled down to static pages. 0:28:26.4 So this allowed us to hit the developers before they even pushed, hit the unit test of each one to make sure that they would comply if given the ideal data, and then made sure that it was still compliant once the data from the APIs was inserted into the page on a real time level. 0:28:52.2 That essentially meant that at every step of the process we made sure that everything was compliant before it made it to live. 0:29:02.1 Dan Wahlin Excellent. This would be public, I guess, right? Is this where people would go to look for a job? Or... is that what it was? It says the careers website, it looks like. 0:29:10.0 Jen Luker Yes, it was actually the... Yeah, it's just Starbucks.com/Careers. 0:29:14.8 John Papa Okay. 0:29:15.5 Jen Luker It was multiple pages, it had its own menu navigation. Once you actually go to look for a job by submitting your resume and stuff, you're transported out to the portal that they use, which we didn't get to go over, but the careers section of the Starbucks.com website is, in fact, accessible. And they're using those to expand that project. 0:29:43.4Dan Wahlin For people that want to learn more about it learn more about it, obviously I guess you could go right click view source on, you know, the careers site, but is there a recommended site that it out there that's considered a really good, almost like cheat sheet of how to get started adding stuff into your site? 0:29:59.5 Jen Luker There is. WCAG 2.0 website. 0:30:03.1Dan Wahlin Okay. 0:30:03.0 Jen Luker Which we will add to the show notes for this. It is on W3's website. That's usually a great place to go dig in and find out what's kind of covered in compliance. If you dig in deep enough you can find examples of how to implement code in an accessible way. They give different formats of how you could implement a menu, different ways of, you know, drop downs, so they do give you examples that would comply with accessibility compliance that I've found isn't always exactly going to suit your needs but gives you a very good idea of what's going to be necessary. 0:30:46.5 Dan Wahlin Okay. And is there, when it comes to, you know, if I'm vision-impaired, as a, from developer standpoint is there a way to really test that? Short of using like JAWS or maybe one of the built in readers you mentioned? Or is there an actual tool out there than can help you, you know, make sure that what you wanted them to hear is actually what gets heard? 0:31:08.0 Jen Luker It's literally manually testing at that point. 0:31:10.8 Dan Wahlin Okay, I kinda figured. But, yeah I'm wondering if there's anything out there. 0:31:14.4 Jen Luker Something I do want to mention about that is when you are dealing with testing screen readers, among other different types of ... you know, accessibility technologies, assistive technologies that help you. Being cold, not knowing them, and going in and trying to test them actually develops a huge amount of frustration. That can actually develop enough frustration that you decide that it's not even worth it for someone else to have to try to deal with this pain even with something is ideal. 0:31:52.0 What you should do is find someone who uses that technology day in and day out. You'll be amazed at how much faster and much easier they navigate through tools. And something that I have found extremely interesting is how they've learned to adapt their interactivity with your site based on how it's already broken. So it can be very fascinating to see how people that interact with it have their actual pain points, which things aren't, and those aren't things that you're going to be able to identify as just a casual user. 0:32:28.8 John Papa Let's take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. 0:32:32.0 Voiceover Are you building a web application? Need to deliver it soon and don’t have the people to do it? Maybe you’re not sure your company has the skillset or experience to do it. Then maybe we can help. 0:32:42.4 I’m your host, Ward Bell, and my day job is building applications for companies like yours. I don’t do it alone, I’m president of IdeaBlade, a consultancy that specializes in enterprise web application development. We’re particularly strong in Angular, RxJS, NgRx Redux on the frontend, and .Net Microsoft technologies on the server. 0:33:03.2 We’re a small tight knit group of people, hand picked by me, for their expertise, experience,integrity, and team spirit. Maybe we can help you with architectural guidance and hands-on development. And if there’s something we don’t know (and in our field, really, there’s too much to know), we can draw on our personal connections in the Microsoft RD, MVP, and Google GDE Networks as well as our international circle of really great developers, people we know and trust personally. 0:33:29.8 If you’ve got a project that’s keeping you up at night shoot us an email at info@ideablade.com. That’s info@IdeaBlade.com. And now back to the show! 0:33:42.0 John Papa And we’re back. Jen, Dan brought up a good question ‘cause I had this same thought, and I know it’s changed throughout the years, too; it’s how do you test for your site being accessible, and I realize, you know, the manual test is the best one. But there’s, and you do some automating as well for this. I noticed you mentioned the eslint plugin that you had. 0:34:01.5 Years ago there was, well it still exists, a Chrome plugin for screen reader which is now labeled as deprecated, and I notice they always link you over to the Lighthouse tools now, the Chrome plugin for that, which does an accessibility audit. I don’t know how you feel but I’m curious, like on, I see for example, the Starbucks Careers site has a, right now, 100 out of 100 score for accessibility. That doesn’t make me feel like it’s done, but it does make me feel like at least, like if there were something missing in that list of what wasn’t 100, I’d know I have some work to do. But when it’s 100 I’m then stuck with the, “What’s my next step?” Like, running Lighthouse step one: make sure those things aren’t barking at you. 0:34:44.9 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:34:45.6 John Papa But what do you do after that? 0:34:47.2 Jen Luker After that is when you starting bringing in actually user testers. So previously we were talking about return on investments of adding accessibility features from the viewpoint of someone who wants to add the accessibility demographic, right? The addition of adding those accessibility features actually expands far beyond those with accessibility issues, but also everybody. So, for instance, say that you’re sitting in a really noisy bar and you want to share a video with your friends. You can’t just sit there and play the video and expect them to get everything that’s being said. It’s too loud in the area that you’re in. With either a transcript or subtitles you can actually understand everything that’s going on in the video without having sound. 0:35:39.9 John Papa I’m so glad you brought that up ‘cause that’s something that is near and dear to me on videos. Not just for people who have issues, but it’s also… Just think about the financial side of this, too, and the marketing side. If you want somebody to watch your video and it’s scrolling past them on a screen in a Twitter feed, or Linkedin, or Instagram, or any kind of social media even, or even on the TV. If there’s no sound, if they can see the words sometimes that grabs their attention. 0:36:08.0 And I’ll, gonna share something about myself here, when I watch TV shows, and I love science fiction, things like Game of Thrones for example- 0:36:17.1 Jen Luker (laughs) 0:36:17.5 John Papa I actually put the closed captions on because I can’t tell what the heck name they’re saying. 0:36:21.7 Dan Wahlin I do the same thing. 0:36:23.0 John Papa You know? (laughs) 0:36:23.4 Dan Wahlin Not with Game of Thrones but with other stuff, yeah. 0:36:25.8 John Papa Yeah, I mean if their name was “Dan” I could get it. But when some of these names comes on I’m like, “...” So I love the fact that we… It’s not just for people who can’t understand names like me, but it’s a great thing for videos ‘cause now you’re reading an audience who maybe they don’t understand the slang you’re using, maybe English isn’t their first language. If you’re recording in English. 0:36:46.3 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:36:47.9 John Papa So when I talk with other countries they use the closed captions a lot for trying to figure out, “What did John say?” There’s just so many good ways and good reasons to do it and it’s not hard. 0:36:58.4 Jen Luker Unh-unh (negative). It’s not necessarily hard but it is time consuming. And it can be a little bit costly, depending on whether you do it yourself or whether you’re hiring someone to- 0:37:08.6 John Papa Yes. 0:37:09.2 Jen Luker Provide those transcriptions for you. 0:37:11.3 John Papa There are some free ones. Like if you go to YouTube and you upload it they give you one free translation, but then you run the risk of something like, my good buddy, Asim Hussain, his name is spelled A-S-I-M. 0:37:22.9 Jen Luker Mm-hmm (affirmative). 0:37:23.4 John Papa And when he recorded one of the videos it came out on the closed captioning as “Hello, everyone. My name is Awesome Hussein.” 0:37:29.3 Jen Luker (laughs) 0:37:30.2 ALL (laughing) 0:37:31.1 Dan Wahlin We should call him that now, when I see him. 0:37:32.6 John Papa Yes! So that’s now his nickname. (laughs) 0:37:34.6 Jen Luker That’s awesome. Ha ha! 0:37:35.9 John Papa Literally! 0:37:38.2 Jen Luker Oh, goodness. Yeah, YouTube is… I’m so proud of YouTube for at least trying to add like, automated transcriptions to all of the videos that are available. So there is a button you can click on that will show just a real time transcription as it’s developed. Unfortunately our ability to write machine learning that can fully understand different accents, different dialects, different contexts is still lagging behind how quickly communication and language evolves. So it’s not the best. It’s like trying to use Google Translate and it can be difficult. 0:38:23.3 Dan Wahlin Yeah, it’s- I started playing with, so Azure has it, and Amazon has had it though, for quite a while, has a few more voices at this point on AWS, but they have a service on some of my, I guess you could say wordier posts, meaning that there’s not as much code ‘cause it’s hard to convert. 0:38:43.0 This is kinda opposite of what we’re talking about, this is text-to-speech, and I said, you know, it doesn’t really cost me. I mean, it’s negligible, almost free it’s so minimally used by people and looking at the stats, but it’s you know, Amazon Polly and then Azure… I don’t remember what it’s called. what’s it called, John? They have their text-to-speech service. Do you know off the top of your head? I don’t think I remember the name. It’s probably part of the cognitive speech APIs I’m guessing. 0:39:12.9 But anyway it'll, you know, take your text and convert it into like, an mp3. So I’ve been doing that recently on just some of my more text based posts. ‘Case like I said, it’s hard to get context out of code, of course. But, you know, I like having it. I look at the stats. There’s not a ton of usage, per se. Although somebody could download it, almost like a podcast, but what I like about it is somebody that, you know, was vision impaired in some way, and I swear the older I get I’m starting to fall into that category anyway where I’d almost rather listen to it, you know, than read it. 0:39:49.4 But there’s a lot of different things out there like that that I think as technology progresses, you know, hopefully as you’ve mentioned, Jen, the YouTube closed captioning-type thing just keeps getting better and better. Text to speech is definitely getting pretty awesome. The voice I picked I’m just amazed with how high the quality is. So, a lot of cool stuff out there for this. 0:40:08.2 John Papa Yeah, that is called Azure’s text-to-speech cognitive services is the piece of it. You’re right it’s Amazon Polly. I put both those links in the show notes for everybody. 0:40:16.3 Jen Luker I think the biggest take away from all of this is that accessibility isn’t just for the people with disabilities. It literally is for everyone and it’s not just for old people or young people or people suffering from a specific disability. It’s also for people that have temporary or circumstantial disabilities. It’s for people that have you know, issues today, but no issues tomorrow. Or maybe they’re watching a TV show that has really loud explosions and really quiet text and your baby’s sleeping- 0:40:52.9 John Papa Yeah, what’s up with that anyway? 0:40:53.8 Jen Luker (laughs) Right? That’s why I use a screen… You know, that’s why I use subtitles. But, you know, it’s just the more you step back and look at it the more you realize that accessibility isn’t just keyboard tabbing and it’s not just a screen reader. It’s being able to allow people to interact with your content no matter who they are, or where they are, or what they are; and that has a real power. 0:41:22.9 That has the ability to take people that, I mean, arguably needs to be the ones that have the work flexibility in order to support themselves, and to be able to have the insurance to take care of their medical issues, and give them a job that gives them that freedom. I mean we, as devs, have a huge amount of freedom. We can work from anywhere as long as we’ve got an internet connection and a laptop. And as long as we’re working towards making the entire web accessible, whether that’s Game of Thrones, or that’s our technological documentation it really opens up the world to people that would not have otherwise had the opportunity to be able to make the best of it. 0:42:10.9 Dan Wahlin Absolutely. I think that’s, you know, that’s just a win all around for everyone. To kind of tag on that again, real quick… So I was at Dick’s Sporting Goods, which if you’re in the United States listening to this you’ll probably know who that is, they’re a pretty big sporting goods company. But I was out there doing some angular training and we were talking briefly- Jen, that’s why I asked more about the ARIA labels ‘cause that’s came up. And they actually have a full-time, at least one person maybe more but at least one I know full-time for accessibility. 0:42:41.0 So I think kind of challenge we might be able to issue all of us as devs is, if your company’s currently not doing that, there are companies that are. Now, you know, some of them I think are doing it purely out of what you just said, Jen. They just want to make it more accessible to everybody. Some of them probably it’s financial and okay, I think it’s a win either way, whatever they choose. 0:43:02.6 John Papa Sure. 0:43:03.1 Dan Wahlin But I think that’s a challenge we could all probably take on to try to be a little more educated on that and use it more. 0:43:09.6 John Papa there’s even little things you can do that may not fall under the exact category but how many times have you been to a website where there’s so much text jammed onto a screen you can’t actually discern what you’re supposed to be looking at? You know, so just making sites easier to read and having a better user experience. I find user experience and accessibility really flow together, personally. And when you’ve got one and the other together it’s like the beauty of the web. When you have neither of those that’s like when you go back to one of those 1996 websites where you can't figure out what’s going on. 0:43:42.2 Jen Luker (laughs) It’s absolutely true. It’s definitely a situation where making it fantastic for one group of people ends up helping everyone. So I mean, even if you do one thing today, if you add one more ALT tag, or you convert one more div to a button, or one button to a link, you know? That’s one more thing that’s going to be useable. You don’t have to flip the switch and have your entire website accessible tomorrow, but you can make one step today. 0:44:13.9 John Papa Awesome. Jen, we would like to wrap up this show with a section we call “Someone to Follow” where we talk about somebody who may be well known, or may not in the industry who we just want people to take a closer look at. And I’ll kick things off. Today, and I seem to be picking names that I can’t pronounce recently, so I apologize Gleb, but the person I want to point out is Gleb Bahmutov, and it’s… I’ll put his Twitter link up here on the page. He is one of the JavaScript ninjas behind the tool called cyprus.io which, Dan you did a show with us on that a couple of weeks or months ago. 0:44:47.6 Dan Wahlin I love it. Yeah. 0:44:49.1 John Papa Gleb is amazing. I’ve talked with him a few times on, he’s another Twitter friend, and the reason I wanted to call him out was I was working with cyprus.io, ‘cause I switched, Dan convinced me to switch. And I absolutely loved it and I was trying to solve some problems with it and I resent it to him on Twitter and he helped me get over those issues right away. And I just really love how open and friendly he was and he’s just done some amazing technology products that he’s had on the web over the years and cyprus io is just the recent one of those. Dan, do you have somebody to follow? 0:45:20.4 Dan Wahlin Yeah. So I had the chance to have dinner recently with one of my buddies, Rick Strahl. You know Rick, John. 0:45:27.6 John Papa Oh, yeah. 0:45:28.3 Dan Wahlin And for those that don’t know Rick he’s like, world champion I think. He windsurfs a lot (laughs). But Rick’s just a all-around very cool guy and very knowledgeable about frontend and backend type technologies, so he’s @Rick- We’ll put it in the show notes, but @RickStrahl on Twitter. 0:45:51.7 John Papa And Jen, do you have someone to follow? 0:45:53.1 Jen Luker I do. So there’s someone that I’ve been seeing a lot in the conference circuit this year. His name is Tejas Kumar. He is one of the nicest, most upbeat, most enthusiastic, and kindest, and most patient people you will ever meet in your entire life. He has more energy than my child and he’s basically the person who touts love and tolerance and kindness throughout Twitter. It’s a definite highlight in my feed. So I will definitely include his link in the show notes as well. But he’s my person to follow. 0:46:34.2 John Papa Actually I think I met Tejas last week at dotJS in Paris. Super nice guy. I hadn’t met him before but he was just a Twitter friend, so. It’s so nice when you actually meet people in person who you meet on the internet. (laughs) 0:46:46.0Jen Luker Absolutely. 0:46:47.1John Papa Well hey, Jen, it was great having you on here and thank you for coming on and talking to us about accessibility and for everybody who’s listening, thanks for listening to this show. We’re putting a bunch of links in the show notes so go check those out and please listen to us every Tuesday morning. 0:47:03.3 Jen Luker Thank you. (Exit Music) 0:47:08.4 Voiceover Thanks for listening to Real Talk JavaScript. This show and all of our shows are available at www.RealTalkJS.com with links and notes. John and Ward would love to hear what you think, especially about potential guests and topics for future shows. Follow and send them a message on Twitter @RealTalkJS.

Five Things  - Channel 9
Five Super-Secret Special Services for Building SPAs

Five Things - Channel 9

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 1, 2018 8:41


SSSSSSSSSSSSSingle Page Applications – they're applications with a single page (sometimes) and we build a lot of them in 2018. In this episode, Burke sits down with Asim Hussain to go over Five Super-Secret Special Services for Single Page Applications. This episode is all about services that you can use to speed up your app, scale like a pro and of course go to the top of Hacker news. Also, Burke eats a Dum Dum and Asim trims his beard. Check out these links from the show...Asim Hussain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jawacheWebsite deployment with Azure Storage: https://cda.ms/JnCreate an Azure CDN Profile and endpoint: https://cda.ms/JpDeploy to Azure with Azure Functions: https://cda.ms/JqCreate and automate your first app with Azure Logic Apps: https://cda.ms/JrBuilding a Mongo DB API with Azure Functions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89WXgaY-NqY

Adventures in Angular
AiA 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain

Adventures in Angular

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 60:56


Panel: John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Asim Hussain In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talks to Asim Hussain about AI and Angular. Asim has been developing for about 17 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. They talk about what AI means to him and where he sees it fitting into the JavaScript realm, how he got into AI himself, and some fun use cases for AI in JavaScript. They also touch on what TensorFlow and Tensorflow.js are, training in the browser, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Asim intro codecraft.tv Co-organizer of AI JavaScript London What does AI mean to you? Where does AI fit into the JavaScript ecosystem? Interested in machine learning How does AI apply to the real world? How did you get into AI? Python to JavaScript developer AI has been growing exponentially An example of something you can do with AI in JS that is really cool The power of AI breeds creativity Magenta.js and Tensorflow.js Face recognition with JavaScript Client-side processing What is TensorFlow? What is Tensorflow.js? Neural net Training in the browser itself Where do JavaScript developers fit into the AI space? Load model Transfer learning Practical applications And much, much more! Links: codecraft.tv AI JavaScript London JavaScript Python Magenta.js Tensorflow.js TensorFlow Angular @jawache Asim’s Medium Asim’s Udemy Asim’s GitHub Sponsors Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean FreshBooks Picks: John Luis.ai Murder on the Orient Express movie Ward MachineLabs - @machinelabs_ai Asim aijs.rocks

All Angular Podcasts by Devchat.tv
AiA 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain

All Angular Podcasts by Devchat.tv

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 60:56


Panel: John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Asim Hussain In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talks to Asim Hussain about AI and Angular. Asim has been developing for about 17 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. They talk about what AI means to him and where he sees it fitting into the JavaScript realm, how he got into AI himself, and some fun use cases for AI in JavaScript. They also touch on what TensorFlow and Tensorflow.js are, training in the browser, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Asim intro codecraft.tv Co-organizer of AI JavaScript London What does AI mean to you? Where does AI fit into the JavaScript ecosystem? Interested in machine learning How does AI apply to the real world? How did you get into AI? Python to JavaScript developer AI has been growing exponentially An example of something you can do with AI in JS that is really cool The power of AI breeds creativity Magenta.js and Tensorflow.js Face recognition with JavaScript Client-side processing What is TensorFlow? What is Tensorflow.js? Neural net Training in the browser itself Where do JavaScript developers fit into the AI space? Load model Transfer learning Practical applications And much, much more! Links: codecraft.tv AI JavaScript London JavaScript Python Magenta.js Tensorflow.js TensorFlow Angular @jawache Asim’s Medium Asim’s Udemy Asim’s GitHub Sponsors Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean FreshBooks Picks: John Luis.ai Murder on the Orient Express movie Ward MachineLabs - @machinelabs_ai Asim aijs.rocks

Devchat.tv Master Feed
AiA 201: AI & Angular with Asim Hussain

Devchat.tv Master Feed

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2018 60:56


Panel: John Papa Ward Bell Special Guests: Asim Hussain In this episode, the Adventures in Angular panel talks to Asim Hussain about AI and Angular. Asim has been developing for about 17 years, has been working with Angular for about 5 years, and runs the website codecraft.tv. They talk about what AI means to him and where he sees it fitting into the JavaScript realm, how he got into AI himself, and some fun use cases for AI in JavaScript. They also touch on what TensorFlow and Tensorflow.js are, training in the browser, and more! In particular, we dive pretty deep on: Asim intro codecraft.tv Co-organizer of AI JavaScript London What does AI mean to you? Where does AI fit into the JavaScript ecosystem? Interested in machine learning How does AI apply to the real world? How did you get into AI? Python to JavaScript developer AI has been growing exponentially An example of something you can do with AI in JS that is really cool The power of AI breeds creativity Magenta.js and Tensorflow.js Face recognition with JavaScript Client-side processing What is TensorFlow? What is Tensorflow.js? Neural net Training in the browser itself Where do JavaScript developers fit into the AI space? Load model Transfer learning Practical applications And much, much more! Links: codecraft.tv AI JavaScript London JavaScript Python Magenta.js Tensorflow.js TensorFlow Angular @jawache Asim’s Medium Asim’s Udemy Asim’s GitHub Sponsors Angular Boot Camp Digital Ocean FreshBooks Picks: John Luis.ai Murder on the Orient Express movie Ward MachineLabs - @machinelabs_ai Asim aijs.rocks