Coding Horror on .NET Rocks

April 25, 2007

It was my great honor to participate in this week's epsiode of .NET Rocks!

.NET Rocks! is a long running internet radio talk show for software developers that goes all the way back to 2002. I've listened to their shows off and on for years. They've interviewed some very notable software developers along the way, including Steve McConnell, and many other people far more interesting than myself. One of the earliest interviews (#11, to be precise) was with our CEO, Scott Stanfield.

My interview is 64 minutes long, and explores some common themes I've covered here in my blog. It's available in the following formats:

For some reason, I had trouble opening these links by directly clicking, so you may want to right click and do a "save as". More download options are available on the interview page.

Thanks to Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell for a great interview!

Posted by Jeff Atwood
41 Comments

Great interview, Jeff. You speak as eloquently as you write.

Don't sweat the "you know"s. Way less annoying that the "So" verbal tic that all the Microsoft developers seem to have. ;)

Kevin Dente on April 26, 2007 2:03 AM

And not nearly as annoying as saying "like" all the time as our generation likes to.

sir_mu on April 26, 2007 2:11 AM

Jeff,
How many updates, or how long did it take until people started reading your blog.

I started a blog but felt like it was pointless because I didn't think people would start reading it.

Any tips on starting a blog? (Sorry if you addressed this question in a previous post, I am a fairly new reader here at coding horror)

Good interview by the way :)

Joe on April 26, 2007 2:18 AM

As someone who has been the sole developer of in-house applications at my day job since before I finished my degree I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation of the name Coding Horror. All-in-all it was a great interview.

I haven't been reading your blog for long but it's quickly become one of my favorites.

Stephen Paskaluk on April 26, 2007 2:58 AM

Jeff, it was a great interview! Very inspiring.
Thanks

Gustavo (Fresno) on April 26, 2007 3:51 AM

Hi Jeff,

47 minutes in and its good so far, first DNR I've listened to (can't stand the telerik ads). Agree completely with all of it, excellent stuff.

Gary

Gary on April 26, 2007 3:52 AM

(obligatory Vorbis rant)

4 ways to get the interview in 1 piece with a choice of 4 encodings, and 1 way to get it in 2 pieces with a choice of 2 encodings.

That's 18 options!

Yet somehow they can't manage to squeak out a Vorbis encoded version? Vorbis is completely free and unencumbered by patents. It sounds better at equivalent bitrates, and it's very well supported on many platforms. Vorbis is *the* audio codec of the free software community.

James Justin Harrell on April 26, 2007 4:51 AM

Keep up the great work, Jeff. Thanks.

Matt on April 26, 2007 5:00 AM

And it's a voice recording, so just how much benefit are you going to get from using Vorbis instead of MP3, AAC, etc.? I love the free software community as much as anybody, but if it's just a voice recording, I really don't care what format it's in. Well, as long as it's not wax cylinder...

Eric on April 26, 2007 6:05 AM

Great interview! I enjoy reading your site very much and it was nice to hear your views. This was the first time I heard DNR so I will be tuning into future episodes as well.

Alex on April 26, 2007 6:13 AM

"For some reason, I had trouble opening these links by directly clicking"

Maybe Coding Horror was written in .NET? Just kidding.

howserx on April 26, 2007 7:19 AM

Great to hear the voice behind the blog finally. Awesome interview. I like your blog because it's less focused on the technical details and more focused on the industry itself. I've tried to focus my blog in similar ways and your style has certainly influenced mine quite a bit.

Keep up the great work.

Karthik on April 26, 2007 7:34 AM

Nice job Jeff! Makes me long for the earlier years where I had the opportunity to work with you as a young apprentice!

Geoff Dalgas on April 26, 2007 8:09 AM

The reason you may have problems by clicking the links depends on your file associatoins you have set up on your computer.

For example if .wma is set to launch automatically with windows media player then media player will try to open the file, the problem is that media player doesn't send the http_referrer information so depending on the sites security settings you may or may not actually be able to launch the file that way.

Kevin Taylor on April 26, 2007 8:17 AM

Not only your computer's file associations... also the ones in the server. Usually, if the extension is not set, it will try to download it as plain text and disply it in the browser...
In my case, the mp3 link opens an embedded quicktime player in firefox

Jorge on April 26, 2007 9:39 AM

Good interview, Jeff. Much like your blog postings, you came across as clear and reasoned. I don't always completely agree with your arguments but they are always entertaining and well-prepared. Plus, they help me burn time off the work day, narf!

Kenneth on April 26, 2007 9:41 AM

@howserx: Actually CodingHorror.com is running off of Movable Type. Jeff is still mulling over whether or not he'll let me move him to Subtext (a .NET blog engine).

Not that that will necessarily solve his download problem. But it will get him pretty Identicons!

Haacked on April 26, 2007 10:04 AM

I just finished listening and it is definitely one of my more favorite DNR interviews. I've got to say, your blogging is one of the reasons that I wanted to start my own blog. Keep up the good work!

David Mohundro on April 26, 2007 10:25 AM

wow, you really like using the phrase "you know" ;) - especially at the beginning.

David H. on April 26, 2007 11:13 AM

You know, I thought so too.. :)

That's one of the challenges of audio interviews: you have to be very careful not to introduce any verbal tics. I agree, I wasn't careful enough.

Jeff Atwood on April 26, 2007 11:19 AM

Nice interview, you made a lot of good points and expanding on a lot of things that was in your blog. You were directly, fairly clear and easily understandable (just like your blog posts).

I'm going to be subscribing to the podcast, it seems like a good resource.

Tyler Reddun on April 26, 2007 12:20 PM

Great show jeff!

Sam on April 26, 2007 12:21 PM

Congratulations!!!
It is very interesting not only to read, but also to hear you.
Go - mc Jeff - go!

Maxim Shostak on April 27, 2007 2:01 AM

Why .NET when PHP does all you need for free?

opensoresfreak on April 27, 2007 2:23 AM

Great interview, I can't stand the DNR guys, but I made the exception to listen to you.

Daniel on April 27, 2007 2:24 AM

You know I sometimes wonder if I'm in the right business, because even though I enjoy building things in this virtual world we work in, I know that I'm not a true geek. I've read 'Code Complete' and 'The Mythical Man Month' and 'Peopleware' and enjoyed them all. But when you and your two interviewers started talking about favorite code samples, I said to myself: "I'm outta here." It's code, not poetry and not even good prose. It's logic. The constructs might be ingenious and the ideas lovely, but the code is just logic. So that interview just struck me as another gathering of geeks, reassuring themselves that their outlook is sane and it's those other people, the ones who can't pull out a sample of mind-blowing code, who are weird. And I do think I'm in the wrong business.

JeffK on April 27, 2007 6:14 AM

to JeffK:

Dude, don't feel like the lone ranger. I, too, confront the same feelings you do. I don't get excited about code in and of itself and I don't lay awake at night thinking about optimizations. I do my job, and in the organization I belong to, I am productive and successful. Would that be the case in some larger organizations? Maybe not. Maybe I could stretch my limits and rise to the challenge, who knows. I code because I can make money doing it, people aren't always screwing around with me and I do enjoy the challenge of it all (sometimes.) I read Jeff's blog daily and it's very good in providing me with insight into this field, which is helpful. I know I'm not one of the chosen few, and some would/will tell me that if I'm not a superstar/natural with computers then I have no business being in this line of work. Well, I disagree. We reach for the stars and sometimes fall short, ya know. This is my fallback career for the time being and I'm doing the best I can. Who knows what tommorrow will bring? Anyway, JeffK, I'm there with you. Now, I'll wait for the boos and hisses...

Kenneth on April 27, 2007 8:05 AM

I hate the music. I used to listen to the show quite often.

Phil on April 27, 2007 8:34 AM

Great show Jeff! I've listened to every DNR episode and this is probably top 20.

Jonathan Parker on April 27, 2007 10:46 AM

respect ;)

daniel on April 27, 2007 11:11 AM

Great interview, Jeff. Like many of the other commenters, I had never listened to DotNetRocks until now.

You're a very well spoken guy. It was awesome to hear you speak; you came across the exact same way you come across in your writing.

I thought blogs and bloggers were a waste of time up until about 2 years ago when I first came across Coding Horror. It totally changed the way I viewed the medium. I now read software/programming blogs voraciously, and have discovered incredibly good writing out there that has immensely impacted the course of my career.

Keep up the excellent work on Coding Horror. And I hope to hear some more interviews in the future.

Matt Blodgett on April 27, 2007 11:33 AM

Kenneth and JeffK I am with you both. Coding can and usually is just a job. I agree that you should care about your work and strive to improve, but the important thing is to leave your work at work. I do. When I get in my car I am on my time. Anything else wouldn't be fair to my family.

Dave on April 27, 2007 11:48 AM

I really liked the interrupt part of the interview that is optimum interrupt was 0.25 in an hour.

Shalini on April 27, 2007 12:45 PM

I just recently discovered this blog and am enjoying it immensely, thank you. Soon I hope to journey through past posts, time permiting of course! Hearing you talk was very entertaining, good job.

Eddie Groves on April 28, 2007 3:40 AM

Jeff, you was talking in this interview about that the developers can become too more technical (over-technical) and weak in social (communication) skills.
Could you please give some advises to gain that skills?
It seems that I loosing them :-(

Maxim Shostak on April 29, 2007 5:05 AM

Hi Joe,

I started a blog but felt like it was pointless because I didn't think people would start reading it. Any tips on starting a blog? (Sorry if you addressed this question in a previous post, I am a fairly new reader here at coding horror)

The first rule of blog club is, don't talk abo.. er, don't worry about people reading. That should never be the primary reason you blog.

I have a few comments on this topic here: "blogging about blogging"
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000297.html

As I mentioned in the interview, the single most important piece of advice I can give you is to pick a (realistic) schedule, and *stick to it*. If you're going to write one entry per week, write one entry per week. It's like exercise: you have to stick with it to get the benefits.

Jeff Atwood on April 29, 2007 1:08 PM

Thanks for the tips Jeff

Joe on April 30, 2007 9:11 AM

It was a chance yesterday (1/5/2007) that I was browsing thru IT Conversation, to .net rocks and then downloaded the .net rock show
233, then 232(which I noted Human side of...).
Went home and not getting sleep decide to listen, as I have read about silverlight and
not very much interested about "human side..." at the late night. Selected the show, of course I selected
The wrong one, it was 232, which I did not realize immediately, but I think I did a good job.

I am happy that I listened to yours, and the points you were mentioning on the show, that. Book reading club., code complete, Steve...
Team... interested me very much and I have been thinking about quite some time.
Then your concept on failure, and most of the time our code fails and we learn, the line between an amateur and professional. etc., interested me great.

I have been trying to find a blog like this for quite some, where we can share the books we read and discuss.
Also you were mentioning about your wide variety of interest etc., interested me great.

Whatever i have got out of the show, one thing i am carrying back is your blog.

mahadevan on May 1, 2007 10:18 AM

Awesome interview Jeff. From someone who's a self proclaimed introvert (as you stated in the interview), you're extremely well spoken. Thanks for doing it.

jayson knight on February 6, 2010 10:02 PM

I've been listening to DNR since the beginning (232 shows), and this was definitely one of my top ten favorite shows. Very interesting discussion. Congrats!

Jon Galloway on February 6, 2010 10:02 PM

I just listened to this radio show, and I think you did a great job. There was one point that I wanted to make about the compile time point that you mentioned. Although the cumulative time of the compiling is something to consider, I think that the hesitation that it puts into the developer to compile (I am a PHP developer so save and refresh) is another reason to opt for more RAM and a better CPU. Especially when running Unit Tests. The less painful it is to do it, the more likely a developer is to do it early and often.

Later.

Matthew Purdon on February 6, 2010 10:02 PM

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