Episode 258 | Jeff Atwood - Sharing the House

Guest: Jeff Atwood @codinghorror Jeff Atwood talks with Dave Rael about the human side of software development, blogging, connections, tackling problems, empathy, and shared experience Jeff Atwood is an Indoor enthusiast. He's a legendary blogger and co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. He considers himself a reasonably experienced software developer with a particular interest in the human side of software development, as represented in his recommended developer reading list. Computers are fascinating machines, but they're mostly a reflection of the people using them. In the art of software development, studying code isn't enough; you have to study the people behind the software, too. Chapters: 2:42 - Dave introduces the show and Jeff Atwood4:18 - Work, life, blogging, and deep interest12:32 - The Coding Horror brand17:10 - Daily Blogging and the Genesis of Stack Overflow22:30 - The approach to creating Stack Overflow28:11 - The Discourse Setup Experience33:53 - Jeff's reasons for tackling the problems handled by Discourse39:01 - Asking your community42:37 - The futility of trying to change minds and the impact of telling stories47:44 - Humility, self-doubt, and putting in the work55:20 - The impact of Jeff's work57:47 - Jeff's Book Recommendations60:02 - Jeff's top 3 tips for delivering more value63:47 - Keeping up with Jeff Resources: Coding Horror - Jeff's Famous Blog Discourse Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, Second Edition - Steve McConnell Dave's Blog Post on Being a Professional - Inlucing Work-Life Integration Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime-show controversy ("Wardrobe Malfunction") Kalzumeus Software - Patrick McKenzie's Blog (patio11) Patrick McKenzie on Hacker News Patrick McKenzie on Twitter Code Project Jeff's Post - Has Joel Spolsky Jumped the Shark? Paul Graham About Jeff, Including the Meaning of Coding Horror Experts Exchange Lord Kelvin on Expressing Your Understanding in numbers Discourse Source Basecamp Installing Discourse Server Fault Super User Area 51 for Stack Exchange Sites What is the best comment in source code you have ever - Stack Overflow Why I'm The Best Programmer In The World* - Jeff's Post about Humility Matt Wynne on Developer On Fire Ward Cunningham on Developer On Fire 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute - Richard Wiseman Steve Yegge Steve Yegge Emphasizing Marketing on the Stack Overflow Podcast Meta Stack Exchange Meta Discourse Jeff's book recommendation: Jeff's Recommended Reading List For Developers Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite - Paul Arden It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be: The world's best selling book - Paul Arden Jeff's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Measure performance all the time - Know how long every unit of work in your app is taking Have user friendly error handling for both the end user and the developer built into your application Have a place where people can go to discuss your software