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Hello, hello. Good morning, everyone. I am, yes, hello. Excited to have Kevin on the

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99 Dev Problems show this morning. Kevin, could you introduce yourself?

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Well, hi, everybody. I am Kevin Griffin. I'm a software consultant based out of Chesapeake,

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Virginia, been in the business for way too long. I'm coming up on, let's see, 2006 is when I officially

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got started. That was almost 20 years ago. So I've been doing this for a while. Yeah.

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Mine's 2008. So you got a couple years on me. I love that. Yeah. I was in hospitality management

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before shift into tech. So it sounds like that gap is where we were distant is because we're

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very similar in age as we talked about in the pre-show. Very close. But yeah, I'm now one of

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the old guys in tech. I never thought I'd get here, but I managed to persevere.

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Yes. Such is life. It does happen. Sounds like you got someone in the chat over there saying,

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hello, good morning. It's always hard when they're, yeah, go ahead. I know a lot of the folks. No,

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I just say hi to everyone. Hi, everybody. Yeah. Yeah. I try to address by name, but sometimes

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it's like usernames like Twitch and sometimes LinkedIn is blocked. I'm like, I don't know who

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you are. I'd like to address you by name, but I don't know who you are. You shared, gosh, I'm

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trying to think back. So, okay, let's see. Squirrel moment in the chat. You said something in your

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introduction that I wanted to come back to. I'm trying to remember what it was. Okay. I don't

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remember. So instead, let's keep moving. Geez, look at you. Just famous man bringing all the peeps in.

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Anyways, so let's dive into your earlier career, right? Because we talked a lot

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in the pre-show and so I'm kind of sort of blending that and I want to dive into some

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things that we talked about, but where did you start? Like as you dove into your technological

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career back in 2006, what that looked like for you? So I was, for lack of a word, I was kind of

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blessed to be that elder millennial where I knew life before the internet and kind of like grew up

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as the internet was becoming a thing. Like my prime years, so like nine, ages 9, 10, 11, I was

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brought into like BBS culture and I was hacking around on computers. Like back then, when you had

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actual books, like you didn't have the internet, you just learned as much as you needed to from

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books. Like I just, that's the round on the computer all day. And it was really like this great thing

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where, you know, going through middle school into high school, like no one knew how to like

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cultivate a student interested in technology. Yeah, like they just didn't know what to do.

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So I went to a program. Yeah, and they're like, we can't help you. High school was the first

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time I took a like actual programming class, but like I already knew the entire like semester's

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worth of material. So I just sat back and just kind of did my own thing a lot of times. So like

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going into college, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. So I'm classically trained. Yeah, bachelor's

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of science and computer science for the worst four years of my life. I like, and it's not, and it's

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not that, that, you know, what I learned wasn't useful. There's a lot of useful stuff in there.

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It's just that a lot of developers that go to college go to the computer science route. And

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computer science is not necessarily geared towards software development. It's geared towards

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a different, you know, aspect of the computer industry. So I got way more years out of my,

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I have a minor in business systems. And that those four classes I took were way more useful than

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everything else because it really taught how business and systems work, which I think are

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more critical skills than knowing syntax and what, you know, what's a singleton or what's a

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repository, like stuff like that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It matters,

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but knowing how this connects to that, how that's something else, how business uses software, how to

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map or model a business. That stuff was way more useful. So I got this piece of paper. It's over

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there. It's actually behind my couch. Like, it should be up on the wall, but no, it's over there

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gathering dust. I got out of college and I went to work for a little company called Symantec.

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Nice. And so we're working for Symantec. Symantec builds security software. So

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Nordic antivirus, Nordic security, it's the stuff you uninstall the moment you buy a new machine.

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Like that's what Nordic is. And I worked on this team called decomposer and we built a system

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that would uncompress container files. So files that contain other files. And would do that on

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16 different architectures and platforms. Actually, probably more than that. But

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yeah, long story short, I was there for three months and I walked in one day and they said,

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all hands meeting. Hey, you're all fired. So they just leave off the entire building.

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Yeah, I was just, that hurts a little. Learned very quickly that there's absolutely no such

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thing as job security. So I'm really glad I learned that lesson early in my career and not

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15, 20 years later. But after that, I went to work for a small consulting company. And at the time,

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I started getting involved in community. So there was a user group that wasn't local. It was two

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hours north of me. So I would drive up every month, two hours to this user group, and just try to learn

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something new. And more importantly, I was just started meeting people. And fast forward a couple

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years, I was helping run events up in that area. And I was getting to be well known as a event

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organizer, as a speaker in the Virginia DC, Maryland, North Carolina region. That's a beautiful

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place to do that. So I knew a lot of people. And then so I did that consulting gig. I was only

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there for maybe three years. And someone I had met in the community said, Hey, would you be

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interested in coming to work for us as a contractor doing some developer evangelism stuff? I'm like,

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that sounds awesome. And I quit my job. So I quit my job, started my own business to go into consulting

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contracting. And we had our first child at the same time. And all your life events happened within a

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month of each other. Oh, I didn't know how long I was going to do that. But I have been doing that

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since it's been almost 15 years now. Oh, my goodness. Congrats. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that's

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the history. So in so in your consulting, right, like you talked about how you did developer

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evangelism, you know, early on, and that's how it started, I know that in your day to day today,

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it doesn't always look like that. So what are some of the other things and sort of scopes of work that

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you may have offered throughout your, your, your tenure, which is now 15 years. Yeah. So the evangelism

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only lasted about a year or so. And then there was a change of management. Companies got acquired.

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And my yeah, like my position wasn't justified because it was hard to show ROI. And so that's

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fine. So I got into real consulting. And I had enough contacts through my network that I said,

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all right, I'm looking for work, do X, Y and C. And I started at an extremely low rate just to get

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work. And this is so that picked up, I did a lot of training as well as part of the consulting,

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because I, I like speaking, I like teaching people stuff. So I was putting together courses.

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I was going into different organizations and doing private training, custom training for

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different organizations. A lot of that work I got from just conference talks I had done.

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And someone said, Oh, you do training, our company's looking for, for someone to do custom

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training on X, Y and Z. And I'm like, I can do that. And, you know, that was, that was a really

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good way to pay the bills. And I would have kept doing that if it wasn't for COVID. COVID killed

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a lot of in person training, a lot of corporate training, which is fine. So I really went all in

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on just working with individual businesses. Right now, I'm just working with one, one,

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we call them whale clients. So just one big client. And in the grand, if I was giving you

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consulting advice, if I was giving me any consulting advice, I would say steer away from whale

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clients. Yeah, yes, they're painful. But when you lose them, there's also a whale client I've been

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with for 10 years. Like, I, exactly. Like I have, I've kind of grown up with this company where I

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was the only technologist working on the product. And now I'm kind of leading a team of like six,

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seven people. Yeah, that's incredible. So it's, it's, it's beautiful. Yeah. And in this time where

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it's just the job market, the consulting market is down. So I'm not in a big hurry to, you know,

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go out and find other work. I'm very comfortable with where I am. I love the company I'm working for.

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So I'm just kind of staying in my lane. And yeah, that's most what I do is I'm leading the technology

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direction for this, this company and just making sure everything's on track. I'm taking the

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the goals of the owners, the management, and we turn those into technology decisions.

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Yeah, that's awesome. So would you say that is similar to like a CTO role potentially?

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It's yeah, they internally they call me the CTO. I mean, I'm like LinkedIn, I'll call myself the CTO

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for for that. Yeah. But I'm a very technical CTO, like I'm still very much in the weeds every day,

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which goes against what the CTO should do. But yes, it's just, it's part of the necessity of just

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the job. There's just a lot of work to be done. And yeah, we just, like I can't just sit back

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and wait for everyone else to do it. I need to keep my hands dirty as well. Yeah, it's funny,

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because I was just writing a blog post literally right before we got on here. And I'm excited to

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publish it hopefully this afternoon, if I can get back to it and finish it. But essentially, I wrote

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a little section in there about how at the end of the day, CTOs are just developers. And if you

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can give them the opportunity to write some code again to try out your product, like you're going

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to literally put the biggest smile on their face because they don't get to hold code as often.

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And arguably, they maybe should really when you think about it, because you should stay up to date

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on your skills, right? And I think that's probably why you're so valuable and why that whale client

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sticks around is like you have those skills of like leadership, while also being able to dive in

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and like execute on code, which I think is is honestly just important for all of us to sort of

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thrive and continue to be happy because like we love to build stuff, you know? Yeah, I put I

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pretty much position myself on the team of I don't do any of the day to day just

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upkeep reliability stuff on on the suite of products that we have. Oh, sure. I am more that

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future thinking. Yeah, I'll take a big idea. I'll take a big idea that needs to touch multiple

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products in our suite. And I'll iterate on that. And then once that's at a place where it's reliable,

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it's doing what we need to do, I will gradually give that to someone else. And that becomes

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their basic to kind of keep tabs on. But and then I move on to the thing. Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean,

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that honestly really is like, when you think about it, I think that is harnessing the best of a great

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CTO, right, is still the ability to be able to to do that while also like passing that along to

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the team to allow them to like experiment and IDA. But you've you've validated and vetted that like

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there is still something here. This is not a giant waste of time before you pass it over to them.

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That's cool. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, and I'm also the last line of support if there's

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a fire. Yes, I have this superpower of just knowing the entire system so well that I can jump in and

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usually fix a problem. In the amount of time it might take someone to identify what the problem is.

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Now, I have a great team, but sometimes you just need another set of eyes on a problem.

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And my benefit is I'm not in it. Yeah. I'm not in the product every day, but I can jump in and go,

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Oh, well, I'm pretty sure the problem starts here. Let's work our way back. Okay. Yep. This is where

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we messed up. Let's fix this. And let's get something pushed out. Yeah. That's, and thankfully,

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I don't I have a really good team I work with. So yeah, I don't have to do that every day. That

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happens once maybe every couple weeks. I love that. Well, good leadership, right? If you've been

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with a client for a long time. Yeah. Okay. So you have some other titles as well. And so I was going

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to kind of like probe into that and like talk about your technology stack. So what are the other

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titles that you represent these days? Let's see. All right. So consultants, I'm a, I'm also a

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Microsoft MVP, which just because I talk a lot. No, if you see anyone with the title MVP, do not

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assume they're expert, they probably are not. They just talk a lot about the things that they love.

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That's amazing. They're developer in your roots. Yeah. Yeah. So Microsoft MVP, I run, I'm a conference

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organizer. I've run mold, I've run probably hundreds of events over the past 20 years throughout

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the country. Or at least assisted on, assisted on different events. So trainer, I've written books,

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I've done video courses. I try to, try to, you know, spread out the, the money making aspects of my

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career as much as I can. So yeah, I've done a lot is, is the best way to say it. You're also,

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you're also like, I had to go check your LinkedIn quick. Cause I was like, wait a minute, am I making

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this up in my head? Like you're also the president of the dotnet foundation. Like, you know, it's a

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no big deal or anything. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. That's a big deal. So I, I have a very

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vested interest in the dotnet platform. I've been working with it professionally since 2006. I, I've

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made a lot of money off of dotnet and I foresee making a lot more money off of dotnet. I think in

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terms of tech stacks that I've, I've just personally witnessed and been involved in over the past 20

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years. Dotnet is the strongest. Bring those strong opinions. Oh, I will. Yeah. I love it.

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So I'm not trying to throw, you know, fire at anyone, but I do think in the long run,

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dotnet will be far more stable than anything out there for certain types of work. All right.

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So a part of that is we have the dotnet foundation. One thing that net doesn't do well is we don't,

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well, I really know, no platform does as well. We don't cultivate our, our open source ecosystem

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as well as we should. Yeah. That's hard though. Always open source drama.

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And so much for that. And the, the dotnet foundation is positioned to help dotnet open source

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in the best way possible. We also help the dotnet community. So we help meetups. We help

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individuals. We, we really tried to be a good steward of the dotnet community. And so I came on

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to almost two years ago and I was the vice president and then became the president.

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And my goal is, it was one of those cases where I wasn't able to really come in and start doing

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good work. The foundation needed a lot of cleanup and just as most previous boards

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boards, we weren't able to hit the ground running. We had to stop, like full stop, reassess everything

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we were doing and clean, clean up. We had to cut the bleed. We were just spending money we didn't

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have on things that we didn't need. And so I think, you know, anyone who's in the dotnet

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community, you look at the dotnet foundation, there's a lot of drama in the dotnet foundation.

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There's drama in every community. I think I've been able to really help rebuild some of that

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persona. And just more importantly, the dotnet foundation is stronger now than it was when I

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came on. So whoever comes in after me will be able to hopefully do some of that, that good work

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moving forward. I love that. Yeah, you play a lot of roles. Hey, Nick, glad to have you in here.

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You play a lot of roles. And one of, I mean, personally, I'm selfish here when I say this,

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but one of my favorite roles is like, you know, conference organizer of Revolution Conf, which

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is where we met for anyone who doesn't know about Revolution Conf. It was a conference in

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Virginia Beach, and it was on the beach. And so for me, like, I think, it was just a beautiful

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conference, like very developer curated. It was clear that I was hanging with my peers. I didn't

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see these giant 100k sponsor Bruce that none of us really like to engage with, you know,

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it was person to person, but still very, very valuable in the content, just incredibly valuable

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content. And it was on the beach. And so for me, I love those events because when they are in that

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type of an aspect like that conference or Revolution Conf, I'll bring one of my kids. And so

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it's like they get to go on like a mini vacation with mom and there's no one else with none of

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the other kids. And so I remember bringing my son to Revolution Conf and like he was able to like go

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play on the beach and like mess around. Well, I was like being a nerd and being a developer. And

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it's just like, not only was it a great event, but it just was in such a beautiful place that

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really just allowed you to just like, you know, relax and just hang with your peers and just

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enjoy the event. So anyways, that's my my little rant on Revolution Conf and how much I love it.

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But that's one of my favorite titles personally. I love it too. I wish we'd love to bring Revolution

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Conf back. It's just not the best economy right now to bring back a full scale conference.

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For sure. Like our budget, I have this benefit of I've run businesses for a good portion of my life.

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Like I look at it in the same way I look at the business. And the rule is that the the conference

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has to pay for itself. And if it can't do that, there's no reason to do the conference. Like I

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don't love this too risky. Yeah, there are cases where people have taken out loans or debt to support

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conferences. And I will say this until your deaf in the years. I don't love you enough to go and

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debt for you. Yeah, I don't love the community enough to go and debt for the community. Now,

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I will I will sit there and I will hustle to get get more people to buy tickets to get more

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sponsorship to do all those different things. But I won't even consider doing the conference unless

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I'm sure that it can sustain itself. And yeah, for a revolution, I don't have that trust. I don't

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have the trust in the community to show up to help support the thing that I love. So I'm not

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going to take that risk right now. Yeah. So yeah, I was gonna say that's a really bitter way to like

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take that conversation. But that's absolutely the truth. No, no, no, we would have done it two years

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ago. I think the truth is good though, right? Because I think that, you know, Clark cell was on

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yesterday. And Clark did start a conference and had it going for many, many years. So he did end up

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in a space where he wanted to continue to fight that fight after COVID and like continue to have

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that event and like, very admirable and respectable to be able to do that. But you're not wrong,

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right? There is there is a whenever any of us decide to bring this stuff together, there's a

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huge risk to that if you're not backed by a corporation. If you're backed by a corporation,

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developers don't want to come. So it's like, it's this very like ebb and flow situation. And I think

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that economically, I believe that businesses are being too tight, companies are being too tight.

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And so I mean, maybe understandably, but also like, okay, we at least should go back to the way

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things were like common education budgets, like just very rudimentary things that should be supplied

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to your employees. But I think if we see those things come back, it could change. Yeah, go ahead,

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jump in. There's also, I think a disconnect with conference organizers and understanding the needs

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and wants of the sponsors. Because there's so many perspectives, so prospect, I don't know,

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whatever the prospectus is. I know what you mean. The, but you look at a perspective and then go,

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well, you get a six foot table. And your logo on the website, that'll be $50,000. And as a business

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owner, I go, no, that's not $50,000 worth of ROI for me. Like I'm not going to get that ROI.

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No, but not off that one single event, it's going to take you other work. And so why would you blow

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it all in that one place? Yeah. Now, if I like, we did an event, we do a local event. And I love

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local events, not really catering to anyone outside our region. Yeah. And we sold tables for,

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we sold a table for $5,000. And $5,000 and you get access to the 200 people that show up for the

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event. That turns out to be a really good ROI because every sponsor that we had there said,

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you know, I got to speak to 200 people, I got a lot of good connections. Like that was, that was

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money well spent. That's a 5k value. Yeah. As soon as you get up into those big numbers, and you don't

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have the, the, the benefits to go along with it, it's really harder for these corporations to say,

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yep, I want to go into that. I know one corporation that's pulling sponsorship from

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one event to put into another event, because they can get more value out of the other events.

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They can send their people to it. They, they get a table, they get all this stuff. So, and I know

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conference organizers are just like, I just need money. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you're just limited

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in your exhibition space. But I think a lot of times, sponsorships are just too high for what

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businesses can realistically approve. Yeah. Danny just jumped into the chat, just want to shout out,

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hey, Danny, you know, he just did this, right? Like, and Kevin and I were both there. Yeah.

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Yeah. Like he just brought together commit your code. And like, I'm sure Danny could come on and

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which Danny's actually slated at some point when he gets over to the scheduling link to come on the

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show. And so I'm sure he'll have some great insights to share in this topic too. But, you know, he

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did the same thing. He brought a group of developers together. It was local. It was focused on local.

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Of course, people flew in, you know, he had some different speakers fly in and things, but it was

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all for charity, right? That makes it even like so much harder because businesses don't take charity

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seriously, which I really thought that they would. You know, we did a virtual charity event back in

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April in the Built for Devs Hub. And I really thought that there'd be more investment around

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the charity. That was my first time trying to pitch a charity sponsorship. Wow, gosh, are those hard?

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Like, they're just like, nope, if it's for good, I don't want to give you my money. And I'm like,

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well, what? It makes no sense. And I know Danny can very much relate to that. Yeah. Well, I don't

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know, it doesn't work for some reason. It's hard. It's kind of like when you go to the grocery store

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and you're you're checking out and they put the thing up on the the pad that goes, you want to

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round up for for charity? Yeah. And it's like, well, no, I just want to pay my bill and get out.

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Like, I want to pull. I want to pull people on that. I stopped doing it. I always say yes. I stopped

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doing it because I'm like the multi billion dollar corporation can pay for the charity themselves.

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Like, that's why why am I giving money for you to benefit from the charity? Oh, actually, that's

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a good call out. Yeah. So I'm like, I now I have charities I give money to all the time. Like,

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that's just part of what we do. And so I can understand why it's hard to sell the charity

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aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So but but he did it. But they weren't bad. Yeah. All great.

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Right. Right. Totally. But he like, he made it happen. So like, Danny, you're saying,

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yeah, that's my bad. But honestly, like, you still made it happen. And you still had an event

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that didn't cut into your personal funds. And that still, like, honestly, like, I can say this

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right now, commit your code got me out of like a dark, deep depression that I didn't know I was in.

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I like realized that I was like, holy crap, I need to be spending time with developers. I need to

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be hanging out with them. I need to get back into this space. Like it is a it is a I need it. It's

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like a lifeblood for me to like actually hang out with other developers. And so when I commit your

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code, right, I got to see you. I got to see a lot of really awesome folks that are up in the chat

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that I'm so thankful for. And I just had the revelation. I was like, Oh, my gosh, I've been

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building my business in the dark and my business is not an in the dark business. It's a public

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advocacy for developers and developer products business. Why am I in the dark?

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Then I started the live stream. And look, now suddenly I'm happy. Funny thing, right? If we go

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hang out with our peers a little bit and everyone's all kind of nerd and on the chat about that. I

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love it. There's definitely something psychological about talking to someone that you you like respect,

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but you don't get to talk to every day. Yes. Yes. That's you and me. Like we don't talk every day,

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but when we do talk like I really enjoy our conversations and yet that goes for like the

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majority of people in the chat that I know, like it's the same way. I I really look forward to the

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20 minutes I get to sit down and talk to him or about whatever. Yes. That's why I do the stuff

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that I do. Yeah, exactly. So for the folks that are, you know, listening in, we've been chatting

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about a whole bunch of stuff from, you know, Kevin's consulting to like events and revolution

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comp and how awesome it was. And then now we're talking about events and, and all the things.

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I think my brain just dropped what I was going to say as I was recapping.

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Well, I'm like thinking about so much this week, heavy, heavy in the goods.

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Commit your code. So let's talk about commit your code. You spoke there. What topic did you speak on?

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I'm just gonna talk on crap. What did I talk about? Oh, it was my my $8,000 serverless mistake.

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Yes, that's what it was. That's what it was. Okay, you helped me. Folks, you should go find it,

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by the way, because it was really, really good. And it's very enlightening to like your story

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and how you told that story around like, okay, I'm going to kind of dive into this thing. And it

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turned into like lucrative work for you because you dove into something. So if you want to speak to

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that, feel free. I just, I wanted to bring it up as we were speaking about commit your code,

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because it was a really good session. Yeah, I, I like doing talks that are

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from the trenches. Yes. Nothing against the folks that get up that say, I learned this thing,

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I'm going to talk about this thing. Like those are all very necessary talks. But I really like

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talks that go, I did a thing. Here's what I learned from it. And this is, this is something that I

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think you would benefit from. A lot of talks come in, like serverless is probably a good example.

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Like every serverless talk I've ever seen has been like, it's all great. Here's all the things you

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can do it so fast, it's perform it, it's really cheap, blah, blah, blah. And I want to come in

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and do the talking that says they're not wrong. But here's a couple cases where this can bite you

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in the ass. And here's things that you might not be thinking about. And it's, it's just the progression

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of my journey. Like I was that kid 20 years ago that would just play with everything

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without thinking about, you know, what's this look like in a system that's going to be around for

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five, 10, 15 years. And I think it's really moving, that's how you move from junior to

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to mid level to senior. Like when you get to those senior level positions, you don't think about

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what's cool and new, you think about what's going to last for the next 10, 15 years. Also why I'm

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pretty stringent on like.net as a platform, because that stays fairly stable over a five to

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10, 15 year period. You're not wrong. So I mean, it's a great conversation to have over a beer

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or a cup of coffee. Like with a bunch of developers who work in different languages, by the way,

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because the opinions will come out and it will be such a beautiful lucrative conversation.

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Yep. Yep. So serverless. So the talk was I really, I jumped on the serverless bandwagon.

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I've started doing Azure functions. I got myself in this position where I had a hammer

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and everything was a nail. I was just, I was just trying to do as much in Azure functions as I could.

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And then we had made some subtle changes to just our configuration, but it bumped us up from

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consumption level to premium consumption. And when you do that, you go from a system that costs you

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$3 a month to a system that was costing $8,000 a month. And it was literally like a checkbox

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in configuration to go from one to the other. And it doesn't warn you. And I mean, in the

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defense of the platforms, like they don't, they don't have a way to tell you that the thing you're

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doing could potentially cost $8,000. Yeah. Up is just up to the experience of whoever's clicking

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that button. Right. And at the time, I didn't have the experience. The other guy on my team I was

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working with didn't have that experience. And we didn't find out until later, it's like, oh,

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that was a mistake. We should not have done that, at least in the way that we did. So

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how do you pivot? How do you do this differently to save the business money and to do all this?

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So those are the type of talks I like doing. And the type of talks I like attending because

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you just learn so much from someone's mistake. And I also really try to

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push the narrative. Like, even though I'm a fairly senior level guy, I still make mistakes.

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Like, I learned from my mistakes and I don't try to make, I try not to make the mistakes again.

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But just because someone's been doing this for 20 years, doesn't mean they know everything.

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We're, we're still making mistakes all the time. I'm also a lot better at like just

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going to this and saying, Hey, I made a mistake. It cost you $8,000. I'm sorry.

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My bad. I'll do better. I've done that on more occasions than I like to admit, but, you know,

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it's just, it's part of the job. You can't be a good consultant and not be able to save face when

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you make a mistake. You can't be a good business person if you can't admit to your own mistakes.

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Yeah, I think there's, there is like so much beauty in what you just shared. Like,

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honestly, so many like little nuggets of lessons, right? I think the first thing is like,

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actually telling your story around making mistakes is like so incredibly valuable because then

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someone else can be like, Oh my gosh, I was going to do that, right? Like when I sat in your talk,

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I was like, I don't know what Azure functions are, but now I do know what Azure functions are.

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And if I ever have to use them, I know what mistake not to make, right? And so I think it's,

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it's a beautiful way to learn through somebody else because you like emotionally tied, like you

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brought me in, right? Like Danny said, one of the best talk titles is immediately I'm like, Whoa,

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that's a lot of money. What did Kevin do? And it, it like intrigues me to want to understand

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where, where that happened, how it happened, what that lesson was. And then I got to walk away with

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like, you know, remembering and retaining information that I would never normally retain.

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Honestly, I'd be like an Azure function is what it blue blue blue. It all goes out, right?

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Unless you actually have to collectively use it. And so it really stuck. So I'm sure it sounds

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like RJ also in the chat has another story of related. So it's, yeah, it's like, but I think

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it's to speak to that just a little bit more is like, I am often afraid actually to admit some

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of my mistakes because I'm worried that someone will say, Hey, she's not good enough at her job,

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or Hey, she doesn't know what she's doing because she made a mistake. Even though in my heart,

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every single mistake is like, Oh, don't do that. But I do do this, right? And so it's just more,

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for me, it's education and experimentation. I learn how to do it right. But for whatever reason,

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sharing it publicly feels like, Oh, I might look bad, you know, and so yeah,

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I did a talk at Kansas City Developer Conference conference. I love KCDC. I hope they invite

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me back this year. But I think I missed a cut on the submissions myself. It's still open until

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February 21st for this year. Okay, I'm putting them on my list. I have all my conferences written

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down on a pad of paper to remind me when to submit. You can tell me your list because then we can

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just hang out all year. And that would be awesome. Anyway, so not to do what you were saying.

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Yeah, you're fine. So the name of that talk was dumb things I've done with relational databases.

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And I was, I'd gotten a lot of flack about the title from different people going,

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you're, you're not stowing much like confidence in yourself and blah, blah, blah. I said,

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yeah, but I've done some dumb stuff with relational databases and it's all good information.

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That talk at Kansas City was, it was standing room only out the door.

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Dang, not surprise. They had the doors open. People were out there. And I said, essentially,

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at the beginning, this is a safe space. Like I'm going to tell you some silly things I've done.

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I'm going to explain why they were dumb. And what I should have done differently,

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what I learned from that experience. And then towards the end, I just kind of opened it up for,

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for comments. And people were just telling me things that they've done.

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Oh my gosh, that's beautiful. It just turned into this kumbaya moment with, with the audience.

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And I, it's really hard to replicate that. And someone was saying earlier in the chat,

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like everything's between moving virtual. You cannot replicate that experience in a virtual

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setting. Not the safe, like, not the safety, right? I think you could do it if you had a very

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tight knit group. Like we do some roundtables in the built for dev hub where it's like a 10 to

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15 person maximum. Right. And if folks start to get to know each other, yes, you can eventually

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unfold that. I learned some really beautiful techniques from snap shout out to council at

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snapchat. Most amazing thing ever. Google it if you don't want to talk about. So you can, right?

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But it's not the same when people are in person, they see you, they see your gestures, they see it

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on your face that you're like open and authentic and transparent. And they're like, Oh, I can feel

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it. Right. Kevin's alluding this safe space at which I can now talk about my dumb mistakes.

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Yep. And I've done that talk in front of DBAs, which I was scared to death to do that.

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Good for you. And what tell people what DBAs are database administrators.

366
00:36:56,240 --> 00:37:00,880
Got it. Basically the most opinionated people you ever meet when it comes to database.

367
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:09,600
Generally, you do not have high opinions of developers from a professional standpoint.

368
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:15,920
I love working with a good DBA on database problems because you will learn a ton just how

369
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:24,880
stuff works internally. And like the essence of dumb mistakes with databases wasn't like, Oh,

370
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,760
I accidentally did a delete without a where clause. Like we understand that's a dumb mistake.

371
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:36,400
And it's really easy to do. But that's like, I want more sophisticated dumb mistakes.

372
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,240
Yeah. Things that they will accidentally fall into as they're building something important.

373
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:48,640
Yeah. And so I talked a lot about indexing. I talked about just how you I'm trying to remember

374
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:53,920
everything that was in that talk, but I went pretty in depth. And yeah, at the end, like I had a

375
00:37:53,920 --> 00:38:00,800
database administrator come up and go, me a lot of really good points. Like, yeah, like no, no notes.

376
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,440
So I mean, that that's a win in my book. Because they would have been the first, the first ones to

377
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:12,560
tell me otherwise. Yeah, I have my this dot cup. Oh, it's in the house. I should have.

378
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,880
Dude, I use this every single day, Danny. This is the absolute best and it shows up on the

379
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:23,760
live stream daily. So if the logo wasn't so shiny, this dot labs would be a daily placement in my

380
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:29,600
live stream unintentionally. So you need the black logo, you need a black logo for contrast.

381
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:33,760
You would say there we go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Danny, feel free to send me one that that

382
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:41,760
doesn't doesn't glare. Well, it'll be a daily appearance. I love that. So all this I'm going,

383
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:46,560
I'm basically I'm doing submissions for 2025 and I'm trying to build talks that are in the trenches.

384
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:52,560
And those are much harder talks to write. So all right, what technology am I using that's

385
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:58,240
extremely beneficial to the work I do every day? What makes what lets my system be a five to 10

386
00:38:58,240 --> 00:39:05,600
year system? Not a six month system. You and I talked about that at commit your code to when I

387
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:11,840
was talking about caller devs as I call them, which basically that's just my nice name for your older.

388
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:18,800
I'm not old. I noticed but hey, but your your little sweatshirt thing still has a color though.

389
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,960
But like I mean, I don't always wear colors either. But I just it's like the nice way of saying we're

390
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:27,360
old, right? Because when we're a little bit older, we dress up a little bit differently. I don't

391
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:31,360
always because I'm trying to be young forever, right? Rock those con verses or whatever I've

392
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:36,000
got going on. But it's just my funny phrase for like, we're developers that that we think

393
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,840
differently, right? We understand the entire system because we've had to understand the entire

394
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:43,840
system versus developers today coming in and there's I'm not saying that you're not a good

395
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:48,000
developer by any means. I still really can't code myself. I've been too far away from it. So

396
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,800
we all have our spaces and places, right? But in comparison to developers today, coming in and

397
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,400
learning how to build with frameworks and react and some of these other things that are prebuilt,

398
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:01,200
you get into some of these issues, right? And you're like, holy crap, something is fundamentally

399
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:06,400
wrong in the base of your code that you don't understand. And so I think, you know, Kevin and

400
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:10,640
I like to nerd out about that. Or maybe I do and I pull you into it, but we very much have had some

401
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,960
great conversations about sort of the depths of understanding your entire system. Yeah.

402
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:21,120
So I will have a talk. I'll probably submit this to commit your code. So look out for it, Danny.

403
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:28,640
And it's basically just, it's how, you know, how do you go from that junior level to senior level?

404
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:36,080
And a lot of it is systems level thinking. It is, which I learned in college. So, and I'm,

405
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:41,200
at least the number of people I've talked to who have come out like bootcamp situations and stuff,

406
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:46,160
don't learn that skill. Yep. And it's a very important skill. It's what makes

407
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:53,760
senior level people very good at what they do. And it's, it's something you can learn. That's,

408
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:58,240
that's the important thing. I'd love to talk more about that in the future.

409
00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:02,640
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd love to have you in the, in the built for devs hub. Like I'm trying

410
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:07,440
to just bring together random developer events, random conversations, then we can host roundtables

411
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,360
after the fact so we can get into more intimate conversations to ask sort of a Q and A and,

412
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:18,480
and unpack that, right? Talk about our problems. But good grief. What is wrong with me today?

413
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,640
I'm so forgetful. I will tell you, I've got this client project I'm working on that my head is

414
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:28,880
just like so into it. Cause it's like a, it's deep. It's, it's this, right? It's the understanding,

415
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:33,840
the stack and the framework and like showing devs that like, you know, Kubernetes and cloud,

416
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:37,440
right? This complicated infrastructure that's like sometimes overly complicated.

417
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,200
How do we as developers come back and actually think about systems? So long story short, my

418
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,920
head is, is in the weeds. I was going to, what was I just going to say? You were talking about

419
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:51,440
commit your code, submitting your talk systems, us going to the same events. Good grief. Kevin,

420
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:58,560
what was I going to talk to you about? I don't know. We don't have our, our, our predictability

421
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:03,200
here. Okay. Well, I guess that's gone. So that idea is gone. One thing I have been holding on to

422
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,120
and want to bring up is your multi-threaded income podcast. Are you still doing that

423
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:14,960
effective now? Are you on a hiatus? No, I guess hiatus might be the best word for it. I did

424
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:21,600
multi-threaded income as an experiment to see what would the appetite of developers be for

425
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:31,920
more business career oriented conversation. I mean, the first 15 minutes of our conversation was,

426
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,160
all right, I've done this, I've done that, I've done this, I've done training, I've done courses,

427
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:41,680
I've done books, I've done this, like I'm very much of the position. And I said it, there's no

428
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:47,280
such thing as job security. Like whoever you're working for now, they will drop you in a moment.

429
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:56,320
Like, and it's not like disrespect to anyone that's just business that you eventually end up

430
00:42:56,320 --> 00:43:04,240
a line item. And if that line needs to be zero, I mean, you go away. So build your own job security.

431
00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:10,560
Like I will never fire myself from my business because I own the business. But, you know,

432
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:17,040
there, you know, money can come from a lot of different things. I have a very good skill set,

433
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:21,760
and there's a lot of different ways to leverage that. The easiest way is always consulting. Like

434
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:27,200
consulting is the easiest way to make money. I mean, it's really hard to get started. Like,

435
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:33,200
if you have no clients, you have no network, like it's not easy to get started in consulting.

436
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:38,320
But it takes the least amount of time to get ramped up. Like you find that first client,

437
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:45,760
you can start on day one. Horses, teaching stuff, you know, like that's a good progression of

438
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:53,600
using your skill set. But you have, you have folks like me who put stuff on Udemy, and I make like

439
00:43:53,600 --> 00:44:01,040
a car payment every month of that. Dang, dude, that's awesome. Well, not like a good car.

440
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:06,000
Well, I know, but it's still something. It's still supplementing your income, you know?

441
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:07,040
No, like a good car.

442
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:11,600
It's money. Yeah, it's like a, what, geometro car payment, right?

443
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,000
Okay, okay, I get it. But it's still something.

444
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:21,120
But then you have, like, I'm really good friends with Aaron Francis. Aaron Francis drops, of course,

445
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:28,880
you know, he buy a house. Like that's the difference in, you know, someone who's dedicated to it

446
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:33,280
versus someone like me who dabbles in it and doesn't do it constantly. I get what you're saying.

447
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:38,880
I've written books of, yeah, I don't talk about books. I don't recommend anyone write to book.

448
00:44:40,240 --> 00:44:44,160
I've done training. Training is also really lucrative. Nice thing about training is you

449
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:49,440
could write material once and just deliver it over and over and over again. But in all these

450
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:53,760
cases, you have to be a good salesperson. Like you have to be able to sell the stuff that you,

451
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,200
that you're offering. A lot of developers are not suited for that.

452
00:44:57,920 --> 00:44:58,960
Yeah. Yes.

453
00:44:58,960 --> 00:44:59,520
There's also

454
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:00,800
So true.

455
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:01,040
Yeah.

456
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:05,680
Yeah. There's most of my clients are technical founders that can't do this. So that's why I'm

457
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:13,280
like, yes. Yep. Because it doesn't, you don't, you don't want to do it. You just want to dabble

458
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:17,680
in the code. You want to add a new feature. You want to do this, you want to do that. You don't

459
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:23,200
want to, you don't want to talk to anyone. Like you don't want to make a phone call or send an email.

460
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:28,640
We don't want to sell. They'll go out and like talk to other devs or they'll talk to their peers

461
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:31,920
or they'll talk to their network, but they don't want to go sell, you know, and like get into the

462
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:33,680
business side. They just want to build the cool tech.

463
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,800
Yep. So how do you know they're building the right thing? I mean, there's, that's a whole

464
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:44,000
another hour conversation we can have. And then there's like the Holy Grail. I've done my own

465
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:48,480
products and those are also a lot of work. You also have to be a good salesperson. You have to

466
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:55,440
figure out, is there a market for the thing you want to build? And yeah. So multi-threaded income

467
00:45:55,440 --> 00:46:01,040
was an attempt to just expose people to all these different ways to build additional income.

468
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:09,440
And it didn't necessarily have to be your day job or and something else. It's a combination.

469
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:13,600
That's why it was multi-threaded. Like you could do one, but then go off and do these other things.

470
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:20,480
And as you build up those skill sets and those other streams of income, maybe eventually you

471
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:26,560
don't need the day job anymore. And now you have your own job security. And by job security, I

472
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:31,200
really mean you have your own financial security. Yeah. I think you've got revenue streams all over

473
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:35,760
the place, which is kind of the vein of it. Yeah. And anyone paying attention to the politics knows

474
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:40,320
we have no idea if the world's even going to exist tomorrow. Like, it's one of those cases.

475
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:50,000
Yep. So don't be reliant on a W2. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So this is US. I'm the telling story for this.

476
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:57,120
Don't be reliant on the page, the daily paycheck from big company. Be reliant on yourself and your

477
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:03,040
skills. Because like everyone, like everyone in chat can say, I'm working for a great company

478
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:07,280
right now. They would never let me go into the quarter. If the numbers don't line up.

479
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:12,880
Mm-hmm. They'll let you go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Totally agree. So you should check out that

480
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,960
podcast. I was on Kevin's podcast and actually I'm like, I need to go back and listen to it because

481
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:21,520
I had like 12 revenue streams I was planning for my business. And I think I only like have really

482
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:26,480
actually capitalized on one and I'm like, what is wrong with me? Eager early Tessa had the had a

483
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:32,400
beautiful plan. But I yeah, go ahead. You did ask me. So that's in hiatus just because

484
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:40,160
I couldn't find a good avenue to make money from the podcast. And I'm at the stage in my life where

485
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:46,800
anything that I give my effort, effort to has to either drastically build my personal brand,

486
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:52,080
which in turn helps everything else in my network. Or it's got to put money in the bank. And

487
00:47:52,080 --> 00:48:00,720
multi-threading income wasn't doing either. So it's on hiatus until I can rethink the

488
00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:08,000
approach. Yep. So I love that. Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay. So I remember what I wanted to talk

489
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:12,160
about before I asked you about your podcast. So what I wanted to bring up is that you talked about

490
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:16,000
understanding systems and system admins and building them. And that came from college and your

491
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:21,440
official education. So I can relate to that, but also sort of speak to and I just wanted to add this

492
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:25,680
layer of like, you know, just understanding for any devs that might be like, Oh crap, I don't have an

493
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:30,640
official college degree. I'm never going to understand systems. I didn't either. I'm not going to

494
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:35,200
I dropped out of college three times. I was like, Nope, didn't it wasn't for me. All times criminal

495
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:40,320
justice, business management and software engineering just it wasn't happening. And so what I wanted

496
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:45,920
to say is I still had to understand systems because that's how things were back then. You didn't get

497
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:51,120
to have these all these beautiful tools. We were still making the original tools at which now have

498
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:56,480
tools and more tools and more tools today. But you can get to that place, right? But like getting

499
00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:01,360
into the code base, like I literally dove into the code base of every single thing that I built.

500
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:06,000
So if I was learning how to like Jumla was one of the first things, right? I was like,

501
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,240
I learned my sequel through Jumla because I'm like, I want to build a website for Guitar Hero so we

502
00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:15,680
can play video games with people that we like, right? I was at home and I had a little baby and he

503
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:20,800
was a great baby and I had time to blow on video games. So I learned my sequel because I wanted

504
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:25,280
to build a database or I wanted to build an app website, right? So I learned Jumla and then I

505
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:31,040
started learning all the source code for Jumla and understanding, you know, MVC and all the different

506
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:36,000
sort of ways that programming exists and how Jumla was created and how they changed it and shifted.

507
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,200
And so even though that's just one example, right, you can still start to understand the

508
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:47,600
fundamental systems below if you dig deep enough into the actual layers and into that like base

509
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:51,680
code that you're working with. And I think that's that's what I wanted to encourage is like, I think

510
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,880
that with AI and where AI is going, I think that understanding of the full system is going to be

511
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:02,160
where we can shine differently because we'll be able to speak to no, wait, don't let AI do it that

512
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:08,080
way because it should be done this way versus just having those traditional writing code skills that

513
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:12,240
a computer can unfortunately do. So yeah, that's actually a really good point. Like everyone out

514
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:20,240
there talking about AI taking the jobs of coders. They all pretty much say the same thing like AI is

515
00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:28,000
as good if not better than a junior level dev. Like those jobs, those are up on the chopping block,

516
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:34,720
like that it's just sad, it would be really hard to be a junior level dev right now. What AI can't do

517
00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:44,560
well is systems level thinking like it cannot think about this. So most of us using AI and coding

518
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:51,840
nowadays we're like, we're on a cog. Like if I bring in, I'm going to use a car analogy when I do

519
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:56,880
the talk, but it's like devs are used to working on the alternator. And the alternator is an important

520
00:50:56,880 --> 00:51:02,240
part. But something's wrong with power steering. AI is not going to be able to figure out that the bug

521
00:51:02,240 --> 00:51:10,000
is in power steering when you're looking at alternator. Now, alternator started vehicle by the

522
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:14,640
way for anyone who doesn't know. So that's like, you know, getting things going where like the

523
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:18,400
power steering is like a good driving experience, you know, like it all comes together.

524
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:24,320
So I am like, I'm very much a grease monkey. I love working on cars. I love

525
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:31,120
working on stuff around the house. And it's all systems. Like when your car breaks down,

526
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:37,440
it's because there's a fault in a system. So like 99% of the cars probably working just fine,

527
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:44,640
but like you throw a belt. So all right, something's wrong. And really all a combustion engine is,

528
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:49,600
and I have to specify now, because we have electric vehicles, but it's like a combustion engine,

529
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:59,360
you need three things you need, you need air fire and spark. Or so you need spark fuel. And I'm

530
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:03,360
getting my everything mixed up. But if you don't have one of those three, the engine won't run.

531
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:09,760
So like just understanding how these systems work, when it breaks down, you reverse engineers

532
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:14,720
like, All right, well, let's start here and start there. So that talk basically starts out with me,

533
00:52:14,720 --> 00:52:20,800
how I debugged a car issue by working backwards in the system, understanding how the system works.

534
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:27,600
So like even if you're building an app, and it's, we use the joke box, box cylinder, you have,

535
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:32,080
you have a front end, you have a back end, you have a database, all right, that's still a system.

536
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:38,720
And, but they're bigger system, if it's my sequel, my sequel is a big system. So if some,

537
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:45,360
so what you're going to see is not that there's an error in the database, you're just, someone's

538
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:49,600
going to call you and say, I get an error when I click on this button on the front end. Okay,

539
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:54,880
yeah, right. Systems level thinking goes fuel air spark. Yeah, thanks RJ. I'm trying to remember

540
00:52:54,880 --> 00:53:03,200
in my order. But so you have an error pressing the button. And a lot of folks will just concentrate

541
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:08,240
on the button. But the error might not be in the button, it might be in the database. So

542
00:53:08,240 --> 00:53:13,200
system level thinking basically approaches it to, well, let's start at the button, and let's work

543
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:18,640
our way backwards. Let's work our way backwards. And let's get down to the play last place it

544
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:24,000
worked. Yeah. And then all right, what's the next step? All right, that's where the failure was.

545
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:31,200
Why is there a failure nine times out of 10? It's obvious what the error is. Not always, but most

546
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:37,120
of the time, but when you understand the system though, you know, that's the thing, you can't

547
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:42,160
debug a car if you don't open the hood, like it's, yeah, or even know what's under the hood, right?

548
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:46,400
Like if you open a hood and you have no idea what's connected together and all the little pieces are

549
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:51,360
like, you're just open in the hood to be like, it's something on fire. Can I fix something that's

550
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:56,800
clear to me, which is unlikely if you don't understand the system? Yeah. So that's what I

551
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:02,320
would love to teach. And I think that would be insanely useful for anyone who's never thought

552
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:10,320
about what we do in that way. Because that's like, that's like mini system. Let's go more. What if you

553
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:18,400
have box, box cylinder, but then you need two front ends, and or you need multiple databases,

554
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:23,120
or what if, you know, what if the databases do slow? How do you improve that? How do you build

555
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:27,760
that system out a little bit more? That's the stuff I'm nerding out on right now. So you go from box,

556
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:33,520
box cylinder to box, box, box, box, box, box, box cylinder, cylinder, cylinder, cylinder,

557
00:54:34,960 --> 00:54:39,680
I know something else. And yeah, you have all the arrows pointing in different directions.

558
00:54:40,240 --> 00:54:46,720
All right, something's broken. Where do you start? And yep, if you understand the fundamental

559
00:54:46,720 --> 00:54:50,880
systems and how they all interact with each other, you can work your way backwards and usually fix

560
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:58,080
problem. So debugging becomes a superpower at that point. Yes, yes, yes. I think there are some,

561
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,760
you know, and so like, definitely skills that someone who's a junior dev can do, right? It's

562
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:05,840
just like, you have to dive into that instead of perfecting and learning all the new frameworks and

563
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:12,640
all the new shiny new stuff, right, like figure out how the fundamentals are operating in one of

564
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:19,200
these things, right, that that really is is most important. I think, holy cow, we've been talking

565
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:27,040
for 55 minutes already. I love hanging out with you. I know, I know this. Honestly, if you go back

566
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:31,280
and read the transcripts for my shows, I'm pretty sure that every single time I'm always excited to

567
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:35,760
meet with my guests, because I am, because it's always someone that I either like really, really

568
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,520
adore or it's someone that's newer interesting. And then at the end, we're always like, well,

569
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:45,600
we could talk for hours and hours. But I don't have hours and hours, unfortunately, and we both

570
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:50,160
have jobs, right? As we talked about, is it feeding into my brand or is it paying my bills?

571
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:55,040
This one does feed into our brands, but not if we go for hours and hours, we start to lose our

572
00:55:55,040 --> 00:56:00,000
ROI. This is the silent like third third thing. It just gives me personal joy to do this. Oh, yeah.

573
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:07,520
Yeah. Like, that's one of those. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Okay, so a

574
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:13,040
couple of questions I like to ask folks before we end the call. So a kind of rapid fire with these,

575
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,640
because I didn't necessarily ask these, what is your technology stack? I think we have a general

576
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:22,000
idea, but maybe outside of your love for.NET, what else do you use tools, other things that are

577
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:28,320
you're just a big fan of? I love my.NET for back end. I am a JavaScript guy on the front end.

578
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:39,760
Oh, I love that. I'm a view guy. I use writer for all my.NET development from JetRainz.

579
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:47,040
Great tool. Cool. I use cursor for my front end development. Interesting. So I pay for cursor.

580
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:52,880
So it is AI driven coding. I think it's the best tool. It's the best tool I've seen.

581
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:59,360
Oh. It just keeps getting better. So I love that. I love cursor. Yeah, I mean, I got,

582
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:04,320
yeah, those are my big tools I use every single day. Got it. I love that. Okay.

583
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:12,000
How do you solve challenges when you're stuck? I take a break. I walk away. I never,

584
00:57:12,720 --> 00:57:18,000
I never solve a big problem in front of the computer. I always solve a big problem while I'm

585
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:25,600
mucking around in the garage or taking a shower or drinking a cup of coffee. Yeah, step away from

586
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:32,560
the computer. That's the easiest way to solve a problem because your brain can't concentrate. Well,

587
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:39,200
think, like get a good night's sleep. Take a nap. Yeah. I'm at 41 is more important. When I was 20,

588
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:43,520
I could usually just plow through it and get something working. I can't do that anymore.

589
00:57:43,520 --> 00:57:51,120
But if I go get some sleep and wake up and go, I have an idea. Yep. Yep. Yep. I love that. I think

590
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,240
I get a lot of different answers, right? Because, you know, there's some developers that will be like,

591
00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:58,800
I walk away or, you know, I try it and whatever. And I think out of most of them, I hear just go

592
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:04,240
take a break the most. And I will say even from the most experienced folks, which I think is really

593
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:08,880
speaks true to how important it is to just like step away and actually go and take that break and

594
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,680
think about something else. Because sometimes our brains are just overworked, right? It's,

595
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:16,480
gosh, I was watching something the other day. And I can't remember exactly what it was, but basically,

596
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:21,280
they had opened something and they were like, it's right here. And they're like, I looked at this for

597
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:25,520
hours and I didn't see it. And that's the problem, right? As you look at something for too long,

598
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:29,600
you no longer see the mistakes that are in it. So I think that's incredibly valuable feedback.

599
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:34,640
Okay, Kevin, where can people find you? Hopefully you're speaking at commit your code,

600
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:39,840
which Danny just graciously was like, yep, you're in and I haven't submitted a talk. So we'll have

601
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:44,640
to figure that out. But hopefully you're there and I will see you there. Casey DC, obviously,

602
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:49,280
you're planning on hopefully being there and have submitted where can folks find you on the

603
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:53,200
internet and then, you know, for selfish people like me, what other events are you going to so I

604
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:59,760
can come hang out? So I'm on I'm still on the Twitter. I'm on blue sky. So on Twitter at one

605
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:07,120
Kev Griff blue sky. It's consult with griff.com. Because we can't just have regular handles.

606
00:59:07,120 --> 00:59:14,400
I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah, those are the big places, conferences. So I'm not confirmed for anything

607
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:21,120
right now. It's all just kind of up in the air. I'm planning. I'm hoping to be a Orlando code camp

608
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:28,800
in April. That's a great event. It's it's free on a Saturday. We have a whole discussion about

609
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:37,040
how like code camps like change developer events in the early 2000s. Yeah, I agree. Orlando code

610
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:42,720
camp is a great event. It's free for anyone who wants to show up. And it's in Orlando. So I like

611
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:49,040
going places that have roller coasters. Me too. I'm a huge roller coaster guy. Oh my gosh, me too.

612
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:56,000
So we're going on coasters together the next time we're hanging. We should because I will be that

613
00:59:56,000 --> 01:00:01,280
geek in there and say, Well, this was built by intimate and this features the blah, blah, blah,

614
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:05,680
unlike its sister coaster in this location. Yeah, I'm that guy with roller coasters.

615
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:10,880
Okay, but okay, this is a very important question before we go on to the rest of your events. Do

616
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:15,360
you go and then ride roller coaster multiple times if you really love it? Or do you have to like

617
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:20,240
circle the park and come back? Like what kind of ride are you? So what I will do, so if it's a

618
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:25,920
park I've never been to before, I will ride everything once at least and I will ride everything

619
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:30,320
once. I will take notes on what I like and what I don't like. And then I will only give my time

620
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:36,560
back to coasters that I liked. After you and I are so going to amusement parks together,

621
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:40,320
you're my new roller coaster buddy, because I'm the same way and I will because I want to try it

622
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:43,920
all right because you don't know what you like until you're on it and you try it. And then after

623
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:51,360
that I'm like ride or die for the ones that I love like I collect my credits. So if I ride,

624
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:56,320
I have to ride at least once and if I hate it, I never have to ride that ride again.

625
01:00:56,320 --> 01:01:00,080
Right, but you try it. Why do you do something that is bring you joy? If you have a headache at

626
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:08,880
the end of the ride, don't ride the ride anymore. Fallon. Yep. Orlando Code Camp. It's a toss up

627
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:15,760
between KCDC, the DevUp conference and Beer City Code. They're all kind of within like two, three

628
01:01:15,760 --> 01:01:22,320
weeks span of each other. I can only do one. So I'm not sure which one I'm going to be at yet.

629
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:29,920
I highly recommend KCDC. I love those guys. They run a great event. Kansas City is just a great

630
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:34,960
area for an event. I've never done DevUp and I've never done Beer City Code. So those are,

631
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:43,840
I might do those just because it's new. And you know, Commit Your Code. It's in November.

632
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:50,080
So I plan on being there if Danny will have me. There's also... Wait, did he move it to November?

633
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:55,280
Did he move it to September? I don't know. I don't remember. He'll try him in a minute.

634
01:01:56,000 --> 01:02:01,680
I know it's later. Well, it's later in the year. Yep. I'm also planning on being a tech bash

635
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:05,520
in Hope Knows. I think they're, I don't know if they're September or October this year,

636
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:10,480
but their CFP is getting ready to open soon. Beautiful area at a beautiful time.

637
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:17,760
It's a great little conference. And I like smaller, I like smaller conferences because I like the

638
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:23,760
more one-on-one time with people. I also bring my son with me. He enjoys it. And yeah.

639
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:34,320
September for clarity. Roxanne has let us know that it is, it's in September. Update your calendar.

640
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:38,640
Update. Yeah, I will. So it's at the top of my list. I just haven't filled in the blanks. I know

641
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:44,160
he opened the CFP like the day after the last one, which threw me off because I wasn't ready for it.

642
01:02:44,160 --> 01:02:48,720
I know. I was, I was, well, it was, there was a couple of days, because in those days, I was like,

643
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:52,640
I'm coming. I'll be there. And we had a range that he's like, yes, come and speak. And I was like,

644
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:57,920
great, but I did, I, it wasn't an open CFP. So yeah, I kind of snuck in in between there. So

645
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:04,560
I love that. So that's all I have at the moment. Yeah. Maybe one or two other things in between.

646
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:09,360
We'll see. I love that. Okay. So we'll have a couple opportunities. Maybe KCDC, commit your code.

647
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:15,360
I'm leaning in, well, I'm keynoting at PHP tech, which I'm so pumped about because I love PHP tech.

648
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:21,600
If anyone has never been and is in PHP, right? It's in Chicago this year. It used to be not

649
01:03:21,600 --> 01:03:27,920
laying down. Yeah. So they took a break over COVID. Eli, you know, used to run it. And then they had

650
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:33,200
sold that event over to the PHP architect guys, which are amazing human beings. So I'm excited

651
01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:39,520
for that. That's in May. I'm giving a keynote at Baylor. I'm so proud of this talk, like of all

652
01:03:39,520 --> 01:03:44,640
the talks and tech things that I've done. I'm like most proud about talking about marketing at a

653
01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:48,720
university, which is so not something I think I would be excited about. So I'm very pumped about

654
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:54,960
that. That one goes to the top of the resume. Like that's, that's how you wished. Yeah.

655
01:03:55,680 --> 01:04:01,280
No, I spoke at random conference. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just a guess. I think there's just a

656
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:05,840
little cloud with it, but it's really cool too, because it's a digital marketing competition

657
01:04:05,840 --> 01:04:10,160
for all the students. And so it's 36 different colleges getting together for the competition.

658
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:14,240
And then I'm like, they're, you know, featured or keynote speaker, whatever they call it.

659
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:19,600
But anyways, yeah, so I'm excited about that one. Commit your code. I submitted to,

660
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:29,440
oh my gosh, render ATL. Not sure that I would get accepted. I've never been, but I, the developers

661
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:33,360
love it. And so I want to go mostly for camaraderie of spending time with developers.

662
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:38,640
I don't know what else is on my schedule. I think that's it, but we will, we will cross paths at

663
01:04:38,640 --> 01:04:43,760
a couple of these. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, this has been awesome. Thank you for your time.

664
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:49,280
Thank you for the very active chat per usual lately. I absolutely love the engagement.

665
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:53,920
Having these conversations are so meaningful and it's super great to catch up with you.

666
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:58,240
And hopefully see you soon. I would love to bring you in the hub for a couple of events. So

667
01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:04,320
let's, let's work on that. Okay, perfect. All right. Well, I hope everyone has a fabulous

668
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:12,160
rest of their day. Kevin, any parting words before I end the stream? Nope, you're all awesome. I'm

669
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:28,960
proud of you. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesdays. Yay. Oh, beautiful parting words.