thoughtbot had an in-person Summit in the UK! Joël recalls highlights. Stephanie is loving daily sync meetings on a new project.
The idea of deleting code has been swimming around in Stephanie's brain recently because she's been feeling nervous about it. Together, Joël and Stephanie explore ways of gaining confidence to delete code while feeling good about it.
This episode is brought to you by Airbrake (https://airbrake.io/?utm_campaign=Q3_2022%3A%20Bike%20Shed%20Podcast%20Ad&utm_source=Bike%20Shed&utm_medium=website). Visit Frictionless error monitoring and performance insight for your app stack.
Thoughtbot summit video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d7gUq5J-ck)
Gather Town (https://www.gather.town/)
Sustainable Rails episode (https://www.bikeshed.fm/368)
Chelsea Troy on deleting features (https://chelseatroy.com/2021/01/21/reducing-technical-debt/)
Unused (https://unused.codes/)
elm-review-unused (https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/jfmengels/elm-review-unused/latest/)
Transcript:
STEPHANIE: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Stephanie Minn.
JOËL: And I'm Joël Quenneville. And today, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way.
STEPHANIE: So, Joël, what's new in your world?
JOËL: I just got back from a few days in the UK, where thoughtbot has been having an in-person Summit, where we've brought people from all over the company together to spend a few days just spending time with each other, getting to know each other, getting to connect in person.
STEPHANIE: That sounds like it was a lot of fun. I've been hearing really great things about it from folks who've come back. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it this year. I got sick a little bit beforehand and then ended up not being able to go. But it sounds like it was a lot of fun just to get together, especially since we're now a remote company.
JOËL: Yeah, I'm really sorry you weren't able to make it there. It would have been amazing to do a Bike Shed co-hosts get-together.
STEPHANIE: I know. In the same room, maybe even record. What a concept. [laughs]
JOËL: So thoughtbot is a fully remote company, and so that means that getting a chance to have people to come together and build those in-person connections that you don't get, I think, is incredibly valuable. I was really excited to meet both the people that I work with and that I see on my screen every day and people who I don't talk to as often because they're working on different teams or different departments even.
STEPHANIE: What was one highlight of the time you spent together?
JOËL: I'll give a couple of highlights, one I think is more on the activity side. We went bouldering as a group. This was a really popular activity. We were trying to sign up people for it, and it was so popular we had to make two groups because there were too many people who were interested. And it was really fun. There are people with a whole variety of skill levels. Some people, it was their first time, some people had been doing it for a while. And just getting together and solving problems was a lot of fun.
STEPHANIE: Yes, I saw that. That was one of the things I was really looking forward to doing when I was still thinking that I was going to go. And it's cool that it had opportunities for both beginners and people who have been doing it before, which I think, if I recall correctly, Joël, you are a boulderer yourself back home. So that's pretty neat that you were able to, yeah, I don't know, maybe share some of that experience IRL too.
JOËL: Yeah, yeah, I think it's great because people were able to help each other. Sometimes you have a different perspective down on the ground than you do up on the wall. And then, in my case, because I've done it a lot, I know a little bit of actual climbing technique. And so I can give some tips on, like, oh, if you're stuck and you don't know how to get past a particular point, or