The Bike Shed thoughtbot

Joël explains his note-taking system, which he uses to capture his beliefs and thoughts about software development. Stephanie recalls feedback from her recent RailsConf talk, where her confidence stemmed from deeply believing in her material despite limited rehearsal. This leads to a conversation about the value of mental models in building a comprehensive understanding of a topic, which can foster confidence and adaptability during presentations and discussions.


The episode then shifts focus to the practical application of enumerators in Ruby, exploring various mental models to understand their functionality better. Joël introduces several metaphors, such as enumerators as cursors, lazy collections, and sequence generators, which help demystify their use cases.



Episode on note-taking
What we believe about software
Ruby Enumerators
Enumerator Lazy
Modeling a Paginated API as a lazy stream
Solving a memory performance issue with enumerator
Find in batches
Binary tree implementation with different traversals
Teaching Ruby to Count


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 together, 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: So, what's new in my world isn't exactly a new thing. I've talked about it on the podcast here before, and it's my note-taking system. I have a system where I try to capture notes that are things I believe about software or things I think are probably true about software. They're chunked up in really small pieces, such that every note is effectively one small thesis statement and a paragraph of text, and maybe a diagram or a code snippet to support that. And then, it's highly hyperlinked to other notes. So, I sort of build out some thoughts on software that way.


A thing that I've done recently that's been pretty exciting with that is introducing a sort of separate set of notes that connect to my sort of opinion notes. So, I create individual notes for public works that I've done, things like blog posts or conference talks. Because a lot of those are built on top of ideas that have been sitting in my note system for a while. Readers and listeners get to sort of see the final product, but often sort of built up over several months or even a couple of years as I added different notes that kind of circled a topic and then eventually got to a thing.


What I did, though, was actually making those connections explicit. And so I use Obsidian. Obsidian has this cool graph view where it just sort of shows all of the notes, and it circles them with, like, connections between them where the notes connect. So, I can now see in a visual format how my thoughts cluster in different topics, but then also which clusters have talks and blog posts hanging off of them and also which ones don't, which ones are like, oh, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, and I've not yet written about it in a public forum; maybe that would be a thing to explore. So, seeing that visual got me really excited. I was having a good time.


STEPHANIE: Yes, I have several thoughts coming to mind in response, which is, I know you love a visual. I really like the system of, even if you have created content for it, like, you have a space for, like, thoughts about it to evolve. Because you said, like, sometimes content comes out of notes that you've been...or, like, thoughts you've been having over years, but it's like, even afterwards, I'm sure there will still be new thoughts about it, too. I always have a hard time finding a place for that thing kind of once I, I don't know, it's like some of that stuff is never really considered done, right? So, that is really cool.


And I also was just thinking about an old episode of The Bike Shed back when Chris Toomey and Steph Vicc

Joël and Stephanie talk RailsConf!. Joël shares how he performed as a D&D character, Glittersense the gnome, to make his Turbo features talk entertaining and interactive. Stephanie's talk focused on addressing test pain by connecting it to code coupling, offering practical insights and solutions.


They agree on the importance of continuous improvement as speakers and developers and trying new approaches in talks and code design, and recommend Jared Norman's RailsConf talk on design patterns, too!



That One Thing: Reduce Coupling for More Scalable and Sustainable Software
Connascence.io
[Connascence as a vocabulary to discuss coupling](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/connascence-as-a-vocabulary-to-discuss-coupling](https://thoughtbot.com/blog/connascence-as-a-vocabulary-to-discuss-coupling)
The value of specialized vocabulary


Transcript:


We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP.


Join for all seven of the weekly sessions or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue. 


JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville.


STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way.


JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world?


STEPHANIE: So, I think I can speak for both of us and say what's new in our world is that you and I just came back from RailsConf in Detroit.


JOËL: Yeah, we were there for, I guess, it's a three-day conference. Both of us were giving talks.


STEPHANIE: Yeah. I don't think we've both spoken at a conference for at least a little over a year, so that was really fun kind of to catch up in person. And there was a whole crew of thoughtboters who were there. Yeah, I feel like we were hanging out, like, a lot [chuckles] all of last week, just seeing each other, talking about, you know, rehearsing our talks and spending time together on...there was, like, a hack day, and we were sitting at the table together. So, I feel like I'm totally caught up on everything that's new in your world, and that's it. That's the end of the show [laughs].


JOËL: On that note, shall we wrap up?


STEPHANIE: [laughs] That would not be very fair to our listeners.


[laughter]


JOËL: Yeah. So, how was the conference speaking experience for you?


STEPHANIE: Ooh, it was really great this year. I have not spoken at a RailsConf before, so this was actually, I think, a bigger stage than I had experienced before, and I had a great time. I met Ruby friends, new and old, and, yeah, I left feeling very gooeyed, and very energized, and just so grateful for the Rails community [laughs]. Yeah, I had a very lovely time, kind of being a little bit outside my normal life for a few days. And I think my favorite part about these things is just like, anywhere you go, you can kind of just have a shared interest with someone, and you can start a conversation with them.


JOËL: That's really interesting. Do you find yourself just reaching out to strangers at conferences like this? Or do you tend to just hang out with the people that you know?


STEPHANIE: Oh, I think a little bit of both. I like to get meals with people I know. But if I'm just hanging out in, like, the lobby or if I happen to get a seat for a talk and I'm sitting next to someone that I don't know, I find it quite easy to just be like, "Hi, like, I'm Stephanie. Are you excited for this talk?" Or, like, "What good talks have you seen recently?" There's an aspect of, like, the social butterfly that com

Joël shares his preparations for his RailsConf talk, which is D&D-themed and centered around a gnome character named Glittersense. Stephanie expresses her delight in creating pod-related puns within thoughtbot's internal team structure, like "cross-podination" for inter-pod meetings and the adorable observation that her pod resembles "three peas in a pod" when using the git co-authored-by feature.


Together, Stephanie and Joël discuss bringing one's authentic self to work, balancing personal disclosure with professional boundaries, and fostering psychological safety. They highlight the value of shared interests and personal anecdotes in enhancing team cohesion, especially remotely, and stress the importance of an inclusive culture that respects individual preferences and boundaries.


Transcript:


We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP.


Join for all seven of the weekly sessions, or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue.


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 together, 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: So, at the time of this recording, we're recording this the week before RailsConf. I've been working on some of the visuals for my RailsConf talk and leaning on AI to generate some of these. So, my talk is D&D-themed, and it's very narrative-based. We follow the adventures of this gnome named Glittersense throughout the talk as we learn about how to use Turbo to build a D&D character sheet. And so, I wanted the AI to generate images for me.


And the problem I've had with a lot of AI-generated images is that you're like, okay, I need a gnome, you know, in a fight doing this, doing that. But then, like, every time, you get, like, totally different images. You're like, "Oh, I need an image where it's this," but then, like, the character is different in all the scenes, and there's no consistency. So, I've been leaning a little bit more into the memory aspect of ChatGPT, where you can sort of tell it, "Look, these are the things. Now, whenever I refer to Glittersense, whenever you draw an image, do it with these characteristics that we've established what the character looks like."


Sometimes I'll have, like, a text conversation kind of, like, setting up the physical characteristics. And then, it's like, okay, now every time you draw him, draw him like this, or now every time you draw him, draw him with this particular piece of equipment that we've created. And so, leaning into that memory has allowed me to create a series of images that feel a little bit more consistent in a way that's been really interesting.


STEPHANIE: Cool. Yeah, that makes sense because you are telling a story, right? And you need it to have a through line and the imagery be matching as you progress in your presentation. I actually don't know a lot about how that memory works. Does it persist across sessions? Do you have to do it all in one [laughs] go, or how does that work?


JOËL: So, there's, like, a persistent chat. So, you can start sort of multiple conversations, but each conversation is its own thread with its own memory. And it will sort of keep track of certain things. And sometimes I'll even say, "Hey..." instead of, like, prompting it for something to get a response, you could prompt it to add things to its memory. So say like, "From now on, when I ask you these types of questions,

Stephanie shares an intriguing discovery about the origins of design patterns in software, tracing them back to architect Christopher Alexander's ideas in architecture. Joël is an official member of the Boston bike share system, and he loves it. He even got a notification on the app this week: "Congratulations. You have now visited 10% of all docking stations in the Boston metro area." #AchievementUnlocked, Joël!


Joël and Stephanie transition into a broader discussion on data modeling within software systems, particularly how entities like companies, employees, and devices interconnect within a database. They debate the semantics of database relationships and the practical implications of various database design decisions, providing insights into the complexities of backend development.



Christopher Alexander and Design Patterns
Rails guide to choosing between belongs_to and has_one
Making impossible states impossible


Transcript:


We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP.


Join for all seven of the weekly sessions, or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue.


JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville.


STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn. And together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way.


JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world?


STEPHANIE: So, I learned a very interesting tidbit. I don't know if it's historical; I don't know if I would label it that. But, I recently learned about where the idea of design patterns in software came from. Are you familiar with that at all?


JOËL: I read an article about that a while back, and I forget exactly, but there is, like, a design patterns movement, I think, that predates the software world.


STEPHANIE: Yeah, exactly. So, as far as I understand it, there is an architect named Christopher Alexander, and he's kind of the one who proposed this idea of a pattern language. And he developed these ideas from the lens of architecture and building spaces. And he wrote a book called A Pattern Language that compiles, like, all these time-tested solutions to how to create spaces that meet people's needs, essentially. And I just thought that was really neat that software design adopted that philosophy, kind of taking a lot of these interdisciplinary ideas and bringing them into something technical.


But also, what I was really compelled by was that the point of these patterns is to make these spaces comfortable and enjoyable for humans. And I have that same feeling evoked when I'm in a codebase that's really well designed, and I am just, like, totally comfortable in it, and I can kind of understand what's going on and know how to navigate it. That's a very visceral feeling, I think.


JOËL: I love the kind of human-centric approach that you're using and the language that you're using, right? A place that is comfortable for humans. We want that for our homes. It's kind of nice in our codebases, too.


STEPHANIE: Yeah. I have really enjoyed this framing because instead of just saying like, "Oh, it's quote, unquote, "best practice" to follow these design patterns," it kind of gives me more of a reason. It's more of a compelling reason to me to say like, "Following these design patterns makes the codebase, like, easier to navigate, or easier to change, or easier to work with." And that I can get kind of on board with rather than just saying, "This way is, like, the better way, or the superior way, or the way to do things."


JO

Joël shares his experience with the dry-rb suite of gems, focusing on how he's been using contracts to validate input data. Stephanie relates to Joël's insights with her preparation for RailsConf, discussing her methods for presenting code in slides and weighing the aesthetics and functionality of different tools like VS Code and Carbon.sh. She also encounters a CI test failure that prompts her to consider the implications of enforcing specific coding standards through CI processes.


The conversation turns into a discussion on managing coding standards and tools effectively, ensuring that automated systems help rather than hinder development. Joël and Stephanie ponder the balance between enforcing strict coding standards through CI and allowing developers the flexibility to bypass specific rules when necessary, ensuring tools provide valuable feedback without becoming obstructions.



dry-rb
A broader take on parsing
Parse; don’t validate
Debugging at the boundaries
Specialized vocabulary
Carbon
RailsConf 2024
Moving errors to the left
Contracts
Linters shouldn’t be optional
Linter rules to avoid focused tests
Thoughtbot Rails guides
Danger


Transcript:


AD:


We're excited to announce a new workshop series for helping you get that startup idea you have out of your head and into the world. It's called Vision to Value. Over a series of 90-minute working sessions, you'll work with a thoughtbot product strategist and a handful of other founders to start testing your idea in the market and make a plan for building an MVP.


Join for all seven of the weekly sessions, or pick and choose the ones that address your biggest challenge right now. Learn more and sign up at tbot.io/visionvalue.


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 together, 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've been working on a project that uses the dry-rb suite of gems. And one of the things we're doing there is we're validating inputs using this concept of a contract. So, you sort of describe the shape and requirements of this, like hash of attributes that you get, and it will then tell you whether it's valid or not, along with error messages. We then want to use those to eventually build some other sort of value object type things that we use in the app. And because there's, like, failure points at multiple places that you have to track, it gets a little bit clunky.


And I got to thinking a little bit about, like, forget about the internal machinery. What is it that I would actually like to happen here? And really, what I want is to say, I've got this, like, bunch of attributes, which may or may not be correct. I want to pass them into a method, and then either get back a value object that I was hoping to construct or some kind of error.


STEPHANIE: That sounds reasonable to me.


JOËL: And then, thinking about it just a little bit longer, I was like, wait a minute, this idea of, like, unstructured input goes into a method, you get back something more structured or an error, that's kind of the broad definition of parsing. I think what I'm looking for is a parser object. And this really fits well with a style of processing popularized in the functional programming community called parse, don't validate the idea that you use a parser like this to sort of transform data from more loose to more strict values, values where you can have more assumptions.


And so, I create an object, and I can take a contract. I can take a class and say, "Attempt to take the following attributes. If they're valid according to the construct, create this classroom." And it, you know, does a bunch of error handling and some...under the hood, dry-rb does all this monad stuff. So, I handled that all inside of the obj

Stephanie is back with a book recommendation: "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows. This book has helped to bolster her understanding of complex systems in environmental, organizational, and software contexts, particularly through user interactions and system changes. Joël describes his transformative experience watching last week's total solar eclipse.


Together, they explore how systems thinking influences software development and team dynamics by delving into practical applications in writing and reading code, suggesting that understanding complex systems can aid developers in navigating and optimizing codebases and team interactions.



Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
Notetaking for developers episode
Call Graphs
Flame Graphs
mermaid.live
Obsidian
rails-erd gem
Decision tables


Transcript:


 JOËL: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bike Shed, a weekly podcast from your friends at thoughtbot about developing great software. I'm Joël Quenneville.


STEPHANIE: And I'm Stephanie Minn, and together, we're here to share a bit of what we've learned along the way.


JOËL: So, Stephanie, what's new in your world?


STEPHANIE: I have a book recommendation today [laughs].


JOËL: Oh, I love book recommendations.


STEPHANIE: It's been a little while, so I wanted to share what I've been reading that I think might be interesting to this audience. I'm reading Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. Joël, are you familiar with systems thinking theory at all?


JOËL: Very superficially. Hearing people talk about it on, I guess, X, now Twitter.


STEPHANIE: Yeah. Well, what I like about this book is the subtitle is A Primer on Thinking in Systems [chuckles], which is perfect for me as someone who also just kind of understood it very loosely, as just like, oh, like, I dunno, you look at things holistically and look at the stuff, not just its parts but from a higher perspective.


JOËL: Yeah. Is that accurate sort of your pre-book reading overview? Or do you think there's a bigger thing, a bigger idea there that the book unpacks?


STEPHANIE: Yeah. I think I'm only, like, a third of the way through so far. But what I have enjoyed about it is that, you know, in some ways, like, intuitively, that makes a lot of sense about, like, oh yeah, you want to make sure that you see the forest for the trees, right?


But one thing I've been surprised by is how it's also teaching me more technical language to talk about complex systems. And, in this case, she is talking about, essentially, living systems or systems that change over time where things are happening. I think that can be a little bit confusing when we also are, you know, talking about computer systems, but, in this case, you know, systems like environments, or communities, or even, you know, companies or organizations, which is actually where I'm finding a lot of the content really valuable.


But some of the language that I've learned that I am now trying to integrate a little bit more into how I view a lot of just, like, daily problems or experiences involve things like feedback loops that might be reinforcing or balancing and different, like, inputs and output flows and what is driving those things. So, I've appreciated just having more precise language for things that I think I kind of intuited but didn't exactly know how to, like, wrap up in a way to communicate to someone.


JOËL: Do you think the idea of thinking in terms of things like self-balancing versus sort of diverging input loops is something that's useful when actually writing code? Or do you think of it a little bit more in terms of, like, teams and how they organize general problem-solving approaches, things like that?


STEPHANIE: I think the answer is both. I actually gave this quite a bit of thought because I was trying to wrap my head around her definition of a system and how we talk about systems sometimes, like, a codebase, for example. And the conclusion I came to is that,