Detailed Notes
In Season 27 of the Building Better Developers podcast (Moving Things Forward), Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche break down a simple but powerful idea: as AI gets better at generating code, developers create more value by defining problems clearly, communicating outcomes, and thinking in solutions—not implementations.
This episode includes a practical Friday Challenge: use a chatbot to rewrite your problem + solution in “non-geek speak” so non-technical stakeholders can understand it—and help you find what you’re missing.
Blog post: https://develpreneur.com/moving-things-forward-friday-challenge-ai-communication/ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@develpreneur
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#BuildingBetterDevelopers #AIForDevelopers #problemsolving
Chapters 00:00 Intro / catching up 08:15 Travel + relocation updates 15:20 Episode setup: Meeky Hwang recap + Friday Challenge 16:25 Good thing / bad thing 19:10 Why this interview mattered (leadership + growth) 21:00 Moving beyond code: problem-solving as the real value 23:00 Michael’s AI example: Terraform + testing scripts 25:05 Momentum + mastermind/community for entrepreneurs 26:35 How fast should you move in AI? 31:55 Friday Challenge: communicate problems without geek speak 40:10 Closing + feedback + what’s next
Transcript Text
So yeah, I think it's like Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be a different It'll be a change of pace for sure. Um it's sort of like she's tired of the roads because they're like we're in a we're in like a historic part of town, so the roads are not awesome to walk on. They're like the cobblestone kind of stuff and it drives her nuts and there's a lot of hills. She will do anything to avoid hills these days. Um, and it's been like rainy and overcast. Like today it's nice, but uh, and this weekend we're both be gone and it'll be nice. Uh, but we'll see. Hopefully by the time we get into next week and then into March, we'll get some it'll get more like the normal seasonal sun and stuff that you you're going to see. So, we can have a little have a few more good days out on the ocean here before we head um head into Albania and take a different different tact and learn a whole new language and a whole new culture and everything else. facility. I'm just starting to figure out enough to like I've had two bolt ride. Well, I guess I had a bolt ride yesterday, an Uber ride today that I like said no English the whole time talking to the driver and had like very minimal conversations but conversations nevertheless. And so I'm like, hey, getting there. That sounds like fun. It really does. I I thought you were doing Albania next. That's why I was checking because I saw something on Facebook. Um, but I'm kind of I think I haven't c kept up with the full thread. I think I'm only getting bits and pieces uh in my feed. So, uh I was like I wasn't sure. So, let me check. >> Yep. So, yeah. So, it was Yeah, we were going to go to the capital because it was it everything seemed pretty good and then actually got a place but like or reserved a place and it's just Airbnb and the lady was like, "Oh, I got somebody else beaches. Let me see if they still want it." And then at that same time, Natalie started looking at the beaches not too far away. And she's like, "Well, what about this?" And next thing you know, we're like, "Okay, it's off season, so it's like >> I mean, this is beachfront and like some really good stuff is under 1,500 bucks a month." I mean, it's like there's a couple that are walk out like you could you walk out, you could see the the sand there. It was like literally, I don't know, 50 meters, something like that, less than a football field away >> and, you know, 600 700 bucks a month. So, we're like, "Okay, >> we're going to take advantage while we're here. We're gonna we're gonna have some fun." And I figure it's like not too far. Like we're on one like the north side of the beach. If you go to the south side of the beach, which is I haven't exactly, we'll see how far that walk is. There's supposed to be really good fishing. So I'm like, hm. And this is like good ocean stuff like sea bass and stuff like that you can pick up. So I was like, hm, maybe like once or twice a week that'll be my end of the day thing is I'll just like or maybe my start of the day is I'll like I'll go into town. I'll get myself a good little, you know, rod and reel, get some some bait, and then a couple times a week, maybe it's like, "All right, we're going to figure out how to do our We're going to live off the land, off the water." >> Nice. >> Yeah, we're >> all right. >> We're hoping to get back to the uh river here soon, but we're getting into rainy season. So, we're actually more worried we may have to really pack up the river more uh because of flooding. So, we're we're playing by ear. >> Sorry. I wonder what it's going to be like with all the the melt off, you know, the melt from the ice and all that stuff we've had. I wonder if you're going to have a worse season than normal. >> Well, actually, at least from what we had the rains last week and the melt, but we only went up like about half a foot. So, uh hopefully we won't flood this year. Part of it was part of the reason we had so much flooding was because they were working on the dam. So they had to keep the water level really low on the um lake side so they could work on the dam and that caused the excessive flooding on our side. Not to mention the fact that they found out that uh some guy was getting kickbacks at the lock to keep the level at a certain height at the um lake for all those rich people up there. And uh that's why we had excessive flooding. So >> uh >> we'll we'll see. Uh it was interesting. >> Anyway, um yeah, so this one is the uh review uh for Mickey Hong and uh the challenge, the Friday challenge. >> Yep. So Mickey Hong, for those of you guys joining us from home, uh we just talked to her this week. Um and >> actually you talked to her this week. I was out for this one. >> Oh yeah, that was why this was such a really good conversation. This was one of the best interviews we've had in a long time. Uh it may have something to do with Michael not being there, maybe not. I will just say behind the scenes, I really enjoy like after the fact like chirping at Michael during the like the recordings because I know he's got to look at it. So they'll just be like, you know, I'll say I I leave him his own little bonus stuff for while he's editing his way through these things. Um but yeah, it was a really good conversation. actually went this one read a little this is an interesting one. Um that's right cuz we don't have to start we don't have to do our little like soon or anything like that. We're just in um which is even better. Um this was a good ah timeout. We'll start with good thing bad thing. We'll just do a quick like good thing. I know we just gave you guys a little bit of like what's going on. Let's do good thing, bad thing real quick and then we'll dive right into it. This is what happens. We don't have like a clean hard like professional start and end. We just do it. So, good thing bad thing. Um, oh, real quick. I'm Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of Developer, uh, also the founder of RV Consulting, where we we help you solve problems. We help you figure out how to use technology to do your business better and clean up your technology junk drawer and all that goodness. Uh good thing, bad thing. Good thing is uh as you guys know, I'm going skiing in the Alps this weekend. And that's like I've been a skier on and off all my life. I started snow skiing when I was like, I don't know, 8 10 years old, something like that. Went almost every year until I was into my 20s. Took 20 years off and went skiing again not too long ago. And uh after that big hiatus, I did not ski the same way I did the 20 some odd, 30 years, whatever it was before. Uh but it was fun. And so now I have never skied outside of Summit County, I believe it is, in Denver, maybe in Colorado, maybe once or twice, but it's always been in Denver. Um and so this could be first and it's going to be very interesting because it's going But the bonus is uh the good thing is I am ski in, ski out. It's like literally I think it's like 100 ft from I walk out the door to I'm on a lift. So I'm That's a real good thing. Bad thing is is I'm sitting here halfway through my uh tenure in Portugal and I have had I don't know in six weeks I don't think I've had six days of sun um that we were in here in northern port Portugal. Uh they've got horrendous rains and stuff like that. It's done a lot of damage. Um, we did manage to go down to the beach for two days, which was that was nice. Uh, but, uh, we have definitely not hit it in its best time. Uh, another bad thing is now I got to hand it all off and let Michael introduce himself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Mike Malage, one of the co-founders of developer, building better developers, also the founder of Envision QA, uh, where we help people with automation, testing, and streamline their businesses. Uh, good thing, bad thing. Uh, good thing we have finally warmed up a little bit. We kind of have our fall spring right now. Um, life is actually enjoyable going outside. Uh, bad thing, we're now getting into that wet season and I got to watch for possible flooding at the riverhouse, but beyond that, looking forward to a nice spring and finally getting back outside from being hibernating in this very cold winter. Well, welcome all of you guys to part two, number two, which is why this is still like a little bit rough of our weekly challenge. Um, we talked this week with Mickey line and I did and it got a little less technical, a little more um leadership entrepreneurial. Uh, we definitely spent a lot more time than normal, although she'd come out of a a technical career. Um, I think this is where this is one of those that I'm glad when we can talk to somebody else like this that has has been technical. Um, but now has moved beyond that. And actually, I say someone like but you know, it's like I'm still technical. I write code every day. So, I guess although I've moved up to that, I still say very technical, still stay very hands-on. It's always fun to see somebody. It's that fun is not necessarily the word. It is educational to me to see somebody to talk to somebody that has gone from that technical approach and moved into much more a managerial type approach. And I thought we had some great conversations around um building people which is you know like building yourself your career building your team which very much goes to the developer book itself about like you know how do you become and our title how do you become a better developer um I think that was like that was really the key I I didn't feel so much that there was like a specific thing or or two that was brought out as much as the overall theme of this and then it's basically my favorite theme is that what we do as developers is we solve problems. Yes, we we know code and we blah blah blah all that stuff. That's not really where our value is. The value we bring is solving problems. And this is going to be critical when we move as we move forward with AI because there is actually somebody referenced the idea of um the other day in a Slack thing about a a technology stack that is the no code stack or the no stack stack that basically AI can give us is that it it really doesn't matter anymore. I mean, it does if you want to go deep, but if you want to like just crank something out and especially as AI is getting better, I think we're going to get to a point that you have you will have very minimal code that you would have to actually write. So, while bonus, I think it's a great way to learn new languages because you could sit there and say, I've never done Ruby on Rails. sit down with AI and write a Ruby on Rails app or take better yet take an app that you know really well and have AI convert it to Ruby on Rails and then go through and test it and do all that kind of stuff and you can literally take sections of code and say I'm pretty sure this doesn't work. This is what the output is. This is what the expectation is and it'll fix stuff fix stuff for you. It may take it three or four times because it's still we call him Chip in my household. Chip is still not the brightest bulb. Sometimes he like, you know, he gets a little bit, you know, a little little wonky sometimes and sometimes he goes off the rails. But because of this, it really is going to become more and more about how you solve problems, how you phrase problems, how you state problems, how you understand what an actual solution is going to be way more than your code. So, what are your thoughts on this? >> Yeah. So I I I'll pick you back up on what you were just talking about first and then I had some uh other observations from the interviews, but talking about AI and chip so to speak. Um on a current project I'm working on, I'm using uh GitHub Copilot and the plugin for code and that is almost gamechanging. uh I was having to build a Terraform uh infrastructure as code project to stand up an AWS instance with some configurations and things like that. And it's been a long time since I've built one of those from scratch. And it's like, okay. Um so I was like, well, here let me play with this chatbot. And literally it wrote the code. It wrote the entire project. All I had to do is go through the prompts and literally in the IDE it built the whole project. I was like, "Hey, this is kind of fun." So, I used this as a little trial feature to go through. And almost 90% of what it built was what I needed. I had to tweak just a few things. But within about an hour and a half, I had a working Terraform project that I was easily able to deploy. And what was kind of cool about because of my testing side of things, I pushed it even further. I had it actually write me uh shell scripts to test the AWS instance to make sure that it had built the things I wanted it to build uh using the AWS command line uh to go ping the interface after it stood everything up to make sure that everything got built. Uh, and then I even went further and tried to use local stack to set up automation testing, but of course I my license for local stack expired, so I couldn't use some of the extra features. It's just one of those where AI built me enough, but because I had the understanding of the other things to do to expand it, uh it I was able to continuously get the prompts I needed to build the project up quickly. Uh and have it fully functional, fully testable, uh which was kind of fun. Uh that kind of leads to the interview you had. Um, so one of the conversations you guys were having was talking about, you know, going from that developer mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. And one of the things uh you guys talked about was uh how she came out of that mastermind or that group uh program she was in that sounded very similar to kind of like that co-starter program I went through. They were different things altogether. But the common theme of that was being around other entrepreneurs, other like-minded people and just absorbing that energy. You get energized and it really helps push you and keeps you going and helps you keep the momentum going for uh you know whatever it is you're working on either becoming a better leader, becoming a better business and so on. So, I liked her suggestion of looking for groups to grow and share your experiences. Now, that can be a little hard if all you do is work remotely, but there are groups and things like that you can do online like uh join mastermind groups like this or you know interviews with us, but there's things you can do to broaden that and try to keep that momentum going. It it's interesting because over the last six months I have been more in my business and on my business and I have not had that social interaction with a lot of the people from the co-starters and other business groups and I've kind of lost that energy and that was something as I was listening I'm like you know I miss that. So it kind of encourages me to go back out and look for that. The other thing as we talked about the adopting the AI technologies uh and how fast should you move forward that was one of the things you guys were talking about where you know some businesses want to get into AI they're not sure what they want to do and even if they are doing something they don't know when to go to market with it and then you run into that trend of okay are we just keeping the status quo are we starting to push the edge are we on the bleeding edge or are we beyond on the edge, you know, are we doing something that we don't know what we're doing yet? We're we're, you know, pushing boundaries beyond where the current market is. And I it it really kind of hit home. It's like how many times have you and I or even other people talked about where we how fast is fast? How fast should we get it to market? There's always get it out there as fast as you can, get feedback, and you get into that feedback loop. But sometimes you don't want to get out too quickly because you don't want to get your idea out and have someone steal it before you have enough protection around your intellectual uh property rights. So, you got to be careful with some things like that. But at the same time, especially in the current market or current environment of AI, I almost think that you just have to keep going and try to stay as much on that cutting bleeding edge as you can right now. Um, and just try things like the example I gave with the Terraform project, like the example you gave. Go pick some chat bots, go try it. You should be trying to do this like daily. At least something small to keep pushing forward and keeping up with what's going on because if you wait, you're going to miss the boat. And this uh is growing so exponentially compared to how the net boom was, what we went through through the information boom of the 2000s. We're going so fast now. It it's scary. it it what took decades and half a decade. We're looking at months to years before things are really moving forward. So, uh it I really like the conversation um and I liked a lot of the conversations you guys had about the leaderships. You know, we talk about that a lot here on developer. just I I'm sorry I missed the interview, but it it really sounds like a lot of the conversations that you and I have had, you know, from like the global leadership meetings, from the different networking things we've done, uh it it was just a very good conversation and hopefully you guys have listened to the interviews because uh if you haven't, go back and listen to it because it's one that I highly recommend uh you go back and listen to because there was a lot of good information and like Rob said, it wasn't very technical, but it is very good for leadership, for growing, for self-improvement. >> Yeah, I agree. I think that was one of those there was a lot of I I won't go to the full, you know, it wasn't like uh you know, the John Lee Dumas valued bombs dropped kind of things that he he was still mentioned. I assume he still does. Um but there was a lot of little things. They weren't bombs, they were bomblets, I guess. There's a lot of little things there that uh even as just going through the conversation and then thinking about a little bit afterwards, there's a lot of things that also uh besides just being good like hey this is a good way to approach stuff. They are good like little like nudges to be like to get yourself back doing the right thing like you said like now you're like oh yeah I guess I do need to go back and reach out to that and those I think are invaluable lessons to where that's why I love doing the podcast. I love talking to people. I love being on podcasts because so often we'll have these conversations and it'll be like, "Oh, I need to be working on that. Oh, that's something I should do. Oh, I forgot I haven't done that in a while." You know, those kinds of things. Um, now granted, there's like all kinds of other little germs of ideas that have have, you know, skyrocketed me in in directions in the last, you know, six months or a year that I'm just like, "Ah, that's right. I, you know, I need to really tackle this." Um, but it was a good conversation like that and it's it's not too heavy. I think it's a really good one for like it is if you haven't listened to it go back and listen like while you're working out, while you're on a run, you know, exercising, driving to work, whatever it is, because it's one that I think is really good for a um for you to canoodle over as they would say, let it fake in a little bit as opposed to having to like really, you know, take detailed notes about any specific item because it's a lot more about it's a lot more conceptual and theory than um a whole lot of spec specific stuff. However, this being challenge Friday, we're gonna have to figure out some kind of like, you know, special effect or something like that. Let's see. I can do uh I can do What can I do? Um there we go. Challenge Friday. I don't know what else I've got here that would be a good one. That's about as good as I can. See, um let's see. I can do anything. Let's see. So, yeah. So, we're gonna have to figure this one out. So, uh Oh, here we go. There's like a >> Okay, I need to take that thing down. There we go. Oops. There we go. Okay. I think this is what happens. And I'm not even drinking yet. So, you know, this has been one of those uh one of those kind of days. Um, the challenge this week, this is this comes off of something that we got out of AI suggesting challenges, but it's a modified version of it. And it's specifically because I've really gotten on um I've really sort of gotten on this AI kick a little bit about getting people to realize that it is it is here. There is value in it. Um, if you're not using it even for some basic stuff, then you're missing out. Um, and if you're using it just for like, you know, writing an email or something like that for you and not interacting with it, then you're also missing out. And that's where this challenge comes. It's actually twofold. The first part of it is to the um the discussion we had and one of the things we talked about was being able to um communicate a problem, communicate problems and solutions. And so, you know, one of the things we could do is we could just say, well, hey, go talk to somebody. Take the technology, speak out of it. Take all of the cool phrasing and stuff like that and just talk about solving the problem without I and I will tell you I pick on Michael on this at times without talking about the implementation. Talk about the problem. Don't talk about the geek side of it or the the the implementation side of it. Don't use technology terms. do it like you could tell you know you're talking to your grandmother or something like that and she would understand it and I want to have like a and what does a good solution look like? So, what I want you to do, this is a challenge. Sit down with the chatbot and say, "Here's a problem. Here's a solution." And then ask the chatbot how, you know, whoever it is, whichever one you're working with, is say, "How would you phrase that better so that somebody that was non-technical would understand it?" And then see how you it scores you. And now, by non-technical, you may have to get a little more detailed. You may be like so maybe maybe say like so my grandmother would understand it who has never used a computer or something like that you know that that may be too much but then with that is say how can I improve my description of the problem and how can I improve defining the solution because I think if you go down that rabbit hole and I think this could be like I'll challenge just take 15 minutes to do this but you can go down rabbit holes and be there for an hour or two easily. I'll just warn you because when you get into this back and forth, when you get into an actual chat, an actual conversation with AI where you're not just beating it and saying like, "Do this, do this, do this, do this." Instead, it is conversation. You're saying, "Give me an attempt at this. Okay, how about we tweak it this way? How about we adjust it that way?" And then you give it back to me and say and say like, "What am I missing? Where can I do this better? How could this be better approach you know better suggest uh like the solution how could it be better done for the problem or the problem how where is this not well defined and it would be things like can you take you know can you AI can we take this problem and create a requirements document out of it or something like that or a spec because when you get into that back and forth like it's really going to highlight to you where some of your weaknesses are in language and I think it'll also train you a little bit. It will help you figure out ways and get you those habits of how do I better define a problem and how do I better ask questions about a solution. This is this is critical for going from a a coder to a developer to get into that you know intermediate senior level de level developer type and especially beyond these are things you've got to do. got to move off of that thinking in code and instead thinking in problem domains and solutions. So that I think is I I like that as our challenge for the week. Um I'm probably going to do it myself. Actually I do it myself on a regular basis where I take stuff and I throw it at it. I've got an ongoing very long folder of a conversation for something I'm building that actually I built it actually AI built it and then I did some more and then I've kicked it back to it and said how do we make this better and how do we productize it how do we do all these things and so now we're like and it's basically like show me the gaps show me where we need to do this how is this wrong how are we missing this give me tests for all of this stuff those kinds of things that when you start doing that you're going to realize where you can not only better define the problems that you need that that you're working with and then thus better build a solution that makes sense. But also, this is where we can go back and fix the crap that we couldn't before. This is like a this is a technical debt game changer in a sense because you can go back where you're like, "Oh, yeah, we never documented it. Oh, we never had unit tests." And AI can just crank that stuff out for you. It may not be perfect, but it can get you a a long way on erasing technical debt very quickly if you do it right. And I'm going to get off my soap box and ask your thoughts on this. >> No. Um because I'm the one who kind of went through the AI to kind of work through the challenges based on the interviews. And it the interesting one that I I liked it because it was like, you know, bounce it off your wife, you know, talk to your wife about. And when you're trying to deal with nontechnical people, that's great. But I like the idea of talking to AI and have AI kind of help you figure out where you're too technical. Get it back down to non-geeek speak, so to speak. Get back to business uh speak and get it back down to like as we've talked about, you know, pitching our businesses, getting it back down to that elevator pitch. Get things to where it is common speak where anyone can understand what it is you're doing. They don't have to be technical. And really, that's the way you want it to be. It's like what was Apple's slogan? A thousand songs in your pocket to sell the uh iPod. So, >> y >> something like that, you know, work I love it. You know, work with AI and come up with a better way of analyzing and dissecting your speech so that you can help communicate better uh on whatever it is you're doing. >> Yeah. And I think it's not a bad thing to like get in that practice, too. And then just like if you're struggling with something um put that in, you know, throw it throw it through AI, throw it through a couple different AI engines and let them like hash it out amongst themselves even. Uh go back and forth with them and just say like, you know, where is this? What am I missing? What am I what have I not specified? What have I not detailed? And hopefully that will get you help you um build like a checklist, a mental checklist of like, oh, here's some things I've got to go through to make sure that I do this right. And then what you'll find is then as you go further down the road as you're starting the problem, you'll already have specified that stuff if you do it to AI again. And so now you can just like keep taking it up to another level and another level and another level. And I know this is leveraging AI a little bit more than what we talked about this week, but I think it's a it's a nice little one-two punch of getting yourself thinking in ways that isn't being a de isn't a developer, isn't writing code. Um, but also how to leverage some of the tools around you. And it's honestly chat bots, you can easily throw some prompts in there to make them be like your wife or a sixth grade teacher or a college professor or a homeless person you meet on the street or, you know, the president of the United States or you just pick it. Just they pick any famous person or any non-famous person or any, you know, archetype and just say, "Okay, you're this kind of a person and here's my problem. here's how I describe it. How do you respond to it? Or, you know, how do you understand it? Stuff like that. What are the questions that you have? Those kinds of things just I think in general are going to help you out because they get you more in that uh exploratory state of mind. Closing thoughts along with the challenge, you know, again, go back and listen to the interview with Miki. It was great. Um, and it's broaden your horizons. You know, get out, network, meet people, and you know, if you haven't followed us before and you're new to developer, go out and look at our podcast. We got hundreds of uh videos out there, both podcast and discussions and along with courses and information on the website. So, give us a shout uh check us out and let us know what you think. >> All right, thanks so much for hanging out with us. Again, guys, I'd love feedback. Michael doesn't. He hates feedback. I love feedback. So, um, you know, leave us comments, shoot us emails, you know, all different ways to get a hold of us. If you don't listen to one of those podcasts, but, you know, spoiler alert, [email protected] or just go to developer.com and there's like lots of different ways to connect with us. uh let us know what you think what you you know I would love to hear your responses and some of the things that you come up with in your challenges and how uh like AI can be very funny and how it solves problems as well. So sometimes if you if you don't do a great job of of defining the problem out properly, AI will give you some really interesting answers. I'm just going to say and I would love for you guys to share that. Uh give us your thoughts and opinions and all that kind of good stuff how we can do this better. And uh we're just going to keep chugging along. We will be back next week. We've got a yet another uh interview. We're going to continue this for a while. We're getting there as we're solidly now into this 28th season, I believe it is. >> Um 27th 27th season. Um yeah, check us join the check out the email. The newsletter goes out once a month. We've got a lot of good stuff there that actually we're we're now getting. So that is uh some unique content in and of itself. Uh, so that's really sort of the thing is if you hang out here, you check the blog site, and you uh subscribe to the newsletter, then you should be able you'll be caught up on all the different stuff that we throw out there. And it's a lot uh there's a lot of content out there. Always happy for requests. So, that being said, I think it's time for us to wrap this one up and uh to go and jump into our day. So, have yourself a good one, everybody. Have yourself a great day, a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.
Transcript Segments
So yeah, I think it's like Yeah, it'll
be fun. It'll be a different It'll be a
change of pace for sure. Um it's sort of
like she's tired of the roads because
they're like we're in a we're in like a
historic part of town, so the roads are
not awesome to walk on. They're like the
cobblestone kind of stuff and it drives
her nuts and there's a lot of hills. She
will do anything to avoid hills these
days. Um, and it's been like rainy and
overcast. Like today it's nice, but uh,
and this weekend we're both be gone and
it'll be nice. Uh, but we'll see.
Hopefully by the time we get into next
week and then into March, we'll get some
it'll get more like the normal seasonal
sun and stuff that you you're going to
see. So, we can have a little have a few
more good days out on the ocean here
before we head
um head into Albania and take a
different different tact and learn a
whole new language and a whole new
culture and everything else. facility.
I'm just starting to figure out enough
to like I've had two bolt ride. Well, I
guess I had a bolt ride yesterday, an
Uber ride today that I like said no
English the whole time talking to the
driver and had like very minimal
conversations but conversations
nevertheless. And so I'm like, hey,
getting there. That sounds like fun. It
really does. I I thought you were doing
Albania next. That's why I was checking
because I saw something on Facebook. Um,
but I'm kind of I think I haven't c kept
up with the full thread. I think I'm
only getting bits and pieces uh in my
feed. So, uh I was like I wasn't sure.
So, let me check.
>> Yep. So, yeah. So, it was Yeah, we were
going to go to the capital because it
was it everything seemed pretty good and
then actually got a place but like or
reserved a place and it's just Airbnb
and the lady was like, "Oh, I got
somebody else beaches. Let me see if
they still want it." And then at that
same time, Natalie started looking at
the beaches not too far away. And she's
like, "Well, what about this?" And next
thing you know, we're like, "Okay, it's
off season, so it's like
>> I mean, this is beachfront and like some
really good stuff is under 1,500 bucks a
month." I mean, it's like there's a
couple that are walk out like you could
you walk out, you could see the the sand
there. It was like literally, I don't
know, 50 meters, something like that,
less than a football field away
>> and, you know, 600 700 bucks a month.
So, we're like, "Okay,
>> we're going to take advantage while
we're here. We're gonna we're gonna have
some fun." And I figure it's like not
too far. Like we're on one like the
north side of the beach. If you go to
the south side of the beach, which is I
haven't exactly, we'll see how far that
walk is. There's supposed to be really
good fishing. So I'm like, hm. And this
is like good ocean stuff like sea bass
and stuff like that you can pick up. So
I was like, hm, maybe like once or twice
a week that'll be my end of the day
thing is I'll just like or maybe my
start of the day is I'll like I'll go
into town. I'll get myself a good
little, you know, rod and reel, get some
some bait, and then a couple times a
week, maybe it's like, "All right, we're
going to figure out how to do our We're
going to live off the land, off the
water."
>> Nice.
>> Yeah, we're
>> all right.
>> We're hoping to get back to the uh river
here soon, but we're getting into rainy
season. So, we're actually more worried
we may have to really pack up the river
more
uh because of flooding. So, we're we're
playing by ear.
>> Sorry. I wonder what it's going to be
like with all the the melt off, you
know, the melt from the ice and all that
stuff we've had. I wonder if you're
going to have a worse season than
normal.
>> Well, actually, at least from what we
had the rains last week and the melt,
but we only went up like about half a
foot. So, uh hopefully we won't flood
this year. Part of it was part of the
reason we had so much flooding was
because they were working on the dam. So
they had to keep the water level really
low on the um lake side so they could
work on the dam and that caused the
excessive flooding on our side. Not to
mention the fact that they found out
that uh some guy was getting kickbacks
at the lock to keep the level at a
certain height at the um lake for all
those rich people up there. And uh
that's why we had excessive flooding. So
>> uh
>> we'll we'll see. Uh it was interesting.
>> Anyway, um yeah, so this one is the uh
review uh for Mickey Hong
and uh the challenge, the Friday
challenge.
>> Yep. So Mickey Hong, for those of you
guys joining us from home, uh we just
talked to her this week. Um and
>> actually you talked to her this week. I
was out for this one.
>> Oh yeah, that was why this was such a
really good conversation. This was one
of the best interviews we've had in a
long time. Uh it may have something to
do with Michael not being there, maybe
not. I will just say behind the scenes,
I really enjoy like after the fact like
chirping at Michael during the like the
recordings because I know he's got to
look at it. So they'll just be like, you
know, I'll say I I leave him his own
little bonus stuff for while he's
editing his way through these things. Um
but yeah, it was a really good
conversation. actually went this one
read a little
this is an interesting one. Um
that's right cuz we don't have to start
we don't have to do our little like soon
or anything like that. We're just in um
which is even better. Um this was a good
ah timeout. We'll start with good thing
bad thing. We'll just do a quick like
good thing. I know we just gave you guys
a little bit of like what's going on.
Let's do good thing, bad thing real
quick and then we'll dive right into it.
This is what happens. We don't have like
a clean hard like professional start and
end. We just do it. So, good thing bad
thing. Um,
oh, real quick. I'm Rob Broadhead, one
of the founders of Developer, uh, also
the founder of RV Consulting, where we
we help you solve problems. We help you
figure out how to use technology to do
your business better and clean up your
technology junk drawer and all that
goodness. Uh good thing, bad thing. Good
thing is uh as you guys know, I'm going
skiing in the Alps this weekend. And
that's like I've been a skier on and off
all my life. I started snow skiing when
I was like, I don't know, 8 10 years
old, something like that. Went almost
every year until I was into my 20s. Took
20 years off and went skiing again not
too long ago. And uh after that big
hiatus, I did not ski the same way I did
the 20 some odd, 30 years, whatever it
was before. Uh but it was fun. And so
now I have never skied outside of Summit
County, I believe it is, in Denver,
maybe in Colorado, maybe once or twice,
but it's always been in Denver. Um and
so this could be first and it's going to
be very interesting because it's going
But the bonus is uh the good thing is I
am ski in, ski out. It's like literally
I think it's like 100 ft from I walk out
the door to I'm on a lift. So I'm That's
a real good thing. Bad thing is is I'm
sitting here halfway through my uh
tenure in Portugal and I have had I
don't know in six weeks I don't think
I've had six days of sun um that we were
in here in northern port Portugal. Uh
they've got horrendous rains and stuff
like that. It's done a lot of damage.
Um, we did manage to go down to the
beach for two days, which was that was
nice. Uh, but,
uh, we have definitely not hit it in its
best time. Uh, another bad thing is now
I got to hand it all off and let Michael
introduce himself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Mike Malage,
one of the co-founders of developer,
building better developers, also the
founder of Envision QA, uh, where we
help people with automation, testing,
and streamline their businesses. Uh,
good thing, bad thing. Uh, good thing we
have finally warmed up a little bit. We
kind of have our fall spring right now.
Um, life is actually enjoyable going
outside. Uh, bad thing, we're now
getting into that wet season and I got
to watch for possible flooding at the
riverhouse, but beyond that, looking
forward to a nice spring and finally
getting back outside from being
hibernating in this very cold winter.
Well, welcome all of you guys to part
two, number two, which is why this is
still like a little bit rough of our
weekly challenge. Um, we talked this
week with Mickey line and I did and it
got a little less technical, a little
more um leadership entrepreneurial. Uh,
we definitely spent a lot more time than
normal, although she'd come out of a a
technical career. Um, I think this is
where this is one of those that I'm glad
when we can talk to somebody else like
this that has has been technical. Um,
but now has moved beyond that. And
actually, I say someone like but you
know, it's like I'm still technical. I
write code every day. So, I guess
although I've moved up to that, I still
say very technical, still stay very
hands-on. It's always fun to see
somebody. It's that fun is not
necessarily the word. It is educational
to me to see somebody to talk to
somebody that has gone from that
technical approach and moved into much
more a managerial type approach. And I
thought we had some great conversations
around
um building people which is you know
like building yourself your career
building your team which very much goes
to the developer book itself about like
you know how do you become and our title
how do you become a better developer um
I think that was like that was really
the key I I didn't feel so much that
there was
like a specific thing or or two that was
brought out as much as the overall
theme of this and then it's basically my
favorite theme is that what we do as
developers is we solve problems. Yes, we
we know code and we blah blah blah all
that stuff. That's not really where our
value is. The value we bring is solving
problems. And this is going to be
critical
when we move as we move forward with AI
because there is actually somebody
referenced the idea of um the other day
in a Slack thing about a a technology
stack that is the no code stack or the
no stack stack that basically AI can
give us is that it it really doesn't
matter anymore. I mean, it does if you
want to go deep, but if you want to like
just crank something out and especially
as AI is getting better, I think we're
going to get to a point that you have
you will have very minimal code that you
would have to actually write. So, while
bonus, I think it's a great way to learn
new languages because you could sit
there and say, I've never done Ruby on
Rails. sit down with AI and write a Ruby
on Rails app or take better yet take an
app that you know really well and have
AI convert it to Ruby on Rails and then
go through and test it and do all that
kind of stuff and you can literally take
sections of code and say I'm pretty sure
this doesn't work. This is what the
output is. This is what the expectation
is and it'll fix stuff fix stuff for
you. It may take it three or four times
because it's still we call him Chip in
my household. Chip is still not the
brightest bulb. Sometimes he like, you
know, he gets a little bit, you know, a
little little wonky sometimes and
sometimes he goes off the rails. But
because of this, it really is going to
become more and more about how you solve
problems, how you phrase problems, how
you state problems, how you understand
what an actual solution is going to be
way more than your code. So, what are
your thoughts on this?
>> Yeah. So I I I'll pick you back up on
what you were just talking about first
and then I had some uh other
observations from the interviews, but
talking about AI and chip so to speak.
Um
on a current project I'm working on, I'm
using uh GitHub Copilot and the plugin
for code and that is almost
gamechanging. uh I was having to build a
Terraform
uh infrastructure as code project to
stand up an AWS instance with some
configurations and things like that. And
it's been a long time since I've built
one of those from scratch. And it's
like, okay. Um so I was like, well, here
let me play with this chatbot. And
literally it wrote the code. It wrote
the entire project. All I had to do is
go through the prompts and literally in
the IDE it built the whole project. I
was like, "Hey, this is kind of fun."
So, I used this as a little trial
feature
to go through. And almost 90% of what it
built was what I needed. I had to tweak
just a few things. But within about an
hour and a half, I had a working
Terraform project that I was easily able
to deploy. And what was kind of cool
about because of my testing side of
things, I pushed it even further. I had
it actually write me uh shell scripts to
test the AWS instance to make sure that
it had built the things I wanted it to
build uh using the AWS command line uh
to go ping the interface after it stood
everything up to make sure that
everything got built. Uh, and then I
even went further and tried to use local
stack to set up automation testing, but
of course I my license for local stack
expired, so I couldn't use some of the
extra features.
It's just one of those where AI built me
enough, but because I had the
understanding of the other things to do
to expand it, uh it I was able to
continuously get the prompts I needed to
build the project up quickly. Uh and
have it fully functional, fully
testable, uh which was kind of fun. Uh
that kind of leads to the interview you
had. Um, so one of the conversations you
guys were having was talking about, you
know, going from that developer mindset
to the entrepreneur mindset. And one of
the things uh you guys talked about was
uh how she came out of that mastermind
or that group uh program she was in that
sounded very similar to kind of like
that co-starter program I went through.
They were different things altogether.
But the common theme of that was being
around other entrepreneurs, other
like-minded people and just absorbing
that energy. You get energized and it
really helps push you and keeps you
going and helps you keep the momentum
going for uh you know whatever it is
you're working on either becoming a
better leader, becoming a better
business and so on. So, I liked her
suggestion of looking for groups to grow
and share your experiences. Now, that
can be a little hard if all you do is
work remotely, but there are groups and
things like that you can do online like
uh join mastermind groups like this or
you know interviews with us, but there's
things you can do to broaden that and
try to keep that momentum going. It it's
interesting because over the last six
months I have been more in my business
and on my business and I have not had
that social interaction with a lot of
the people from the co-starters and
other business groups and I've kind of
lost that energy and that was something
as I was listening I'm like you know I
miss that. So it kind of encourages me
to go back out and look for that. The
other thing as we talked about the
adopting the AI technologies uh and how
fast should you move forward that was
one of the things you guys were talking
about where you know some businesses
want to get into AI they're not sure
what they want to do and even if they
are doing something they don't know when
to go to market with it and then you run
into that trend of okay are we just
keeping the status quo are we starting
to push the edge are we on the bleeding
edge or are we beyond on the edge, you
know, are we doing something that we
don't know what we're doing yet? We're
we're, you know, pushing boundaries
beyond where the current market is. And
I it it really
kind of hit home. It's like how many
times have you and I or even other
people talked about where we how fast is
fast? How fast should we get it to
market? There's always get it out there
as fast as you can, get feedback, and
you get into that feedback loop. But
sometimes you don't want to get out too
quickly because you don't want to get
your idea out and have someone steal it
before you have enough protection around
your intellectual uh property rights.
So, you got to be careful with some
things like that. But at the same time,
especially in the current market or
current environment of AI, I almost
think that you just have to keep going
and try to stay as much on that cutting
bleeding edge as you can right now. Um,
and just try things like the example I
gave with the Terraform project, like
the example you gave. Go pick some chat
bots, go try it.
You should be trying to do this like
daily. At least something small to keep
pushing forward and keeping up with
what's going on because if you wait,
you're going to miss the boat. And this
uh is growing so exponentially compared
to how the net boom was, what we went
through through the information boom of
the 2000s. We're going so fast now. It
it's scary. it it what took decades and
half a decade. We're looking at months
to years before things are really moving
forward. So, uh it I really like the
conversation um and I liked a lot of the
conversations you guys had about the
leaderships. You know, we talk about
that a lot here on developer. just I I'm
sorry I missed the interview, but it it
really sounds like a lot of the
conversations that you and I have had,
you know, from like the global
leadership meetings, from the different
networking things we've done, uh it it
was just a very good conversation and
hopefully you guys have listened to the
interviews because uh if you haven't, go
back and listen to it because it's one
that I highly recommend uh you go back
and listen to because there was a lot of
good information and like Rob said, it
wasn't very technical, but it is very
good for leadership, for growing, for
self-improvement.
>> Yeah, I agree. I think that was one of
those there was a lot of I I won't go to
the full, you know, it wasn't like uh
you know, the John Lee Dumas valued
bombs dropped kind of things that he he
was still mentioned. I assume he still
does. Um but there was a lot of little
things. They weren't bombs, they were
bomblets, I guess. There's a lot of
little things there that uh even as just
going through the conversation and then
thinking about a little bit afterwards,
there's a lot of things that also uh
besides just being good like hey this is
a good way to approach stuff. They are
good like little like nudges to be like
to get yourself back doing the right
thing like you said like now you're like
oh yeah I guess I do need to go back and
reach out to that and those I think are
invaluable lessons to where that's why I
love doing the podcast. I love talking
to people. I love being on podcasts
because so often we'll have these
conversations and it'll be like, "Oh, I
need to be working on that. Oh, that's
something I should do. Oh, I forgot I
haven't done that in a while." You know,
those kinds of things. Um, now granted,
there's like all kinds of other little
germs of ideas that have have, you know,
skyrocketed me in in directions in the
last, you know, six months or a year
that I'm just like, "Ah, that's right.
I, you know, I need to really tackle
this."
Um, but it was a good conversation like
that and it's it's not too heavy. I
think it's a really good one for like it
is if you haven't listened to it go back
and listen like while you're working
out, while you're on a run, you know,
exercising, driving to work, whatever it
is, because it's one that I think is
really good for a um for you to canoodle
over as they would say, let it fake in a
little bit as opposed to having to like
really, you know, take detailed notes
about any specific item because it's a
lot more about it's a lot more
conceptual and theory than um a whole
lot of spec specific stuff. However,
this being challenge Friday, we're gonna
have to figure out some kind of like,
you know, special effect or something
like that. Let's see. I can do uh I can
do What can I do? Um
there we go. Challenge Friday.
I don't know what else I've got here
that would be a good one. That's about
as good as I can. See,
um let's see. I can do anything. Let's
see. So, yeah. So, we're gonna have to
figure this one out. So, uh Oh, here we
go. There's like a
>> Okay, I need to take that thing down.
There we go. Oops. There we go. Okay.
I think this is what happens. And I'm
not even drinking yet. So, you know,
this has been one of those uh one of
those kind of days. Um, the challenge
this week, this is
this comes off of something that we got
out of AI suggesting challenges, but
it's a modified version of it. And it's
specifically because I've really gotten
on um I've really sort of gotten on this
AI kick a little bit about getting
people to realize that it is it is here.
There is value in it. Um, if you're not
using it even for some basic stuff, then
you're missing out. Um, and if you're
using it just for like, you know,
writing an email or something like that
for you and not interacting with it,
then you're also missing out. And that's
where this challenge comes. It's
actually twofold.
The first part of it is
to the um the discussion we had and one
of the things we talked about was being
able to um communicate a problem,
communicate problems and solutions. And
so, you know, one of the things we could
do is we could just say, well, hey, go
talk to somebody. Take the technology,
speak out of it. Take all of the cool
phrasing and stuff like that and just
talk about solving the problem without I
and I will tell you I pick on Michael on
this at times without talking about the
implementation. Talk about the problem.
Don't talk about the geek side of it or
the the the implementation side of it.
Don't use technology terms. do it like
you could tell you know you're talking
to your grandmother or something like
that and she would understand it and
I want to have like a and what does a
good solution look like? So, what I want
you to do, this is a challenge. Sit down
with the chatbot
and say, "Here's a problem. Here's a
solution."
And then ask the chatbot
how, you know, whoever it is, whichever
one you're working with, is say, "How
would you phrase that better so that
somebody that was non-technical
would understand it?" And then see how
you it scores you. And now, by
non-technical, you may have to get a
little more detailed. You may be like so
maybe maybe say like so my grandmother
would understand it who has never used a
computer or something like that you know
that that may be too much but then with
that is say
how can I improve my description of the
problem and how can I improve
defining the solution because I think if
you go down that rabbit hole and I think
this could be like I'll challenge just
take 15 minutes to do this but you can
go down rabbit holes and be there for an
hour or two easily. I'll just warn you
because when you get into this back and
forth, when you get into an actual chat,
an actual conversation with AI where
you're not just
beating it and saying like, "Do this, do
this, do this, do this." Instead, it is
conversation. You're saying, "Give me an
attempt at this. Okay, how about we
tweak it this way? How about we adjust
it that way?" And then you give it back
to me and say and say like, "What am I
missing? Where can I do this better? How
could this be better approach you know
better suggest uh like the solution how
could it be better done for the problem
or the problem how
where is this not well defined and it
would be things like can you take you
know can you AI can we take this problem
and create a requirements document out
of it or something like that or a spec
because when you get into that back and
forth like it's really going to
highlight to you where some of your
weaknesses are in language and I think
it'll also train you a little bit. It
will help you figure out ways and get
you those habits of how do I better
define a problem and how do I better ask
questions about a solution. This is this
is critical for going from a a coder to
a developer to get into that you know
intermediate senior level de level
developer type and especially beyond
these are things you've got to do. got
to move off of that thinking in code and
instead thinking in problem domains and
solutions.
So that I think is I I like that as our
challenge for the week. Um I'm probably
going to do it myself. Actually I do it
myself on a regular basis where I take
stuff and I throw it at it. I've got an
ongoing very long folder of a
conversation for something I'm building
that actually I built it actually AI
built it and then I did some more and
then I've kicked it back to it and said
how do we make this better and how do we
productize it how do we do all these
things and so now we're like and it's
basically like show me the gaps show me
where we need to do this how is this
wrong how are we missing this give me
tests for all of this stuff those kinds
of things that when you start doing that
you're going to realize where you can
not only better define the problems that
you need that that you're working with
and then thus better build a solution
that makes sense. But also, this is
where we can go back and fix the crap
that we couldn't before. This is like a
this is a technical debt game changer in
a sense because you can go back where
you're like, "Oh, yeah, we never
documented it. Oh, we never had unit
tests." And AI can just crank that stuff
out for you. It may not be perfect, but
it can get you a a long way on erasing
technical debt very quickly if you do it
right. And I'm going to get off my soap
box and ask your thoughts on this.
>> No. Um because I'm the one who kind of
went through the AI to kind of work
through the challenges based on the
interviews. And it the interesting one
that I I liked it because it was like,
you know, bounce it off your wife, you
know, talk to your wife about. And
when you're trying to deal with
nontechnical people, that's great. But I
like the idea of talking to AI and have
AI kind of help you figure out where
you're too technical. Get it back down
to non-geeek speak, so to speak. Get
back to business uh speak and get it
back down to like as we've talked about,
you know, pitching our businesses,
getting it back down to that elevator
pitch. Get things to where it is common
speak where anyone can understand what
it is you're doing. They don't have to
be technical. And really, that's the way
you want it to be. It's like what was
Apple's slogan? A thousand songs in your
pocket to sell the uh iPod. So,
>> y
>> something like that, you know, work I
love it. You know, work with AI and come
up with a better way of analyzing and
dissecting your speech so that you can
help communicate better uh on whatever
it is you're doing.
>> Yeah. And I think it's not a bad thing
to like get in that practice, too. And
then just like if you're struggling with
something um put that in, you know,
throw it throw it through AI, throw it
through a couple different AI engines
and let them like hash it out amongst
themselves even. Uh go back and forth
with them and just say like, you know,
where is this? What am I missing? What
am I what have I not specified? What
have I not detailed? And hopefully that
will get you help you um build like a
checklist, a mental checklist of like,
oh, here's some things I've got to go
through to make sure that I do this
right. And then what you'll find is then
as you go further down the road
as you're starting the problem, you'll
already have specified that stuff if you
do it to AI again. And so now you can
just like keep taking it up to another
level and another level and another
level. And I know this is leveraging AI
a little bit more than what we talked
about this week, but I think it's a it's
a nice little one-two punch of getting
yourself thinking in ways that isn't
being a de isn't a developer, isn't
writing code. Um, but also how to
leverage some of the tools around you.
And it's honestly chat bots, you can
easily throw some prompts in there to
make them
be like your wife or a sixth grade
teacher or a college professor or a
homeless person you meet on the street
or, you know, the president of the
United States or you just pick it. Just
they pick any famous person or any
non-famous person or any, you know,
archetype and just say, "Okay, you're
this kind of a person and here's my
problem. here's how I describe it. How
do you respond to it? Or, you know, how
do you understand it? Stuff like that.
What are the questions that you have?
Those kinds of things just I think in
general are going to help you out
because they get you more in that uh
exploratory state of mind.
Closing thoughts
along with the challenge, you know,
again, go back and listen to the
interview with Miki. It was great. Um,
and it's broaden your horizons. You
know, get out, network, meet people, and
you know, if you haven't followed us
before and you're new to developer, go
out and look at our podcast. We got
hundreds of uh videos out there, both
podcast and discussions and along with
courses and information on the website.
So, give us a shout uh check us out and
let us know what you think.
>> All right, thanks so much for hanging
out with us. Again, guys, I'd love
feedback. Michael doesn't. He hates
feedback. I love feedback. So, um, you
know, leave us comments, shoot us
emails, you know, all different ways to
get a hold of us. If you don't listen to
one of those podcasts, but, you know,
spoiler alert, [email protected]
or just go to developer.com and there's
like lots of different ways to connect
with us. uh let us know what you think
what you you know I would love to hear
your responses and some of the things
that you come up with in your challenges
and how uh like AI can be very funny and
how it solves problems as well. So
sometimes if you if you don't do a great
job of of defining the problem out
properly, AI will give you some really
interesting answers. I'm just going to
say and I would love for you guys to
share that. Uh give us your thoughts and
opinions and all that kind of good stuff
how we can do this better. And uh we're
just going to keep chugging along. We
will be back next week. We've got a yet
another uh interview. We're going to
continue this for a while. We're getting
there as we're solidly now into this
28th season, I believe it is.
>> Um 27th 27th season. Um yeah, check us
join the check out the email. The
newsletter goes out once a month. We've
got a lot of good stuff there that
actually we're we're now getting. So
that is uh some unique content in and of
itself. Uh, so that's really sort of the
thing is if you hang out here, you check
the blog site, and you uh subscribe to
the newsletter, then you should be able
you'll be caught up on all the different
stuff that we throw out there. And it's
a lot uh there's a lot of content out
there. Always happy for requests. So,
that being said, I think it's time for
us to wrap this one up and uh to go and
jump into our day. So, have yourself a
good one, everybody. Have yourself a
great day, a great weekend, and we'll
talk to you next week.