Episode Notes
Welcome to the first episode of the Programmatic Podcast. In ourfirst episode, we discuss what the podcast will be about. We also show off the amazing voices from ElevenLabs, which will be used to read out code samples and challengeresults during the podcast.
Challenge
Create a small program that runs in the console, and asks for user input. Then, print the result on screen.
Providing feedback
Please let me know what you think of the show. Email me at [email protected], or you can find me at https://techopolis.social/@mikedoise on Mastodon. I am also @mikedoise on Twitter
Thanks again for listening, and I hope you will join in the conversation and learn more about programming.
Transcript
Programmatic 1 – Introduction
Michael Doise
Programmatic
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[0:00] Music.
[0:09] Hi, hello everyone. Welcome to the Programmatic Podcast, a weekly podcast about programming.
I’m Michael Dois and this will be a weekly podcast to talk about, well, programming.
I’m really excited to be here with you all today. I’ve been interested in programming ever since I was young, so I’m glad to be here.
And we’re doing this live weekly on YouTube, and we’ll look at other methodologies as well.
So this podcast will be about programming and how to write programs.
[0:44] We’ll be talking about how to write code, how to test your code, how to automate things, how to use shortcuts, how to use things on Android, Tasker, how to do pretty much anything to involve, to add programming into your life.
Because the truth of the matter is, If you add one small thing of programming, like if you automate something in your life, you’re using programming with computers.
So this podcast is dedicated to the beginner and to the intermediate and to the expert.
So we’ll have content for all of those things.
And you know, you might say, well, okay, if I’m a beginner and you’re talking about expert level stuff, how do I figure that out? And the best way is how I got started and that’s Googling it.
Say, you know, I’m talking about a URL session. What the heck is a URL session?
Google it.
[1:46] Say what is a URL session in programming? And that’s going to be the best way that you learn what this stuff is, right?
So we’ll be talking about pretty much everything. You know, we have Taylor in the chat who said every industry requires programming, and you’re correct.
You know, even, you know, you do finance and that requires programming to build the applications, but also to automate, you know, sending information from Stripe to QuickBooks or things like that.
You know, and Taylor and said, maybe now we should Bing it instead of Google it. And yeah, you know, when everybody gets that feature, I agree. So we’re really, you know, programming is, it’s such an interesting time to get into it with AI and all those things. And we’ll talk about that in this podcast as well. We’re also going to do programming challenges at the end of each episode.
Even today, I’ll be giving you a programming challenge to work on.
And, you know, we’ll cover a few things before the challenge.
And then we’ll we’ll go over those things on the next episode.
[3:01] We’ll talk about what those things, you know, how to come up with a solution for the challenge.
We’ll also be hearing from some other voices, mechanical voices on this podcast.
And I’d like to introduce them now to the podcast listeners.
Sorry, you guys on YouTube.
[3:21] Yes, programming according to Taylor helps all the labor shortages.
We’re gonna hear now from our other folks that will be on the podcast.
If you’re listening after the fact, YouTube stream folks, I’m sorry, but you guys will not hear this, but I wanna welcome our AI overlords.
I mean, 11 Labs is AI speech, text to speech engines, who will be reading our code in the final version of the podcast.
So say hello, 11 Labs.
Hi, Michael.
Thanks for having us on the Programmatic Podcast.
We will be here each week to read example code so that listeners can experience something different while listening to the podcast.
[4:10] All right, thanks, 11 Labs. That was great.
So we’ll have that in on the podcast so you guys can hear what you’ll be hearing.
And when we do code, they will be reading all of the code out loud.
And I think that will give you guys like, you’ll hear my voice, but you’ll also hear, other voices as well.
And on episode two, you’ll be able to hear that when we go over the results of the challenges.
Why program? Why even be interested in this field? Basically, why write a bunch of code?
Why is it interesting?
[4:52] And the answer is because why is it interesting to take a piece of paper and draw something and make that come to life?
Why is it interesting to take a piano, a guitar, or anything, any musical instrument and use it to make music?
You’re making something from nothing. And with programming, that is what you’re doing.
You’re taking what you know and you’re making that something, that nothing into something with your mind, with your thoughts.
You’re essentially telling the computer what you want to make from nothing.
Before you write it, it doesn’t exist.
And yes, it can be used to make money, but it could also be used as art.
And I fully believe that a good, well-written program is art.
[5:55] I look at my app, Pocket Braille, as I offer it as a paid app, it’s in the app store, but it’s also a representation of the person making it.
Right. And, you know, one of the things that we talk about is making your stuff accessible.
That’s very important. Blind people need to be able to use your code as well as everybody else.
But at the end of the day, I want people to know that even the inaccessible code, it’s still art.
And you know a lot of people in our community cuz i’m a blind programmer legally blind.
A lot of people will say it’s a terrible code because it’s not accessible and i feel like that’s almost an injustice to the programmers because.
The program may not have been educated in the way to make things accessible.
Or they may be told by their manager we cannot take the time to make this accessible and it’s a shame because the programmer What’s to do better mo nine times in the programmers want to do the right thing but they don’t have the budget the money or the clearance to take those steps.
[7:15] And a lot of people do not realize that and so. I want to tell every developer out there always strive to do more always strive to learn more before you start taking that blank canvas and painting your life’s work with it.
Because the more you’re able to learn, the less criticism you’ll get for your art.
And I think that’s one thing going into this that you have to look at is, you know, are you going into it to solve a problem in crunch numbers?
If yes, then that’s okay. Programming is fine.
But if you’re going into it to, you know, look at it as art, that’s a totally different thing.
Thing. Going into programming and looking at it as art is a way to not get burnt out on what you’re doing because every day you write a line of code you’re making art. You’re solving problems and you’re doing analytical things while doing it but at the end of the day you’ve taken a blank screen on an iPhone and you’ve made it into something, Wonderful you’ve taken a blank screen on a desktop and you made it into something.
That people will not forget.
[8:36] You know people see the product and they say oh bunch of people set in a room and develop this thing but they don’t see it as art.
As i think a lot of programmers do i see it as art.
But I don’t know that a lot of people see it as such. And I think that to really get people into the field of programming, we have to see it as art.
[9:06] And that’s why we’re having this podcast weekly is so that people can see programming for something that they may not have seen it for. And I think that’s important, right?
For people to see, programming can be a passion and an art instead of just a mindless chore.
And you know, we have AI that can write code and people are like, oh, AI is going to take all programming jobs in five years. No, it won’t.
[9:38] No it won’t. AI will allow us to be more creative in five years.
Be able to take code from AI and you do all the, as we call, boilerplate things like creating a new view controller, which is a Swift user interface screen.
And it will generate that for us, put it in our project, and we just tell it what we want to do, and it fills in as we’re typing. That’s where coding is going.
We could say, I need this to auto layout to be pin center and 50 points up.
I just watched a class on how to do that and I can figure it out now, but I still have to look up the code because I can’t remember all that.
But the AI, you just prompt it and tell it what you want and it will do it for you.
And that is where AI, I think, is going to go.
That is where we’re going to see programming go in the next five years.
And you know, eventually, we may have low code to no code.
[10:53] Completely but you know i think that if you want customization and assured and promise accessibility you’re still going to need.
A fully coded solution or a low code solution like wordpress for website.
[11:10] Or react native or flutter for multi platform you’re gonna need these things guys.
It’s just one of those things that you know you’re going to need.
And that’s just the way that it’s going to have to work. Programming is going to be part of our lives for a very long time, even if it’s to change the AI data models.
So I think that’s one of the things that, the reasons why I want to have this podcast is to talk about that.
When I started writing code, it was in QBasic when I was like 10 years old.
Then I went on to Quick Basic and then Visual Basic and then HTML and websites, JavaScript, AJAX, I wrote my own AJAX engine.
And then I went on to in 2011, Swift, well, no, correct me, I’m corrected, Objective C, then I think 2015 Swift and Android development, Java, and then JavaScript again for Cordovaapps.
So it’s, you know, I still want to learn Kotlin and I want to learn Dart for Flutter.
There’s so many things that are out there to learn.
You can’t possibly learn it all. So you learn what works best for you and what you like the most because that’s the key, right? people really really really really love Java.
[12:40] I don’t know how. I don’t know how personally. I hate a language that involves like 30 plus include statements at the top of the file to bring in all of the classes that I need.
If you can’t see me shaking my head and just it’s it’s frustrating it’s it’s tiring I mean there are IDEs like.
IntelliJ and Android Studio that will do it all for you.
But I just don’t see why that’s fun.
[13:22] JavaScript has some of that, but not nearly as much and usually, it’s your own modules that you’ve included.
Swift is very different, and I think Kotlin may be this way, But I learned, you know, I was including everything, foundation, UI kit, and everything else.
And I learned in class, did you know that if you import UI kit, you’re importing foundation?
No.
So it’s little things like that that are like, wow, I had no clue.
You know, you’re always learning something new. You’re always getting better.
I’ve been writing UI kit for nearly eight, nine years, and I’m still learning things.
So I’m writing Cordova apps now, and I’m learning things about that constantly.
The back button gesture, very interesting stuff. How does that work?
How does Cordova handle that on an Android app?
And again, you know, Cordova is a way to build apps for iPhone and Android using HTML.
If you have not seen it, look it up. It’s called Apache Cordova.
Used to also was known as PhoneGap by Adobe. It’s a way you could build mobile apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
[14:50] So there’s so many different things that are involved there.
So, you know, during this podcast, we’re going to be talking about all these things, you know, building your apps, how to get a compiler, how to get a good IDE, what is an IDE, how to distribute your apps, how do you distribute your desktop programs, how much does all this cost, where do you get all these things?
What is even used for what?
There’s a lot. There’s so many different topics we can talk about.
And we’re going to do it every week. And I’m really excited about this.
Uh, we’re going to have a segment for people that are in chat to ask questions.
And I’m going to come to that here pretty soon.
Um, but I, I want to just say, I’m really excited to be on this journey with the rest of you.
And, you know, I’m just blown away that there’s not many things like this out there.
So I guess what I would like to do is open it up. If we have anybody in chat, you know, ask any questions.
What would you like to see on the podcast?
What are things that you want out of this show? and.
[16:12] Where would you like to see the show go in the future? You know one of the things we’re gonna do as well will have other people on to ask questions.
And if you are getting or if you’re new to programming and you wanna get started you wanna come on and ask your questions will be doing that to at times so.
We’re gonna do all kinds of different topics so really you know thinking that.
[16:37] We’re going to involve as many people as we can. Also I’ll be putting links to our Programming for Everyone communities in the show notes.
So you can join there and I’ll be promoting this show on those as well.
How do you get started programming? Let’s talk about that.
There’s a few websites. Free Code Camp is one. Codecademy is another.
They have step-by-step free courses.
They have paid courses as well, but I would check those out.
They’re very good courses, course platforms.
So check the chicken to those LinkedIn learning has helped me a lot.
I’m no longer on that service, but it’s still great.
So check that out. Also there’s YouTubers for pretty much anything you want to learn on iOS side of things, two, straws or Paul Hudson does the hacking with Swift series. Very good stuff.
Sean Allen does some great, amazing Swift lessons in Swift UI.
There’s others out there. Those are kind of the ones I follow because I’m very much into iOS programming and things like that.
So those guys are great. YouTube’s Coding with Chris is another one.
Fireship for JavaScript.
He’s amazing?
[17:56] He does use whatever language in 90 seconds courses so those are a lot of fun so there’s a lot of great courses out there for free.
Don’t even have to pay for some of this stuff folks you just take advantage of what’s online again there’s linkedin learning to pay for that and get some great materials so.
Yeah. And, you know, we’ll do a deeper dive probably next time on what’s the right language for you to learn as well. Where do you go for resources other than learning? It depends on what you’re trying to do. But like for Apple, there’s, you know, the Apple Developer app for Mac has some great resources and documents. The Hacking with Swift website is great. YouYou know, just Googling will be great.
Stack Overflow has some great articles and even just looking in chat GPT can give you inspiration. It’s not always right, but it can give you inspiration and then help you on your way to find what’s right.
[19:03] The next thing you want to do is make sure that you have the right equipment.
You’re not going to be able to do this on a Chromebook, folks.
I hate to tell you.
I mean, there are some Chromebooks that have the specs that can do this, but a $200 Chromebook is not going to be the best for programming.
So get yourself a little computer that, you know, at least an i5, you know, 128 gigs of hard drive space will be the minimum. And you know, eight gigs of RAM is the minimum, you know, more you can get the better.
So it just depends on what you’re doing. If you’re doing iOS development, you definitely want to be on a Mac.
That is very important.
And preferably an Apple Silicon-based Mac, though that’s the best way to build those because you can test it right on the Mac.
You don’t have to have it on your phone. And if you’re building web-based applications, you do want to have Google Chrome, and that’s, because of some requirements that it has built in.
[20:02] So there’s a lot of different things that you’ll need. You’ll need an IDE, which is Integrated Developer Environment for whatever you’re trying to do, and we’ll talk about that in detail. But all of those things are good resources.
Okay, I want to see, I want to give one last call to see if there’s anybody in chat that has any questions. And then we’re going to go and jump on to our challenge for the day.
Okay, so. So.
Our challenge for today is simple. We want to build a basic Hello World application that can take input.
And instead of saying Hello World, it will say hello and then the person’s name.
You’ll need to create a variable to hold the name and get the input.
This will be a console-based application.
So, you know, if you’re using Visual Studio, you know, for C Sharp or C++, you want to build a console application.
And then you’ll also want to take input.
[21:08] Store it in a variable, and print that output on screen. I will, if you would like to send those to me, mikedoeys at icloud.com, and I can take those in and look at them, and I’ll send you back if I have any feedback.
But what you can do is if you send me those, we’ll make it a contest and I will have 11 labs read out the most interesting solution on screen.
And then I’ll show my solution or one or two solutions in different languages.
So that’s pretty exciting.
So, you know, another thing we’ll talk about as we go is source control, how to use Git.
What are some different methods for using Git?
Some different techniques, Git flow, other things, continuous integration, continuous delivery, or CI-CD as it’s called.
We’ll talk about those things. We’ll talk about a lot of different topics here on this show.
So I’m really excited to experience all of this with you all.
So that’s gonna do it for episode one of Programmatic. This is Michael, and we will see you on the episode that we will be recording next week.
So thanks again for joining me. And if you’re on YouTube, please subscribe, like, share, turn on notifications.
[22:33] Music.