2:02

Hello and

2:02

welcome back. My name is Brandon

2:06

Minnick. I'm your host here on

2:06

eight bits. Thanks so much for

2:10

joining us. And this week we

2:10

have a very special guest hosts,

2:14

Christopher Harrison. Thanks for

2:14

joining the show.

2:17

Thanks for thanks for inviting me. Thanks for letting me come back and,

2:19

and co host again, I guess I

2:22

didn't do too bad of a job. When

2:22

I was here a few weeks ago with

2:26

with Chloe when you're on

2:26

vacation. That's right. Yeah, I

2:30

was out. Turin

2:30

amazing. national parks and

2:33

monuments a couple weeks ago, we

2:33

were Yeah, we were checking the

2:37

Grand Canyon, Monument Valley,

2:37

Bryce Canyon, Xi'an we did all

2:41

the things. And now this week,

2:41

it's Chloe surd, to take a

2:44

vacation so much appreciate you

2:44

coming on the show. Have you

2:49

been?

2:50

You know, I'm actually

2:50

pretty good. Like speaking of

2:54

vacation, took last week off,

2:54

went down to Las Vegas, with my

3:00

wife celebrated her birthday and

3:00

our anniversary. And it was it

3:03

was it was wonderful to like,

3:03

you know, be out and, and really

3:09

to like, experience a little bit

3:09

of of life again, that it was it

3:13

was a really nice taste of of

3:13

normal after the last, you know,

3:17

1415 months. And it was so good

3:17

for us all. I hear that. Yeah,

3:25

we were we were

3:25

in Arizona, heading up to the

3:27

Grand Canyon when the CDC came

3:27

out with the new recommendations

3:31

for the mask mandates. And all

3:31

of a sudden, I mean, my wife and

3:36

I were both fully vaccinated,

3:36

which is why we felt comfortable

3:39

doing this trip. But yeah, it

3:39

was like all of a sudden,

3:41

everything felt really normal.

3:41

So here's here's hoping to a

3:46

great summer. But I do want to

3:46

share some Well, it's exciting

3:53

news, but I can't really share

3:53

the news yet. But for folks that

3:58

listen to join us here in the

3:58

live stream for the show. I they

4:03

know I've been working a lot on

4:03

something called the Xamarin

4:05

community toolkit. And I also

4:05

very passion about Xamarin stuff

4:11

used to work at Xamarin. And

4:11

with this new thing called

4:14

dotnet, Maui coming, which is

4:14

the evolution of Xamarin. We've

4:18

been having a lot of internal

4:18

conversations about what are we

4:22

doing with the Xamarin community

4:22

toolkit, because we got to make

4:25

sure it works for dotnet Maui.

4:25

So I'll say for now, stay tuned.

4:30

There's an announcement and

4:30

coming. It's all good news.

4:33

You're in good hands. And if if

4:33

you don't like it, you can blame

4:39

me. But we've got no, we've got

4:39

all good things coming up. So if

4:43

you, for example, want to

4:43

continue using the toolkit on

4:46

dotnet Maui, we got you covered

4:46

if you want to take advantage of

4:50

the new dotnet Maui performance

4:50

stuff with maybe a new toolkit.

4:55

We'll have you covered but stay

4:55

tuned. We'll make an official

4:58

announcement soon.

5:00

If you don't like it

5:00

from all of your male,

5:03

California, United States of

5:03

America.

5:06

That's right. You can you can find me on Twitter at the code traveler.

5:08

Nice things only, please. But

5:12

uh, yeah, Chris, we're we have.

5:12

So we have an amazing guest

5:15

today. But I want to make sure

5:15

we get any announcements in that

5:18

you have as well before we bring

5:18

him on and talk about his

5:21

amazing journey.

5:22

Yeah, absolutely. So

5:22

my, my big announcement is on

5:26

June 30, we're going to be

5:26

launching a new video series for

5:30

view, which of course, is a

5:30

front end JavaScript framework.

5:35

And really excited about that.

5:35

We've got Jen looper and Chris

5:39

snoring, and myself all on video

5:39

and presenting all of that out

5:44

there. And it's there to support

5:44

the learning path that currently

5:48

exists on Microsoft learn for

5:48

view, j s. So that's going to be

5:51

on June 30 of the video series

5:51

will launch. definitely keep an

5:54

eye out for that or just my

5:54

Twitter handle. There we go.

5:59

Right there, you can hit me up

5:59

on Twitter. And I'll of course

6:03

be advertising that. And if

6:03

you're curious about the

6:06

learning path, which is still

6:06

out there, you know, hit me up

6:09

on that. And a little bit later.

6:09

We're also going to have a bit

6:13

on Django as well, which I'm

6:13

really excited about. I just

6:16

adore Django. It's It's such a

6:16

fantastic framework. So I love

6:20

it a

6:20

couple of

6:20

teasers for the fans of eight

6:23

bits. You heard it here first.

6:23

And for anybody listening on the

6:27

podcast, Christopher's Twitter

6:27

handle is at geek trainer. So I

6:33

assume you trade a lot of geeks

6:33

like me.

6:36

Yeah, that before

6:36

joining Microsoft, I was I was a

6:39

full time tech trainer. And that

6:39

that Twitter handle happened to

6:43

be available, which still to

6:43

this day boggles my mind that

6:47

nobody else had had snatched

6:47

that. So yeah. Thank you, Rob. I

6:50

appreciate that. Rob says the

6:50

Python for beginners was

6:53

terrific. Thank you. Thank you.

6:53

I appreciate that. So yeah,

6:56

we're trying to keep that style

6:56

with both the view and the and

7:00

the Django. So hopefully you'll

7:00

you'll enjoy that as well.

7:04

I'm excited.

7:04

Keep us keep us posted. happy to

7:07

announce it on eight bits once

7:07

once it's live as well. Yeah,

7:10

well, definitely. Without

7:10

further ado, we have an amazing

7:14

guest this week. He's been one

7:14

of my favorite people to work

7:18

with since joining Microsoft,

7:18

and he has such an incredible

7:22

story that don't want to delay

7:22

anymore. Let's bring him into

7:26

the show. Welcome. sessile.

7:26

Philip, welcome. Hey, thanks for

7:31

having me. What's going on?

7:31

Yeah, so excited. You could join

7:34

us this week. So I've known you

7:34

for a couple years. I know you

7:38

work at Microsoft. But for folks

7:38

who haven't met you before? Who

7:42

are you? And what do you do?

7:42

Sure. So like you said, Brandon,

7:46

Brandon, you and I and Chris are

7:46

on the same team now,

7:49

technically.

7:50

So I'm a cloud

7:50

developer advocate at Microsoft.

7:52

I've been in this role for about

7:52

three years, well, a little bit

7:56

more than three years, I think,

7:56

July 27, to be precise, he's

8:01

gonna make four years here in

8:01

the company, like doing in the

8:05

same role doing the same job.

8:05

Um, yeah, I'm a dotnet. Guy,

8:09

like, I spent my entire career

8:09

doing dotnet between, you know,

8:13

web forms and MVC, and back in

8:13

the day when we used to do

8:16

jQuery and knockout, j. s, and

8:16

all those types of things, up to

8:20

now where we're talking about

8:20

like Docker, or microservices

8:23

and stuff, but has always been

8:23

dotnet in some way or the other.

8:26

And then also, you know, along

8:26

the way, I've, you know, kind

8:28

of, you know, got into the world

8:28

of teaching a little bit, right.

8:32

And that's, that's been a fun

8:32

part of my journey as well, too.

8:35

And maybe we'll talk about that

8:35

a little bit as we go on. But,

8:37

you know, I know no developer

8:37

comes up being like, Oh, I want

8:41

to be a teacher. Like, that's a

8:41

normal thing that we do after we

8:43

get our engineering degrees,

8:43

right. Like, I want to go teach

8:46

people to do stuff. But yeah, I

8:46

spent some time doing that. And

8:49

you know, I've done some

8:49

podcasts and some video shows

8:52

and things of that nature. And

8:52

now here I am with you folks

8:54

having a good time. You know, doing some live streaming.

8:57

That's right.

8:57

And so yeah, let's let's go

9:01

let's go all the way back. Let's

9:01

do the the sessile Philip origin

9:04

story, because I know you live

9:04

in Florida. Now you work at

9:08

Microsoft now. But how? How did

9:08

you get there? How did you get

9:12

started in the world of tech?

9:14

Your young age as time

9:14

went on? You got older?

9:20

Yeah, let's go

9:20

on. Let's like dig into the time

9:22

machine, right and make go all

9:22

the way back. So I was I was

9:25

born in an island called

9:25

lentigo. Alright, so for those

9:29

that don't know, it's in the Caribbean is a very small country. It's precisely 108

9:31

square miles. So for

9:35

perspective, you know that if

9:35

you take Florida and you drop it

9:40

in Florida, if you take it and

9:40

drop it in the bottom of Florida

9:42

is probably smaller than Miami.

9:42

You know, it'll take you about

9:47

two hours to go around the

9:47

perimeter of the country. Right.

9:51

So again, for perspective of how

9:51

big of a place that we're

9:53

talking about. But yeah, but I

9:53

was one reason to, you know,

9:57

went to elementary school high

9:57

school. They're, you know, I

10:00

stayed there until I left, you

10:00

know, come up to the United

10:03

States for college. I think one

10:03

of the things that's was always

10:07

interesting about antiga and,

10:07

and folks always ask, oh, how

10:10

did you become like a computer

10:10

person? It's always an

10:14

interesting story, because we

10:14

never had computers growing up

10:18

per se. You know, I wasn't I

10:18

wasn't in one of those societies

10:22

where, you know, we didn't have

10:22

computers in schools, we didn't

10:25

have computers in the household.

10:25

You know, and we're talking

10:29

about like, the late 90s, going

10:29

into 2000s, right? Well look

10:33

like I'm in high school, I'm

10:33

trying to figure out who I am as

10:37

a person, right? Like, I'm

10:37

trying to do some self discovery

10:39

kind of thing. And, you know,

10:39

your parents as Caribbean

10:42

parents, they're very, they're

10:42

very strict, right? When it

10:45

comes to like, education, you

10:45

know, what I mean? Like

10:48

education and success and having

10:48

a plan, right? And they're like,

10:52

what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna study? And so my dad was a

10:53

doctor, or is a doctor, I guess

10:57

you could say, he's retired now.

10:57

But my dad was a doctor. And,

11:01

you know, between me and my

11:01

sister, he was always like, Oh,

11:04

well, your your, you guys are

11:04

gonna get older and you to come

11:06

and take a family business. And

11:06

so when you go to school, you

11:09

need to study biology and

11:09

chemistry and stuff, right

11:13

physics, and whatever the case

11:13

is? Well, it turns out, I didn't

11:16

do that. And I ended up doing,

11:16

you know, in school, we can talk

11:22

a little bit about how the Caribbean education is a little bit different to the American

11:24

education system. But when I

11:26

went to school, I ended up

11:26

studying business, accounting

11:30

and math, right, like, those are

11:30

the subjects I wanted to do,

11:33

because those are the things I

11:33

gravitated to. And then

11:37

somewhere along the line, like I

11:37

ended up taking, like a computer

11:41

class. Now our computer class

11:41

was interesting, because our

11:43

computer class didn't actually

11:43

have a computer. Right? There

11:46

was a book that spoke about

11:46

computers, but there was no

11:49

physical computer per se, for me

11:49

to actually just interesting.

11:55

You know, it's kind of like,

11:55

it's well, for us, it was kind

11:57

of like every other science

11:57

subjects. You know, the IQ talk

12:00

about science, we talk about

12:00

biology, you know, nothing but

12:02

like, I've never dissected an

12:02

animal anatomy, or I've never

12:07

done any of these people we talk

12:07

about, we talk about, like, you

12:09

know, bones and skeletons and

12:09

the structure of biology, just

12:13

in the same way we spoke about,

12:13

like, you know, processors and

12:16

screens and keyboards, like the

12:16

structure of a machine, like, I

12:19

never really had one to play with.

12:20

I had a programming

12:20

class where the instructor tried

12:24

to teach a little bit like that,

12:24

that, you know, like, you learn

12:27

a language. And so he was

12:27

insistent that you could do this

12:30

without a computer that if you

12:30

just like, wrote out your code

12:33

on with with pen and paper that

12:33

that was somehow going to teach

12:37

you to program. Yeah, I mean,

12:37

for me, that's just cruel and

12:41

unusual punishments.

12:44

Right. It

12:44

almost reminds me, like, why

12:46

would we do this? Yeah, it was

12:46

reminds me of doing whiteboard

12:49

interviews, where it's like, how

12:49

do you write code at this

12:52

company? Do you do it on the

12:52

whiteboard? Or do you do it on a

12:54

computer and a tool like Visual

12:54

Studio? Because maybe we should

12:58

do the interview using Visual Studio that

13:01

just I hated

13:01

whiteboarding, those

13:04

whiteboarding test too, because

13:04

my handwriting is horrible. So

13:07

like, why would I want to come

13:07

to an interview and do things

13:10

that are absolutely horrible

13:10

that and feel confident that I'm

13:13

going to do well, this interview

13:13

like, anyway, that's, that's

13:15

another story. We can talk about

13:15

that later. I'm sorry. So so so

13:20

that, so that was that was my

13:20

educational experience from that

13:23

perspective, again, like we, we

13:23

learned about stuff, but like, I

13:25

didn't actually physically have

13:25

more. And, you know, along the

13:30

lines at home, like I used to

13:30

watch my dad, he used to come

13:32

home, and he used to bring work

13:32

home a lot and bringing work

13:36

home, and like he had to do

13:36

reports, like he typed up

13:38

reports and Doctor things,

13:38

whatever, whatever it is that he

13:41

did. And I think that's the

13:41

official term doctor. Yeah, we

13:45

just we just call them doctor things, whatever it is that they're typing, I didn't

13:47

understand the jargon. So I'm

13:49

just gonna say doctor things.

13:49

And so I grew up watching my dad

13:54

with like, various typewriters

13:54

throughout the years, like

13:57

typing of reports, and, you

13:57

know, stuff for people. And one

14:02

year, I think, might have been

14:02

like, two, maybe two years

14:06

before, like, I left the country

14:06

to come to college. He brought a

14:10

computer home, right? I think

14:10

like I said, like, we didn't

14:13

have computers in school. It was

14:13

very uncommon for your friend to

14:16

have a computer in the house.

14:16

But for my father, it was like,

14:19

Hey, I spent a lot of time

14:19

writing reports. This is like my

14:22

new report writing machine like

14:22

that was the intent and purpose

14:25

of it at the time. So he brings

14:25

his machine home is Compaq

14:29

Presario folks remember, compact

14:29

exhale MPa, q right. It's right

14:34

back the Curio, right with the Q

14:34

and you know, it was it was a

14:38

tower computer, you know, and

14:38

that's when you bought a

14:41

computer came with everything right? It comes with the keyboard and the mouse and the

14:42

monitor and like, you know, not

14:46

like today like you got to buy

14:46

them separately, right? Like it

14:49

came with everything. And along

14:49

with it, it came with a

14:52

collection of books. Which

14:52

again, I don't think anyone does

14:55

that today. Like you don't buy a

14:55

laptop and it comes with like

14:57

reference material. You know

14:57

what I mean? Like, that's not a

15:00

thing, right? That's right. So

15:00

So anyway, so you got this. And

15:05

also we had like that 56k modem

15:05

right, the thing that goes to do

15:09

to stir it or did it right, like

15:09

you connect to, like, through

15:13

the phone line to the internet,

15:13

like that's how long ago we're

15:15

talking about. And oh, yeah, the

15:15

turbo button. Yeah, I think we

15:19

had a turbo button on the

15:19

machine. So you could be right.

15:21

I never understood that.

15:23

I don't know what it

15:23

did. Um, it made the computer

15:26

make noise. I don't actually got

15:26

any faster.

15:30

It goes to

15:30

11 There we go. There we go. We

15:34

go a little faster. So

15:36

anyway, everybody knows what the turbo button does? Let us know in the

15:38

comments. Yeah, definitely. I

15:41

never figured that.

15:43

I have no idea what the

15:43

thing but so anyway, so the

15:45

report writing machine is in the

15:45

house. And at the time it came

15:48

on, I didn't really care about it too much. It was just like, Okay, this is like a work thing.

15:50

You know, to me, like, I'm gonna

15:53

go watch cartoons. And so one

15:53

summer, you know, again, I'm

15:57

home aboard. And I decided, hey,

15:57

let me go play with this

16:00

computer thing. Right. And it

16:00

started off with just us like

16:04

playing solitaire. So I guess

16:04

we're talking like Windows 95,

16:08

just before windows 98. You

16:08

know, I mean, I wasn't into like

16:11

computer games and stuff like

16:11

that at the time. And I'm just

16:14

like learning like what this

16:14

machine is. And so, I mean, what

16:17

does everyone do with a computer? Right? You play Solitaire and Minesweeper for

16:19

like, hours, hours and hours,

16:22

like clicking around, and like

16:22

just understanding the mechanics

16:25

of how the thing moves and

16:25

works, right. And somehow I

16:29

ended up like reading those

16:29

books that came along with the

16:32

machine. And in those books,

16:32

they were manuals about, like,

16:36

windows, obviously, like, you

16:36

know, what's the Start button,

16:39

what's, you know, the terminal,

16:39

what's Windows Explorer, like,

16:42

you know, those types of things.

16:42

And also, it is one on Netscape

16:45

Navigator, which was, again,

16:45

like the big internet browser at

16:48

the time. Right. So this is a

16:48

while ago. And so I'm reading

16:51

about Netscape Navigator. And

16:51

what's a web browser? And what's

16:53

the internet? And, you know, I

16:53

think AOL and yahoo.com were

16:57

like the two big things right,

16:57

like back in the day. And a part

17:01

of it spoke about like HTML. So

17:01

what is HTML? I don't think it's

17:06

spoken about JavaScript yet. But

17:06

it was just like HTML. And then

17:09

I think that's when you could

17:09

still put styling, you know,

17:13

like, there's no stylesheet. Like, you put the style in the tag kind of thing, right? So you

17:15

say like, font color bold equals

17:18

true, or whatever the case is,

17:18

right? Like on the tag versus

17:21

like, on some CSS property. So

17:21

anyway, so I'm reading the book,

17:25

I'm like, hey, let me go ahead.

17:25

And I mean, I'm not doing

17:28

anything, I'm bored. During the

17:28

summer, I'm gonna try and, you

17:31

know, go through this book and

17:31

try some stuff out. So I tried

17:34

out. And again, the simplest

17:34

thing that you could probably

17:37

ever do with a web browser,

17:37

right? Like I put my name on the

17:40

screen, big, bold letters

17:40

centered right in the middle of

17:43

the browser. Right away. Wait,

17:43

you centered text. And, you

17:50

know, that might have just been

17:50

the default, tech Tech Center,

17:54

whatever. And it was centered,

17:54

right? I know. It's silly,

17:59

right? Because today's developers, like we'd look at that stuff. And it's just like,

18:01

Oh, it's whatever. But in that

18:04

moment, for, again, this person

18:04

that I didn't have a computer

18:07

before I am playing Minesweeper,

18:07

like, that's my extent of my

18:11

computer knowledge, right. And

18:11

now my name is on the screen.

18:14

I'm like, Oh, I have mastered

18:14

the machine like, this is mine.

18:19

Like, like, I own this, like, my

18:19

name is

18:23

I'm envisioning you, as Tom

18:23

Hanks in Castaway going, I have

18:27

made fire. Exactly, exactly, exactly,

18:29

exactly. Like that is exactly

18:33

one of those moments where I get

18:33

in retrospect, is a very trivial

18:38

thing to do. But in my mind,

18:38

this is like, I have just

18:41

discovered the world, right? Like, this is the most amazing thing ever. And so I call my

18:43

friends on my phone, you know,

18:47

again, he's, you know, those

18:47

rotary phone, like, you turn

18:49

your phone, it goes, click,

18:49

click, click the call my

18:52

friends, and I'm like, hell you

18:52

need to come over, because I

18:55

just put my name with this

18:55

computer thing. Like, it's

18:57

amazing, most coolest thing

18:57

ever. Like, if you come over,

19:00

I'll put your name on the

19:00

computer, too. You know, like

19:02

that. That was a conversation I

19:02

was having. So again, way, way

19:06

too excited about putting some

19:06

texts like on black or white

19:10

background, you know, anyway. So

19:10

anyway, so that happened. And

19:13

over the summer, I just continued playing with it, right, like, you know, added a

19:15

button. You know, just try and

19:19

play with different colors. Try

19:19

to put differently, I created a

19:22

paragraph and not just not just

19:22

the word, right, like just

19:26

playing around and try to

19:26

understand how this thing

19:28

worked. And I think with between

19:28

then and the few years that kind

19:33

of went by prior to me leaving

19:33

the country and actually coming

19:35

to university. I would always

19:35

just like ask my parents for

19:39

stuff. So so my uncles and

19:39

Auntie's, like they would leave

19:42

the country and they'd go to

19:42

Florida and New York and other

19:45

places. And so I'd asked him to

19:45

bring me more books. Right. So I

19:49

think I remember him. I think my

19:49

dad, he went to Florida, and I

19:53

told him, Hey, I want to learn

19:53

how to like use this thing. And

19:58

so he went He brought me a c++

19:58

book. I think it was Borland

20:02

c++, something something like

20:02

whatever that thing was. And so

20:05

he brought me the book. But I'm

20:05

like, I couldn't use it. Because

20:09

Borland was expensive, right?

20:09

And I had, yeah, I had the book,

20:15

but I couldn't do the thing. You

20:15

know what I mean? Like, I

20:18

couldn't do anything with it. I

20:18

could just read it. So again,

20:20

just like my class in school,

20:20

right, like, I had nothing to

20:24

do, I could just look at it. I

20:24

couldn't do anything with it,

20:27

really. But you know, I read the

20:27

book, cuz I was interested in I

20:30

was curious about it. And, and

20:30

obviously, over time, I started

20:33

like playing games on the

20:33

computer, I think, NBA Live or

20:37

whatever the case is, I'd come

20:37

on, like NBA, like when those

20:40

eSports games won those

20:40

basketball games. But that's

20:43

when like, you had to actually

20:43

put the CD in and install it in

20:47

DOS. If you remember those, you

20:47

have to do that before. Before.

20:50

Before there was a like a click,

20:50

click, click Run, there was a go

20:52

into dos CD slash something,

20:52

something something installed,

20:55

and you have to like run a, like

20:55

a boot script of some sort. For

20:59

you to install the game on the

20:59

CD. Right? This is before like

21:02

the Yeah, is

21:02

this like Windows? 3.1? No, this

21:07

is Windows 9598. This is but

21:07

this is before. This is before

21:12

you know, now we have

21:12

the CD and it just does the

21:15

thing.

21:16

Yeah, cuz what's the CD?

21:18

Yeah, cuz still a lot

21:18

of things that you had to do

21:22

directly in DOS. Like it wasn't

21:22

like that pure shell that

21:25

Windows three one was or over

21:25

das, but like Windows 95. It was

21:29

it was still like this, this

21:29

little blend. And there were

21:31

still a lot that you had to do

21:31

through das that you still

21:33

couldn't do through the through

21:33

the UI. I distinctly remember

21:38

those days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you still had to,

21:39

there was like some manual

21:42

interaction, right, that you had

21:42

to do. Right? So I think between

21:46

me playing video games and

21:46

Minesweeper and reading these

21:49

books, like I eventually became

21:49

like, the computer Person of the

21:52

house, right? Because I mean, no

21:52

one else in the house was going

21:55

into dos to do anything, you

21:55

know. But here I was, because I

21:59

really wanted to play this video

21:59

game, right. And so I had to

22:01

figure out how to get the thing

22:01

to work. So again, like doing

22:05

all these little things, and I

22:05

again, I just became pretty

22:07

comfortable doing that type of

22:07

stuff. And then you know, there

22:10

was the whole phase of Napster

22:10

where now I'm downloading music,

22:13

and you know, I'm doing stuff, right. Like, I'd have to go online and

22:16

fill out your music legally,

22:20

we're just going to pretend

22:20

like, yes, the MPAA that's

22:24

listening here. It was all

22:24

legal. It was all you know,

22:27

public domain music. Was all non copyright. Creative

22:30

Commons. Yes. Yeah. But what

22:36

happened was, because 150 6k

22:36

modem back in the day, what

22:41

would happen is that I would set

22:41

the, like a single song, I would

22:45

set it to download, like, the

22:45

night before I go to bed and

22:48

wake up and see if it was done.

22:48

Right. So I have to wait, like,

22:51

at least eight hours to like,

22:51

download a song, right? When you

22:55

folks Remember, if you when you

22:55

were on dial up, and anyone

22:58

called the house, like, your

22:58

internet, cuddles, you had it,

23:01

you had to do that again, right?

23:01

Like this is again, this is a

23:03

long, long time ago. Um, so no,

23:03

like, so that was kind of like

23:07

me being in the computer space,

23:07

right? Like, I kind of just got

23:10

comfortable navigating and doing

23:10

things with it and being in

23:13

there. And eventually, I was

23:13

just like, Well, why don't I

23:16

just do this for a living, because it feels like a very comfortable thing to do. And

23:17

also at the time, there, there

23:21

really weren't a lot of folks in

23:21

Antigua that were doing things

23:24

with a computer, right? I think

23:24

whenever I whenever I graduated

23:29

to get into college, they were

23:29

like maybe three or four shops,

23:33

quote unquote, I call them

23:33

shops. of people that will fix

23:38

computers, like you can go in

23:38

and, you know, it's like, you go

23:40

to a mechanic, right? You take your mechanic your car into the mechanic, they fix the thing.

23:42

There are few like computer

23:45

mechanics that I could go to,

23:45

whenever I don't know, the

23:47

printer wasn't working or, you

23:47

know, the file, something was

23:52

corrupt, or I needed more RAM or

23:52

whatever the case was. And so in

23:55

my head, I'm like, Okay, well,

23:55

this is what computer people do.

23:59

Right? Like they fix machines,

23:59

they fix machines, and they give

24:01

it to other people. For some

24:01

reason, like software never was

24:05

in the back of my mind. Like it

24:05

never crossed my mind that that

24:07

could be a thing that that I

24:07

could do. Right? I was like, I'm

24:10

gonna fix the machine and get it

24:10

back. Because when you think

24:13

about, like, the environment you

24:13

grew up in, like, usually, you

24:17

know, pull your inspiration from

24:17

that environment, right? Like,

24:20

there were no programmers around

24:20

me. So I didn't pull that

24:22

inspiration from anyone in that

24:22

context. So anyway, I got to

24:25

college, university, and now I'm

24:25

doing like, intro to algorithms

24:30

and data structures. I'm doing

24:30

Java, I'm doing c++, I'm doing

24:33

assembly language, I'm doing all

24:33

these things. And, you know, in

24:36

addition to like, just the

24:36

cultural immersion, socially,

24:40

that I got from leaving the

24:40

country, there's also the

24:44

professional cultural immersion,

24:44

I suppose. Because now like, I

24:48

could see I could do more stuff,

24:48

right? Like, I didn't have to

24:50

fix computers and printers for a

24:50

living, right? Like, there's a

24:53

little bit more available for me

24:53

from that perspective. And then

24:57

um, and then you know, you You

24:57

know, you do the career fair

25:01

days and things of that nature

25:01

and you see all these companies

25:04

that are coming to hire college

25:04

kids. And I'm like, wait, EA

25:07

Sports is here. Microsoft is

25:07

here. IBM at the time was here.

25:11

HP Hewlett Packard, like all of

25:11

these people like Netflix, a

25:14

very, very, very early version

25:14

of Netflix games are college. At

25:18

that point out, and which this

25:18

is far to tech, this is in

25:22

Melbourne, years ago. And yeah,

25:22

not Melbourne, Australia. I

25:30

didn't I didn't go that far away.

25:32

Well, that's

25:32

Melbourne. Melbourne, you get

25:36

you're going to add that Aaron

25:36

would quickly correct us.

25:41

Exactly, exactly. So

25:41

yeah. So again, like just seeing

25:47

that, like, was so important for

25:47

me, because, like being academic

25:50

is one thing, but then being

25:50

able to see what you could do

25:52

with it is a different thing.

25:52

And, and that's kind of where

25:55

you you derive, like your

25:55

motivation and your inspiration

25:58

from, at least for me, anyway.

25:58

So I was like, Oh, well, I

26:01

don't, again, I don't have to go

26:01

home and fix computers, I could

26:04

work for a company that does

26:04

software, you know what I mean,

26:07

I could, I could do more, I

26:07

could start my own software

26:09

company, I could teach people

26:09

how to do these things like,

26:12

like, there's so many different ideas kind of just started, like formulating in the back of my

26:14

head about what was possible.

26:17

But But I think along with the

26:17

inspiration, like there were

26:20

highs and lows to it as well,

26:20

right? Because some of the lows

26:23

of that were, Hey, I just again,

26:23

I just came to this country, I'm

26:28

not from here. A lot of these

26:28

people that I went to school

26:32

with already did programming in

26:32

high school, I'm just picking

26:35

this stuff up, like right now.

26:35

So I already felt like I was

26:37

behind the curve, like way, like

26:37

years behind, you know what I

26:40

mean? Like I'm trying to catch

26:40

up to where these folks are. Um,

26:44

and then on top of that, to,

26:44

like, you know, there as an

26:47

international student, right, like, I had to go through the process of getting a student

26:49

visa, and then making sure my

26:52

student visa was always valid,

26:52

you know, making sure I got an

26:56

h1 visa whenever I graduated, so

26:56

I could still work, I had to get

26:59

an f1 visa, you know, there were

26:59

things that had to happen, in

27:02

addition to like doing the work

27:02

and being like a professional

27:06

computer person, you know, all

27:06

the visas you had to write. And

27:12

I think that's one thing that

27:12

maybe employers would notice,

27:15

but for for your co workers that

27:15

they may or may not know, like,

27:19

and again, assuming that we got

27:19

here legally, you know, what I

27:21

mean? You may not know all of

27:21

the things that have to happen

27:25

for an international person to

27:25

be here. So when you think about

27:29

it, you have to realize that

27:29

one, these people have to, you

27:33

know, these people probably work

27:33

a lot harder than you did. Not

27:37

just from an academic

27:37

perspective, but just in terms

27:39

of putting in effort through

27:39

legal fees and paperwork, and

27:45

like having to maintain a

27:45

certain level of status, to stay

27:48

here else, you know, like, as an

27:48

example, like, if I don't get a

27:52

job, like, when I left college,

27:52

if I didn't get a job in, like

27:55

six to nine months, like I had

27:55

to go, like, I can't stay here

27:57

and hang out, you know what I

27:57

mean? Like, I can't take like a

28:01

gap here. You don't mean like,

28:01

so people do the kind of just

28:04

not go to school for you and

28:04

hang out, like I have to go, you

28:07

know what I mean? And so, again,

28:07

just always thinking about,

28:10

like, you know, and also to, you

28:10

know, coming from the Caribbean

28:13

to the United States, like the

28:13

currency, you know, it's, it's

28:16

not exactly the same. So, you

28:16

know, my parents are spending a

28:18

lot of money to come to school

28:18

here, I have to put in a lot of

28:21

work to to stay here again,

28:21

going through the lawyers and,

28:24

and do all this types of stuff.

28:24

And still I have schoolwork to

28:28

do. I gotta I gotta pass my

28:28

classes. Right. I got to do

28:30

stuff. And, you know, it's

28:30

again, it's it's work it's

28:34

effort, right? And, again,

28:34

eventually worked out. And, and

28:39

here we are,

28:40

but some

28:40

curious. So yeah, for, for folks

28:44

watching. Yeah, we get 1000s of

28:44

views. And there's a good

28:49

possibility somebody is maybe in

28:49

antigo right now wondering,

28:53

yeah. How can I do that, too?

28:53

How do you get started with

28:56

that? Either college application

28:56

process visa process, or which

29:00

one comes first?

29:05

For me, it was very

29:05

much like, like rolling dice,

29:12

right? Like, you never kind of

29:12

know where you're gonna land.

29:15

And I mean, not very seriously,

29:15

because, again, I didn't I

29:18

didn't live here. So I didn't do

29:18

like a college tour. You know

29:22

what I mean? Like, I didn't

29:22

travel to schools and visit

29:25

departments and see people, you

29:25

know what I mean? I was lucky

29:29

that again, my uncles and some

29:29

family members would leave on

29:32

teager and come back, and then

29:32

bring back I think it was called

29:36

us colleges, in those thick

29:36

books that had like listings of

29:40

colleges and universities. It

29:40

was kind of like a like a like,

29:43

yeah, universities or whatever.

29:43

And, like they would bring those

29:46

books home for me. And I'd have

29:46

to spend time when I scroll

29:50

through those books, right, that

29:50

two, sometimes two, three books.

29:53

I'd like 1500 pages, right?

29:53

Because it's every college and

29:56

university. It's all of their

29:56

courses. It's how many credits

29:59

they have. are, you know,

29:59

student loans and deadlines?

30:02

Like it's a very, very thick

30:02

book. And so I had to think

30:07

about, well, where do I want to

30:07

live? Right? Um, and I'm like, I

30:10

don't know, cuz I don't live in

30:10

the United States. I'm not gonna

30:13

be like, Oh, I want to go live

30:13

in Arizona. I don't know

30:15

anything about Arizona. I live

30:15

in North Carolina. I don't know.

30:20

I mean, like, like, how do I

30:20

pick? How am I supposed to know,

30:23

assuming that I haven't done

30:23

that before. Now, some people

30:25

have. But for me, I haven't been

30:25

to these places. So I couldn't

30:28

really make an intelligent

30:28

decision. So the approach that I

30:32

took was, well, I do have some

30:32

family members that live outside

30:35

of the United States. I'm going

30:35

to pick colleges where my family

30:38

lives. So I had family that

30:38

lived in Virginia, I had family

30:41

in New York, I had family in

30:41

Canada, I had family in Florida.

30:46

I'm like, so that sounds like a

30:46

good start. Like, let's start

30:48

there. And then we'll kind of

30:48

like start whittling down what

30:52

you want to do. Now, now I'm

30:52

looking through these books now.

30:56

And, you know, now I gotta say,

30:56

Well, what am I going to study?

30:59

Right? I know, I want to do

30:59

computers, right? But like, what

31:01

does that mean? Like, there's

31:01

computer science is Computer

31:04

Engineering is management

31:04

information systems is

31:07

information technology. And it

31:07

turns out that every school

31:10

teaches those classes very

31:10

differently. So now, like, how

31:14

do you pick right? So now I'm going through these books I'm looking at, like, I'm going down

31:16

to the level of reading course

31:20

descriptions to be like, what I

31:20

want to do this course or not

31:22

what I want to, like, do I want

31:22

to do, I think, what was it

31:27

like, UI with with Java? Do I

31:27

want to do that? Or do I want to

31:30

do hardware software

31:30

integration? You know, I think I

31:33

think today, we'll call that

31:33

IoT. But back in the day, it was

31:35

like, hardware software

31:35

integration with like, assembly

31:38

language. Do I want to do that?

31:38

I don't know. You know,

31:41

so I'm curious about the the

31:41

timing, were you able to, like,

31:45

do all that research online? Or

31:45

were you talking about, like,

31:48

you know, having to flip

31:48

through, like physical course

31:52

count, there was no online. I want to

31:52

say there was no online, we had

31:55

the internet, but you know,

31:55

right. I had a book, like I had

31:59

a thick book, or multiples of

31:59

thick books that I was scrolling

32:03

through these books and trying

32:03

to figure out, you know, where I

32:05

was gonna go. And, you know, in

32:05

that time, again, we're talking

32:09

about like, late 1998 99 this

32:09

time, because, you know, you got

32:15

to apply like, a year, year and

32:15

a half before, right. So, you

32:19

know, at this point, I'm looking through these books, these are all black and white books,

32:21

right? I don't know what this

32:23

place looks like, right? They

32:23

have pictures of campuses and

32:26

things of that nature. But for

32:26

me, like they all look the same.

32:29

They're all black and white. So it's whatever.

32:31

Even pictures

32:31

like, I'm sure you stayed in a

32:34

hotel that had great pictures.

32:34

Oh, this grayscale this look?

32:40

Okay, pool that pool water could

32:40

be green and purple? Like, I

32:43

don't know.

32:45

Whatever sessile.

32:45

didn't know at the time is that

32:47

all the campuses are we're actually just you know, grayscale?

32:53

Exactly, exactly. So, so the

32:53

process for me was, you know,

32:57

again, luckily enough, like I

32:57

had some family members that,

32:59

you know, live outside of the

32:59

country, they sent me these

33:02

college books. And I just, I

33:02

flipped through them, right, I

33:04

flipped through them. And I picked some schools where I think we're close enough to my

33:05

family, and I sent applications

33:09

to those places. Now, and

33:09

obviously, I had to do my essay

33:12

T's I was, you could do your

33:12

essays in the Caribbean, at

33:15

least then same essay, you know,

33:15

we do in the US. Same as it is,

33:20

yeah, we just go, you know, we

33:20

have specific testing centers

33:23

that did that, right. So you

33:23

couldn't go to every school and

33:26

do it. I think today, like you

33:26

just do it in your school or

33:29

whatever. Like, I had to go to

33:29

like specific places like

33:31

testing facilities to do that.

33:31

Right. And so I'll go did my si

33:35

T's got a pretty good score. I

33:35

did it the second time, I got an

33:39

even better score. I'm like,

33:39

Okay, oh, no, like, Can I just

33:42

keep taking this thing and keep

33:42

getting better scores. But

33:45

anyway, it turns out that, you

33:45

know, from the grades I had

33:49

before, I got accepted to two

33:49

schools without even sending my

33:53

essays, right. So I sent in my

33:53

college application, but I sent

33:56

them in before I had gotten in

33:56

my scores. Right. And that was

34:01

because the deadline was

34:01

approaching, but at the time

34:03

that we're taking the exam, like

34:03

that would be that would have

34:08

been past the deadline, right?

34:08

So anyway, so I sent my LSAT

34:12

scores after I've already got

34:12

accepted to college, which is

34:15

funny. So I think that was more

34:15

so just like, how many credits

34:19

are you gonna get, like, you know, like, how many transfer credits or how many, you know,

34:23

scholarship classes or

34:24

Yeah, AP classes, you

34:24

know, scholarship grants and

34:27

things of that nature that that

34:27

was a separate conversation. I'm

34:31

sorry, I sent in my stuff got an

34:31

and now what I got to pick Well,

34:35

I got accepted to Virginia Tech.

34:35

Florida tech, good school, and I

34:41

got accepted to FSU. Right now.

34:41

I'm trying to decide well, which

34:48

again, I haven't been to these

34:48

places. I don't know the

34:50

difference, right? Probably if I

34:50

grew up in United States, I

34:53

might have watched like, I don't

34:53

know NCAA basketball or seen the

34:57

news or something like that I

34:57

would have I would have learned

34:59

about like College reputation.

34:59

Like that's the thing people

35:02

know about the country. I didn't

35:02

know anything about that. Like I

35:05

just Eenie meenie miney Moe.

35:05

Right. We're gonna pick one.

35:10

FSU is playing for the softball

35:10

title. Tonight if they beat

35:14

Oklahoma, they take the softball

35:14

title tonight.

35:18

See? and see. Like you know

35:18

about that stuff. It's, it's,

35:24

it's like news to you. For me.

35:24

It's just like I don't know

35:26

these people like like, what is this?

35:28

Right? And even

35:28

like for me growing up in

35:30

Orlando, I kind of have a

35:30

similar story where I love

35:33

computers as the computer guy.

35:33

And so when it came time to

35:37

choose a college I just looked

35:37

around said like, what are the

35:40

best engineering colleges and at

35:40

least at the time, hopefully,

35:43

it's still true. University of

35:43

Florida was the top in the

35:46

state. So I applied to

35:46

University of Florida. That was

35:49

the only application I submitted

35:49

to any college and they accepted

35:51

me. So I went. But just wanted

35:51

to get a subtle jab in there.

35:57

Good choice, not choosing FSU.

36:02

But I'll tell you the

36:02

one reason why I'm going to

36:05

Florida tech was because I liked

36:05

their computer science program

36:09

the most. And then also, at the

36:09

time, they had the highest

36:13

international student population

36:13

in the United States. And I

36:18

mean, that sounds like that might be a big number. But at the time, it was at like 12% 12%

36:19

international students. I don't

36:24

know what it is today might be

36:24

more or less but but at that

36:27

point that was the highest in

36:27

the United States. So I was

36:30

like, there's a lot of people

36:30

that want to go.

36:33

Ironically,

36:33

yeah, I so I used to live in

36:35

Melbourne. And I used to coach

36:35

the fit the Florida tech water

36:40

polo team. And yeah, the team

36:40

was almost exclusively

36:43

international students. So it's

36:43

that the percentage of

36:47

international students said fit

36:47

his or her Florida Tech has gone

36:51

up dramatically.

36:53

Yeah, it probably has.

36:53

But but that that, for me was

36:57

like the deciding factor after

36:57

I've gotten my acceptance

37:00

letters, right. Like, it was,

37:00

Hey, I like the the curriculum,

37:04

because we're getting remember,

37:04

I was going through all of these

37:06

course descriptions and stuff

37:06

like that. I like the

37:08

curriculum, I like the subject

37:08

matter. But I also really liked

37:11

the fact that there's a lot of

37:11

international folks going there.

37:14

But not only international folks, there are a lot of Caribbean people that went

37:16

there. So again, for me if I'm

37:19

going to go like, and I don't

37:19

know anything about this place,

37:21

like let me go where the

37:21

territory is, could it be a

37:24

little bit more familiar, right?

37:24

Because again, that's important

37:28

because you're going away from

37:28

home, right? Like, I'm not going

37:31

to the college down the street

37:31

or, you know, at the other side

37:34

of the island, right, like I'm

37:34

going to another country, you

37:37

know, I mean, like let me at

37:37

least walk in slowly to a place

37:40

that's a little bit comfortable.

37:40

You know, that kind of makes

37:42

sense. So anyway, so now, you

37:42

know, I'm here I'm in. I'm in

37:46

Florida tech. And um, you know,

37:46

it's, it's weird, because while

37:51

I was in college, no one

37:51

believed that I was a computer

37:53

science major. Which is, which

37:53

is weird, right? They're like,

37:57

Oh, sessile you don't, you know,

37:57

you're not like, and I don't

38:00

mean to offend anybody, but I'm just gonna tell you what they told me right there, like you

38:01

don't wear glasses and watch

38:06

anime and drink soda and pizza

38:06

parties and hang out. And I'm

38:11

like, I mean, it's, it's

38:11

balanced. Right? Like, like,

38:13

we're all not the same. And I

38:13

think it's a conversation we

38:16

have a lot today with, which is

38:16

like, what does a computer

38:20

professional look like? The

38:20

Anatomy. And so for me very

38:24

early on, I'm just like, this is

38:24

just how I spin like, I like

38:27

playing. I like sports. But I

38:27

like computers, too. It's okay

38:31

to like more than one thing.

38:31

It's not a problem. You know,

38:34

the way I got that a ton when I when I

38:34

was doing full time tech

38:38

training is the number of

38:38

students who who would come up

38:41

to me or you know, the number of

38:41

admins that whatever Training

38:44

Center I was at, and it would

38:44

just be blown away by the fact

38:47

that Oh, wait, wait, wait, hold

38:47

on. You mean, you're technical,

38:50

but you're so outgoing, and you

38:50

like have a personality like,

38:54

Yeah, and that's okay.

38:58

Yeah, it's, it's very weird. I

38:58

never really understood that.

39:02

Um, but again, also to remember,

39:02

like, my context is different,

39:06

like, I'm coming from another

39:06

place, and I'm just like, do do

39:09

computer people do something

39:09

different than I'm supposed to

39:12

know. Am I missing something?

39:12

Like, I already know that I

39:16

didn't do it in high school,

39:16

like a lot of other folks that's

39:18

in my head. I'm always thinking,

39:18

I am missing something. Like

39:21

there's something that like, I

39:21

haven't done that, like, I

39:24

haven't gotten like the rite of

39:24

passage to be in this place. You

39:27

know what I mean? After a while,

39:27

I just realized it was just

39:30

silly, silly stereotypes, and

39:30

it's whatever. Um, I can tell

39:35

you another thing for me in

39:35

college was, um, so before I

39:42

went to college, like I didn't,

39:42

I didn't meet a lot of different

39:46

type of people that don't look

39:46

like what I look like, you know,

39:49

um, you know, right now, I think

39:49

there's a big conversation in

39:52

the United States about like

39:52

diversity and inclusion and just

39:56

like respect of other people.

39:56

Um, I grew up in a society where

40:01

like, everyone was the same,

40:01

like I had black teachers, I had

40:05

black friends I had, like,

40:05

everyone was the same, you know,

40:10

it was a Christian society,

40:10

right? Like, like, everything

40:13

was the same. And so now I want

40:13

to say Christian, like, you

40:16

know, it's, you know, Catholics

40:16

and Methodists and Baptists. And

40:21

like those, like, like, that was

40:21

the culture of the Alamo. And

40:25

now I come to United States, and

40:25

I'm meeting people from Egypt,

40:29

and Africa, and Australia, and

40:29

France. And I'm like, we don't

40:33

have any of those, you know, me,

40:33

like I've never met folks from

40:36

from this, from these places in

40:36

these cultures. I've never met

40:40

Muslim people before. I've never

40:40

met Jewish people before until I

40:43

left the country. And I came

40:43

here. And I think in addition to

40:47

just one, learning more about

40:47

the perspective of what I could

40:52

do, technically, again, it was

40:52

also learning, like, the

40:57

different perspectives of people

40:57

in general, right, like, so it

40:59

was learning on both sides, both

40:59

professionally and personally,

41:02

you know, what I mean, like

41:02

college was a huge exposure for

41:04

me, just understanding like,

41:04

what was possible, you know, in

41:08

a way, and I know, everyone

41:08

doesn't have like, the ability

41:14

to go or the finances to go

41:14

whatever the case is. But for

41:17

me, it was about, you know,

41:17

what, regardless of whether it

41:19

was school, or whatever the case

41:19

is, it was about like, leaving

41:22

your comfort zone. And being in

41:22

a place that were kind of

41:25

immerse you around different

41:25

types of people in different

41:28

types of experiences. And, and

41:28

it's almost like going to, like,

41:32

very uncomfortable situations,

41:32

right, and learning to kind of

41:35

like, adapt to those not hostile

41:35

situations, but again, just just

41:39

places that you're just not

41:39

usually at, you know what I

41:43

mean, and kind of deal with that.

41:45

Yeah. And so

41:45

I'm curious. So I'm going to

41:49

selfishly take a minute to plug

41:49

your podcasts away from the

41:53

keyboard. anybody listening

41:53

should go to away from the

41:58

keyboard, Comm. Subscribe. It's

41:58

a great listen. And the reason I

42:03

bring it up is what you're just

42:03

talking about. So with different

42:08

folks who not only look

42:08

different, but have different

42:10

backgrounds or sound different.

42:10

Seems to be the kind of the

42:15

running theme on the podcast is

42:15

that kind of is this life

42:19

experience? What inspired you to

42:19

host this show?

42:27

I think life experience

42:27

turned it into what it is today,

42:30

what where it initially started

42:30

was. So you know, we used to,

42:34

you know, pre pre COVID pre

42:34

pandemic, right, we actually

42:37

used to meet together and user

42:37

groups and used to meet in

42:39

person and have sessions and

42:39

stuff like that. I don't

42:42

remember any of that. It was

42:42

like a lifetime ago. That's

42:46

like, that's, like at least five

42:46

JavaScript frameworks I got

42:49

right. Like, we don't remember

42:49

that. We, one of the things that

42:55

we always wanted to do was like,

42:55

since these meetups were, you

42:58

know, once a month kind of

42:58

thing, like, how do we connect

43:01

with people for the other three

43:01

weeks of the month, right? So

43:04

like, Oh, hey, let's do a

43:04

podcast and and kind of, like,

43:07

continue the conversation that

43:07

we would have started at the end

43:10

of the meetup, because at the end of the meetup and the sessions that everyone wants to

43:12

hang out, and there's questions,

43:14

and then the little bit of

43:14

networking happens, and, you

43:17

know, like, community building

43:17

happens, you know, like before

43:19

and after the meetup is when

43:19

like, the community is kind of

43:22

built. But anyway, as we're

43:22

doing the podcast, and you know,

43:26

I'm in South Florida, so it was

43:26

mainly like South Florida

43:29

conversations we're having with,

43:29

you know, different companies,

43:32

and how are you using dotnet?

43:32

And what kind of startup are

43:35

you? We didn't call them

43:35

startups back then. But you

43:37

know, what kind of you business

43:37

ID you have now and whatever,

43:40

whatever. And eventually, like,

43:40

we realize, hey, like, there are

43:44

people from outside of Florida

43:44

that are listening to our

43:47

podcast, too. We didn't think

43:47

about that, like that was never

43:51

that the target audience. We

43:51

didn't like go out and seek

43:53

them. But they found the show

43:53

and they liked it. So now we're

43:56

like, Okay, well, how could we

43:56

expand the, the subject matter

44:00

to include people from different

44:00

places, you know, the way and so

44:05

we could have totally, you just been like, we don't care, whatever, we're just gonna keep

44:07

it so far. We're just gonna keep

44:10

it man. We're just gonna keep it

44:10

for a lot of you. But I think

44:13

once you recognize that people

44:13

are giving you your time. I

44:16

think it was almost like our

44:16

duty to like, give those people

44:21

like a moment. You know what I

44:21

mean? Like, like, again, like,

44:24

I've never been to Africa, at

44:24

least at the time, you know, but

44:27

we have people from Africa,

44:27

listening to the podcast, maybe

44:30

we should get a guest that's

44:30

been from South Africa. Right?

44:33

You know, I'd never been to the

44:33

UK or, you know, again, I, I've

44:38

never, I haven't done a lot of

44:38

things right. Like, maybe we

44:40

should find some other people

44:40

with insect that do these

44:43

things. Because now as more

44:43

people listen to the show, like

44:47

if I want them to find someone

44:47

or some thing or some topic that

44:50

they could kind of connect to,

44:50

and be like, oh, okay, every

44:53

episode is not about me, but

44:53

like this particular one, like,

44:55

I feel this person, like

44:55

emotionally like attached to

44:59

what they're talking But I kind

44:59

of felt like it was our duty to

45:02

kind of tell that story. Um,

45:02

another thing too, what you'll

45:07

notice, as you know, even with

45:07

like the conversation we're

45:09

having right now, you know, we

45:09

like we haven't said anything

45:12

about technology, like I haven't

45:12

said, compiler preprocessor

45:17

directive data, like we haven't

45:17

spoken about it. Right. But But

45:21

what we're doing is we're

45:21

looking at, like the people

45:24

behind the code, right, like the

45:24

people behind the software that

45:26

we built. And I think a lot of

45:26

the times we forget that

45:28

perspective. Yeah, a lot of the

45:28

times we see a thing, and we're

45:32

like, Oh, damn, you, company x,

45:32

your does, your thing doesn't do

45:39

the thing I wanted to do. And

45:39

then we say we have a lot of

45:42

choice words for those people.

45:42

But then we forget that there

45:45

are people, right, and you

45:45

forget that, you know, we're all

45:48

under the same pandemic, we

45:48

forget that, you know, some

45:51

people have lost loved ones. And

45:51

some people have lost their

45:54

jobs, we forget context, right?

45:54

We forget that we're still

45:57

people at the end of the day.

45:57

And I think shows like, like our

46:01

podcasts, and even what we're

46:01

doing here, right now, it's

46:03

always good to show the other

46:03

side of the keyboard, you know,

46:07

what I mean? Like, like, like,

46:07

Who are the people that are

46:10

doing these things? What are they building? Like? What do they feel like? You know, what

46:12

are some of the struggles that

46:15

they've gone through? You know,

46:15

because you can imagine there

46:18

are 1000s millions of people

46:18

that are writing software every

46:21

day. You know what I mean? Like,

46:21

what's the probability that

46:24

someone that's written some

46:24

software that you're using had a

46:29

bad day? You know, what I mean?

46:29

Like, what's the probability

46:32

that you know, something messed

46:32

up happened to them? In an

46:36

event? You don't know, right?

46:36

And it's kind of like when

46:40

people are online, and they're

46:40

complaining, oh, well, you

46:45

brought up this feature, but you

46:45

didn't do this one. And you did

46:47

this. He didn't do this one. And

46:47

I'm just like, really, dude,

46:49

like, you know, yeah, people,

46:49

it's always like, what have you

46:54

done for me lately? versus, uh,

46:54

you know, hey, like, like, I

46:58

should really appreciate these

46:58

people's time and effort. And,

47:01

you know, again, remember that we're talking about people, we're not talking about, like

47:03

machines that are writing the code themselves. Right.

47:07

Yeah, that's a

47:07

it was a, I empathize deeply,

47:12

having been on both sides of

47:12

that. And, yeah, I had that

47:16

realization a couple years ago,

47:16

myself, where every time

47:22

somebody creates, or every time,

47:22

there's a new tool, a new

47:25

website, a new podcast,

47:25

something new in the world,

47:28

somebody created that. And

47:28

somebody put time and effort

47:33

into it. And I think it's right.

47:33

And I realized, it's important

47:38

that we we remember that first

47:38

before necessarily criticizing

47:43

it, because it's, it's so easy

47:43

to read a blog post and be like,

47:46

Oh, this is terrible. There's

47:46

typos everywhere, or they call

47:51

it this instead of this, how,

47:51

how could they? But yeah, at the

47:55

end of the day, you know,

47:55

somebody took the time out of

47:58

their busy day, to write that

47:58

blog posts, they're not making

48:01

any money off it, they're not

48:01

looking for fame, they just

48:04

wanted to share their

48:04

experiences. And I think if we

48:09

first take that moment to

48:09

appreciate that content, then I

48:15

think we can give some better

48:15

feedback rather than worst blog

48:18

post ever. How could anybody

48:18

read this just is, there's a

48:23

person behind it?

48:24

Yeah, I think for me,

48:24

so kind of like, going back to

48:27

the question Christopher asked

48:27

me, for me, it's very similar to

48:32

my experience going to college,

48:32

right? Like, I didn't know

48:35

certain things until I got there

48:35

anon meeting these different

48:38

people. And now I have a

48:38

different perspective about what

48:40

it means to communicate with

48:40

them what their culture is,

48:43

like, you know, what things may

48:43

or may not be deemed respectful

48:47

or disrespectful? Again, you

48:47

don't know what you don't know.

48:49

But then you don't know if you

48:49

don't make the effort to know.

48:52

Right? And so it's Same thing

48:52

with us, right? Like, as we tell

48:56

the stories of computer science

48:56

and of computing in general, I

49:01

kind of look at shows like this,

49:01

like, the historical record of

49:04

what we've done, right? Because

49:04

Because who's writing the

49:07

history books for us? ran away?

49:07

Like, where's the who's the

49:11

who's the computer historian?

49:11

Right. And it's us technically,

49:15

in a kind of backward way.

49:15

Right? It's these podcasts that

49:18

we do is the shows that we do

49:18

these videos that recreate these

49:21

blog posts, or rewrite, that at

49:21

some point, you think about it

49:24

1025 years from now, whenever

49:24

someone's gonna look back and be

49:29

like, Oh, well, this is how we

49:29

used to write code. And this is

49:32

how we used to do videos, and

49:32

this is how we used to do

49:34

podcasts and conversations. And,

49:34

you know, assuming that, like,

49:38

you know, the world hasn't

49:38

gotten crashing to hell. We can

49:42

look back at a historical data

49:42

and be like, oh, wow, like

49:45

things were different or better

49:45

or worse or whatever. Because,

49:49

you know, if we look back,

49:49

probably a lot of the things

49:52

that happened, like might have

49:52

been lost to, you know, I don't

49:55

know, like environmental damage,

49:55

and I lost the disk and you know

49:59

what I mean? Like, stuff

49:59

happened, right? And we don't

50:02

have history for everything. And

50:02

so I think all this data that

50:05

we're generating, now, this is

50:05

just going to become, you know,

50:08

like someone at some point is

50:08

going to sit down and curate all

50:12

this stuff that we've created

50:12

over this past, you know, two,

50:15

three decades, and be like,

50:15

well, this is the history of

50:18

computing over, you know, the

50:18

early parts of the 2000s. Right,

50:22

and this is what it looked like.

50:22

And this is, and this is what,

50:25

you know, this is where we came

50:25

from. And, you know, this is

50:29

where we're gonna go, right.

50:31

Well said, Yeah, I wonder about that myself. Because we are

50:33

constantly generating or

50:37

creating things, but it all

50:37

lives in the cloud are ones and

50:41

zeros. And I'm curious how, how

50:41

that will survive, or if it will

50:47

survive, like, you know, you're

50:47

talking about installing

50:50

software, installing games on a

50:50

computer using the CD. That was

50:54

only 20 years ago. And now, I

50:54

don't even own a CD player. So

51:00

yeah, if if all that information

51:00

was saved on the CD, well, what

51:05

good is it if we don't have a

51:05

way to read the medium? So like?

51:10

Yeah, I'm always curious. And

51:10

none of us will be around to

51:13

know the answer. But yeah, 2000

51:13

years from now, will we still

51:16

have like, the old Geocities

51:16

websites cached somewhere? And

51:20

the Internet Archive?

51:22

I mean, I don't know.

51:22

It's, it's funny, because I

51:25

mean, certainly there's a lot of

51:25

things that have been lost to

51:29

the ether over time. But

51:29

there's, there's still a lot of

51:31

things that that do exist out

51:31

there. You know, the the Space

51:34

Jam the original Space Jam

51:34

website being like a fantastic

51:37

example of that, or Bob loblaw,

51:37

one of his website,

51:46

laws law blog.

51:46

Yes. Thank you.

51:49

Yes, exactly. But But

51:49

he was he was a y2k denier

51:57

saying that it wasn't going to

51:57

be that big of a thing until he

52:00

put out a website about this.

52:00

And it apparently, like still

52:06

exists in the in that exact same

52:06

state that it did from his last

52:10

update of like, you know,

52:10

February or something like that

52:13

of the year 2020. So that, you

52:13

know, some of those things do

52:16

still exist out there. So to

52:16

like Russell's point, it's gonna

52:20

be really interesting. And to

52:20

your point, as well, Brandon,

52:22

it's gonna be really interesting

52:22

to sort of see 20 years from

52:26

now, when everybody starts going

52:26

back and looking at those

52:29

things, like, what the

52:29

interpretation of that is, is

52:31

gonna wind up at Yang,

52:33

right? Yeah,

52:33

for sure. Like this? Oh, no,

52:38

no, exactly. I look at

52:38

my family, like generations of

52:41

my family. And like, I kind of

52:41

started talking about, like, how

52:44

my dad reports on a typewriter,

52:44

you know, no way. And then I

52:48

went to college, I wrote reports

52:48

on a laptop, you know what I

52:51

mean? And now my eight year old

52:51

son talks to like, the air,

52:57

right? And some device in the

52:57

house is good to listen to him

53:01

and does the thing, right. So

53:01

we're, I had to like, use, you

53:05

know, my dad walked to

53:05

libraries, I had Britannica or

53:09

whatever, and carta on a CD. You

53:09

know, now my son stays at home,

53:12

and he talks to the air. And

53:12

like, the speakers in the house

53:15

are like, oh, I'll find the

53:15

answer for you. I know what that

53:18

is, you know what I mean? So

53:18

there's just a kind of, again,

53:21

and this, we're only talking three generations, right? We're not talking about hundreds of

53:23

years. But you can see how

53:26

technology has kind of evolved

53:26

over that space. And one, like,

53:30

you know, we're very much more

53:30

connected, but then to is

53:32

there's just so much more.

53:32

That's possible, you know,

53:35

within that space. So, again, I

53:35

don't have a teenager my son's

53:39

not 20 years old in college. So

53:39

I can only imagine when, when he

53:43

has to write reports like, what

53:43

is what is that going to look

53:45

like, at that point? You know, I

53:45

mean, and what does it look like

53:49

for his grandkids? And, you

53:49

know, sometimes I wonder, Is he

53:51

gonna even own a car? Or are

53:51

they just gonna like, you know,

53:55

our cars just gonna drive us?

53:55

We're not gonna drive that

53:57

anymore. Like, what is it? Really? I just want my flying car.

54:00

That's all that I just want my

54:04

flying car. See? Something?

54:04

Yeah, we don't get like jetpacks

54:07

or something.

54:09

So it's just a

54:09

beaver missed? Because we've

54:11

been having some awesome chats

54:11

in the comments about

54:15

stereotypes. We've talked about

54:15

it for a bit. Where are what a

54:20

software engineers look like?

54:20

And in the thumbnail for the

54:23

show, you're holding this really

54:23

cool metal? What is that and

54:30

explain a little bit more about

54:30

your, your hobbies as a software

54:35

engineer on the side. What are

54:35

you what do we do?

54:39

So, so kinda like I

54:39

mentioned earlier, like we like,

54:45

whenever I went to college,

54:45

there was always the, you're not

54:47

a software person. Like, I don't

54:47

believe you. Like up until the

54:50

point that I'm graduating. And

54:50

I'm walking across the stage

54:53

like, we don't believe you like I need to hear him call you. Because I don't believe you.

54:56

Right, but I'm like, okay,

54:58

whatever. So You know, I grew up

54:58

again, I grew up in Antigua and

55:02

I was always a fairly like

55:02

active person. I used to swim

55:06

for Antigua. Like regionally

55:06

speaking, like, I used to do a

55:10

lot of swimming and basketball

55:10

was the thing that I did. And,

55:14

you know, after I graduated, I

55:14

was like, I need something to

55:17

do. Right, I need, you know, I'm

55:17

not on a team anymore. And, you

55:20

know, getting into sports in the

55:20

United States is a little bit

55:23

more complicated. Particularly

55:23

you want to play in college and

55:26

stuff, like you can't just like,

55:26

Hey, I'm coming and show up.

55:29

Because that's what we did at

55:29

home. We just showed up here,

55:32

paperwork, stuff has to happen,

55:32

right? So anyway, um, I started

55:37

getting into like weightlifting

55:37

a little bit. When I started

55:41

working, like nothing, not not

55:41

like super heavy weights, just

55:44

like lean fitness, I guess. And

55:44

I saw an ad on like, you know,

55:52

like Hulu or one of those

55:52

things. I saw an ad about, like

55:55

these obstacle course races, so

55:55

I started looking them up on

55:57

YouTube. And then I think like

55:57

Spartan and CrossFit was, like,

56:00

just starting, like, it wasn't

56:00

super profitable yet, but it was

56:03

just like a thing that people

56:03

were doing. And I was like, Oh,

56:06

hey, you know, I don't like

56:06

running. Like I honestly hate

56:08

running. Um, but there's very

56:08

few races that's just swimming.

56:14

In no way, particularly like,

56:14

this is a big continent. Versus

56:19

I could like, I could walk to

56:19

the beach from my house. And

56:21

until you get to me, like so, me

56:21

getting to the beach is a little

56:24

bit different. So I'm like, this

56:24

is a big place, like, what do

56:27

people do? And so I saw these

56:27

obstacle course races and I'm

56:31

like, okay, I don't like

56:31

running. But like, this is like

56:33

a little bit of everything. Like

56:33

there's some climbing, there's

56:35

lifting there's, you know,

56:35

swinging on bars and carrying

56:40

rocks. And like, That sounds

56:40

like fun. Let's Let's do that.

56:43

And you before COVID I want to

56:43

say maybe two or three years

56:47

before COVID I started doing

56:47

like obstacle course races. So I

56:50

did. Warrior dash was my first

56:50

race. I did that like three,

56:55

maybe like three times. Before I

56:55

did any other race event. Yeah,

57:00

warrior dash was a lot of fun.

57:00

So it was worried that South

57:03

Florida, they don't come down

57:03

here anymore, but they used to.

57:07

I think the closest one to me

57:07

now will be Orlando. But before

57:09

we used to come all the way down

57:09

to Fort Lauderdale, Miami. Um, I

57:13

did that I did. Mud factor like

57:13

so this, this metal that I have

57:18

here that I'm holding up is from

57:18

one factor. I know you can see

57:22

that. But that's what it says.

57:22

This is a mud factor race. One

57:25

factor is kind of short. It's

57:25

like a 5k with obstacles kind of

57:28

thing. So not not super long in

57:28

comparison to the other one.

57:33

I've done Spartan, Spartan Race.

57:33

Spartan is interesting because

57:37

they have three different versions. I think there's a there's like a five by eight and

57:40

a 13 mile version or some some

57:44

some iteration of that. Like

57:44

there's three different plans

57:46

that you could do with obviously

57:46

varying levels of like,

57:50

obstacles and things of that

57:50

nature. So I did two of them.

57:54

And I was trying to get the

57:54

trifecta. The trifecta is when

57:56

you do all three of them. What

57:56

happens is that when you do

57:59

Spartan, Spartan races, you just

57:59

like you don't get the whole

58:04

middle, you get like back,

58:04

right? So I had like the top

58:09

piece, I like the sight piece.

58:09

And I needed like one more part

58:12

and the 113 mile and I'm just

58:12

like, do I really want to do

58:15

this? I do I really want to do

58:15

30 miles of obstacles. But I'm

58:20

again COVID happened, and then I

58:20

haven't done it. So. But the

58:24

thing is, you have to do this.

58:24

You can't like do it. I can't do

58:28

2018 2019 2020 I got to do all

58:28

three races the same year. So I

58:34

don't think I'm going to do it this year because things are still pretty locked out. But

58:36

maybe next year, I'll you know,

58:38

get the three of them. And let's

58:38

see how that goes.

58:41

Right. Well, we'll start trading now. Well, sessile we only have a minute

58:43

left. Thanks again so much for

58:47

coming on. So quicker. I flew

58:47

by. But for folks listening,

58:53

where can they find you online?

58:53

We know your your podcast, away

58:58

from the keyboard calm.

59:00

Yeah, so definitely

59:00

check out my podcast away from

59:02

the keyboard calm. And again,

59:02

the whole purpose of that show

59:04

is for us to just have

59:04

conversations with folks in

59:07

technology about not technology.

59:07

So you know, you'll hear a lot

59:11

of random conversations about

59:11

comic books and woodworking and

59:14

having children and starting

59:14

businesses and you know, but

59:18

they're all from folks in technology. So again, like kind of just like peeling the veil

59:20

behind and showing you the

59:23

people behind like the stuff.

59:23

Another thing that I do, and I

59:27

could see if I could find like

59:27

I'll put this in a private chat.

59:31

So I do a show called The on

59:31

dotnet show. So this is a pretty

59:35

fun show that I've been doing

59:35

for about three years. We do a

59:38

live version of the show we do a

59:38

pre recorded version of the

59:41

show. And we also have like what

59:41

we call a little highlight

59:44

videos, but it's all around

59:44

dotnet stuff so you know dotnet

59:48

web applications dotnet you know

59:48

new C sharp things, new blazer

59:53

things Visual Studio things. If

59:53

you're interested in learning

59:55

about dotnet we have something

59:55

for everybody. Whether you're

59:58

seeing here or elevating you

59:58

We're in the space. So that's

1:00:01

pretty cool. And another thing

1:00:01

that I do that's public that

1:00:05

folks can take a look at. I'll

1:00:05

share this inside of the chat

1:00:08

too, really quickly. So my me

1:00:08

and my other co worker, Brian

1:00:12

Clark, we do a show called pay

1:00:12

weekly live, actually did it

1:00:15

just before I got on here, like

1:00:15

before I'd signed on to the

1:00:18

stream. That's what exactly what

1:00:18

we're doing. But we pay weekly

1:00:20

live, what we do is, you know,

1:00:20

we take two folks that aren't

1:00:24

Python, professional people. So

1:00:24

again, I'm a dotnet person,

1:00:27

right is more of a JavaScript

1:00:27

person. And then we both get

1:00:30

together, we learn Python, which

1:00:30

has been really fun. So we've

1:00:33

been looking at building a lot

1:00:33

of cool things with Python.

1:00:36

We've been exploring different

1:00:36

Python web frameworks, we look

1:00:39

through flask and Django and

1:00:39

fast API. Bottle tornado. Again,

1:00:45

like all the cool Python things, we've kind of just been exploring those. How do you work

1:00:47

with databases with Python? Or

1:00:51

how do you call web API's with

1:00:51

Python? How do you build bots

1:00:54

with Python? Again, the cat is

1:00:54

just, you know, messing around

1:00:57

and exploring a lot of things.

1:00:57

Another thing too, you'll notice

1:01:00

about that stream, like Brian,

1:01:00

and I love to go on tangents. So

1:01:03

again, I'm warning you because when you come to the show, and we don't do code top to bottom,

1:01:05

don't get mad, like, we like to

1:01:08

go on tangents. Because I was I

1:01:08

was, again, because it's about

1:01:12

people at the end of the day, and I think it's important that we have the conversation. And

1:01:13

sometimes we have new folks that

1:01:16

come in, and they're like, oh,

1:01:16

okay, how do you do? priority

1:01:21

planning? Like, how do you determine like, what we're going to do first, right, or stuff

1:01:23

like, you know, oh, how do you

1:01:27

like what's what's, what's type

1:01:27

hinting in Python? And then we

1:01:31

got, you know, we go on a little

1:01:31

bit of a tangent, or what's

1:01:33

Docker, you know, how do I

1:01:33

install, like, the VS code

1:01:36

thing, or whatever. And then we

1:01:36

kind of go on tangents. And, you

1:01:39

know, we want to make sure that

1:01:39

whoever comes to the show,

1:01:41

understands what it is by the

1:01:41

time that they leave. So I know

1:01:45

that might be frustrating for

1:01:45

some of the more advanced folks,

1:01:47

I'm sorry. But you know, again,

1:01:47

we definitely want to make sure

1:01:51

that people are comfortable and

1:01:51

understand, hey, even though you

1:01:54

might be coming from a

1:01:54

perspective of I'm a new

1:01:57

developer, or maybe you're, you

1:01:57

know, super duper c++ person and

1:02:02

you want to learn Python, like

1:02:02

we want to make sure that

1:02:04

everyone understands what's

1:02:04

happening. Love it,

1:02:07

let's say

1:02:07

printing in Python. Yeah,

1:02:10

Python. So yeah, so we are out

1:02:10

of time, but sessile Thank you

1:02:15

so much. Thanks so much for

1:02:15

tuning in to eight bits this

1:02:19

week. Do make sure to check out

1:02:19

his sessile his podcast away

1:02:22

from the keyboard Comm. You can

1:02:22

see him on the on dotnet show on

1:02:26

Channel Nine. And also he can

1:02:26

catch up on Twitch doing pie

1:02:29

weekly. sessile Thank you so

1:02:29

much, Christopher. Thank you as

1:02:34

well for coming on as the guest

1:02:34

host and we will see you next

1:02:38

week. Thanks everybody.

1:02:38

Appreciate it.