In short
Podcast Episode Notes: A New Era for the Changelog Podcast Universe
Episode Overview
- Podcast Title: The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
- Episode Title: A new era for the Changelog Podcast Universe (News)
- Release Context: Upcoming changes in 2025, discussions on significant industry topics, insights from experienced professionals.
Key Highlights
Changelog Changes for 2025
- Transition Focus:
- Starting January 2025, the Changelog team will concentrate on producing high-quality content exclusively for the Changelog podcast.
- Other shows (Go Time, JS Party, Ship It, Practical AI) will be discontinued but will have continuations and spin-offs.
- The decision aims to allow more room for experiments, explorations, and coding activities.
Critique of Stanford Study on Ghost Engineers
- Study Analysis:
- The previously featured Stanford study on ghost engineers was deemed flawed by community feedback.
- Criticisms included:
- Methodology issues: The study assessed code changes using an expert panel rather than direct code assessments.
- Lack of consideration for essential engineering tasks like collaboration and communication.
- The community's sentiment emphasized that writing code is a small part of an engineer's job, highlighting the importance of other responsibilities.
Introduction of Git Ingest
- Service Overview:
- Git Ingest is introduced as a tool that converts GitHub repositories into text-friendly codebase extracts.
- Use Case: It allows developers to input entire repositories into large language models (LLMs) for better context understanding.
Sponsored Segment
Kubernetes without Nodes
- Sponsored Content Summary:
- Fly.io presented a video discussing their managed Kubernetes service which operates without traditional nodes, utilizing virtual Kubelet.
- Viewers are encouraged to explore how pods are managed in this innovative setup.
Insights on Storing Event Times
- Expert Advice from Simon Willison:
- Emphasized the critical nature of accurately storing event times to avoid user confusion.
- Best practice suggested: Record the user's original intent regarding event timing rather than exclusively relying on UTC, which can cause future complications.
Common Mistakes for New Managers
- Insights from Matheus Lima:
- Transitioning from individual contributor to management can be challenging; Lima shares six common mistakes new managers often make:
- Reluctance to Delegate
- Missing Old Dopamine (the thrill of coding)
- Equating Team Size with Success
- Missing Engagement Level Mark
- Mismanaging Perception
- Giving in to Imposter Syndrome
- Lima aims to support and connect with fellow new managers encountering similar challenges.
Closing Remarks
- The episode wraps up with reminders about the newsletter, featuring various topics and links.
- Promises of upcoming interviews and deep dives into relevant industry topics, indicating a commitment to maintaining engaging content.
Additional Notes
- Community Engagement: Listeners are encouraged to provide feedback and leave reviews to support the podcast.
- Future Content Teasers: Mention of interviews with prominent figures in the tech community and discussions on innovative projects.
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For further engagement and to stay up-to-date, visit [Changelog.com/news](https://changelog.com/news).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28What up nerds? 44 million views this year. We're a morbidly curious bunch, aren't we? Okay, let's get into this week's news. A new era for the Changelog podcast universe. Let's start off with some literally Changelog news. Here's my co-host, Adam. Quote, we are kicking off 2025 with some big changes. Starting in January, we'll be focusing all of our efforts on producing the Changelog. news interviews and friends as the single best developer podcast experience in order to do this we're stopping production of go time jsparty ship it and practical ai but don't worry there's continuation and spinoffs in motion end quote this was a really hard decision to make but we needed to create space for experiments explorations and more coding we love all of our pods thankfully each one has a continuation story.
1:29Oh, and CPU.fm is coming soon. Ghost engineers, more like ghost researchers. It appears the Stanford study about ghost engineers that I chose to headline episode 122 wasn't worthy of our coverage. A few of our community members pointed that out in our discussion thread and Amelia posted on Macedon summarizing many of its issues. Quote, what flawed methodology did this study use? It assessed code changes made by these engineers not by lines of code change, but by simulating a panel of 10 experts to evaluate each commit. This fatally flawed study does not account for management and planning, research to unblock work, collaboration with other staff, or helping other staff.
2:14Once again, actually writing code is a small part of a software engineer's actual job. That's like assessing structural engineers on the basis of calculations done, clown emoji. A lot of time is spent in communications, planning, and helping others. Honestly, a shame that a prominent software engineering podcast would actually run with this drivel. End quote. Sorry about that, y 'all. I do my best to only bring you links of interest and value, but sometimes I miss that mark. Git ingest produces prompt-friendly extracts. Git ingest is a simple service that turns any GitHub repo into a simple text ingest of its code base.
2:52Now, why would you want that? Because then you can easily feed the entire repo into any LLM as context. If you're currently looking at a GitHub repo, just convert hub in the URL to ingest and bam, a prompt friendly extract ready for download or copy paste. It's now time for sponsored news. Kubernetes without nodes on fly.io. Annie Sexton is back on fly's YouTube channel, talking about how they're doing Kubernetes without nodes. Spoiler alert, they use virtual Kubelet to manage your cluster, but how they do it is worth the price of watching. Quote, with Fly's managed Kubernetes service, we don't run Kubelet because there are no nodes.
3:37End quote. So where do you put the pods, Annie? Find out for yourself. Link to that video is in the chapter data and our companion newsletter. And thanks once again to Fly for sponsoring ChangeLog News. Storing times for human events Simon Willison dishes out some hard-earned wisdom he acquired by working at Lanyard and Eventbrite Two websites that have to deal with storing the time that an event is happening Quote, an event happens on a date at a time The precise details of that time are very important If you tell people to show up to your event at 7pm And it turns out they should have arrived at 6pm They'll miss an hour of the event Some of the worst bugs an events website can have are the ones that result in human beings traveling to a place at a time and finding that the event they came for is not happening at the time they expected.
4:30So, how do you store the time of an event? End quote. Simon points out that the best practice of storing events in UTC breaks down for future events because time zones and locations and user errors and international political shenanigans. His suggestion, quote, My strong recommendation here is that the most important thing to record is the original user's intent. If they said the event is happening at 6 p.m., store that. Make sure that when they go to edit their event later, they see the same editable time that they entered when they first created it. Mistakes you're going to make as a new manager.
5:09Mateos Lima knows that moving from an individual contributor to a manager is a significant career step that many engineers will make, just like he did. Quote, reflecting on my first couple years as an engineering manager, I realized that the lessons I learned are not unique to me. Many new managers face similar experiences. That's why I want to share these insights with you. My goal is to support and connect with other new managers who are going through this exciting yet demanding transition. Here's my summary of his six mistakes you're likely to make. One, reluctance to delegate. Two, missing your old dopamine.
5:47Three, equating team size with success. Four, missing the engagement level mark. Five, miss managing perception. And six, giving in to imposter syndrome. Read Mateos' blog post for the details. That's the news for now.
6:08attention, such as a first look at S3 Iceberg Tables, self-guaranteed promises, grifters, believers, grinders, and coasters, and of course, our award-worthy unordered list of other awesome links. Get in on that newsletter at changelog.com slash news. In case you missed it, last week I interviewed Akon from Hack Club about their cool new High Seas Initiative. And we had the Shop Talk guys, that's Chris Coyer and Dave Rupert, on ChangeLog and Friends. Scroll back in your feed to find those. And coming up this week, we have a Founders Talk style deep dive with Fly2IO founder Kurt Mackey and Kaizen17.
6:52Yes, Gerhard Lazoo returns. And we talk a lot about CPU.fm plus plus Gerhardt's big surprise. Have a great week. Leave us a five-star review if you dig our work, and I'll talk to you again real soon.
From the publisher
We're making some big Changelog changes in 2025, the previously featured Stanford study on ghost engineers doesn't live up to the hype, Git ingest is a simple service that turns any GitHub repository into a simple text ingest of its codebase, Simon Willison dishes out some hard-earned wisdom he acquired by working at Lanyrd / Eventbrite & Matheus Lima warns us about six mistakes that new managers make.

