Saša Jurić on Training

Elixir Wizards

Saša Jurić is a household name in the Elixir and Erlang space and we are so glad to finally welcome him on to the show today! Author of Elixir in Action, Saša is here to discuss training and his thoughts on getting a team up to speed with regards to testing and beyond. We hear from our guest about his discovery of Elixir, his uncharacteristic early adoption of the language, and why he chose it. From there, Saša talks a bit about his book, the opportunity that arose for him to write it after Manning approached him and how he views its place among other prominent pieces of literature on the subject. We discuss early steps in the process of learning Elixir for new programmers and old, and Saša weighs in on when it might be a good idea to put in the effort. We also get to hear about very big things, where Saša works and the central work and services of the agency. The last part of our conversation is spent on more technical aspects of Saša's work, his approach to coding in general and then approaches to testing and the training side of this. Join us today for this great conversation!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Saša's discovery of Elixir and his first experiences of the language.
• A lucky opportunity to write a book that presented itself to Saša!
• The complementary nature of Elixir in Action; reading it in conjunction with other books.
  
• Ideas on how to introduce the concepts of Elixir to new programmers and the unfamiliar.
• The effort needed in order to understand and adopt the new paradigm of Elixir.
• Saša's work at very big things and the services that the agency offers.
• The most useful idioms that Saša uses and the modes of operation at that agency.
• Saša's use of Dialyzer for debugging despite its imperfections.
• The exploratory nature of good coding and finding solutions as you go.
• Helper libraries and comparing functions from Saša's own one!
• Training for unit, feature and integration testing; Saša's approach for his team.
• Differentiating between the different types of testing and the importance of naming.
• Clarifying Saša's philosophy on testing and his understanding of the term 'unit'.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Saša Jurić on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sasajuric
The Erlangerist — https://www.theerlangelist.com/
Elixir in Action — https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-second-edition?query=sa%C5%A1a - use special code podexwizards20 for 40% off your purchase at Manning Publications!
Michael Stevens — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstephens2
Manning — https://www.manning.com/
Programming Elixir — https://pragprog.com/book/elixir16/programming-elixir-1-6
Learn Functional Programming with Elixir — https://pragprog.com/book/cdc-elixir/learn-functional-programming-with-elixir
very big things — https://verybigthings.com/
Dialyzer — https://hexdocs.pm/dialyzex/Mix.Tasks.Dialyzer.html
Hackers & Painters — http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596006624.do
Paul Graham — http://www.paulgraham.com/
Justin Searls Blog - https://blog.testdouble.com/
Marie Kondo — https://konmari.com/

Special Guest: Saša Jurić.