Episode #28

Farther, further, faster

Ben Orenstein is joined by David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and a partner at 37signals. David and Ben discuss David's normal day, his working relationship with Jason Fried, how their blog, Signal vs. Noise, is important to the company, how he got into programming, where he draws his inspiration from, some good books he's read and how he learns today, how he overcomes fear and why he takes risks, how he got into racing, why he enjoys it, what he learns from it, and how feedback loops and goal posts help you learn, inspire you, and help you know how good you are. They then go on to explore what David would, or wouldn't, change about Rails, and how he sees Rails evolving into the future. David also talks a little bit about the new product 37signals has in development, and 37signals' overall product strategy, coding at 37signals and his approach to providing guidance to the team, what role he plays on Rails core, what he cares about, and what he pays attention to, and much, much more.

Notes & Links

• David's website
• Signal vs. Noise
• Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
• Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
• Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
• Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
• David Heinemeier Hansson's racing
• Sinatra
• Node.js

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