In a world of short-form content, it’s important to engage with long-form ideas. Book Overflow is a podcast created for software engineers, by software engineers to discuss the best technical books in the world. Join co-hosts Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups each week as they discuss a new technical book! New episodes every Monday!
The podcast Book Overflow is created by Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Rebecca Parsons joins Carter and Nathan to discuss her book Building Evolutionary Architectures. Join them as Rebecca shares her thoughts on the benefits of abstractions, how the computer science industry has changed during her tenure, and how her academic work on genetic algorithms influenced the book!
-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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Building Evolutionary Architectures
https://amzn.to/4eoXWuX (Paid Link)
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com
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Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss Part Two of The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim. Written in the style of a novel, join them as they discuss the protagonist Maxine's journey of transforming the failing Phoenix Project from a big ball of mud into an agile, efficient architecture!
-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
----------------------------------------------------------
The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim
https://amzn.to/3XJFg2u (paid link)
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com
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Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Martin Fowler joins Carter and Nathan to discuss his book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. Join them as Martin shares why he wrote Refactoring, how the art of refactoring has changed, and how he views the book's legacy!https://martinfowler.com/-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.----------------------------------------------------------Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler and Kent Beckhttps://amzn.to/4enmuox (paid link)The Art of Agile Development, 2nd Edition by James Shore and Shane Wardenhttps://amzn.to/47TiM3D (paid link)Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment by Anthony Lewishttps://amzn.to/3zJ3K3O (paid link)----------------00:00 Intro01:58 Motivation for writing the book09:45 Refactoring, Extreme Programming, and testing19:17 Estimating, Unknowns, and Complexity23:40 Trust and High Performing Teams30:32 refactoring in the wild: imitate, assimilate, innovate, best practices and sensible defaults43:39 Legacy of the book and rational for second edition47:35 What are the role of books now? Evergreen content, Long-form content in a world of short-form content.01:03:21 Book Recommendations01:09:12 Closing Thoughts----------------Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5LApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpodCarter on X: https://x.com/cartermorganNathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com----------------Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss the part one of The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim. Written in the style of a novel, join them as they discuss the protagonist Maxine's journey of being assigned to a failing project, working within a maddening bureaucracy, fighting for easy local development!
-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
----------------------------------------------------------
The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim
https://amzn.to/3XJFg2u (paid link)
----------------
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
Nathan's Functionally Imperative: www.functionallyimperative.com
----------------
Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss the second half of Slow Productivty by MIT-educated computer scientist and productivity expert Cal Newport. Join them as they discuss what it means to work at a natural pace, how to obsess over quality, and the useful tactics Cal Newport recommends to do both!
-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
----------------------------------------------------------
Slow Produtivity by Cal Newport
https://amzn.to/3B6cscM (paid link)
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
----------------
Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups are joined by Neal Ford as he reflects on his book Building Evolutionary Architectures. Join them as they discuss the inspiration for the book, the process of writing it with three other co-authors, and how Neal envisions the future of software architecture!
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter and Nathan discuss Slow Productivty by MIT-educated computer scientist and productivity expert Cal Newport. Join them as they discuss how to avoid burnout, how to balance ambition with stamina, and useful productivity hacks Cal Newport recommends!
-- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
To see a full list of books mentioned in the episode, check the YouTube video description at https://youtu.be/MMzbez42oPg
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Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325
X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan
----------------
Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Adrienne Braganza joins Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups to reflect on her book, "Looks Good To Me." Join them as they discuss what motivated her to learn so much about code reviews, the process of becoming an author, and what motivated her to become a software engineer in the first place! -- Books Mentioned in this Episode -- Note: As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. ---------------------------------------------------------- Looks Good To Me by Adrienne Braganza https://amzn.to/3AZHTFz Working Effectively With Legacy Code by Michael C. Feathers https://amzn.to/3Xox8UJ You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader by Mark Sanborn https://amzn.to/3AUWamU Della Fattoria Bread: 63 Foolproof Recipes for Yeasted, Enriched & Naturally Leavened Breads by Kathleen Weber https://amzn.to/4e54QpK The Best Simple Recipes: More Than 200 Flavorful, Foolproof Recipes That Cook in 30 Minutes or Less by America's Test Kitchen https://amzn.to/4efcE8t ---------------- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5kj6DLCEWR5nHShlSYJI5L Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-overflow/id1745257325 X: https://x.com/bookoverflowpod Carter on X: https://x.com/cartermorgan ---------------- Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Looks Good To Me" by Adrienne Braganza. Join them as they discuss what makes a bad code review, pair programming, AI automation, and more!
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups sit down with Stephen Wolfram to discuss his book What Is ChatGPT Doing... And Why Does It Work? Tune in as he discusses his initial experiments with OpenAI, how his early work in particle physics influenced his current work with LLMs, and his thoughts on if ChatGPT is truly intelligent! -- Books Mentioned in this Episode --
For a list of books mentioned in this episode, see the episode description at https://youtu.be/Aw7_CBczUD4 ----------------
Original discussion of the book: https://youtu.be/4gyi9UDSzw4
---------------- https://www.x.com/bookoverflowpod Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan toups discuss "Looks Good To Me" by Adrienne Braganza. Join them as they discuss everything about code reviews, including automation, team procedures, and more!
Carter on For Your Amusement: https://youtu.be/rhdyrTXbvlg?si=9csVUrBEWonG40VY
To get links to the books mentioned in this episode, check the YouTube episode description at https://youtu.be/8B4_hl2dcow
00:00 Intro
04:30 About the Book
07:04 General Thoughts on the Book
12:49 A high-level overview of code reviews
16:14 Learning together, knowledge-sharing, Jargon, Process, and Automation
27:00 Keys to Effective Code Review Process, Roles, and Expectations
46:07 Tools, Platforms, and Patterns Standards for Code Reviews
01:03:46 Closing Thoughts
Tools and technology mentioned in the episode:
- Phabricator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phabricator
- Phorge (successor to Phabricator) https://we.phorge.it/
- Gerrit https://www.gerritcodereview.com/
- Conventional Commits https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/
- Github https://github.com/
- Semantic Versioning (SEMVER) https://semver.org/
Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week!
The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Carl Brown (of the YouTube channel Internet of Bugs) joins Carter and Nathan to share some of his favorite books! Carl is incredibly well read and shares which books have influenced him over his very impressive 35 year career.
To get links to the books mentioned in this episode, check the YouTube episode description at https://youtu.be/GL0EE_cv9T0
00:00 Intro 02:17 How did Internet of Bugs come to be? 06:03 Why still read tech books? 08:32 Mythical Man-Month 14:40 Philosophy of Software Design, TCL/TK, 25:56 Advanced Programming in Unix and TCP/IP Illustrated 32:32 How important is it to be well-versed in Unix? 42:27 Freelance, Business, and Consulting book recommendations 52:57 Lightning Round: Managing your programming career, philosophy, and general advice 01:02:34 Final Thoughts
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Building Evolutionary Architectures" by Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, Patrick Kua, and Pramod Sadalage. Join them as they discuss how to evolve your data schema, modern DevOps practices, and common architectural pitfalls and antipatterns.
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups sit down with Scott Tolinski, the host of the web development podcast Syntax. Join the three of them as they discuss Scott's favorite books, his career as a developer, and what you can learn by being a voracious reader!
Links to all the books discussed in the episode can be found in the YouTube episode description: https://youtu.be/kJs9pVy94jM
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan toups discuss "Building Evolutionary Architecture" by Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, Patrick Kua, and Pramod Sadalage. Join them as they discuss how the approaches to designing software architecture have changed over the years, the purpose of fitness functions, and how trying to re-use code can backfire!
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups interview Apple Design Award Winner Devin Davies! Devin won the Apple Design Award for his recipe app Crouton, which was featured prominently by the Wall Street Journal for its creative use of the visionOS platform. In keeping with the podcast theme of continuous education, Devin tells the story of how he started Crouton, what he needed to learn to create it, and how he learned it.
This episode is a little outside of our usual fare, so please let us know in the comments if you'd like more of them!
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better" by Jennifer Pahlka. This book was personally recommended by Brian Kernighan and is about what processes and cultures make government technology so woefully inadequate. Join Carter and Nathan as they discuss agile vs. waterfall, the importance of a good business culture, and possible infringements on civil liberties!
In this very special episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups are joined by the prolific Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin to discuss his book "Clean Coder." Join them as Uncle Bob talks about his thoughts on the "flow zone," humility, and what coding has to do with flying an airplane!
Links to all the books mentioned in the episode can be found in the YouTube episode description: https://youtu.be/wf68VDObVX0
00:00 Intro 03:29 Motivation for writing Clean Coder 06:00 Learning from Life Experiences 09:39 Professionalism and the Challenger Story 17:14 Pros and Cons of Flow State (The Zone) 21:10 Learning from your mistakes 24:11 Sobriety (and a story of getting drunk at a party) 30:17 Timeless advice, Professionalism, and saying No 35:39 Blameless Postmortems and taking responsibility 40:03 Agency, Control, Situational Awareness and Culture 43:58 Unconventional career paths and creativity 53:00 Layers of Abstraction 56:16 Thoughts on AI and LLMs 01:00:58 Book Recommendations 01:06:49 Closing Thoughts
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups finish up their discussion of "Web Scalability for Startup Engineers" by Artur Ejsmont. Join them as they discuss caching strategies, async messaging, and managing burnout in your career! Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://www.bookoverflow.io
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Michael Feathers joins Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups to reflect on his book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code." Join them as they discuss the pros and cons of TDD, the dangers of AI hallucination, and why Michael became a software engineer!
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Web Scalability for Startup Engineers" by Artur Ejsmont. Join them as they discuss how to build a stateless front-end, the benefits of microservices, and the differences between SQL and NoSQL!
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Dr. John Ousterhout joins Carter and Nathan to discuss his book "A Philosophy of Software Design." He reflects on why he wrote the book, how he teaches the principles in it to his Stanford students, and what we can learn from our mistakes.
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00:00 Intro
01:18 Motivation for writing this book
06:17 Why No TAs for Stanford Class
08:55 Thoughts on TDD
14:24 Design it Twice
20:30 Most Surprising Feedback
31:46 Taking suggestions with a grain of salt
33:20 Curiosity and Humility
36:13 Misunderstandings from the book
39:37 Strong opinions, humility, and fear of being wrong
44:35 Unconventional Career Paths
50:13 What are you reading?
51:22 Thoughts on Clean Code
53:50 Advice for new software engineers
58:00 Closing Thoughts
In this episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss the second half of "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers. Join them as they discuss how to keep up a good attitude while working on legacy code, how to get started when you're intimidated, and some of the legacy and greenfield projects they've worked on in their careers! ------------ Book Overflow is a podcast for software engineers, by software engineers dedicated to improving our craft by reading the best technical books in the world. Join Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups as they read and discuss a new technical book each week! The full book schedule and links to every major podcast player can be found at https://bookoverflow.io https://x.com/bookoverflowpod
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Neal Ford joins the podcast to reflect on his book "Fundamentals of Software Architecture!" Join Carter and Nathan as they discuss the challenges of compromising with the business, what shifts AI is bringing to the software architecture world, and what sci-fi Neal's been reading lately!
Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups read and discuss the first half of "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers. Join them as they reflect on dependency inversion, the importance of interfaces, and continue their never-ending debate on the pros and cons of Test-Driven Development!
(The audio gets a little de-synced in the last three minutes. Carter isn't talking over Nathan on purpose!)
Chapter markers:
00:00 Intro
04:51 Thoughts on the book
10:54 Defining Legacy Code
21:53 Quick Break: Pull Requests
22:38 How to change software
44:30 Quick Break: CI/CD
45:15 Testing Legacy Code
1:15:10 Quick Break: Linting
1:16:01 Closing Thoughts
In this very special episode of Book Overflow, Dr. Brian Kernighan, the author of "The Practice of Programming" joins us to discuss his experience writing the book! Tune in as he talks about his experience at Bell Labs, what it was like co-authoring the book with Rob Pike, his thoughts on LLMs and the future of programming, and more!
00:00 - Intro
02:38 - Why write this book?
12:23 - Working at Bell Labs
16:29 - Life Learning Process
22:33 - What motivates you to write a book?
28:13 - AI and LLMs
35:48 - Layers of Abstraction
37:50 - What excites you about the future?
41:34 - Programmatic Thinking in Humanities
50:13 - Favorite Books
57:39 - Closing Thoughts
This week Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups finished reading "Fundamentals of Software Architecture" by Mark Richards and Neal Ford. They provide an overview of their favorite architectures from the book as well as discuss the importance of soft skills in selling your technical vision!
This week Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups read the first half of "Fundamentals of Software Architecture" by Mark Richards and Neal Ford. They discuss what exactly software architecture is, how everything is a trade-off, and how we can keep our architectural skills sharp as software engineers. You don't want to miss this great discussion!
Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss Stephen Wolfram's excellent primer on ChatGPT! An incredibly dense work, they briefly summarize its key takeaways, talk about whether or ChatGPT is truly intelligent, and reflect on how their views of the current AI landscape have changed after reading this book. Enjoy!
Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code" by Martin Fowler. Join them as they talk about the importance of automated testing when refactoring, how to play nice, and how refactoring can be justified as a business consideration!
Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "A Philosophy of Software Design" by John Ousterhout. Join them as they talk about pulling complexity downward, the importance of code clarity, and the book's subtle rebuttals to Uncle Bob's Clean Code!
In this inaugural episode of Book Overflow, Carter Morgan and Nathan Toups discuss "The Practice of Programming" by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike. Written in 1999, Carter and Nathan discuss its timeless advice around style guides, interfaces, and debugging, as well as reflecting on how the software engineering industry has changed in the 25 years since it's been written.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.