Amos King on MUDs, Architecture, Domain-driven design, and Military Bases

Today’s guest is Amos King, Principal CEO at Binary Noggin, and host on the Elixir Outlaws and This Agile Life podcasts. This episode is centered around a casual conversation about everything from programming, the military, sarcasm, and puns to systems and application architecture, domain-driven design, and bitmasks. Amos shares with us how he got into programming, after wanting to be a doctor or an engineer first, and tells us how he met Famous Amos. We talk about spectrum analyzers, Elixir resources, and MUDs, as well as type-first design and Haskell. Amos gives us his takes on domain-driven design, API, booleans, and enums, and even roasts his co-host Chris Keithley a little. Don’t miss this episode for everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the legendary Amos King (and a whole lot more)!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Amos explains what Adkron means, which is his gaming and social media handle.
• Where the name Elixir Outlaws for the podcast came from.
• How Amos got into programming as a career, after wanting to be a surgeon and an engineer.
• What Amos’s first opportunity as a programmer was, and how he met Wally Amos.
• Amos explains what a spectrum analyzer is, based on his experience in the military.
• Amos shares why Steve Bussey’s book, Real-Time Phoenix, is his favorite Elixir resource.
• Eric and Amos talk about the MUD engine that they worked on together.
• What systems and application architecture means to Amos and how it differs from design.
• What type-first design (TFD) is and Amos’s opinion on it as a thought exercise.
• Amos talks about Haskell programming and domain-driven design.
• Relating domain-driven design to a car dealership to describe types and terminology.
• Amos talks a bit about his company and what they do.
• Justus, Eric, and Amos debate the term “architect” and what it actually means.
• Amos shares his take on API architecture, booleans, enums, and bitmasks.
• Amos gives his hot take on his co-host Chris Keithley.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Amos King on Twitter — https://twitter.com/adkron
Elixir Outlaws Podcast — https://elixiroutlaws.com/
Wally Amos — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Amos
Windows 3.0 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.0
Real-Time Phoenix on Pragmatic Bookshelf — https://pragprog.com/book/sbsockets/real-time-phoenix
Elixir School — https://elixirschool.com/en/
Elixir Inaction — https://twitter.com/gausby/status/986550202248187904
This Agile Life Podcast — https://www.thisagilelife.com/
Screen — https://screen.so/#/home
Haskell Book — https://haskellbook.com/
Binary Noggin Website — https://binarynoggin.com/
Binary Noggin on Twitter — https://twitter.com/BinaryNoggin
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Justus Eapen on Twitter — https://twitter.com/justuseapen
Eric Oestrich — https://oestrich.org/
Kalevala — https://github.com/oestrich/kalevala
Eric Oestrich on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ericoestrich
Eric Oestrich on GitHub — https://github.com/oestrich

Special Guest: Amos King.