#97 Disney Data Scientist Eric Leung on Math, Medicine, and Learning to Code

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews James Q Quick. He's a developer, speaker, and teacher. James grew up in Memphis. He was an athlete who played violin, and knew nothing about computer science but chose it as his college major. Since then, he's not only worked as a dev at Microsoft, FedEx and many tech startups. And he's given more than 100 talks at conferences about technical topics. Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com. Support also comes from the 11,043 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate We talk about: - How coding a Harry Potter Trivia app launched James' developer career - Getting laid off then getting back onto the bike - How to go about getting a first developer job - How to make a name for yourself through conference talks and creating tutorials Links we talk about during our conversation: James's website: https://www.jamesqquick.com/ Jevon's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

13 Des 20241h 36min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Scott Tolinski. He's a developer who 14 years ago - after injuring himself breakdancing – decided to create a programming tutorial YouTube channel called LevelUpTuts. He is also co-host of Syntax, the most popular web dev podcast on the planet. Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at wixstudio.com. Support also comes from the 11,113 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and help our mission by going to donate.freecodecamp.org We talk about: - Scott's perspective on the state of web dev - His journey from video editing into full blown software development for agencies - What he's learned from recording 2,000 tutorials and 800 web dev podcasts - Productivity tips and how he's kept up this pace for 12 years without burning out Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 11,036 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during our conversation: - The Syntax podcast: https://syntax.fm/ - Scott's archive of more than 1,000 programming tutorials he taught on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@syntaxfm/videos - The Honeypot documentary about Scott (8 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9eh2iJsjxE

6 Des 20241h 41min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Eamonn Cottrell. He's a software engineer who also runs a local chain of coffee shops in Knoxville. Eamonn taught himself to code using freeCodeCamp. And he's since published 37 freeCodeCamp tutorials on productivity and automation using spreadsheets. Support for this podcast comes from a grant from Wix Studio. Wix Studio provides developers tools to rapidly build websites with everything out-of-the-box, then extend, replace, and break boundaries with code. Learn more at https://wixstudio.com Support also comes from the 11,113 kind folks who support freeCodeCamp through a monthly donation. Join these kind folks and get involved in our mission by going to https://donate.freecodecamp.org We talk about: - Eamonn's love of coffee and how he bought VHS tapes to learn latte art - How he finds time to expand his skills in between running coffee shops and ultra-marathoning - How he used spreadsheets to automate the logistics of running coffee shops - How he balances being a musician and writer with the practical realities of providing for a family of 6 Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate CORRECTION: Vincent van Gogh was supported by his younger brother – not his brother in-law. van Gogh never married so he never had a brother in law. I'm not sure why I thought that. Also, he seems to have sold more than one painting in his life (as many of us were taught in school), but nowhere near enough paintings to support himself as an artist. Links we talk about during our conversation: Eamonn's freeCodeCamp articles: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/author/sieis/ Eamonn's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@eamonncottrell Excel-based esports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2QC6VQXo8U Ultra Marathons: https://www.youtube.com/@runtired Got Sheet: https://www.gotsheet.xyz/ Progress and Perfection: https://www.progressandperfection.com/ Eamonn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eamonncottrell/ Eamonn on Twitter: https://x.com/EamonnCottrell

22 Nov 20241h 49min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tim Ruscica, the software engineer and prolific programming teacher behind the Tech with Tim YouTube channel. He's also developed courses on freeCodeCamp's YouTube channel. We talk about: - How Tim managed to get a $70k salary by hacking his way into a Microsoft internship when he was just 19 - How he learned computer architecture as a kid by playing Minecraft - Lessons he learned from a failed tech startup - Why he recommends Python as a first programming language. "It's the least overwhelming thing to get your hands dirty." Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 11,133 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during our conversation: - The classroom montage from Real Genius that Quincy mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1X4o-MV6o - One of Tim's mock coding interview videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q_oYDQ2whs - Tim's course: https://techwithtim.net/dev

15 Nov 20241h 40min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Yifan Mai, a Senior Software Engineer on Google's TensorFlow team who left the private sector to go do AI research at Stanford. He's the lead maintainer of the open source HELM project, where he benchmarks the performance of Large Language Models. We talk about: - Open Source VS Open Weights in LLMs - The Ragged Frontier of LLM use cases - AI impact on jobs and our predictions - What to learn so you can stay above the waterline Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? I put the entire cover song at the end of the podcast if you want to listen to it, and you can watch me play all the instruments on the YouTube version of this episode. Also, I want to thank the 10,993 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during our conversation: - Yifan's personal webpage: yifanmai.com  - HELM Leaderboards: https://crfm.stanford.edu/helm/  - HELM GitHub Repository: https://github.com/stanford-crfm/helm  - Stanford HAI Blog: https://crfm.stanford.edu/helm/

8 Nov 20241h 58min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Adam Stachoviac and Jerod Santo co-hosts of The Changelog – the longest-running software podcast in world. They interview devs about Open Source projects, and they also have a weekly news episode that I always listen to. 5 years ago, Quincy interviewed them for their 10th anniversary episode, and now he's back catching up on what they've been doing for the past 5 years. We talk about: - How open source is changing - Open data and open LLM models - Self-reliance and self-hosted infrastructure - The business of running a developer community Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during our conversation: - Honeypot episode Adam mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/557 - Steve Yegge episodes Quincy mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/549 - Open Source Civilization episode Jerod mentions: https://changelog.com/podcast/428

1 Nov 20241h 40min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Dorian Develops. He's a software engineer and prolific YouTube creator.  Dorian grew up in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. He's the child of a single mother that arrived as a refugee from Cuba. After a rough childhood and dropping out of high school in 9th grade, Dorian eventually made a living as a valet car parker in Las Vegas. It was here that he realized he needed to make changes for the sake of his family's future. Dorian taught himself to code using freeCodeCamp and other free learning resources, and has since gotten several 6-figure jobs as a web developer. We talk about: - How Dorian survived his 20s by waiting tables and parking cars in Las Vegas - How he taught himself to code using free learning resources and built his network through months of attending local developer meetups - How he's worked as a remote developer so he and his kids can travel the world - And how he's 1 year into his recovery from a lifetime of drug and alcohol addiction Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,993 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate Links we talk about during our conversation: - Vagabonding book by Rolf Potts: https://rolfpotts.com/books/vagabonding/ - A documentary on "Advantaged Play" in Blackjack that Quincy mentions. [Note: I don't gamble and I don't condone gambling. Still, this is still an excellent video that developers interested in information security should consider watching]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO6aPOkCt84 - A recent HTML tutorial by Dorian: https://youtu.be/sWYdumJckMw?si=nB8j5d9WQR5u5_Mb - Dorian's video about his journey to sobriety: https://youtu.be/pGoeG5aY3S0?si=aanGEowSfWd-runm - Dorian's video about his love of Brazillian Jujitsu but how it's left him with permanent injuries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHPG66H000

25 Okt 20242h 52min

On this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Tadas Petra. He's a software engineer and a Senior Developer Advocate at Agora.io. After learning embedded development in university, he switched to building mobile apps. He's gone on to build dozens of mobile apps and create tutorials to help other devs learn Flutter and other mobile dev tools. We talk about: - Immigrating to Chicago from Lithuania - The Computer Engineering he studied in school, and how it's different from building consumer mobile apps - His transition from Senior Dev to YouTube creator to Developer Advocacy - The overlap between mobile dev and web dev, and what he's learned from each Can you guess what song I'm playing in the intro? Also, I want to thank the 10,943 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate You can listen to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be sure to follow the freeCodeCamp Podcast there so you'll get new episodes each Friday. Links we talk about during our conversation: Tadas's History of freeCodeCamp video (20 minute watch): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5n1-hD-x5g Tadas's video about how to control the lights in your house with Flutter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eib_62D-kSA Tadas's course platform for learning cross platform app development with Flutter: https://www.hungrimind.com/

18 Okt 20241h 30min