Compiler

Software development teams often reach a crossroads. Should they perform maintenance and address bug issues, or add new features to satisfy users? The former isn’t as exciting, but sometimes the most important work is invisible to those who reap the benefits.
For now, the project has been released, and everyone wants to celebrate. But there’s an elephant in the room, one that teams can ignore—at least, for a while. This week on Compiler, we unpack the concept of technical debt, and wonder if there is a world where it doesn’t exist.

From button-mashing brawlers to massive battle royales, there’s a lot of fun to be had in online gaming. That is, if players’ connections are reliable. If you’ve ever dealt with input delay, or wrestled with lag, you know how important a quality connection is in online gaming. But with edge computing on the horizon, what impact might there be on how we play?
The internet, as we’ve explored in past seasons of Command Line Heroes, is a patchwork of international agreements and varying infrastructure. But there’s something coming to change the ways we connect. In this episode of Compiler, we explore what edge computing could mean for people who enjoy video games, and what this form of entertainment could teach us about the technology.

Interviewing for a job is often a stressful process. Most people don’t enjoy the inherent judgment involved. Being prepared helps—but what exactly are you preparing for? There isn’t a single interview process that covers the whole tech industry, not even for technical positions alone. But they do have elements in common.

Whiteboard exercises and verbal pseudocode help reveal basic coding ability. But that’s not the only point of those interviews. In this episode of Compiler, we learn about the hiring process from the perspective of applicants and the hiring managers who evaluate them—and the qualities beyond technical knowledge they take into consideration.

Becoming a manager can be a triumphant milestone of working life. It’s often a recognition of leadership and, in the tech industry, technical skill. Many argue those skills necessarily become casualties to the management track. But it’s hard to let go of your creative side to make room for managing others. Can they do both? Should managers code? It’s an old question that never seems to receive a clear answer.
From the Red Hat offices to the moons of Jupiter, Compiler explores why it’s such a complex issue. We spoke with Red Hatters who are vocal about what role, if any, managers have in the code base—and why they fight to keep their hands on keys for as long as they can.

Career paths are full of unexpected challenges. In the last installment of our career series, we hear how a little empathy and authenticity helped two budding IT professionals stay the course and find their calling.