Ruby And Rails Practice: Mike Hall Interviews Giles Bowkett

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🚀 Dive into the world of Ruby and Rails with Giles Bowkett! 🌐 He shares his thoughts on respect in online communications and critiques a controversial post about RVM and RBEnv. 🤔 Learn how to maintain professionalism and foster better discussions. 🌟 Don't miss this! 🎥 #ruby #rails #programming #communication #respect #GilesBowkett #softwaredevelopment
The Interviewer

Mike Hall

Interviewer, UGtastic

The Guest

Giles Bowkett

ruby and rails practice

The Conversation

Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Hi, it's Mike again with UGtastic. Today I'm sitting down with Giles Boakit. Uh, you might know him on Twitter as Giles Goat Boy. He's been around, uh, in the Ruby community pretty much since, well, since there's been a Ruby community. He's a really active, uh, FOSS developer. He's done, um, written the book, um, Rails as she's spoken, and, uh, recently written on, very interesting blog post about respect in the community, about, uh, having a sense of decorum in our, in our communications with each other. Uh, thanks Giles for, for taking the time to sit down. I really appreciate it.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Sure, sure. Glad to be here.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
So, what, what inspired that post, and what was, what was the post about, again, just for those who haven't read it?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Uh, I think, I, I don't actually recall the exact title, but it was like a simple protocol to enforce or enable, uh, you are not your code, right? Which was that, that blog post that went around a little while, and it was a little unnecessarily controversial because of the context in which it was introduced, even though the, the essential idea of the blog post was, I think, very valid, that, you know, oh, sorry, go ahead.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
I was going to say that for those that don't know that you are not your code was about, some people not your code, severely criticized code. Uh, there was, you know, RVM versus RBNV, and then there was some comments about a person who had contributed some, some, I guess, master code.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah, yeah. Well, let, I, I, I want to give the back story then. Um, so the back story was that, uh, RVM was like the, you know, probably still is the dominant, uh, Ruby version manager, which is what it stands for. Mm-hmm. And, um, uh, Sam Stevenson, I think, somebody created a version called, uh, created a variant, a similar thing that worked differently, called RVMV, and, uh, introduced it with some snark in the readme, uh, which they then removed after there was sort of, like, a Twitter drama about it. Uh, and then, you know, you are not your code came, uh, as a blog post from Sam Stevenson, maybe, like, two days after he tweeted that, um, you know, he, he found it very frustrating that every time he talked about the differences between RVM and RVM, uh, people started talking about how they felt that Wayne Segwin, who created RVM, was a good guy, and they liked him, and they didn't want to be mean to him. And, you know, he, he wrote this big blog post about, you know, you are not your code. If I criticize your code, it doesn't mean I hate you, it just means, I want, I, I think this code should be different. And it was a totally valid point, but in context, it, it kind of just didn't, um, it didn't quite work, because when I read that, I, I didn't feel like, oh, wow, you know, he's saying this because he wants everyone to be more, you know, nice, it, it felt like he was just sort of evading the consequences of, I mean, if you, if you tell everybody my project exists because that other guy's project sucks.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
You know, it, it, it's just not, it, it, it, it, it's sort of, it's hard to, it's hard to spin that as you're, you know, like, yeah, it, it's hard to have a conversation at that point, you know? So what I said, you know, in my blog post was like, you know, if he had just, you know, said like, I'm sorry, I was a dick about the guy's project, but it happened a year ago. And I still believe that my project has some valid technical, uh, benefits. And I want to just put that part behind, you know, so I'm going to like, re-apologize. I don't know if he ever apologized in the first place, but hopefully, and just re-apologize to permanently, permanently clear the air, you know, that might be more productive. And, uh, during, during the course of this post, I referred to Mr. Stevenson as Mr. Stevenson, uh, because, you know, and I elaborated later in the post that I, I don't know him personally.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
I don't want to write a blog post about like, you know, the reason this is a problem is because this guy, Sam is a big douchebag, you know, because that's not going to solve anything. It's just more of the same.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
It's just more of the same. And I'm like, why not, uh, you know, say like, if you're going to criticize somebody's behavior online, uh, do them, you know, some, some sort of, uh, default respect showing, right. By referring to them as, you know, Mr. Stevenson, or if it was an argument with someone else, you know, Ms. someone else.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
And that way, you know, it really is like a communications protocol. And it's been around since the dawn of time. Right. You know, as I'm not really, but you know, for several hundred years at least.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
It makes me think of martial arts. Um, how the goal of martial arts is to get into a ring and beat the hell out of each other, but right. You start off like, you know, you respect that you're going to fight. And then there's certain, you know, you don't do this, you don't do that. Um, I mean, I think even in the MMA, they, they have certain things that are kind of, you know, do that because that's that poor decorum. Um, you know, that's it's a reminder that, yeah, we are sometimes we're in competition. My, you know, our, our, our ideas are something that we create and we want to put out there. And sometimes we don't like an idea and we would like our idea to be adopted. You know, I'm sure, uh, Mr. Stevens, uh, wanted his idea to be adopted and taken on as the, the, the primary goal.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Uh, sorry, just, uh, it's actually Stevenson, Mr. Stevenson.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Uh, but, and he has, by the way, just, you know, to say like, another reason I want to, you know, make sure that if I disagree with him, I still show respect is because he, I think he wrote prototype, uh, if I recall correctly, which, you know, very, very influential. He's been no slouch. Yeah, no slouch and, and pow as well, I think.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
But yeah, sorry, you were saying, I was just saying that, that, um, um, well, I was talking about the martial arts, uh, analogy, uh, but, and, and going back to what you're saying about, um, uh, when somebody says you are not your code, a lot of it is in the, the delivery and the demeanor of, of the person saying it. I think about, I interviewed, uh, Leon Gersing and, um, when he says you're not your code, it's very, man, it's okay. You're not your code. It's don't worry about it. That's what you were at that time when you wrote it. And it's great. You know, that's, let's just, you know, it's kind of, um, very, the dude ask. It's kind of Lebowski ask. Um, but, um, uh, and also think about another person who's contributed, uh, uh, um, Andy Lester who created ACK and some other tools, uh, mostly in the Pearl community. Uh, he, he, uh, it's awesome. Yeah. And ACK's, ACK was better than GREP. So, I mean, a little bit of like a little bit of tease, a little bit of a jab, all delivered in a very, um, uh, congenial, uh, jovial way. And when somebody came to me, when I interviewed him, he was talking about, uh, a person was creating a tool called better than ACK and they worried that he would be offended. And he's like, no, no, that's, I know. Right. It's a worthy goal. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Be better. But you know, that it was delivered with, in a way that could still be interpreted as, as humorous, but I think, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to go out on a limb here. And I'm going to say sometimes certain people, and it tends to be in the rails community, uh, that I've, I've noticed have a little bit of an acerbic way of, of delivering. I'm trying to say in the nicest way possible that they can be a little bit caustic in their opinions.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah, there is, there's a lot of that. And, uh, you know, it, it doesn't really take very much of it to get a whole atmosphere started. And once you have that atmosphere, uh, it kind of seems like, you know, you've got, well, it just, it, it takes the fun out of things, right? Like that, that, um, I don't know if it's anger or, you know, uh, just, just like a really harsh approach to time management or something. But when you, when you see that stuff, you know, sooner or later, you're going to have to call somebody on it. And, you know, it might not be fun to do. Yeah. Like in a, in an ideal world, it would all just be humor, uh, you know, but people don't like me to make, you know, if someone has a serious mentality, people don't like being made fun of. Right. Right. And like, when, you know, like when that, that acerbic vibe is introduced, you know, you might be able to diffuse the effects. Like, you know, I'll, I don't want to dance around the issue. One of the, um, major sources of, um, intense speech in the Rails community is, uh, the creator of Rails, David Heinemeyer Hansen. And, you know, if you want to criticize Mr. Heinemeyer Hansen, uh, there is the somewhat, um, obvious challenge that he is an amazing programmer. And, you know, I mean, I personally, my life was changed for the better by using his software, you know, by, by a staggering degree. And I've learned a great deal from, you know, from watching what he did and looking at his code and so on and so forth. Um, and I, I really feel that there has to be some way to prevent like a, you know, you've got in Ruby in general, you've got this notion of Matt's is nice, so we're nice. Uh, and if you can't have that as like a guiding thing, then maybe making sure to, to demonstrate respect for someone who you disagree with can kind of settle things down in another way. You know, like humor is a really good way of diffusing tension. Like, I, I made fun of, uh, Mr. Heinemeyer Hansen, uh, with a dramatic reading of Rails's omakase, which is a blog post he wrote. And I was like, you know, this will probably not do great things for my relationship with that particular individual. I, I doubt my respect for him in general is going to be readily apparent in my, you know, cause the reading is, uh, I, I exaggerated it and, and made it funny, I hope.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right. And, and certainly some people found it funny, which is what you hope for.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Uh, and in, in so doing, I, you know, I, I wouldn't necessarily say that I was hugely strategic about it, but I did kind of hope that to some degree, like by, by put, by making it funny, by making the Rails's omakase thing funny, hopefully that can act as like a, a, what do they call it? Like a fire break when you have like, uh, all the, all the area around a fire raised.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yes.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. And nothing can burn in that area.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. To prevent, to prevent the sort of, uh, the acerbic fury from spreading, you know, and like creating a whole toxic atmosphere. Was it a little bit of make fun of myself before anybody else can make fun of me for me?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Um, you know, you, you, you, by, by removing those, those, uh, that, um, layer of, of self seriousness and self, um, uh, self.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Yeah. By creating an atmosphere of fun. Yeah. And it, it tears it down. So that way it, nobody is, has to feel like they're approaching you. It just, you expose yourself and, and you put yourself out there and you've, you've made fun of yourself and you've exposed to weakness. Therefore you've made yourself a little bit more human, a little bit more vulnerable, where some people I think still want to have that, that wall between them and the world for whatever reason.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. And, and well, I worry about that a little because this whole idea of like, you know, mister this and miss that actually feels like a little bit of a wall. Um, so I don't know.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
I mean, it's the bowing, it's the, it's the, it's not within the martial arts, it's a sign of respect. You're not bowing. Um, I mean, you bow to the instructor at a deference, but to each other, to your peers, you bow not to that individual, uh, but to the environment that you're in. And respecting that you're in this environment and you're in this mode of thinking you're not, um, and that's one of the subtle things that it took me a long time. It's as much of a developer I've, as I've turned into a couch potato developer. Um, I have a background in, in martial arts in my youth, and it was one of the things that you, you learn to understand that it wasn't about, um, the person. It was about the, the actual interaction itself. You're respecting that you're in this ring, you're expecting you're in the dojo or the dojang, uh, for taekwondo. Um, and, and you, and you use these formal things. So that way you don't accidentally really get into a fight. I'm going to just, no worries. So I, I just, I just thought the, um, the, uh, yeah, yeah.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Cause you know why? I mean, that like, I, I haven't done a whole bunch of martial arts. I did do, uh, fencing and like a smidge into taekwondo when I was little.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Um, but, uh, I remember, you know, the, like the salute before the, the sword fighting and, you know, part of it was because you wanted it to be over once you got out of the ring. Right. And you didn't want it to be like some big thing. And I, I also, I don't know. I, I talked about it in the blog post that I got it from, uh, I went to this, uh, school for a year, which is where I also did the fencing. Uh, and it was actually a convention there that in classes, you know, you would, I mean, you would literally have, uh, you know, religious people and atheists discussing the Bible in this school.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right. Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
And there was a, a class of, uh, you know, it was about reading great books. And one of the great books is the freaking Bible. And this is like a, a really, you know, people, it can be a very personal thing.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Yeah.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
And in order, like, how do you create an atmosphere where people who just disagree about such an incredible fundamental thing can still learn from each other? Right. And, and one of those things is like, let's, let's show a baseline level of respect to, uh, you know, I, I don't know if it's going to catch on. Right. I don't know if I'm going to be able to say like, you know, two years from now, everybody's calling each other, you know, Mr. This and Ms. That.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
And, you know, you're going to bring, bring, you're bringing back the Victorian era is what you're going to do.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't know if that's really going to happen. We're going to have parasols and hoop skirts.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
And monocles, of course.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Right. Like that would be, you know, um, kind of a strange accomplishment. I'm not sure if it would be a good thing, you know, but like, yeah. And I'm not going to stop swearing. Right. Cause I swear all over the place. I'm kind of surprised I made it this far without, you know, without saying anything like that. But, uh, you know, frankly, like I even worry that it might be a situation where, you know, people who aren't writing Ruby or who write Ruby, but also write other languages might be like, what's going on with these people that they can't even talk to each other anymore. And they got to like, you know, I must put on my suit and refer to as Mr. This and you know, like it seems a little crazy.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Well, I, I think the Ruby developers have always been kind of the weirdos, uh, always doing.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. If it's going to be anything, it's going to be dramatic. Yeah. Well, I mean, and it is, it is a little bit of drama, right? It's like a little ritual, uh, you know, as opposed to just saying, Hey dude, you know, but like that seems to me is like one of the most acceptable, um, weirdness is one of the most, um, you know, non-destructive eccentricities you could possibly cultivate. Right. It's like, I am, you know, too nice to people. Right. That would be a great problem to have.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Well, and it, it is one of the things that I, I also didn't start off in a Ruby, uh, world. I came from Montana development, which was very, very corporate, very, very, um, formal, but in a different way.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Um, can I, can I just interrupt one? I know I talk a lot, but one thing I absolutely hate about corporate environments, fucking cannot stand is when people like, you know, I'm going to use my corporate position to tell you what to do. And I'm going to call you by your first name. But there's also this little atmosphere that if I'm like, you know, Mr. VP, right. Or whatever, or CEO guy, you can't call me by my first name.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right. Right. And power play.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah, it is. And it's like this business casual thing because technically you do know the CEO's first name, right? It's just like, you can't use it for some secret reason.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. You know?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
And I, I just feel like if you're going to be in a situation where, you know, I mean, basically in Rails' Omakase, you know, Mr. Heinemeyer Hansen pulled rank, right? He just said, it's my project. I'm going to do what I want. And the thing is, I can totally respect that. I can totally see myself making the same decision if it was my project, you know? And, you know, frankly, like the guy transformed my career, right? Transformed my experience as a developer, raised my standards forever as to what developing could be. You know, if he wants to say it's, it's my project, you know, tough. Okay. You know, but if you're, if you're going to pull rank, then maybe, you know, I mean, Mr. was at some point, probably a type of rank, right? There was like, Sir, Lord, Mr., you know? If you're a butler, you refer to, you know, like, okay, this is a massive tangent. But watching Batman movies, whenever there's a Batman story where Bruce Wayne is a kid, it makes me very, very angry because they always have Alfred referring to Bruce Wayne as, you know, Mr. Bruce, right? Or Master Wayne. Actually, they don't do that, but they should. Like, if you're a butler and you're speaking to your, like, you know, Lord's child, you refer to it as it. You refer to them as master, right? Even though they're a kid. When they grow up, they become Mr. This is a very strange thing, you know? It's a relic of the Victorian era. Yeah, I think that's, I don't think that master means. Could you edit that out?
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
No, no, no, no. We're going to keep it. It's just Batman movies and their historical inaccuracy. I don't know. That guy running around with a cape and the flying bat wing. It's so inaccurate.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Right, right, right. I accept the cape and the, like, you know, the spaceship that he just drives around New York in. But, you know, misusing Victorian era titles, you know, in their subtle differences.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Ooh.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
I'm sure even in the Victorian era, there was, there was always some little subtlety that, that would get somebody hung up on something. Literally hung up, probably.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. But, so, just, you know, kind of coming to a wrap, I want to actually go backwards in history a little bit. And you've, you've been involved in open source software. So, you have a perspective. So, when you're writing this blog post, you're not just coming out of the blue and saying, oh, I'm somebody who's been outside of this community and this is just what I see is going on here. I mean, you've been doing Ruby development since before Rails, right?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Uh, no, not quite. I mean, when you talk about, like, I wanted to interrupt earlier, but I didn't, because you said, like, doing Ruby development since the beginning. And if you look at someone like, I don't know, Opti Grimm or Jim Wyrick, right, they really were around before Rails. Uh, me, I, I was brought to Ruby by Rails technically in 2005, but we're talking, like, December 28th, 2005. So, really, 2006. But that was, like, a 0.something still around that. Yeah, it was, it was Rails 0.13. Um, and I did spend a bunch of time just, you know, on, you know, Ruby, uh, for its own sake. Um, because, you know, it's neat.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
And, you know, with, uh, and just speaking about languages, you were, uh, speaking about Archaeopteryx. Am I even close?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Um, no, that's absolutely completely correct.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay, great. And the, uh, that, that's written in all JavaScript, correct?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
No, I've ported it to JavaScript. It was written in Ruby. I did some tricks to make it act a little like JavaScript, though. Uh, I used Lambda all over the place, and I aliased L to Lambda. So, because you can do that with JavaScript. You can just put a function anywhere, and I wanted to do that. I didn't even realize it was, like, JavaScript-esque at the time that I was doing it. Uh, but then I ported it, uh, most of it, not all of it, to, to CoffeeScript. And I renamed it Clyde. Uh, because it's just one syllable.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
So Clyde Stubblefield?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Clyde Stubblefield. Yes.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yes. The Funky Drummer.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yes.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay, I think that's where I was trying to tie it into. I was, I was, I, I, I had brought this in the last second before we started the interview. Um, was, uh, the, was that you had talked about Archaeopteryx and Clyde, and I was just wondering, are you one of those people that is post-Ruby, or are you still doing Ruby?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Oh, no. Um, like, last year I did a ton of Ruby. All this year, like, I have, I've been, I'm still hacking some projects of my own. Um, but, you know, all this year is an entire month. Uh, right now, all I'm doing is, uh, writing and creating, like, videos and stuff like that. Um, but, you know, using Ruby and, you know, there's some Node.js in there, but, like, the Node.js music stuff is really more of a side project.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Uh, like, is that the Beat a Day?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Sorry?
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Are you doing a Beat a Day thing? A Beat a Day, like, are you creating, because I noticed on your site you had, uh, Today's Beats?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Oh, uh, no. So, like, I also have another thing called DJ Goat Boy, which is a Twitter account. Uh, and initially, I started that, like, 2009, I think, and the goal was to make a new beat every single day.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
And I got the idea for that, uh, from Courtney Gaskin, from ENTP. Um, and it was, it was a really good idea, and it made me much better at making music. Uh, but the majority of those are just made, you know, like, I have, like, a synthesizer, and actually, four, you know, or, or 3.5, or whatever. Actually, I don't, I don't know how many synthesizers I have, because where's my iPad? I got, like, like, four on here.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Yeah. On your, on your iPad?
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can buy, like, the iPad's amazing. You can get a synthesizer for, like, five dollars.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
For virtualization.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of them are really amazing, but, um, epic tangent. Point is, like, some of them I create, like, in the, you know, in the normal way that a person would create music, and then some of them I create with code, and I recently just got, uh, Clyde, uh, able to do bass lines as well as drums, and I don't use it as much as I use the, the typical tools, but I think once it's a little, uh, honed, because I kind of put it aside for a while. I was doing all kinds of other things for a while. Um, but I think it's actually really gonna be useful, because I was finding that the music that I was making was more exciting to listen to, uh, because when you, you know, you know how when you write code, and you are actually really understanding every little bit, because sometimes you write code, and you're like, uh, it worked, you know? And other times you know exactly what it's doing, and it does exactly what you expect, and you, you know, you have it under test, and you're very familiar with every little last piece.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Right.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
There is a wonderful feeling of clarity that you get in that situation, and I was having a little bit of that making music with code, whereas the normal way of making music, um, it either involves like actually just playing an instrument, in which case you do have that same feeling, or, um, using like a GUI, right? Like Ableton Live or, uh, Logic Pro, there are various programs, and using those programs, uh, you know, you're working through a GUI, and the GUI kind of introduces like a layer of distance, right? Because you've got, you know, uh, I know what I want the computer to do, and now I have to find out what metaphor that the user experience designers chose for that, uh, and it's really nice to, you know, just go straight to the code, and just be like, I want you to play this note at this moment, I want it to have this velocity, uh, and, you know, in upcoming episodes, there's going to be more stuff, blah, blah, blah, but, uh, it's very satisfying.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to, uh, sit down and chat. It's been really, uh, interesting.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
Thanks. Very, very glad to be here.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Thank you.
Giles Bowkett ruby and rails practice ▶ Speaking
I enjoyed it.
Mike Hall Interviewer, UGtastic ▶ Speaking
Thank you.