In this episode, Drew and I talk about job interviews, static and dynamic languages and a little of everything career-related.

Most developers don't write, and most don't need much theory. Universities don't want to teach you to shovel. The very best heads-down developer in the world is still one you've never heard of. Having a balance of seniority on a team makes a better team. Writing is important: a good StackOverflow answer can save a lot of minutes.

Swizec and I talk about his theory-heavy education in Slovenia and how extremely useful it's been to him. We also talk about educational overengineering, automata theory, why NoSQL is usually a mistake and whether online education has jumped the shark.

Alain and I talk about the old days; about jumping into a first job in PHP because Commodore 64 coding was probably close enough; about how, to be really great on a development team you can skip most of the university education, but learning sport should probably be mandatory..

Jake and I talk about basically just getting lucky... And also about mastery and understanding the fundamentals of computer science. We talk about university and how it works well for some things (theory, longer-term understanding) and poorly for others (basic how-to-build understanding.) We also talk about the semi-lost art of whiteboard interviewing and how to prep for it if you have way too much time on your hands. And the idea that there are only so many approaches to problems in the world. And maybe a bit about how much better it would be to be a coding recluse in a cave in Norway.

Mike, of course, is most famous in the Ruby community for Sidekiq. Outside Ruby, you're more likely to know him for Faktory. Mike and I talk a lot about his education in and out of university and how it's served him. We also talk about how that's changed over the years as his career has continued..

Tyler Williams talks about what made his education good. He's actually going back after years of development to finish his degree and get a master's degree. Not everything was perfect, not everything was good, but he thinks there are parts you can't easily replace in a formal education.

Jason Swett and I talk about his education as a programmer and the classes he took in university. I also explain big-O notation in a simple way that (Jason thinks) is useful, and we wander onto topics like philosophy, as Jason and I tend to…