The [REFACTORED] Podcast

A casual, ongoing conversation between two technology leaders with Chris Tonkinson and Frank Koehl.

Technology

React.js, SCSS, Big-O, Kubernetes, TLS.
The guys have cut and run CAT5 through
plenum, built and racked servers, found
SQL Server performance bottlenecks, and
written a hell of a lot of good software.

Leadership

From Enterprise to small business, the
guys have managed and built teams for
years; serial entrepreneurs with strong
cross-functional acumen and a knack for
translating between "geek" and "human."

Shenanigans

Frank brings the energetic snark. Chris
brings the cranky optimism. Together,
they can barely get through a single show
without devolving into petty ad-hominem
attacks and, often, childish sound effects.

Recent Episodes


Refactored 150: "Octo-Kimono"

Wherein AWS gaslights Chris and Frank goes all Japanophile.

published Nov 1, 2024
Show Notes

  • Chris has been demoted! He explains how he fell from supreme executive to mere sea urchin.
  • Chris rants about AWS. Those unreliable, gaslighting sons of… well, he has a bit of a strong reaction to some recent challenges.
  • Frank corroborates: Digial Ocean (as a proxy for one of a dozen different great services) offer what 98% of businesses actually need at a fraction of the headache.
  • Apple: steadily declining in a super reliable way. So that’s… good? lmao
  • Dude, do you know where salutes and handshakes came from? Frank does.
  • … and much more!


Refactored 149: "WP Engine SHALL NOT Pass"

Wherein Chris is Thanos and Frank sees forks in our future.

published Oct 4, 2024
Show Notes

  • NIST SP 800-63B-4 is out, and Chris couldn’t be happier. They have now officially barred password rotations (along with some other super great updates)! Seriously, Chris is like, too excited by this.
  • Frank brings the story about the (now legal and very public) battle between WordPress and WP Engine. The guys debate some of the business and technical implications. Will there be A Forkening?
  • Frank predicts more nuanced, “open,” licenses in the future for business. Chris is skeptical.
  • … and much more!


Refactored 148: "DevOps: The Third Silo"

Wherein the guys think wheelwrights are making a comeback!

published Sep 27, 2024
Show Notes

  • The guys discuss the evolution of DevOps
    • Still a philosophy.
    • Still not a job title.
    • But also, now definitely a job title.
    • Danger zone: Did we just create a new silo? That would be… not great.
  • Why do people elect .NET for web dev? The guys are baffled.
  • Comment: “Serverless sounds cool in theory, but now we’ve got a thousand different functions running everywhere, and I have no clue how to monitor or debug half of them. Did we just trade one set of problems for another?”
  • Comment: “I’ve been managing a dev team for a while, but now everyone wants to use AI tools to ‘help code faster.’ How do I keep productivity up without turning my team into a bunch of over-reliant AI button-pushers?”
  • … and much more!


View the full show archives

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