I sat in for Richard on this week’s episode of the Technically Correct Podcast.

Other than sounding completely uncultured next to a couple of lovely British chaps, it was fun. After a bit of background about myself, we discussed the Amazon Fire Phone, how messed up our respective governments are, and more.

My co-host Marco has written about the genesis of our podcast in two great posts in the last week. His first posits that podcast networks are not necessary for exposure and to gain listeners. His second doubles down on this, contrasting with one of the networks we respect most: 5by5.

I’m mostly calling attention to these posts because Marco discusses some of the history and motivations behind both ATP and our retired show Neutral.

In his posts, something Marco keeps talking about is that networks aren’t necessary. I tend to agree; we’ve made it work without a network since the first episode of Neutral. This, understandably, is met with a lot of skepticism from those who aren’t as well known as John and Marco were in 2013 when Neutral started. These people seem to immediately attribute ATP’s success to their prior fame.

We can all agree that the fame we they had made it easier for ATP to get recognized. But, as Marco said, it didn’t much help for Neutral. Our first episode received around 10,000 downloads. That’s probably directly attributable to Marco and John’s fame. However, as Marco noted, the last regular episode got around 1,000 downloads.

Having an established audience is having a head start in a race. It makes it easier at the beginning, but you have to work to keep going. On our shows, we have to re-earn our audience every episode. Our audience pays us with the ultimate currency: time. If we waste our audience’s time, they’ll stop paying us. It’s as simple as that.

This has worked well for ATP. It didn’t for Neutral.

A great example of why a podcast network isn’t necessary is _David Smith’s wonderful podcast Developing Perspective. Dave has never been a part of a network. He had some modicum of fame when it was launched, but certainly considerably less than he does today. However, he plugged himself into the community, consistently produced great content, and was patient. Over time, that great content found its way into the light. As Dave slowly grew his audience, he occasionally caught the attention of someone like Marco. In talking to Dave, he told me links to Developing Perspective, and mentions on other shows such as Marco’s Build & Analyze, would nearly double his audience. Now, thanks to Dave’s hard work, and occasional links from his friend/peer “networks”, Dave measures downloads in thousands instead of hundreds.

Why?

Because it’s a damned good show. One that you should listen to as well, if you like ATP.

Being a part of a network can, sometimes, be a boost to get you noticed more quickly. The same can be said for having an audience before you start a podcast. Neither are requisite.

This week I joined Moisés Chiullan and Christina Warren on Moisés’ podcast about customer service, Thank You for Calling. In our episode, we discussed our mutual stint working at three video gaming stores in the late 1990s. It was a lot of fun to relive a bunch of old memories that I haven’t thought about in well over a decade.

We spent so long talking that Moisés split our discussion into two parts. Part two will be released soon; I’ll update this post when it’s out.

UPDATED 28 June 2014 4:45 PM: The second part is out now and available for download.

Today is Erin’s last day of work for the foreseeable future. She teaches high school biology.

I’ve asked — even begged — her to quit for years now. She works easily three times harder than I do for one third the salary. I’ve been asking her to quit for at least two or three years. “Just stay at home and get fat; I don’t care. Just don’t go back. It’s not worth the stress.”

I uttered those words to her nearly daily. (Note to self: perhaps there are better ways to be supportive.)

As it turns out, Erin has finally taken my advice. She is getting “fat” now, and we’ve decided that she should take a year leave of absence in order to be home with 🌱 when he or she arrives. I will surely beg Erin not to go back after next year, but we’ll see what happens. Nevertheless, she and I both are facing the real possibility that today is her last day of work for, at the least, several years.

(I’ve been telling her she’s “retiring” at 30. That joke is funny until 🌱 arrives and I realize she’s trading one impossibly hard job for another.)

Today, naturally, has brought an avalanche of emotion for Erin. While I do believe she’s ready to be done for a while, both of us can’t help but be nostalgic. Erin has been teaching for eight years, and has made an empirical difference on countless lives in that time. She has worked with a passion and drive that I could only dream to have.

While my heart tells me that Erin is unique in her dedication and drive to teaching, my brain knows otherwise. There are a tremendous amount of teachers that dedicate their lives to improving the lives of others. In America, this is one of the most thankless professions one can choose.

The problems vary from school to school. Erin was lucky enough that her largest problem was usually “helicopter parents”. You know these parents; we’ve all seen them. Erin would often recount conversations with parents to me:

“Oh, how did that meeting with the parent go today?”
“The usual. Their child has a B+ and they want to know what I’m going to do to improve it.”

Or perhaps…

“Did you talk to that parent today?”
“Yes. Their child has a C- and the parents don’t understand why. I explained that their child never pays attention in class and never does their homework.”
“I assume their special snowflake still deserves an A?”
“Oh yes. The parents recommended alternate ways in which I can teach so it will be better for their child.”
“What about the other 29 kids in your class?”
“Apparently they don’t matter.”

To be fair, this is in many ways considerably better than the alternative. Until America’s recent obsession with school shootings, she never felt unsafe in her class. Her parents are present, and care; however, they feel like they (and their children) are entitled to special treatment.

There’s a phrase that people often like to quote: “Those who can’t do, teach.”.

That offends me.

Or another: “Oh, teaching must be so easy — you get three months off each year!”

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

It wasn’t until I married a teacher that I realized the amount of work that teachers put into their jobs. Erin works easily 60-80 hours a week. School does not end when the final bell rings. That’s when all the grading happens. And the tutoring. And the parent phone calls. And the ridiculous government-mandated administrivia. The preparation for the standardized testing that does no one any good whatsoever.

Erin, and all the other public school teachers in America, goes through hell and back every single day in order to enrich the lives of America’s future. She puts up with more bullshit than any one human should have to. Erin does so for a pittance of a salary, no thanks from parents, and often times without the support of her administration.

Why does she do this? Why waste her time?

Because she knows what all of us like to forget: that teaching is arguably the most important job in the entire world. That teaching is an investment in our future. Not just our children, but ourselves. It’s a promise we make today to our future selves. It’s a way to ensure that our future is bright.

If you are reading these words, then you owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to at least one teacher in your life. If you are making a successful living, you surely owe more than just one.

I made a snarky tweet a long time ago:

The only groups I can think of whom constantly over deliver yet are constantly called "disappointing" are Apple employees and teachers.

— Casey Liss (@caseyliss) March 8, 2012

While I was being snarky, I stand by the teacher part of it. In America, teachers constantly over-deliver and yet are degraded, called “disappointing”, and micromanaged.

This is extremely unfair. Unfortunately, it’s the way things are here in the United States.

However, some of us know. Some of us understand.

So, to Erin, and all the other teachers out there:

One of the most popular questions that I get asked is “How do I learn to program? Where do I start?”. This actually takes one of many forms:

• What resource should I use to learn how to program?
• How did you learn X?
• Which language should I learn first?
• Is it worth learning Y?

The best answer I have is not an answer to any of those questions at all:

Find a problem to solve, then solve it using the most appropriate tool(s).

That’s it.

How did I learn Node? I figured out a problem I wanted to solve (how can I easily and efficiently write an engine to power a website?), and then solved it.

How did I learn Objective-C? I figured out a problem I wanted to solve (how can I make an app to enable me to quickly send text messages?), and then solved it.

That’s the first step. If you don’t have a concrete problem to solve, you’ll never have the patience nor tenacity to learn enough to solve it.

With apologies to Faith.

“Pencil Line”:

When Casey Liss casually mentioned on two podcasts, ATP and IRL Talk, that he thought vinyl records sounded better than digital audio. The approbation of the digital community rained down.
[…]
The argument quickly became a binary, scientific, evidential one - with Casey ultimately having to almost publicly apologise for daring to believe that he preferred analog to digital when listening to music.
[…]
The e-book copy [of a book] will be more faithful to the authors original text (my old copy has got a couple of pages missing and a red wine stain that makes a paragraph illegible) but the romance, the tactile feel, the old book smell, the memory of reading this book in cafe in Berlin before the wall came down, makes the overall sensory pleasure of reading the book infinitely superior to reading the text on my iPad. If Casey Liss, or anyone, feels the same way about music then so be it.

This past week, my cohosts and I joined Scott Simpson on John Gruber’s excellent podcast, The Talk Show. We were on stage in front of a live audience, but the show was recorded.

I’m extremely proud of all of us, and proud of the show. You should have a listen.

It was particularly odd — and wonderful — for me, as I remember vividly being in the audience for the first live The Talk Show, as a nobody. At last year’s, I was there in the audience again; then, as “that other guy”. This year, I was on stage.

It’s been a wild ride.

UPDATED 29 July 2014 9:00 AM: The video of this event has been released.

I’m currently on the plane on my way back from my fourth consecutive trip to Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. I have so many things I want to do. I want to code. I want to watch videos of sessions I couldn’t go to, and in some cases ones I did. I want to read the book on Swift. So many things to do.

Why?

The past WWDC was quite different than the others. In past years, Apple got on stage and showed the world new versions of iOS and OS X. These keynotes were predominantly to showcase user-facing features. Things such as Notification Center, or tabbed Finder windows. Not discussed during the keynote, generally speaking, the improvements to Apple’s developer tools, such as Xcode. That time came after the world stopped listening.

This year, things were different. Things progressed as usual… until the section of the keynote dedicated to developers. This portion of the keynote was a whole different beast. In just a few slides Apple made some incredible announcements, not the least of which a whole new programming language for their platform.

It was immediately clear: things are different now.

This shift began a couple weeks before, when the official WWDC app was released. As always, there were a series of sessions that were going to be kept secret until after the keynote. In prior years, these sessions took on the incredibly uninventive name of “To Be Announced” until after the keynote. Not this year. Apple took liberties with the session names for WWDC 2014.

During the keynote, presenters were really confident. The pacing was relaxed, until the developer section. Jokes were made, and surprisingly, most were pretty funny.

This tone wasn’t limited to Tim and Craig, however. Presenters at the sessions carried the same confidence — I’d almost go so far as to say swagger — with them. The Apple engineers I spoke to privately didn’t verbally share any hints of what’s to come, but their body language spoke volumes. They’re excited.

As the week progressed, something else quickly became clear.

Apple’s tone — or perhaps their spirit — was more than just confidence. It was also about cooperation. The spirit of WWDC 2014 was about doing things together.

So many of the features Apple released were about fixing problems that face all developers in their platform, of all sizes. Improvements in iOS 8 and OS X aren’t about giving gifts to the huge corporations. Smaller developers also reap the benefits of all of the same new features and tools.

Leading into WWDC 2014, the relationship between Apple and the developers that rely on their ecosystem was extremely adversarial. More than that, it was untenable.

This week, as developers learned more and more about the new tools Apple is providing, and about the new territories they can explore, things took a turn. What just one week ago was “us versus them” is now “you and us, together.”

Apple is a strange bedfellow, but the bed has never looked more inviting.

A quick update regarding my T-Mobile woes: they reset my password, which caused me to go through the new account creation process. However, this “new” account retained my purchase history from before and all seems right in the world again.

Now I have all of the options I researched available to me. I asked on Twitter whether T-Mobile or Verizon fares better in the Moscone area of San Francisco, but I got no particularly definitive feedback. Seems like I’ll be carrying two SIMs with me on Monday and playing it by ear.

Unlike my password validation issue, this is the kind of problem I don’t really mind having.

WWDC is fast approaching, and roughly 5000 people are making the pilgrimage to San Francisco to see what Apple has in store for us. WWDC is possibly my favorite week of the year, as I learn a tremendous amount in very little time, and get to hang out with so many of my friends that I don’t generally get to see. Naturally, I’m really stoked. So stoked, in fact, that I’m already in San Francisco with my wife Erin to get in some sightseeing before the conference.

While many people have posted tips over the years—here’s mine from after 2011—the one tip I recommend most to attendees is to say “hi” and make friends. You’ll be doing a lot of waiting in line, and not just before the keynote. Go ahead and make friends with those around you; it’ll help pass the time, and you never know what you may have in common.

Speaking for John, Marco, and myself: if you see us in or around San Francisco, or even if you catch someone in the halls of Moscone, please do say “hi”. We all find it extraordinarily flattering to hear that someone knows who we are, let alone may be a fan of the show. Don’t be afraid.

Okay, fine. Maybe it’s just me who is surprised when he gets recognized.