Brian Okken
Software Engineer, also on Python Bytes and Python People podcasts
Appears in 229 Episodes
79: Fixing misinformation about software testing
Some information about software testing is just wrong. I'm not talking about opinions. I have lots of opinions and they differ from other peoples opinions. I'm talking...
78: I don't write tests because ...
Roadblocks to writing tests, and what to do about it. Some developers either don't write tests, or don't like writing tests. Why not? I love writing tests. In this ep...
77: Testing Complex Systems with Maintainable Test Suites
Creating maintainable test suites for complex systems. The episode describes some complexities involved with hardware testing, then shares techniques for shifting comp...
76: TDD: Don’t be afraid of Test-Driven Development - Chris May
Test Driven Development, TDD, can be intimidating to try. Why is that? And how can we make it less scary? That's what this episode is about. Chris May is a Python d...
75: Modern Testing Principles - Alan Page
Software testing, if done right, is done all the time, throughout the whole life of a software project. This is different than the verification and validation of a cla...
74: Technical Interviews: Preparing For, What to Expect, and Tips for Success - Derrick Mar
In this episode, I talk with Derrick Mar, CTO and co-founder of Pathrise. This is the episode you need to listen to to get ready for software interviews. We discuss ...
73: PyCon 2019 Live Recording
This is a "Yay! It's PyCon 2019" episode. PyCon is very important to me. But it's kinda hard to put a finger on why. So I figured I'd ask more people to help explain ...
72: Technical Interview Fixes - April Wensel
Some typical technical interview practices can be harmful and get in the way of hiring great people. April Wensel offers advice to help fix the technical interview pro...
71: Memorable Tech Talks, The Ultimate Guide - Nina Zakharenko
Nina Zakharenko gives some great advice about giving tech talks. We talk about a blog series that Nina wrote called "The Ultimate Guide To Memorable Tech Talks". This ...
70: Learning Software without a CS degree - Dane Hillard
Dane and Brian discuss skills needed for people that become software developers from non-traditional paths. Dane is also writing a book to address many of these skill...
69: Andy Hunt - The Pragmatic Programmer
Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas wrote the seminal software development book, The Pragmatic Programmer. Together they founded The Pragmatic Programmers and are well known as ...
68: test && commit || revert (TCR) - Thomas Deniffel
With conventional TDD, you write a failing test, get it to pass, then refactor. Then run the tests again to make sure your refactoring didn't break anything. But what ...
67: Teaching Python in Middle School
In today's episode we talk with Kelly Paredes & Sean Tibor. They teach Python in a middle school in Florida, and talk about this experience on the podcast "Teaching P...
66: Brian is interviewed by Phil Burgess
I was recently interviewed on a podcast called "IT Career Energizer Podcast". Phil Burgess is the host of the podcast, and it was a lot of fun. I think it turned out ...
65: one assert per test
Is it ok to have more than one assert statement in a test? I've seen articles that say no, you should never have more than one assert. I've also seen some test code m...
64: Practicing Programming to increase your value
I want you to get the most out of being a software developer, or test engineer, or whatever you do that makes this podcast relevant to your life. By "get the most" I ...
63: Python Corporate Training - Matt Harrison
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -- Confucius Matt Harrison is an author and instructor of Python and Data Science. This episode fo...
62: Python Training - Reuven Lerner
There are a lot of learning styles and a lot of ways to learn Python. If you started Python through a class at work, or through an online course, or maybe an email ser...
A retrospective
A look back on 3 years of podcasting, and a bit of a look forward to what to expect in 2019. Top 5 episodes: 2: Pytest vs Unittest vs Nose 33: Katharine Jarmul - Te...
100 Days of Code - Julian Sequeira
Julian Sequeira is Co-Founder of PyBit.es (a blog/platform created to teach and learn Python) and a Python Trainer at Talk Python Training. He's also a survivor of the...
Genesynth, nox, urllib3, & PyCascades - Thea Flowers
Thea Flowers is a Pythonista and open source advocate. She helps empower developers of all backgrounds and experience levels using Python and open source software and ...
REST APIs, testing with Docker containers and pytest
Let's say you've got a web application you need to test. It has a REST API that you want to use for testing. Can you use Python for this testing even if the applica...
What is Data Science? - Vicki Boykis
Data science, data engineering, data analysis, and machine learning are part of the recent massive growth of Python. But really what is data science? Vicki Boykis ...
Being a Guest on a Podcast - Michael Kennedy
Michael Kennedy of Talk Python and Python Bytes fame joins Brian to talk about being a great guest and what to expect. Even if you have never wanted to be on a podca...
55: When 100% test coverage just isn't enough - Mahmoud Hashemi
What happens when 100% test code coverage just isn't enough. In this episode, we talk with Mahmoud Hashemi about glom, a very cool project in itself, but a project tha...
54: Python 1994 - Paul Everitt
Paul talks about the beginning years of Python. Talking about Python's beginnings is also talking about the Python community beginnings. Yes, it's reminiscing, but it'...
53: Seven Databases in Seven Weeks - Luc Perkins
Luc Perkins joins the show to talk about "Seven Databases in Seven Weeks: A guide to modern databases and the NoSQL movement." We discuss a bit about each database: ...
52: pyproject.toml : the future of Python packaging - Brett Cannon
Brett Cannon discusses the changes afoot in Python packaging as a result of PEP 517, PEP 518, starting with "How did we get here?" and "Where are we going?" Discussed...
51: Feature Testing
Andy Knight joins me in discussing the concept of feature testing. A feature tests is "a test verifying a service or library as the customer would use it, but within ...
50: Flaky Tests and How to Deal with Them
Anthony Shaw joins Brian to discuss flaky tests and flaky test suites. What are flaky tests? Is it the same as fragile tests? Why are they bad? How do we deal with t...