What are your favourite podcasts? 🤔 🤔

What are your favourite podcasts to listen to? 🤔 🤔

I'll start by listing the ones I am listening to at the moment. Most of them are software engineering related podcasts and (at the moment) a single podcast for something else completely different.

• Software Engineering Daily - Wide-ranging topics with 5 episodes a week for people like me that have long commutes, so the frequency of episodes provides me with plenty to listen to. Topics generally focus on higher level abstractions rather than how to actually implement features at a code level. Episodes generally last around 40-60 mins.
• Coding Blocks - Although the name might actually be CodingBlocks.net and the fact that the hosts are from a more C# background, the information is still very useful no matter what your preferred language is. Coding Blocks is very different from Software Engineering Daily (look above) in that it focuses much more on implementation details and information around algorithms and Computer Science topics. Episodes are released once or twice a month and normally last at least 2 hours and frequently reach up to 3. I know the guys are on dev.to so hopefully, they see this and give me some love 😄.
• Hanselminutes - Another podcast with a wide range of topics, varying from accessibility to game engines. This is a nice one to listen to for general knowledge that may or may not be useful but will always be enjoyable to listen to. Episodes last for around 30 mins and are released weekly.
• The Bike Shed - Although the hosts changed recently I have still enjoyed listening to this podcast. Episodes normally focus on web development, specifically Ruby on Rails and Javascript. But, it has other languages are topics sprinkled in and is still interesting to listen to even though I don't focus on those languages much myself. Episodes of 30 mins are the norm and are normally released every week.
• The Yak Shave - This is a newer podcast featuring one of the previous hosts of The Bike Shed. Since Sean (one of the hosts) is heavily involved in the Rust community, expect a lot of discussions about it (which I like since I tried to find more time for Rust but have failed to do so so far). On the hand, he is also heavily involved in Ruby on Rails, so expect some of that as well, although it is less prominent than the Rust discussions. That being said, the few episodes so far cover varying topics and since the podcast typically features two hosts discussing things, there are a lot of different directions that the episodes can go. Episodes normally last around 40 mins. The release schedule has not been cemented yet and they seem to be coming out at random intervals. Hopefully this gets sorted but for now, you will just have to catch them when they pop up.

Something very specific:

• Life in the fast chain - Since I am quite heavily involved in the Corda community (Distributed Ledger Technology platform) this is something I listen to. This might not be something that will interest most of you reading this post, but if you are living in this niche area (at the moment) like I am, this is something worth listening to. Episodes normally last around 40 mins and are released every few weeks.

Something very different:

• Critical Role - If the name didn't give it away, click the link and then maybe you might realise. Anyway, this is a DnD podcast, and yes that is very different from all the other Software Engineering related podcasts. This is what I listen to if I have already plowed through all the other podcasts or when I want something less demanding of my focus. Each episode lasts around 3 to 4 hours. I believe they are released each week, but honestly, I am so far behind and going through the backlog that I don't really know.

So, that's me.

Back to what I asked at the start.

• What are your favourite podcasts?
• Why do you like them?
• Who would you recommend them to?

Remember they don't have to be software related, but that sort of field is probably a good place to start 😄