S04E03 - Transcript Todd and Johanna Speaker 2: Welcome to a special edition of Elixir Wizards. This episode, we're featuring a new segment we've been trying out, called Pattern Matching with Todd. You may have heard one of these at the end of a normal Season Four episode. We wanted to try sharing them as standalone mini episodes as well, which is what you're hearing today. Pattern Matching is a short format interview where our friend Todd Resudek, asks each guest the same five questions. We hope this segment helps you get to know members of the Elixir community a little bit better. Let us know how you like it, whether you prefer it at the end of a normal episode, or as a standalone mini episode. Please enjoy this episode of Elixir Wizards, Pattern Matching with Todd. Todd Resudek: Welcome to another installment of Pattern Matching with Todd, where I ask your favorite members of the Elixir community the same five questions in order to get to know them better. My guest today is taking time off from her work at Duffel. Welcome Johanna Larsson. Johanna Larsson: Thank you. Hi, nice to be here. Todd Resudek: All right. Great to have you. So, let's jump into the first question. So, Johanna, where were you born? Johanna Larsson: I was born in Malmo, in Sweden. [inaudible 00:01:11] to that answer. Todd Resudek: Okay. So, for those not familiar, Malmo, I believe is in Southern Sweden. It is a five minute drive to a Copenhagen? Johanna Larsson: Yeah. So yeah, it's in the South of Sweden. Sweden is a very tall country, so it's a long way to go through the North to South and Malmo is right on the coastline. It's about 15 minutes by train across the bridge you get to Copenhagen. Todd Resudek: Okay, cool. That give us some sense of geography of that. And, you are living there now I assume? And, have you lived anywhere else? Johanna Larsson: So, yeah, that is kind of funny because I have lived here most of my life until... Just generally in the area and mostly in Malmo, but just a few months ago, I got that job at Duffle and moved to London and that was two weeks before lockdown. So, right in the middle of the pandemic, that's where I moved to London. So, what I ended up actually going back to Sweden, I still have my apartment. Right now, I am actually back in Sweden, awkward situation. Todd Resudek: Okay, so you're a kind of a London resident, but you're just hibernating in Sweden until the pandemic calms down? Johanna Larsson: Pretty much. Todd Resudek: Okay. So, you have a 6,000 pound a month apartment that's just waiting for you there. Johanna Larsson: It's just awful. Todd Resudek: Okay. Sorry. Sorry to rub it in. So, you do, okay. Yeah. Well, that's unfortunate timing but it sounds like Sweden is a safe place to be hanging out for the time being, so. All right. So, you were born in Malmo and then you moved to London recently, but it doesn't sound like you've spent a whole lot of time there yet. Let's move on to question number two. So, have you had any careers before programming? Johanna Larsson: Honestly, not really. I studied Japanese before I switched to software development. I'm really into languages. I love languages, all the quirks and details of them and the cultural differences too that come with languages, I guess it does translate into programming a little bit. We do have languages and programming too, and there's a lot of cultural differences and I do enjoy the part of programming languages, where some of them have just incredibly different ways, solving problems or communicating. So, yeah I guess that translates into there. Todd Resudek: Okay. Were you studying Japanese with the interest of moving to Japan or doing something with that? Or you just found it really interesting and decided to study it? Johanna Larsson: I guess I didn't really have a clear plan. Todd Resudek: Okay. Johanna Larsson: Yeah. I probably, I mean, I saw being an interpreter of some sort as an option, but really it was just the love of languages that drove me. I got this opportunity to study for a bit at the Japanese university too, which was amazing. Todd Resudek: Oh, okay. Was it a university actually in Japan or was it Japanese university in Europe? Johanna Larsson: No, in Japan. Todd Resudek: Okay. What part of Japan? Johanna Larsson: In Gifu. Todd Resudek: Gifu, okay. Johanna Larsson: In the middle of somewhere, it was out in the countryside. Todd Resudek: Okay. But it's on the island of Honshu? Johanna Larsson: Yeah. Todd Resudek: Okay. All right. Well, that's very, very cool. So, did you study both the written language as well as the spoken language? Johanna Larsson: Yes. And, to be perfectly honest, I do a lot better with the spoken language than the written one. Todd Resudek: Okay. Johanna Larsson: I feel Japanese is not, it can seem difficult, but it's really not that bad when it comes to the spoken part. It's when you introduce the written part where it really gets complicated. Todd Resudek: Okay. Only I have a cursory familiarity with the written language, but there's the formal style of Kanji, which I think is closer to written Chinese, which is pretty complicated, but I feel normal communication, a lot of is done in Hiragana, which is, it seems it lends itself as easier to translate from the spoken word into Hiragana just because it's more syllable based, right? Johanna Larsson: I mean, I would say yes and no. The downside to Hiragana is it's very ambiguous with the Kanji you can very clearly tell what word has been written with Hiragana. It could be read many different ways and it could be different words. Todd Resudek: Oh, wow. Okay. Very interesting. So, and I guess as an aside to this is, you're not... well in Sweden I assume the native language is Swedish, right? So. Johanna Larsson: Yes. Todd Resudek: To get into programming if you're Swedish, you first have to learn English because almost every programming language is written in English. Johanna Larsson: Although I did for a while, have a programming teacher who tried to teach us programming in Swedish. Todd Resudek: I mean, that seems like it might be a easier first step rather than to learn English and learn a programming language at the same time. Johanna Larsson: Yeah. Honestly, I didn't really come into programming very early. So, by the time that I was actually at the point where I went in to learn programming, I was 23 or something. I spoke English by then. Todd Resudek: Oh, okay, cool. Makes sense. So, if you... I know this is a hard question to answer, but if you couldn't be a programmer anymore, what do you think you would end up being? Johanna Larsson: Yeah, this is just a really, really tough question and I'm not really sure how to answer that because programming is my passion. It is the one thing that I've really, really, yeah... That I'm really, really passionate about that I really work hard at and that I enjoy just coming back to every day. So, it's hard to give you any real alternatives, but if there was something, I guess it would be something within languages, human languages then. Todd Resudek: Well, cool. Let's hope it doesn't come down to that. Let's hope if you can continue to program for as long as you want to at least. All right. Question number three. What's the genre of the last song or the last album that you listened to? Johanna Larsson: Okay. Yeah. So, I really... I listen to just about anything, all kinds of music. I listen to rock music, electronics, and a lot of alternative stuff, indie. And, honestly, I always have music on if I'm not having a conversation, I'm not in the meeting or not watching something, I always have music on. So, it's really hard to give an answer to that question because it could just be anything. Todd Resudek: Today you listened to some music before this, I assume? So, what is the last thing from your Spotify or I assume you're using Spotify since it's Swedish? Johanna Larsson: Yeah. I have to be, there's some solidarity there. Now, the last thing was probably some kind of alternative hip hop, electronic kind of thing. Todd Resudek: Okay. I'm not super familiar with the genre of that. What's the name of an artist if somebody wanted to look this up? Johanna Larsson: So, this artist I was listening to is K.Flay, an American artist. She's really good. Todd Resudek: Okay. Johanna Larsson: Yeah. I just... I also use music as sort of a way to change mindset. Is that the right word? No. To just get into the right mood for something. So if, as an example, if I'm working on like a really hard bug or a computer problem, or just something's not doing what I wanted to do and I'll put on music as appropriate, so let's say Rage Against the Machine. Todd Resudek: Okay, cool. So, you're Swedish so I assume you love heavy metal music, right? Is this true or not? Johanna Larsson: I kind of had a heavy metal phase. Todd Resudek: Okay. All right. You guys are blessed with so many awesome heavy metal artists in Sweden. Be a shame if you didn't appreciate it. But, I guess it's not for everybody. And, as a little bit of trivia, I believe Malmo is where The Cardigans kind of started out or they, they moved to Malmo right when they were started recording their first few albums. If I'm not mistaken? Can you verify this? Johanna Larsson: I can't but it sounds like it could be true. Todd Resudek: Well, if you know who The Cardigans are, they were based out of Malmo for most of their recording career, I guess. All right, well, let's move on. So, is there a movie that you're going to watch every time you come across it on TV? Johanna Larsson: That's a really good question. Yeah, The Matrix is, yeah... I'll definitely watch The Matrix anytime. It was just so influential when I first saw it and still so very, very influential. And I just can't believe, just the other day I had to look it up because I didn't really believe that it came out in 1999. That's just incredible to me, it feels it was yesterday. Todd Resudek: Really? Okay, cool. I'll have to admit I've never actually seen The Matrix. Johanna Larsson: You've never seen The Matrix? Todd Resudek: No, it came out when I was in college and I was just super, super overwhelmed with my coursework and I just never came back around to it. So, the ship sailed and then the next thing you know, there's two and three and I figured, "Okay, well I missed the boat on that one." Johanna Larsson: Yeah. I mean, they are recording a new one. I remember last time I was in San Francisco, they were shutting down parts of the city just to record this movie. So, you have a reason to watch them now. Todd Resudek: Okay. Well, maybe if it's streaming or something, I can turn it on one day in the background. I know very little about it. So, I know that it's very popular, but unfortunately I've just never seen it. So, all right. Well, and finally, last question is what project are you most excited about working on next? Johanna Larsson: I have ideas. I just haven't found something that I yet, that I've gotten really obsessive about lately. And, obviously I just got that new job so I've been focusing on getting into the code base, getting to know everyone, finding my place in the organization and I get to do a lot of exciting things. So, I'm definitely not complaining about that, but we worked together on the [inaudible 00:11:44] project and it's something that I really want to come back to and build on. I think that there are so many opportunities to improve it and also to just integrate it with other systems. One thing that came up recently was integrating it with Dependabot where, because Dependabot is this a useful tool that just opens PRs for you and it works for Elixir projects whenever it sees a new dependency version, it'll open a PR for you and it just updates the version and runs. If you have some kind of automated CI put up, it will run the CIA, everything. You just click the merge button and you're done, which is really convenient. And, they are nice enough when possible to link to the commit history so you can see the changes that went into the new dependency, but obviously those are the changes that are in GitHub, not necessarily the changes that are in the code base. Most of the time those are probably the same, but it would be really cool to get the [inaudible 00:12:49] URL in there. It would really do everything for you. All you have to do is click that link, look through the code, if it's fine, merge it. Todd Resudek: Yeah. That would be really cool to do that. So, hopefully you have some time to work on that or open up an issue and maybe one of our listeners won't mind getting that going. So, like you said, we have a really hard time communicating that what is on Git is not necessarily what is on Hex and you can assume that most times it is, but if you're a malicious actor, that's a great way to get people to download a malicious package. It's not to update the Git, but to update the Hex package, so. Johanna Larsson: Absolutely. Todd Resudek: Hex gif is a great tool for this so everybody should be using it. Johanna Larsson: Yeah. The more people we get into the system, the more people we get looking at the actual code in the registry, the less likely it is that a malicious package, will be around for a long time. Todd Resudek: Definitely. Okay. Well, thanks for joining me today, Johanna. It was great talking to you and getting to know you better. Johanna Larsson: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in for this special mini episode of Elixir Wizards, featuring our new segment Pattern Matching with Todd hosted by Todd Reudek. Elixir Wizards is a Smart Logic podcast. Here at Smart Logic, we're always looking to take on new projects, building web apps in Elixir, Rails and React. Infrastructure projects, using Kubernetes and mobile apps using React Native. We'd love to hear from you if you have a project we can help you with. Don't forget to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast player. Join us again next time for more Pattern Matching and more conversations on system and application architecture as you continue Season Four of Elixir Wizards.