I was thinking, you know, how hard would it be to make that? I wonder? I'm like, I could do this, I think. And it's been a tremendous learning experience. This was the first site that I actually put online and invested in making it available, actually, to the world. I was surprised by how much I learned from that part, because you have more skin in the game, right? Hello, and welcome to the Pibytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Baldebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome back, everybody, to another Pie Bytes podcast episode. I'm Bob Eldebos. I'm here with Julian Sequeira. How's it going, man? Good. And today we have a very special guest, Ed Garcia. Hello. Welcome to the show. Thank you. It's an honor to be here with you guys. Yeah, thank you very much. Finally, man, it's been a long time coming. So, everyone, if you don't know Ed yet, he's been around pie bytes for a little while now, but Ed is one of our favorite people. We'll start with that. But Ed actually went through our PDM program, and so many things have changed since Ed started because of not just the feedback, but the people he's connected us with, the stories he's told us, and the journey he's been on. And that, in particular, has been something special and just super awesome. We're very proud of him and the work he's put into it. And so, Ed, that's why you're here today. You can't talk about anything else, though. All right, thank you. Very nice for you to say. Yeah, maybe introduce yourself a bit. What do you do in your day to day? Sure. My name is Ed Garcia. I am a systems administrator. I've been doing that for 20 years. So I work a lot in storage and, you know, hardware maintenance and upkeep and just supporting systems day to day at work. Fun stuff. You sound so excited. Now. This is why we're friends, man. I love that sort of stuff. You know, I started my career with that, so that's cool. That's awesome. And so, not to put words in your mouth, but is there a lot of room for python in what you do every day? There is. It's not a tech kind of business because it's an animation studio. So we deal a lot with storage and stuff like that, and production. So that is kind of how it started because I wanted to see, you know, what I could. What skills I could add to my tool box to make life easier and make life better and just be better. Right. It's all about continuous, continually improving. So, yeah, that's where that started. Started up like, you know, scripting and just trying out little things here and there. I wrote a little kind of animation, like a frame calculator. When you're talking in the world of film, quote unquote film, they have to sometimes convert frames to feet. And, you know, it's just, there's 16 frames in a foot, something like that. And are friend Sarah needed a way to. Hi, Sarah. She needed a way to calculate frames to feet. And so I'm like, oh, I think I could do that. And, uh, yeah, so that started as. Kind of started with that, really. That's kind of funny. It took me a while to understand what the two of you meant by frames to feet. Measuring the clips in feet. I was like, what? What are you talking about? No, that's cool. And it's funny because that's one of the things we always say to people, you know, see what problems other people have. You know, it's hard to think of stuff for yourself to code. You go, well, yeah, fine, you know, yeah. Did you go around asking or did Sarah come to you? No, she. Oh, gosh. Yeah, we were talking about her work or something and it was just, oh, maybe I did ask her. But all it is is taking a number and dividing it by 16, and then that gives you the number of feet, and then the remainder is the frames. So I forget what it is. We won't talk about the calculation, we'll do calculations now. Put myself on the spot, but, yeah, very cool. And we got to know Sarah as well, through you. So shout out. And she was actually on our podcast, episode 17, the importance of creativity as a developer. It's a fun episode. Yeah. So, yeah, so, yeah, you saw opportunity for Python, really wanted to learn it. Later you joined PDM, and it's barely a year later now, and you've built some really cool things. Do you want to share one or two projects you ended up building? Yeah, the first one was we started out with the camp scraper. So I live in California and here, you know, we like to do our outdoors, like to go camping. But the problem here is everybody likes to go camping. So when you try to use the state's website for reserving campsites, it's a bit clunky to go to use. So I wondered if there was a way to scrape the website and just get kind of quick info of if I type in this site or this area or the name of this park to just get a quick return of if there's campsites available at all, you know. Otherwise it takes like ten clicks to get. So we use selenium for that. I don't know if you remember, that was a while ago, but that was a nice eye opener to making an app and seeing everything it takes to, to get an app going. A lot of, man, I'm having flashbacks of working on that. That was your first big python project or project overall, right? Yeah, it was all these dependencies, mainly selenium. It was something very tangible, right? Like scratch your own itch. And then, yeah, it was really helping something you cared about and could help other people. And we saw that come to light because selenium is very visual, right. It opened the browser, it was picking up elements there and it was really an eye opener. Right? Yeah. I actually even remember that that was the. When I first learned two of two Python files working together to do different things, you know, like one file referring to the other and just mind blowing, mind blown on that one first project structure. Import hell sometimes, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, that was the beginning of import hell. We all go through that. But, uh, hey, everyone, just a quick break for a message from our sponsors. And who's the sponsor today? Bob Bytes. That's us. Yes, a message from us. We're sponsoring our own podcast and this is a message from us just to tell you, go and check out the pie Bytes developer mindset program. It's pretty good, isn't it, Bob? Yeah. What's cool about it? It will get you the results you are looking for in your python journey. Whatever your goal happens to be. This is the program for you when it comes to Python. We want to talk to you. We want to help you get there and this program is going to do it. Bob, quickly, what are some of the things that people have achieved through the program? A high performance music API, a transcoding AI. SaaS app Coinhub, an app to serve as a cryptocurrency portfolio tracker. Spike two PI, a data science package hosted on PyPi payroll app, a SaaS application that simplifies payroll for small businesses. And my favorite, building confidence. Yes. Mindset. I love it. All right, if you haven't yet, click the link in the show notes, check it out and let's get back to the episode. But yeah, leading up to that, though, was. I remember, so, started out with scripting at work and then trying to learn more stuff. And I remember I must have spent maybe a year or two in that, just stuck in that state, because trying to learn more using tutorials and videos, there's so much free stuff out there and listening to podcasts. I knew I enjoyed Python because I could listen to it all the time. But the tutorials and stuff, you know, after two years, I'm like, wow, I'm really not getting anywhere. And so that's a fast forward to PDM. And so here we are. Thank you. That's cool. So hang on. So one of the things I wanted to just touch on before we move on to your next project was you joined PDM with. Where would you say you were with Python when you joined? I was, I would say a beginner. Okay. Yeah. Very much a beginner. I was worried that I didn't know enough to make PDM worthwhile, you know, and it's because it's like, it's about making apps and it's like, man, I'm struggling on this bite, you know, how could I ever make an app? And so, yeah, but Bob. Bob really helped me with the confidence. Thank you, Bob. And, yeah, having somebody that just, you know, kind of believes in you, I would say, is. Was really big for me. I believed in you. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. No, but I know this, this sounds like a pitch for PDM and maybe it is, whatever, it's a podcast. Who cares? But what I'm trying to get across here for everyone listening is that, for you, dear listener, is that, you know, Ed's the perfect example of what we, we constantly talk about, which is that it doesn't matter where you start, as long as you just build. And, yeah, okay, if you have the guidance of a coach, it's going to go like leagues quicker, of course. But as long as you build and you don't get caught in that tutorial paralysis, you know, as we, we always say, you know, jit learning, just in time learning. So learn. Take the courses and read the books and all that stuff, but look for the pieces you need to build, right? And you only know that by building. And so in your case, Ed, you're that prime example. And this is why I love it so much. Your story so much is that you came in with such a limited knowledge and you just built. And then it's like you. You learn in retro. Retroactively. You learn as you figured out what it is you needed to learn to build those projects. And exactly. Yep. And exactly. By doing that, have things stuck. Oh, yeah. It's my last meeting with Bob. He actually, you know, mentioned how nice it was, like, oh, you actually know this stuff now. Like, I don't have to explain, you know, all. Yeah. And even now, I still catch myself with, you know, the imposter syndrome. Like, oh, I don't know enough. Like, geez, I still like what? But that's when I have to remind myself to take a step back and just realize, like, you know, we've actually learned a lot in the last, well, it's almost a year now. I started in February of last year, 2021. And, yeah, if I can force myself to just stop and think about how much I've learned, it's really nice. It's really comforting. You went from that web scraper where you already struggled, but you got it done. Yeah. I'm like, what's it do? Yeah, I cannot even remember your second project, but just flash forward later, you contributed to one of our open source projects. And now your last project. Yeah, exactly. And now your last project is a fully fledged SaaS app or potential for a business, like a real service thing that's running in the cloud and all that within a year. Really proud of what you achieved. Maybe you want to tell something about that last app or those open source software, but I've seen that steady progress, which is really cool. Thank you. Yeah. The last app that I'm working on now is Max uptime, and it is a network. I use a service called Uptime robot, and it's a website monitoring service, and so super useful, you point them to a website that you need to monitor, and the service pings your website, and if your website goes down, you get an email and then they email you again when comes back up, comes back online. And so I was thinking, you know, how hard would it be to make that? I wonder. I'm like, I could do this, I think. And so I set out to do that. And it's been a tremendous learning experience. I think aside from learning the stack and everything that goes into it, this was the first site that I actually put online and invested in making it available, actually, to the world. I was surprised by how much I learned from that part. Because you have more skin in the game, right? Like you mentioned in a previous podcast, once you have that investment and it's available to the world, I think it has really kind of forced me to pay attention to it after it was, I guess, quote unquote built. So, yeah, surprised by how much, how much I've learned since, since then. But yes, it does the same thing. It's just put the MVP up, I think, last November and I work on it whenever I can. But you sign up and it checks your website for HTTP and if your website goes down, then we will send you an email and later on I hope to add ping or, and also like keyword monitoring, just like the other services, you know, in the interest, all in the interest of learning. And so it's free. So go use it. Yeah. Max uptime IO. Man, that is pretty cool. Sorry. Shameless plug. Sorry. Should be proud and promoting. Yeah. I'm Edgar. Thank you. You've been great. No, that, that's amazing, man. And again, I gotta call out the little mindset piece from. Let me pick it out of the tech stack stuff there. Warning. James can understand on this mindset. So, Buck, let me stand on my hill. No, what I love is that you didn't sit there and say, this exists, so I'm not gonna bother the amount of people we talk to that say, oh, but why would I build that that exists out there. There's a million to do list apps, you know, but, yeah, why not build your own? Like, yeah, that was awesome. And yours, I would like to say yours is the owner with a wicked retro theme to it. Oh, thank you. That was a big thing when I first started PDF because it's. I remember trying to decide, oh, which app should I make? I need to change the world with this app. And, you know, when it's like now looking back, it's about, oh, I even had that ask Bob about it. Like, I don't know, what should I do? And, you know, that's when Bob said, there's no perfect app. It's, you know, and now looking back, it's about building it and it's about learning and it's about progressing. Yeah. So I'm very thankful for what I've learned. It's awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Apps are never done right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's surprising we still push so much into the platform, those requirements, changes, fixes, enhancements. Yeah. Refactoring and. Yeah. Tweaking the UI. Talking about the UI, you just got bootstrap up there and what was that other new technology? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your help with the bootstrap. But that's. Yeah. Very excited because I'm checking out HTMX now and I just learned bootstraps and css and all that was a struggle. I'm surprised how much the front end is demanding it was almost as hard as learning python for me. But HTMX looks so cool because it can do the dynamic changes to parts of the web page and not have to reload the page every time with your changes. And I feel like I am so close to learning it. This would be the first thing I learned without Bob, the first time a tutorial, I've been able to use that tutorial and actually understand what the tutorial is saying and taking the fundamentals that I've learned and implementing all those, putting it all together. Very excited. Once I get this on, it's like what I'll be able to do is it's like the real thing now, you know, I don't know how to say it. Yeah, I don't know how to say it, but it's like, oh, it'll, it's going to look like a real app and, you know, not a project, you know, so I don't know, it's super exciting. Super exciting to get it going. Thanks, man. So. All right, sorry, go ahead. No, you go. You go, please. Oh, I was just going to say, like, looking at all the examples on the HTMX website, it's like, oh, I could do that. Wait, I could do this. I could do that. So close. Your roll has become your oyster, right? Yeah, yeah. It's pretty neat. So cool on that. That's actually interesting you say that because I think as everyone finds a new technology, you know, like, I'm like that with OpenCV, right? When I see that and I'm like, oh, you can do that, but a lot of people instantly go, oh, but that's too difficult. Yeah, I'm not going to understand how to even convert what I see in the documentation to something I can use. How do you feel with that when you see that? You know, that's a big thing I learned over the course of with my time at PDM was it is okay that you don't get it at first. You know, it's, you're, it's something new. It's something really difficult that you're trying to learn and iteration over. A problem is it's something you should expect to do. You know, you're not going to get it at first. You know, with early on, before PDM doing the tutorials or, or instructional videos, I would do it, not understand it and kind of give up for a month and, you know, you get down on yourself and you wonder if you'll ever get it. But I don't know if I feel like if I had that mindset, I would have been in a better place. But even now, even with guidance, you learn something. Even with a coach, you're not going to get it at first. Right? And it's just natural. And I feel like being okay with that. I am more okay with that now, and it's something I'm comfortable with. So if I'm writing code, sitting there banging my head on it for 2 hours, and it's like, you know what? I'm not going to get this today. It's not going to work. I'll just, I'll come back later and retry or research some other way or some other thing. But, yeah, that's kind of one of my main takeaways, is iteration is key. And being okay with the fact that you're not going to learn it at first on your first time, first go around, that's a great mindset because it can be very frustrating. Right. And you feel very dumb and it's like, it's easy to walk away. You have like. Yeah. All the reasons to do so. Right. Because it just doesn't feel good. Yeah, yeah. But stick with it. Come back so many times and all of a sudden it starts to click. Right. And all of a sudden, absolutely. The patterns where there were none before, so. Absolutely. Yeah. It's awesome. Thank you, guys. Really, it's an honor to be here talking to you guys, and I really appreciate what you've done. The platform is such an amazing place, and I've met so many people in the community. It's awesome. Thank you. Thanks, man. Thanks for that. And thank you, too, man, how you brought yourself to the thing. And it's just a pleasure working with you and come a long way. I mean, seeing this journey in less than a year is just amazing. Yeah, well, yeah, now we're going to stop here, right? So we always ask what's next? What's next is, you know, I am going to just try a bunch of other stuff. When I was younger, I. I took up photography as a hobby, and they say to learn, shoot a lot and shoot what you like. And it's like, well, how do I know what I like? And that's just by shooting everything. So picked up this book, a curious moon, to try some data science. And then the other thing is trying to teach my kids. They seem to be into the python a little bit. So we picked up a book, El Swigart's book, invent your own games with Python. So we're. Yeah, we just started working through that the other day. That's pretty fun. But, you know, when I can get them away from their video games. Oh, you know, we do Python. Yeah. Which video game? Just click. Oh, don't go there. Oh, sorry. Yeah, no, it's not. Better not be Roblox. It's Valorant. Valorant. Valorant and fortnight, I think. Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah, that's not lawnmower simulator. Sorry, Julian. We still have to have our game of Lawnmower simulator. Yeah, that's right. Because while we're. While we're recording this, I've had my kids walk in and ask for my laptop to play Roblox. Oh, wow. I'm, um. Geez, I'm not happy. Shout out to Roblox. I kind of need it right now. We respect you. Yeah, I've been there. I know you mentioned it about a little bit, but what are you reading? Bob, as well? But, Ed, you go first. You're the guest. Right now I'm reading the obstacle is the way. Very cool. Just, you know, I read it first thing in the morning, and so that sets me up for just, you know, get through work, which I love. Right? Nice. Gets that obstacle out of the way. Yeah. Oh, I just mentioned it, too. I'm reading a curious moon. It's a story about an accidental database administrator or data scientist. She starts as an intern, but then she gets called up to do stuff. So you learn learning data science through story. And so, yeah, firing up postgres and doing SQL commands and stuff like that. That's pretty cool. See what that's like. Yeah, you have to let us know how it goes because that's an interesting teaching concept. I like that. Yeah. Kind of like, I don't know if you guys ever read the choose your own adventure books. Yeah, so it's story, and then they, you know, with, with sequel mixed in and postgres, so it's cool. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just want to shout out, because Bob told me to read the slight edge, and, um, I really love that book, so I. I finished that a little while ago, but I feel like I have to mention it. That goes back to that, like, little effort every day, right? Yes, exactly. Just show up every day, do a little bit until it becomes habit, and, uh, yeah, pretty much live by that now. It's. It's, um. It's amazing. That's weird. Nice. What about you, Bob? What are you reading? Uh, building microservices, second edition. Fascinating. So it's a great book for thinking about how to break a monolith. App into smaller services that talk to each other. But the book goes quite deep. It's 500 plus pages, and it talks a lot about software architecture and stuff and protocols and APIs. So it's fascinating read. And I just started reading still like an artist from Austin Kleon after I mentioned last time, show your work. And he writes great books about, you know, as a content creator, how to find inspiration, how to stay motivated and stuff. So that helps because we. We try to put a lot of stuff out there on continuous basis, which can be tiring. So that kind of work helps. Cool. What about you? Absolutely nothing. Just video games at this point. Probably error logs because my pc's dying. No, no, I actually. I'll share a win quickly if you don't. Do you guys mind? Please. Yes, sir. Damn right you don't mind. Ed, you were part of the first podcast episode that I'm recording, that we're recording from the new house. So there's the win. Been talking about this for who knows how long on the podcast is a. Oh, you know, we're making progress on the goal, but, yeah, this is a huge win for me and my wife. We've moved up the coast north of Sydney, and from western Sydney where we lived close to the bush, now we live, you know, sort of at the foot of a mountain, about, you know, ten minutes away from the beach. And it is just beautiful. I can't believe how quiet it is when we go to sleep at night. And, you know, it's. We're close to the beach. The kids are stoked. And so I'm actually recording this through the MacBook as opposed to my normal rig of a pc with the. Holding the microphone now in my hand. I don't have a chair, so I wasn't standing up. By the way, is that why you're steady? That's why I stand. Oh, man. Congratulations. I wish. The singer, the artist. Yeah. I feel like you're about to bust out in song or something. Oh, yeah. After we stop recording, I'll start wrap something out about the new house and we all lose that in. Yeah. Congrats, man. Room behind this. I'll show you the room behind this. Filled with boxes. Everything's chaos at the moment. But, yeah, we're here. We've been here a day. I'm just chuffed. This is. This is my big win of the. Of the year. So I'm done for 2022. I'm just going to sleep the rest of the year, I think. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Thanks. So that's why I'm not reading, because I have, I don't know, unpack those boxes with books now. Yeah, you know, the. All right, we'll excuse you for not reading this one time. Well, I was just going to say they weigh a ton, these boxes. And so what did the movers do? They put them at this, at the top of the pile, stack of boxes. Anyway. All right, well, look, Ed, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on, and finally, we've been talking about this for ages, but stoked to have you. Thanks so much for sharing your story. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. I really, really am honored. Thanks so much, man. And very inspiring. And if people want to reach out, I guess you're on the pivot. Slack community. Um, is there other ways slack, probably. LinkedIn is maxuptime IO. Yes. Check out my app, maxuptime IO. And probably the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn. It's my full name, so Edmund Garcia. But. All right, I guess you could put it in the notes.edu n d link garcia below. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Cool. Thanks so much, guys. Ed, we'll see you around. You take care, Bob, thanks for being here and including me at my early morning, staying up late so I can jump on this. I didn't want to miss this episode with you, ed, so there you go. Appreciate it. But, yes, thanks, guys, and everyone listening. Most importantly, thank you all for listening, as always. We will be back next week. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to pibyte, france, that is pibit es friends, and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show. And to join our thriving slack community of python programmers, go to pibytes community. That's pibit es forward slash community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.