I still listen to your podcast
Mon Feb 12 2024
I read this blogpost by Dave Rupert the other day: I used to listen to your podcast, and it made me think about why I still listen to his podcast (ShopTalk Show, the podcast about building websites that he cohosts with Chris Coyier).
I've been listening to that show, on and off, for at least a decade. I started listening while I was working as what would be called a front end developer nowadays, but back then I was just a web designer. The show was a useful source of CSS and WordPress tips and tricks, and a handy proxy-horizon-scanner, surfacing things I might need to care or learn about. I drifted away from the podcast for a few years, mainly because I drifted away from all podcasts for a while, for various reasons (starting a family, moving across the country, a different commute).
But I started listening again regularly about four years ago, at about the same time I was transitioning away from front end, and into UX/UI design. I was enjoying the new challenge, and learning new tools (XD, Figma), but I did (and do) miss writing html and css every day. It's a very different feeling, drawing pictures of websites for others to build websites from, rather than actually making websites yourself. And I like how listening to ShopTalk Show makes me feel I'm still connected to that world.
But it's also kind of comfort listening for me these days. Partly because I've been listening to Dave and Chris for so long, it's just nice to "hang out" with their voices for a while. But it's also that, becuase I don't need to know about the latest JS frameworks or Github GUIs, I can just let that stuff wash over me, and be interested if I want to be, but feel no anxiety if I don't. There's something very relaxing hearing someone talk about, I don't know... Astro templates, or programming in Rust, and not feeling like I need to immediately start watching YouTube tutorials.
Plus, they do cover stuff that is relevant to me in my work, and that I do want to learn about. And who knows, one day maybe I'll transition back to front end. And the fact that I have ShopTalk Show running as a continuous thread in the background makes me feel like that's still a possibility. It's holding a door, if not open, then at least ajar.