1 00:00:02,350 --> 00:00:05,890 Eddie: Welcome to episode 15 of the web joy podcast. 2 00:00:06,190 --> 00:00:07,180 I'm your host Eddie. 3 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:11,380 In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and what 4 00:00:11,380 --> 00:00:15,640 makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community. 5 00:00:16,030 --> 00:00:17,770 I help you enjoy today's episode. 6 00:00:18,010 --> 00:00:21,940 You have to be so sympathetic to the machine with Layla. 7 00:00:24,250 --> 00:00:27,820 I'm excited to have Layla here joining us. 8 00:00:27,950 --> 00:00:31,700 So Layla, you know, who are you, what do you do? 9 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:32,360 Where do you work? 10 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:33,710 just the, deets. 11 00:00:33,820 --> 00:00:34,870 Layla: Well, hi Eddie. 12 00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:36,160 Hi, everyone listening. 13 00:00:36,560 --> 00:00:38,780 As Eddie says, my name is Layla. 14 00:00:38,900 --> 00:00:44,540 I am a Developer Advocate at VMware and I'm pretty well 15 00:00:44,570 --> 00:00:47,060 ensconced in the .Net community. 16 00:00:47,130 --> 00:00:48,550 I'm a C# developer. 17 00:00:48,890 --> 00:00:55,340 I'm a Microsoft MVP, GitHub Star, I'm the founder of Women of .Net, and I 18 00:00:55,820 --> 00:01:00,035 speak internationally about .Net stuff 19 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:02,060 Eddie: Awesome. 20 00:01:02,060 --> 00:01:02,600 That's interesting. 21 00:01:02,605 --> 00:01:06,050 You don't hear a whole lot about.net lately? 22 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,560 I guess at least in my circles, do you feel like .Net is still thriving? 23 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:12,575 What do you think about the .Net ecosystem? 24 00:01:13,390 --> 00:01:16,293 Layla: It's thriving Microsoft are really investing in it. 25 00:01:16,383 --> 00:01:21,163 We've had some great new frameworks coming out this past year. 26 00:01:21,236 --> 00:01:26,906 We have .Net Maui, which is a replacement for Zin, and that will enable you to do 27 00:01:27,186 --> 00:01:29,881 mobile development and things like that. 28 00:01:30,171 --> 00:01:34,311 We have the very exciting blazer that's been around for a few years 29 00:01:34,311 --> 00:01:36,411 now and there's tea flavors of that. 30 00:01:36,501 --> 00:01:39,321 And it's sea sharp in the browser, which. 31 00:01:40,101 --> 00:01:40,461 Awesome. 32 00:01:40,461 --> 00:01:43,251 If you're a C sharp developer and don't really like touching 33 00:01:43,251 --> 00:01:44,691 JavaScript, it's epic. 34 00:01:44,691 --> 00:01:45,441 It's wonderful. 35 00:01:45,781 --> 00:01:51,921 So that's pretty exciting, as well as new releases of the net 36 00:01:51,921 --> 00:01:55,371 framework and language, every November, which is pretty cool. 37 00:01:55,545 --> 00:01:56,085 Eddie: Wow. 38 00:01:56,215 --> 00:01:56,505 Yeah. 39 00:01:56,595 --> 00:01:58,695 So I guess C sharpen the browser. 40 00:01:58,695 --> 00:01:59,445 Is that using. 41 00:02:00,075 --> 00:02:00,715 WASM 42 00:02:01,245 --> 00:02:01,665 Layla: yeah. 43 00:02:01,876 --> 00:02:05,756 Eddie: Web assembly for those not as involved with browser development. 44 00:02:05,946 --> 00:02:06,516 That's pretty cool. 45 00:02:06,521 --> 00:02:07,626 I did not expect that 46 00:02:07,896 --> 00:02:09,546 Layla: Yeah, there's two versions. 47 00:02:09,606 --> 00:02:13,096 There's one where it uses an interpreter which will run 48 00:02:13,101 --> 00:02:15,646 the.net DLLs on web assembly. 49 00:02:15,956 --> 00:02:17,426 And that's the most common one. 50 00:02:17,426 --> 00:02:19,226 So there is a little bit of slowness. 51 00:02:19,226 --> 00:02:26,203 It's not native WAM but you can Compile to get your net application 52 00:02:26,603 --> 00:02:27,883 into native web assembly. 53 00:02:27,943 --> 00:02:30,763 It does make it a little bit bigger and things like that. 54 00:02:30,768 --> 00:02:35,803 But you can do that if speediness is the way you wanna go, but it's usually 55 00:02:35,803 --> 00:02:39,728 not necessary unless you're doing really intense computational stuff. 56 00:02:39,923 --> 00:02:40,193 Eddie: Wow. 57 00:02:40,193 --> 00:02:40,943 That's really interesting. 58 00:02:41,523 --> 00:02:43,403 I didn't know that I've already learned something today. 59 00:02:43,493 --> 00:02:44,033 Layla: Aha. 60 00:02:44,063 --> 00:02:44,393 Good. 61 00:02:44,393 --> 00:02:45,233 I'm pleased. 62 00:02:46,998 --> 00:02:49,428 Eddie: What was your journey like getting into tech? 63 00:02:49,528 --> 00:02:52,618 Did you start in.net world? 64 00:02:52,618 --> 00:02:55,528 Did you just find yourself there over time? 65 00:02:55,528 --> 00:02:56,998 What's that kind of look like for you? 66 00:02:57,498 --> 00:03:02,828 Layla: The first bit of code I wrote was action script for flash way back when, 67 00:03:03,278 --> 00:03:10,504 and then I dabbled in a little bit of iPod development like 2010, I think the 68 00:03:10,594 --> 00:03:13,384 first iPhone was just coming out and. 69 00:03:14,104 --> 00:03:17,314 Then I got more into web development. 70 00:03:17,314 --> 00:03:21,974 I'd already been doing a little bit of CSS and HTML, but , I was a Pilates teacher 71 00:03:21,974 --> 00:03:28,549 and professional horse rider, and I needed to build my own website with help 72 00:03:28,549 --> 00:03:30,709 of my partner, who is a web developer. 73 00:03:31,129 --> 00:03:33,439 And he built a all out for me. 74 00:03:33,439 --> 00:03:36,229 I did all the front end and this was an online booking system. 75 00:03:36,679 --> 00:03:40,489 And then I was like, well, I really want to be able to query what customers 76 00:03:40,489 --> 00:03:42,409 have been doing X, Y, and Z or. 77 00:03:42,619 --> 00:03:43,969 Whatever that query might be. 78 00:03:43,969 --> 00:03:46,549 And he's like, well, you better learn how to write them yourself. 79 00:03:46,549 --> 00:03:51,899 So I was like, oh, I okay then which was how I then started writing C 80 00:03:51,904 --> 00:03:53,439 sharp and learning how to do that. 81 00:03:53,439 --> 00:03:54,249 And then I loved it. 82 00:03:54,459 --> 00:03:58,099 And my plot business wasn't super successful. 83 00:03:58,099 --> 00:04:01,129 I couldn't scale it cuz people only wanted me to teach them. 84 00:04:01,439 --> 00:04:05,824 Which is a common thing I hear in the industry, people get very stuck with. 85 00:04:06,254 --> 00:04:07,334 Particular teacher. 86 00:04:07,874 --> 00:04:10,598 And so I thought, you know what, I'm gonna switch careers. 87 00:04:10,648 --> 00:04:17,193 , so in 2016, I got my very first full stack net web developer job agency. 88 00:04:17,493 --> 00:04:20,608 So my working career has always been in the.net ecosystem. 89 00:04:20,934 --> 00:04:21,154 Eddie: Wow. 90 00:04:21,154 --> 00:04:21,694 Awesome. 91 00:04:21,948 --> 00:04:22,218 I would. 92 00:04:22,758 --> 00:04:27,228 You call back to, you said you were a professional horse rider. 93 00:04:27,228 --> 00:04:28,278 Is that what you said? 94 00:04:28,528 --> 00:04:28,818 Layla: Yeah. 95 00:04:28,848 --> 00:04:29,138 Yeah. 96 00:04:29,768 --> 00:04:32,438 Eddie: There's a lot of people in their industry that have done like 97 00:04:32,438 --> 00:04:36,784 career changes, particularly now with COVID and layoffs and everything 98 00:04:36,784 --> 00:04:39,279 that happened in 2020, I've run into a lot of people who are. 99 00:04:39,658 --> 00:04:40,588 I've been a teacher. 100 00:04:40,588 --> 00:04:44,128 I've been, this I've been that, you know, now I wanna get into tech. 101 00:04:44,288 --> 00:04:46,058 You are the first person that I've met. 102 00:04:46,058 --> 00:04:49,598 That was a professional horse rider that has career transitioned 103 00:04:49,598 --> 00:04:50,948 how'd you get involved in that? 104 00:04:50,948 --> 00:04:52,058 That sounds awesome. 105 00:04:52,278 --> 00:04:57,948 Layla: Since I was little I used to go to pony shows and jump 106 00:04:57,948 --> 00:05:00,258 and bounce and fall off horses. 107 00:05:00,628 --> 00:05:05,668 And then I stopped when I went to college and then after college, I was 108 00:05:05,668 --> 00:05:09,613 lucky enough to live somewhere where I could, ride, my mom had horses then. 109 00:05:09,613 --> 00:05:12,013 So she just said, why don't you come and ride this old horse? 110 00:05:12,413 --> 00:05:18,253 So I did, I started back up again and I was doing dressage, which 111 00:05:18,253 --> 00:05:19,843 I hadn't really done as a kid. 112 00:05:20,153 --> 00:05:23,243 But I was much happier doing that, cuz it was much safer as an adult. 113 00:05:23,593 --> 00:05:26,353 I did a whole load of dress and started competing. 114 00:05:26,443 --> 00:05:31,153 I can be quite competitive, which is when I started to really push for it. 115 00:05:31,153 --> 00:05:34,663 And then I had the opportunity to give up work and ride full time. 116 00:05:34,723 --> 00:05:41,343 So I seized that opportunity and moved to MECA the island and the Mediterranean 117 00:05:41,673 --> 00:05:46,243 and road horses full time there competing them at quite a high level. 118 00:05:46,363 --> 00:05:50,473 And then moved back to the UK and was coaching people on bear 119 00:05:50,473 --> 00:05:51,793 horses and still competing. 120 00:05:51,798 --> 00:05:54,613 And that's how I got into Pilates because I wanted to help 121 00:05:54,613 --> 00:05:56,683 people on and off the horse. 122 00:05:57,868 --> 00:05:58,048 Eddie: Wow. 123 00:05:58,058 --> 00:05:59,258 That's a fun journey. 124 00:05:59,288 --> 00:05:59,738 You know what I mean? 125 00:05:59,738 --> 00:06:04,038 You've done a lot of really different things, which is really cool. 126 00:06:04,088 --> 00:06:09,508 One thing about our industry is it can be really myopic, right? 127 00:06:09,508 --> 00:06:12,988 You can have a lot of people with a lot of the same experiences thinking 128 00:06:12,988 --> 00:06:14,518 and doing all the same stuff. 129 00:06:14,548 --> 00:06:19,948 And one thing I love is when you get into areas or companies or groups, 130 00:06:19,978 --> 00:06:22,943 open source or whatever, where you have people that have all these 131 00:06:22,943 --> 00:06:26,333 different life experiences and it just gives such a different perspective. 132 00:06:26,433 --> 00:06:27,453 So I love that. 133 00:06:27,683 --> 00:06:28,523 Layla: Completely 134 00:06:29,182 --> 00:06:32,832 Eddie: When I was young I grew up in the Midwest of the us. 135 00:06:32,832 --> 00:06:35,952 And so there was definitely plenty of land and animals and stuff. 136 00:06:35,952 --> 00:06:39,787 So I joined something called pony club where, we could go 137 00:06:39,792 --> 00:06:41,242 and they taught us how to ride. 138 00:06:41,292 --> 00:06:42,342 I didn't do it very long. 139 00:06:42,342 --> 00:06:43,632 My sister did it much longer than me. 140 00:06:43,632 --> 00:06:45,612 I did it for like a year or something. 141 00:06:45,612 --> 00:06:47,562 And then I was like, all right, that was fun. 142 00:06:47,562 --> 00:06:48,132 But I don't. 143 00:06:48,852 --> 00:06:51,312 Get the horse going fast enough that I can fall off. 144 00:06:51,312 --> 00:06:54,642 And so I was like, I'll end my horse career here. 145 00:06:55,032 --> 00:06:59,392 Layla: Wise decision because falling off can be very painful. 146 00:07:01,272 --> 00:07:02,712 Eddie: I imagine so. 147 00:07:02,812 --> 00:07:03,442 Well, cool. 148 00:07:03,497 --> 00:07:08,317 one of the main things we try to talk about in web joy is what 149 00:07:08,437 --> 00:07:10,267 brings us joy, what we've been into. 150 00:07:10,267 --> 00:07:12,152 What's something you'd like to talk about today? 151 00:07:12,677 --> 00:07:14,897 Layla: So I'm a big fan of systems. 152 00:07:14,957 --> 00:07:19,997 I moved further into backend web development as opposed to the front end. 153 00:07:19,997 --> 00:07:25,337 And I really enjoyed that, but I did miss the front Endy bit of it, that creative 154 00:07:25,337 --> 00:07:31,362 design, and then recently, I started with a little bit of game development in unity, 155 00:07:31,782 --> 00:07:36,642 and that kind of does the backend systems for me, loads and loads of system stuff. 156 00:07:37,162 --> 00:07:41,112 And I get to do fun creative stuff in the front end that doesn't 157 00:07:41,112 --> 00:07:44,182 involve CSS and JavaScript win, win. 158 00:07:46,287 --> 00:07:46,577 Eddie: Nice. 159 00:07:46,657 --> 00:07:47,647 That is really awesome. 160 00:07:47,727 --> 00:07:51,027 Back before I ever started programming professionally, I 161 00:07:51,027 --> 00:07:53,247 had a friend who was working on. 162 00:07:53,432 --> 00:07:54,722 It was a.net game. 163 00:07:55,002 --> 00:08:00,086 That had a little SS graphics and was like a massive multiplayer online thing. 164 00:08:00,306 --> 00:08:03,116 So they built this little client that connected to the server and 165 00:08:03,116 --> 00:08:06,711 allowed everyone to move their little SSEs people around the screen. 166 00:08:06,961 --> 00:08:09,511 I didn't get to do a whole lot with that, but got to do a little bit with that. 167 00:08:09,561 --> 00:08:10,131 That was fun. 168 00:08:10,131 --> 00:08:12,951 So game development is actually close to my heart, even though 169 00:08:12,951 --> 00:08:14,511 I've not done a whole lot of it. 170 00:08:14,931 --> 00:08:19,311 So what kind of got you interested in exploring game development? 171 00:08:19,311 --> 00:08:23,781 Is kind of a little bit outside the realm of website, building, application 172 00:08:23,781 --> 00:08:24,981 development, that kind of thing. 173 00:08:25,311 --> 00:08:33,112 Layla: So I stream a lot on Twitch and my partner was dabbling in game dev. 174 00:08:33,142 --> 00:08:34,552 He was burnt out with web dev. 175 00:08:34,933 --> 00:08:39,473 And he built these virtual studios for me, which are really 176 00:08:39,473 --> 00:08:40,943 awesome on my Twitch stream. 177 00:08:41,333 --> 00:08:45,423 And I get embedded into them and they're completely 3d. 178 00:08:45,723 --> 00:08:49,948 I have graveyard, I have a penthouse, I have a snowy winter Wonderland. 179 00:08:49,953 --> 00:08:50,938 So they're really cool. 180 00:08:51,778 --> 00:08:56,898 And, I guess I was a bit nosy and he's doing all this cool stuff and 181 00:08:56,898 --> 00:08:59,908 I'm like, Oh, here I am doing yet. 182 00:08:59,908 --> 00:09:01,528 Another crud system. 183 00:09:01,918 --> 00:09:07,018 I think I'd quite like to go and have a little dabble and a play with this 184 00:09:07,018 --> 00:09:12,538 game, dev malarkey and being a Net developer, the obvious choice is unity, 185 00:09:12,538 --> 00:09:18,443 because it's all written in C And it's a pretty awesome game engine. 186 00:09:18,873 --> 00:09:20,793 A lot of big games are built in it. 187 00:09:21,253 --> 00:09:23,263 So yeah, I downloaded it. 188 00:09:23,473 --> 00:09:25,633 I did some tutorials, I enjoyed it. 189 00:09:25,633 --> 00:09:27,643 I work on some of the stuff that he does. 190 00:09:27,973 --> 00:09:32,013 I tweak my rooms and it's like the hobby for me. 191 00:09:32,013 --> 00:09:36,183 It's like creative thing that I don't have to get paints out and get messy or 192 00:09:36,183 --> 00:09:38,103 get clay, which I like doing as well. 193 00:09:38,443 --> 00:09:41,503 I can quickly sit down and do something creative without 194 00:09:41,503 --> 00:09:43,003 making a whole load of mess. 195 00:09:43,183 --> 00:09:47,203 I do make a mess in the code, but you know, physical mess, shall we say? 196 00:09:48,163 --> 00:09:48,793 Eddie: That makes sense. 197 00:09:48,793 --> 00:09:49,573 Well, I mean, Hey. 198 00:09:50,208 --> 00:09:54,918 Behind every game or web is some horrendous, messy code 199 00:09:54,918 --> 00:09:55,938 that no one wants to see. 200 00:09:56,113 --> 00:09:56,563 Layla: Yeah. 201 00:09:56,653 --> 00:09:58,483 Yeah, no one wants to see that. 202 00:10:00,138 --> 00:10:01,278 Eddie: it's like your closet. 203 00:10:01,308 --> 00:10:04,008 When people are about to come over, you just grab all the junk 204 00:10:04,008 --> 00:10:05,448 and you shove it in the closet. 205 00:10:05,808 --> 00:10:10,068 You shut the door and as long as no one opens the door, everything's okay. 206 00:10:10,998 --> 00:10:12,348 Layla: I like that analogy. 207 00:10:12,348 --> 00:10:13,818 That's so true as well. 208 00:10:13,818 --> 00:10:17,028 I throw all of the shoes into the downstairs cupboard. 209 00:10:17,368 --> 00:10:20,158 I like this door will shut and all the coats are bolting out. 210 00:10:20,338 --> 00:10:20,638 Yep. 211 00:10:20,668 --> 00:10:20,878 Yep. 212 00:10:20,938 --> 00:10:25,378 That's a pretty good analogy for what some of my code looks like. 213 00:10:28,318 --> 00:10:28,888 Eddie: Nice. 214 00:10:28,888 --> 00:10:33,148 Well, you've done a lot of different like development, right? 215 00:10:33,391 --> 00:10:37,721 We might build software as a service where it's more of a crud 216 00:10:37,726 --> 00:10:39,821 application, you've got game dev. 217 00:10:39,876 --> 00:10:42,186 What are some of the differences there from your experiences? 218 00:10:42,816 --> 00:10:46,056 Layla: So web development, you can be so lazy. 219 00:10:46,176 --> 00:10:48,936 You can have such expensive code. 220 00:10:49,506 --> 00:10:55,836 You can really, really just throw caution to the wind and do expensive 221 00:10:55,866 --> 00:10:58,476 computations and be like, yeah, it's fine. 222 00:10:58,476 --> 00:10:59,406 Not to worry. 223 00:11:00,561 --> 00:11:01,281 Gaming. 224 00:11:02,931 --> 00:11:03,591 Oh, wow. 225 00:11:03,711 --> 00:11:04,671 Oh, wow. 226 00:11:04,671 --> 00:11:08,901 It's like, how can I do this without doing another loop or iteration? 227 00:11:08,931 --> 00:11:10,971 Oh, that's gonna make everything grind to a halt. 228 00:11:11,241 --> 00:11:17,511 You have to be so sympathetic to the machine that your game is gonna run on. 229 00:11:17,871 --> 00:11:19,601 And that's both. 230 00:11:20,117 --> 00:11:25,747 Like a confinement, but it's liberating because you have to really think about 231 00:11:25,747 --> 00:11:27,877 how you're going to structure your code. 232 00:11:28,117 --> 00:11:29,797 What patterns are you going to use? 233 00:11:30,007 --> 00:11:35,289 Why I like it is it makes me delve into stuff in the C language that I don't 234 00:11:35,289 --> 00:11:41,959 generally have to use because I'm a web developer and I can go in and go, oh, wow. 235 00:11:41,989 --> 00:11:43,099 I didn't know. 236 00:11:43,099 --> 00:11:44,059 I could do that. 237 00:11:44,229 --> 00:11:45,319 Oh, oh, that's cool. 238 00:11:45,409 --> 00:11:45,859 Oh yeah. 239 00:11:45,859 --> 00:11:46,939 I do remember that. 240 00:11:46,939 --> 00:11:49,699 And that's why, and I can see the use for it. 241 00:11:50,089 --> 00:11:55,254 And so that's been fascinating and I've gone off into little explorations of 242 00:11:55,254 --> 00:11:59,764 code little, like, passing references around and just seeing how that happens 243 00:11:59,764 --> 00:12:04,894 cause that's really a big deal in game development, but you don't really 244 00:12:04,894 --> 00:12:06,784 think about it in web development. 245 00:12:06,784 --> 00:12:09,094 You're like, yeah, I'll just new, a new object, whatever. 246 00:12:09,094 --> 00:12:11,614 And yeah, you just don't think about that. 247 00:12:12,124 --> 00:12:17,554 So that's one of the big differences that you can be super lazy in web development. 248 00:12:18,439 --> 00:12:19,549 Eddie: That makes complete sense. 249 00:12:19,549 --> 00:12:24,799 It's so funny because it seems in the react world, much more standard that 250 00:12:24,849 --> 00:12:29,706 you do a bunch of JavaScript, object creation and deletion, because it's so 251 00:12:29,706 --> 00:12:33,961 much easier for the developer experience, but it's gotta be somewhat computational. 252 00:12:34,031 --> 00:12:36,011 You'll be like, all right, object equals. 253 00:12:36,011 --> 00:12:38,891 And then I'm gonna explode this into different variables and then you 254 00:12:38,891 --> 00:12:43,096 create a new object using some of those variables and there's all this 255 00:12:43,146 --> 00:12:45,936 object creation and destruction. 256 00:12:46,016 --> 00:12:47,036 It's interesting. 257 00:12:47,426 --> 00:12:49,076 I'm mostly JavaScript. 258 00:12:49,176 --> 00:12:54,636 And I never came across or knew that there was like sets as opposed to arrays. 259 00:12:55,342 --> 00:12:57,442 an array basically did everything I needed. 260 00:12:57,742 --> 00:12:58,402 The thing about a. 261 00:12:59,257 --> 00:13:01,417 In JavaScript is it's more performant. 262 00:13:01,837 --> 00:13:05,317 And so it was actually, like you said, we can be so lazy. 263 00:13:05,367 --> 00:13:10,737 One of the most similar times I've had to your game development experience is 264 00:13:11,007 --> 00:13:16,237 we were building a network visualizer, at a cybersecurity, software as 265 00:13:16,237 --> 00:13:17,437 a service that I was working for. 266 00:13:17,631 --> 00:13:19,431 And this thing was intense. 267 00:13:19,431 --> 00:13:23,671 Like we were talking about dealing with like 1500 nodes. 268 00:13:23,951 --> 00:13:25,571 And we were building out a visual graph. 269 00:13:25,576 --> 00:13:26,701 And it was so slow. 270 00:13:26,701 --> 00:13:31,781 We ended up having to put the data onto the graphics card to calculate it really 271 00:13:31,781 --> 00:13:36,881 fast using like RGB stuff and then pull that data back in to display it. 272 00:13:37,001 --> 00:13:41,416 And so for the first time, in my entire career, we actually had to care about the 273 00:13:41,416 --> 00:13:43,096 performance like you're talking about. 274 00:13:43,646 --> 00:13:47,696 So I started looking into set and how many times you were doing loops and everything 275 00:13:47,701 --> 00:13:49,746 you were talking about with game development, and since then I've thought, 276 00:13:49,746 --> 00:13:54,066 should I use set, like in this and most of the time, I'm like, no, that's okay. 277 00:13:54,116 --> 00:13:56,396 Even though it's more performant, it's like most of the time it's like, 278 00:13:56,396 --> 00:13:59,726 ah, that's more of a hassle than it's worth if I don't need the performance. 279 00:13:59,731 --> 00:14:01,806 So I love that differentiation. 280 00:14:01,906 --> 00:14:02,806 That's really interesting. 281 00:14:03,136 --> 00:14:06,016 Layla: Yeah, everything in unity is into dictionaries. 282 00:14:06,016 --> 00:14:12,586 Dictionaries are super deeper du quick, and I'm like, I never use a dictionary. 283 00:14:12,586 --> 00:14:17,716 I create like complex objects and you know, all of that and collections, 284 00:14:17,776 --> 00:14:19,336 oh, I love a good collection. 285 00:14:19,706 --> 00:14:22,236 Those differences, that are so interesting. 286 00:14:22,536 --> 00:14:26,906 Um, and anytime you need to go onto the graphics card, as you discovered, 287 00:14:26,906 --> 00:14:28,826 that's a whole different world. 288 00:14:28,831 --> 00:14:33,056 And I haven't really gone into that, but I hear my partner getting very 289 00:14:33,056 --> 00:14:37,826 annoyed about doing stuff on the graphics cards and shades and things like that. 290 00:14:37,826 --> 00:14:42,176 And I'm like, hi, I'm just gonna do my, my, my very easy bit of game development. 291 00:14:43,796 --> 00:14:44,991 Eddie: Yeah, I would stick to that. 292 00:14:44,991 --> 00:14:46,611 I didn't understand half of what I was doing. 293 00:14:46,611 --> 00:14:46,851 Really. 294 00:14:46,851 --> 00:14:50,971 I was just going on stack overflowing, copying pasting, open source algorithms. 295 00:14:52,261 --> 00:14:53,101 and it worked. 296 00:14:54,556 --> 00:14:57,866 Layla: It worked in the in quote marks that 297 00:14:58,561 --> 00:15:00,061 Eddie: Yeah, it worked in that. 298 00:15:00,061 --> 00:15:02,521 It was faster than when I didn't use the graphics card 299 00:15:04,096 --> 00:15:04,596 Layla: win, win. 300 00:15:05,101 --> 00:15:05,791 Eddie: exactly. 301 00:15:05,791 --> 00:15:07,141 Who knows what people would've thought. 302 00:15:07,146 --> 00:15:10,951 If they actually were used to using the graphics card, they looked at my code 303 00:15:12,121 --> 00:15:15,811 Layla: Horrified, but they, again, it's that downstairs closet that 304 00:15:15,911 --> 00:15:17,271 you've shoved everything in. 305 00:15:17,411 --> 00:15:18,511 So no one will know. 306 00:15:18,871 --> 00:15:19,501 Eddie: That's right. 307 00:15:21,251 --> 00:15:26,381 As we wrap up today, one of the big things we really like to focus on 308 00:15:26,381 --> 00:15:29,731 is as a community, how do we support each other and so I'm just curious. 309 00:15:29,731 --> 00:15:32,491 Do you have anything that you're involved in or that you've worked 310 00:15:32,491 --> 00:15:35,801 on that you'd like to share with the community that maybe would be helpful? 311 00:15:37,111 --> 00:15:37,411 Layla: Yeah. 312 00:15:37,681 --> 00:15:45,371 So there is the women of net initiative that I created last July, 2020, and, 313 00:15:45,551 --> 00:15:50,831 I just left the board of directors for the.net foundation, because I thought 314 00:15:50,831 --> 00:15:54,671 I could do more for women in the community, outside of the foundation. 315 00:15:54,761 --> 00:15:59,211 So I didn't run again and I created the initiative. 316 00:15:59,571 --> 00:16:00,501 It started off. 317 00:16:00,751 --> 00:16:06,751 As a profile site for women speakers, because I was always getting DMed 318 00:16:06,751 --> 00:16:11,341 on Twitter, like Layla, do you know of any women speakers who could 319 00:16:11,341 --> 00:16:14,011 speak at my meetup on this day? 320 00:16:14,016 --> 00:16:19,201 And I was like, I am not the social secretary of all women.net speakers. 321 00:16:19,201 --> 00:16:19,711 I'm not. 322 00:16:20,041 --> 00:16:20,761 So I created the. 323 00:16:21,396 --> 00:16:25,440 And I could point people to that and say, yeah, go have a look and see who's talking 324 00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:27,060 about interesting stuff for your group. 325 00:16:27,550 --> 00:16:33,570 Then I wanted to do more about nurturing women coming into.net.net. 326 00:16:34,270 --> 00:16:36,070 Is an older communities. 327 00:16:36,070 --> 00:16:38,440 You are asking if it's thriving. 328 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:40,360 It is, but it's aging. 329 00:16:40,740 --> 00:16:43,470 So we don't have the new blood coming in. 330 00:16:43,470 --> 00:16:46,050 They all wanna do cool stuff like JavaScript, 331 00:16:47,055 --> 00:16:47,745 Eddie: Yes, 332 00:16:48,910 --> 00:16:53,500 Layla: But with things like blazer and minimal APIs now, which look 333 00:16:53,505 --> 00:16:58,720 really like a node express app it's so much easier for people to come. 334 00:16:59,135 --> 00:17:04,565 And try C sharp and.net, and it is super quick, super, super, super quick. 335 00:17:04,565 --> 00:17:05,825 So it's highly performant. 336 00:17:06,185 --> 00:17:07,295 It's strongly types. 337 00:17:07,295 --> 00:17:08,915 It's really easy to learn. 338 00:17:08,988 --> 00:17:10,128 It's very readable. 339 00:17:10,150 --> 00:17:16,011 And so I wanted to create ways that communities could encourage women and 340 00:17:16,011 --> 00:17:18,111 girls to come and try code and learn. 341 00:17:18,111 --> 00:17:21,711 So at the moment I'm working with some of the women at Microsoft 342 00:17:22,031 --> 00:17:24,491 creating workshops in a box. 343 00:17:24,951 --> 00:17:29,711 So we can run a workshop day, a little bit like Jengo girls does where 344 00:17:29,711 --> 00:17:31,331 you get all the source materials. 345 00:17:31,416 --> 00:17:33,666 That you need and how to run the workshop. 346 00:17:33,666 --> 00:17:36,666 And a user group can just put one on and they don't have 347 00:17:36,666 --> 00:17:38,256 to really struggle to do it. 348 00:17:38,256 --> 00:17:41,796 They just provide the venue, advertise it, and we provide it. 349 00:17:41,796 --> 00:17:44,196 So we're working on that at the moment and we have a discord 350 00:17:44,196 --> 00:17:48,226 community that we're trying to grow where women can come in and chat. 351 00:17:48,326 --> 00:17:50,306 We're very ally friendly. 352 00:17:50,311 --> 00:17:55,826 I don't think a subset of a community successful without the support of allies. 353 00:17:56,106 --> 00:17:58,176 So we strongly encourage all allies. 354 00:17:58,456 --> 00:18:04,636 So that's non women identifying people coming into the group and 355 00:18:04,686 --> 00:18:09,696 supporting us, chatting with us being mentors or being mentored by women. 356 00:18:10,026 --> 00:18:10,536 Eddie: Awesome. 357 00:18:10,566 --> 00:18:11,226 I love that. 358 00:18:11,256 --> 00:18:16,431 And I think one huge thing there is oftentimes as we're trying to shift 359 00:18:16,521 --> 00:18:20,026 the overrepresentation of CIS men. 360 00:18:20,076 --> 00:18:25,608 Oftentimes it can be like, oh, now all the men are going to, you know, 361 00:18:25,638 --> 00:18:29,508 mentor the women because they're overrepresented and underrepresented. 362 00:18:30,168 --> 00:18:33,763 I love the flip of that, of like, Hey, someone who doesn't identify 363 00:18:33,793 --> 00:18:38,098 as a woman can come and join this community and be mentored by a woman. 364 00:18:38,218 --> 00:18:43,498 And like that helps flip a lot of the kind of incorrect paradigms of tech. 365 00:18:43,498 --> 00:18:44,338 So I love that. 366 00:18:44,829 --> 00:18:45,279 Well, cool. 367 00:18:45,279 --> 00:18:48,189 How can someone get involved? 368 00:18:48,189 --> 00:18:50,619 Layla: I just pushed the redesign of the website. 369 00:18:50,619 --> 00:18:54,939 So it's looking a little bit snazzier, I've been fighting a lot with JavaScripts, 370 00:18:54,939 --> 00:18:58,629 so JavaScript in my art, even less friendly with each other than normal. 371 00:18:59,149 --> 00:19:00,139 But it's fine. 372 00:19:00,479 --> 00:19:03,629 And that is women of dot.net. 373 00:19:04,169 --> 00:19:06,089 People can always reach out to me. 374 00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:08,519 My DMS are always open I'm on Twitter 375 00:19:08,524 --> 00:19:12,234 . Eddie: Thank you so much for coming on and joining and sharing your 376 00:19:12,234 --> 00:19:13,314 thoughts and your experience. 377 00:19:13,314 --> 00:19:13,764 Layla. 378 00:19:14,289 --> 00:19:15,039 Layla: Oh, thank you, Eddie. 379 00:19:15,039 --> 00:19:15,719 It's been a joy. 380 00:19:16,658 --> 00:19:20,768 Eddie: Thank you for joining us for episode 15, you have to be so 381 00:19:20,768 --> 00:19:25,058 sympathetic to the machine with Layla, you can find out more about 382 00:19:25,063 --> 00:19:28,508 Layla on her Twitter at Layla codes. 383 00:19:28,508 --> 00:19:33,638 It, you can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as a 384 00:19:33,638 --> 00:19:36,068 link to Layla's Twitter in the show notes. 385 00:19:36,744 --> 00:19:40,254 If you enjoyed this episode, help others discover it as well 386 00:19:40,284 --> 00:19:43,704 by rating and reviewing it in your favorite podcast directory. 387 00:19:44,034 --> 00:19:47,664 And don't forget to follow us on Twitter at web joy. 388 00:19:47,694 --> 00:19:48,204 FM. 389 00:19:48,654 --> 00:19:51,444 Thank you for listening and have a great day. 390 00:19:51,923 --> 00:19:52,543 Layla: Bye