#116 She wrote code you use every day – GitHub dev and Electron JS pioneer Jessica Lord
The freeCodeCamp Podcast
Quincy Larson
5.0 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2024
⏱️ 114 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week's episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp founder Quincy Larson interviews Jessica Lord, AKA JLord. She's worked as a software engineer for more than a decade at companies like GitHub and Glitch.
Among her many accomplishments, Jessica created the Electon team at GitHub. Electron is a library for building desktop apps using browser technologies. If you've used the desktop version of Slack, Figma, or VS Code, you've used Electron.
I recorded this podcast live and I haven't edited it at all. I want to capture the feel of a real live conversation, with all the human quirks that entails. As with all my podcast episodes, I start by performing a classic bass line. Can you guess what song this bass line is from? It's a "cult" hit from 1990.
Be sure to follow The freeCodeCamp podcast in your favorite podcast app. And share this podcast with a friend. Let's inspire more folks to learn to code and build careers for themselves in tech.
Also, I want to thank the 8,427 kind people who support our charity each month, and who make this podcast possible. You can join them and support our mission at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/donate
Links we talk about during the interview:
GitIt, Jessica's interactive Git course on Node School: https://github.com/jlord/git-it
Jessica's old craft blog (you may get an HTTPS warning from your browser but the site is just an old Blogspot site): http://www.ecabonline.com/
JSBin founder Remy Sharp's blog about JSBin and how he "lost his love of his side project": https://remysharp.com/2015/09/14/jsbin-toxic-part-1
Subdivisions song by Rush that Quincy mentions. Great early morning listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYdQB0mkEU
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome back to the Free Code Camp podcast. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm Quincy Larson, teacher and founder of FreecodeCamp.org. |
| 0:26.1 | Each week, we're bringing you insight from developers, founders, and ambitious people who are getting into tech. |
| 0:32.1 | This week, we're talking with Jessica Lord. |
| 0:35.4 | Jessica worked as a software engineer for more than a decade at companies like GitHub |
| 0:39.2 | and glitch. |
| 0:40.4 | She created the electron team at GitHub. |
| 0:43.4 | If you haven't heard of Electron, it's a library for building desktop apps using |
| 0:48.3 | browser technologies. |
| 0:50.1 | And if you've used the desktop version of Slack, Figma, VS code, then've used electron. Jessica, you're over in London. How's the weather over there? Dim. Dim. This is the natural light we've got, really, today. Awesome. Well, I hope it clears up a little bit and you get a little bit of some at least. Well, we're so happy to have you on the podcast. |
| 1:12.5 | And real quick, before we jump into our conversation, I want to thank the 8,427 kind people who support our charity each month and who make this podcast possible. |
| 1:24.0 | You can join them and support FreeCodecodecamp's mission at freecodecamp.org |
| 1:28.5 | slash donate, or you can click the link in the description. |
| 1:32.4 | So, Jessica, you are the first person I've ever talked to who is both a lord and a lady. |
| 1:40.7 | It's true. |
| 1:42.0 | It's true. |
| 1:42.7 | I really like having this last name. Sometimes the mail comes for me as Lord Jessica, just depending on how their database spithel addresses. |
| 1:52.8 | Also, fun fact, Lord etymologically related. |
| 1:57.0 | Is that, is that right? |
| 1:59.2 | Etymologically. |
| 2:00.5 | Yeah. |
| 2:05.8 | And their shared etymology is that they have to do with bread keepers. |
... |
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