Giant Devcast: Sorry We Changed Things :(

yuh?

Wah?

hell yeahhhhhhhh

it's got a thumbnail and everything, is this A Thing?

Is this in a podcast feed?

When they said "Will and Dan" did a podcast together, I literally thought Will Smith and Dan Ryckert just recorded a random podcast of themselves hanging out.

This is awesome

Good stuff

Needs more <blink>

Lol. As long as it's not Digg 3.0. /it won't be.

Giant Bomb webdev cast? Pretty sure this is targeted directly at me

Will this be appearing under 'Giant Bomb Presents'?

This is a great idea for a podcast, hope you release episodes regularly.

EDIT: @krustopian It's a seperate podcast with it's own RSS feed and everything.

https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/devcast/

As a developer I am very much looking forward to this! Always fun to hear devs chat about stuff.

As a web developer who loves this site, I'm so excited for this series!

Saw "Giant Devcast" at the top of the podcasts drop-down earlier today; was wondering when something was going to launch.

I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next episode.

This podcast is extremely relevant to my interests - please do more of this

As someone moving into a new phase of my dev career, I'm very into hearing about all of this - doubly so on a site that I love. Good shit, y'all.

How do you opt into the beta?

beta.giantbomb.com

Man I don't remember my ding dang password, I've been a member for 9+ years and have pretty much had the same HDD the whole time through upgrades. Shit.

@humanityplague: yeah me too lol. This makes more sense

I seem to be the only one not digging the new beta layout. Lots and lots of wasted space. Still looks the same as it did when I last heard of the beta. The start page is a mess and it doesn't get much better scrolling down.

I feel like you've lost the plot with the new layout. I don't understand the purpose for it and I'm wondering if you do? Or are you just doing this because every website "needs" a refresh every X years. Do you want to be yet another generic web site with the same boring ass looking as all the others?

[Edit: I haven't listened to the podcast yet so excuse me.]

I don't work there so I obviously can't judge too much, but some of the discussion here raised my eyebrows a few times (particularly around design and the difficulty with the light theme).

Maybe a follow up podcast would be nice. I'm genuinely curious how you structure your sprints and what project methodologies you've taken up (you mentioned how synergised the team feels now) + more info on the underlying tech that goes into the site. You mentioned PHP, but are you using any frameworks, any fancy tools, what do you do to test your code, any CI's, what deployment tools do you use?

Edit after launch: the styling isn't great, I'm sorry. Trouble with backend stuff is expected during launches, but polish on the frontend shouldn't be. No breaks on paragraphs now too?

I missed the rss button on this very page... so if you are as slow as me this is the link!

https://www.giantbomb.com/podcast-xml/devcast

This is a great idea for a podcast! I'm excited for the upcoming episodes.

uhhh something changed?

I would love to read or hear more about your devOps pipeline. "Scrambling for a blade server" isn't a phrase you hear often anymore.

This is so cool, thank you so much for sharing.

You have a small team! We have easily 5 times the web developers (front and back end, multiple micro services, new architecture) at my job.

Appreciate you guys doing this! Really hope this becomes a regular thing. Design and dev (front-end, back-end, side-end... anything) is of great interest to me! Don't worry about going inside-baseball or getting into the weeds, either - really interested to learn about specific processes/techniques/technologies

<3

This is super cool. Only giant bomb would allow such unique content. This is what separates this website about "video games" from all the others.

Awesome.

Ok.... glad this is interesting to some people I guess.

The newsletter mentioned a new Giant Bomb logo, which is blasphemous at best.

Not gonna lie alot of the talk goes over my head, but I think their both cool dudes so it keeps me listening. I think its a great idea to do a podcast on though! Kudos guys!

They have a team that works on gamefaqs? That site has always been bare bones.

No videos for this is a shame but cool as a web developer myself this will be nice to listen to.

@willyod said:

I seem to be the only one not digging the new beta layout. Lots and lots of wasted space. Still looks the same as it did when I last heard of the beta. The start page is a mess and it doesn't get much better scrolling down.

I feel like you've lost the plot with the new layout. I don't understand the purpose for it and I'm wondering if you do? Or are you just doing this because every website "needs" a refresh every X years. Do you want to be yet another generic web site with the same boring ass looking as all the others?

[Edit: I haven't listened to the podcast yet so excuse me.]

I actually feel the same, I'm not a big fan of the beta redesign. I know the devs are probably cool and proud of their new baby, but I've grown to really like the current site design. Even to the point that if I made a website, it would take heavy cues from that design. The new "netflix" style carousel looks very boring and generic, and IMO takes more time to find what I'm actually looking for. Like I said before, I respect the devs and much props to you guys for being proactive, but why fix something that isn't broken? I haven't seen ANYONE complain about the current site design (maybe I'm not paying attention?)

@cooljammer00 said:

Agreed.

I always browse giant bomb content by looking at the latest content from the homepage. I can't do that easily anymore. So, the new site is a big downgrade for me.

@willyod:Genuinely not trying to be snarky: how do you reconcile "seem[ing] to be the only one not digging the new layout" and "I don't understand the purpose for it and I'm wondering if you do?" It would seem the purpose is creating a layout most people dig. Right?

I'm not a Dev so some of this went over my head but I really enjoyed listening. Dan and Will are awesome. Thanks for the hard work and looking forward to the next episode.

This is fantastic! I love the behind the scenes look at the updated site. Very cool to hear your thoughts on how and why things have changed. Hope to hear more in the future.

@willyod said:

I seem to be the only one not digging the new beta layout. Lots and lots of wasted space. Still looks the same as it did when I last heard of the beta. The start page is a mess and it doesn't get much better scrolling down.

I feel like you've lost the plot with the new layout. I don't understand the purpose for it and I'm wondering if you do? Or are you just doing this because every website "needs" a refresh every X years. Do you want to be yet another generic web site with the same boring ass looking as all the others?

[Edit: I haven't listened to the podcast yet so excuse me.]

It's kinda hard to excuse you on this because you are basically telling Will and Dan they don't know what they're doing and then immediately afterward you admit that you haven't even listened to the bit of audio that could quite possibly address all of your concerns. If you actually want said concerns to be addressed, try listening to the people who are trying to address them first.

And there already is a video on the site with Will and Dan talking at length about what they're changing and why, and that was like a week ago at least so I'd recommend watching that as well if you haven't done so already. In the video they also ask for feedback (and it's implied they mean feedback that they could actually use). Within your two paragraphs of (quite frankly, very dickish) ranting, the bit about wasted space on the front page is the only thing that approaches being constructive. The rest of your post is just unnecessary, and honestly just makes you seem like someone who will always hate any sort of change. It's the kind of post that Giant Bomb would skim over before disregarding altogether (I certainly would, it's hard to please anyone who just wants to yell at the staff before even listening to what they have to say in the first place).

Basically, just think about what you're saying and how you are saying it. Make sure you send any questions and concerns via the proper channels (I can't remember if they recommended sending e-mails to them or if they are gonna be combing through the comments as well). I hope you have noticed that, while I am criticizing your actions here, I am trying to do so in a way that may still benefit you in the long run considering how many problems you have with the beta site. And I'm only slightly aggressive about it because I hate/don't understand when a member of a great community like Giant Bomb essentially is saying "I love your website! Also I hate your website because you're trying to improve the website. Don't change the thing I love/hate even if the changes all make sense. In addition to that, now I specifically hate you and everything you're doing."

Just don't be a dick about it. Unless that's your goal in which case, congratulations.

@wcarle@danauer don't be afraid to go in depth with the tech jargon. I'm not a web developer nor a designer but I do work with databases on occasion and I can relate to Will's experience around the Beta launch. I love hearing your thoughts and reasons behind the decisions you've made.

Looking forward to the next Devcast #TheCarleAuer

Great show! I hope it will become a weekly thing!

awesome podcast. hopefully the devcast continues