Welcome to Episode 1 of Developer Tea. I'm your host, Jonathan Cottrell, and I'm really excited that you've decided to join me today because today is a pretty important episode. It's the very first episode, and I'm going to be able to sit here and talk to you for the very first time. I don't even know who you are necessarily, but in this first episode, I'm going to be able to tell you who I am and give you some insight into what Developer Tea is, why I decided to start this podcast, and kind of what I hope for you to be able to gain from the podcast. I'll tell you a little bit about myself, where I come from, what I do, and then basically we'll be done. That's the very first thing that I want you to know about this podcast. It's really short, and it's intentionally really short. The hope is to create something of value that is kind of a bite size. You're able to get it definitely within 10 minutes, but usually within 5 minutes. It's an idea that's birthed out of my own personal experience listening to podcasts because I really love listening to podcasts. But sometimes I just don't want to... I spend an hour and a half doing it. So when I'm coding, for instance, podcasts don't really make for effective background noise like music might would. Sometimes even music is difficult for me. I'll listen to instrumental music because the words kind of trip me up when I'm listening to music that has lyrics. So usually I listen to podcasts when I'm at the gym, pretty much exclusively actually when I'm at the gym because that's one of the few times in my day that my brain can engage something that I'm not used to. I don't want to do that intentionally for that long of a period. A lot of podcasts really deserve the attention that you would give maybe an intense television show because the interview, there's so much content there. There's so much depth. So before I continue, hopefully you can already tell, I'm a big fan of podcasts, and I really believe in the long form interviews and the kind of in-depth discussions. that they provide. And in fact, there's quite a few that I listen to regularly, once again, going to the gym. But the truth is, a lot of the time when I want to listen to a podcast, I really only have a few minutes to listen to it. And so it's kind of difficult to listen to five minutes of a podcast, put it on pause, go back to work, and then revisit that podcast later on. So what I wanted to create was something that would fit inside of the proverbial tea break, the five or 10 minutes that you might take to disengage with whatever thing you're doing, and put your brain into another mode of thinking. And that's exactly what Developer Tea is about. So I'm setting out to create thought-provoking, insightful, valuable podcast mini-episodes that you can listen to. Relatively quickly. My hope is also to be able to put these out far more often than I would be able to put out a long-form podcast. I'm shooting for one every other day, maybe one every three days. And these mini-episodes will be pretty focused on a single topic too. So sometimes that single topic might be about a particular coding practice. It might be about developer health, for instance. In every episode, though, I will be shooting to inspire you to think and push yourself to become a better developer and a better human being. Now, as I said previously, my name is Jonathan Cottrell. I work every day as the Director of Technology at Whiteboard, which is a web development-based agency in Chattanooga, Tennessee. So I'm going to oftentimes talk about some of the experiences that I have at Whiteboard. And I might even have some people that I've met in the past that have whiteboard join me on the show. And you know what? I might even have other people join me on the show too. Who knows where the show is going to go. For now, the plan is for me to kind of give you five minutes of my thoughts on a particular subject. So if you don't like a particular episode, it's not a big deal. You can just kind of skip that one and move on. Because you're not going to miss a lot of content. If you miss one episode. And that again, that's the hope is each of these episodes, I really do hope are extremely valuable to you. But because they are such small investments of time for you, I'm hoping that you will be able to skip over the ones that you don't feel are applicable to you as an audience member, but then engage with the ones that you feel are highly applicable to you. Again, really excited about this show. I'm running a little bit later than I'd like to on this one. If you have any ideas for developer T, or if you have any suggestions or questions, or if you hate this idea, you can get at me on Twitter at at developer T. And you can email me at developer T at gmail.com. And I will address them on future episodes as much as possible. I want this to be a value to the community of people. And I want to thank you for listening to the very first episode of developer T. I look forward to many more with you. And until next time, enjoy your tea.