Betatalks the podcast

In this episode, we speak with Louëlla (Lou) Creemers. She is a web developer with a love for .NET. We talk about the tech content she creates and how she tries to bring value to the tech community through social media and by being a speaker. As a relative newcomer to Tech Twitter, how welcoming is the tech community, especially for women? Further, we discuss what the .NET ecosystem currently has to offer, if anything is missing, and if there is something she would like to change. And, we dive a little deeper into her learning journey to become the next generation web developer and how this could help other students inspire and achieve their goals.

About this episode, and Lou Creemers in particular: you can find @lovelacecoding on Twitter or check out her website and definitely read her blogpost Do's and don'ts with Twitter DM's.

About Betatalks: have a look at our videos and join us on our Betatalks Discord channel

00:00 - Introduction
03:24 - Friend of the day
05:49 - Lou on Twitter
17:05 - The next step of Lou
22:50 - Totally random question
26:40 - Being a role model
33:53 - Closing

Introduction - 00:00

Rick 
Hey there, welcome to Betatalks, the podcast in which we talk to friends from the development community. I am Rick.

Oscar 
And I am Oscar. Well, good morning, Rick. What have you been up to?

Rick 
Yeah, busy since while we are recording this, we are still just before summer. So it's the end of the school year, which means my oldest had going away musical yesterday.

Oscar 
Oh that is fun.

Rick 
So that was fun to watch. Also, there are quite a few events still planned both bigger events, but also user groups. So there's a lot of movement there. Of course, it was MVP renewal season.

Oscar 
Yeah, I saw you and the rest of the world got renewed. So, so congratulations.

Rick 
Yeah, thanks. That was not actually what I wanted to talk about. But thank you very much. It's an honour and a privilege to be able to do this for the community. So that's a good thing. And then also, of course, getting ready for summer vacation. And finishing off quite a few projects are actually in a project right now for a customer where we implemented a REST API, which is behind API management. And then of course, API management is really cool solution where you have quotas and rate limits. Almost built in.

Oscar 
But it's their API. Oh, actually, their products also?

Rick 
Yes.

Oscar 
Okay.

Rick 
Yeah. So it's their main product.

Oscar 
What it's for.

Rick 
Yeah, yeah, actually really what it's for. And so you can define a product that has several API's and operations under one product. So you could have, for instance, silver, gold and premium. And then have limits on the amount of requests for each of those products. But now we had a customer that also had an extra question so that within a product, they could, let's say, sell credits for one specific API.

Oscar 
Okay, that's not out of the box, right?

Rick 
No, that's not out of the box. So what we in the end worked on is we looked at writing all of the requests that came in, or at least counting requests that came in ourselves. But API Management already does that. So that might be a bit suboptimal. And then a good friend of mine and a colleague

Oscar 
Now I know where you're going. I remember the conversation.

Rick 
He said, hey, maybe API Management has an API that you can call to get the amount of requests somebody has done for specific endpoints. So we actually implemented that it's now.

Oscar 
Oh it actually works.

Rick 
It does. And the cool thing is you can even you even get back the amount of size that are the amount of data that went over the line for those requests. So the cap could be on number of requests, but also on the amount of data that goes over the line. So that's actually pretty, pretty powerful.

Oscar 
So you're building API Management extensions for sub limits.

Rick 
Yes, something like that. So it's actually pretty cool to be that deep in tech, again, because it's been a while

Oscar 
Actually coding. That's, that's a lot of fun.

Rick 
Trying out stuff and seeing that it breaks and then fixing it, and then seeing that it actually works. So that's good.

Oscar 
I got a brand-new keyboard, and I use it to mute myself in meetings lately.

Rick 
Which is also nice.

Friend of the day - 03:24

Oscar 
Rick, who's our friend of the day?

Rick 
Our friend of the day is Lou Creemers.

Oscar 
Lou is a web developer based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with a love for .NET while being an IT student at a Dutch University of Applied Sciences, she also makes tech content on Twitter, and blog posts on hash node, both under the username at Lovelace coding. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her dog, a good book, and annoying others with dad jokes.

Rick 
Welcome, Lou.

Oscar 
Welcome, Lou.

Lou 
Thank you.

Oscar 
Wow. Yeah, yeah.

Lou 
And thank you for having me.

Oscar 
Yeah, of course. Of course. You. We cannot miss you. You have a fairly big online presence build up in in a short period while being student? Yeah

Lou 
Yeah, I believe I'm at 24,000 followers on Twitter.

Oscar 
Wow. That is 24,000 times as much as I have, I think.

Rick 
Am I that one?

Oscar 
Yeah you're the one follower.

Rick 
So how does that work? Lou, what, what enabled you to grow so fast on the social media?

Lou 
I get this question a lot, but I actually don't know.

Rick 
I think it's the dad jokes. Right.

Lou 
So yeah, that's definitely help and also that I bring a bit of personality to my page. You have Twitter accounts that only post informative posts, which are fun too, but you get a very impersonal account,

Oscar 
Which is like Rick he's having a bot posting Azure news all day.

Rick 
There's a there's an accept and reject button in between.

Oscar 
Okay.

Lou 
So I think it's also a bit of personality that comes with it.

Oscar 
Yeah, I noticed you a while ago, like last year or something and indeed a personality open. Yeah. Asking open questions. And yeah. Approachable. And I think that that resonates with a lot of people, right, that are maybe a bit more in the dark in this technology and not that open.

Lou 
Yeah, of course. I also use it to learn myself, like there are people on there that only I've been coding for a month, but also people that have been coding for 20 years. So it's a very good place to just ask questions, or to come up with ideas with people with different levels of experience.

Oscar 
Yeah. And really started out on Twitter where you exploded, let's say that.

Lou on Twitter - 05:49

Lou 
Yeah, I had 600 followers on Instagram beforehand, but I didn't really like Instagram, because it's mostly just looking at the face. It's mostly like, Yeah, you look at this woman being in tech. And that's where it ended. So I switched to Twitter. And I liked it way more than Instagram. So I stayed with it. And here I am.

Oscar 
Yeah, it's interesting. I was talking to also like a young colleague, a while ago, that just started out just from Austin from school. Let's say that. And at some point, I pointed them to while you just check out on Twitter, there's tech there. And it's like Twitter's that still a thing like Yeah, well, tech Twitter is kind of huge. If you're in in the correct crowds. It's good.

Lou 
Yeah, for sure. I didn't expect it to be that big in the beginning either. It is that a friend told me like try, Twitter instead of Instagram, because I didn't know it was that big to be honest.

Oscar 
Yeah, yeah. Well, I get most of my news there, actually.

Rick 
Yeah, and then some of the discussions. But was it actually something you set out for Lou? Because if I look at how fast you're pushing out content, for instance, on your blog, that's also pretty impressive. So is it something that you set out to do where you said, well, I have this, this goal that I want to achieve? Or I have this, this thing that I want to make sure I get done? Or is it something that grew on itself?

Lou 
It definitely grew on itself. It just it I started in summer brake last year, and I lost support. I didn't have a job COVID. So it didn't, we couldn't go out with friends at the moment. So I just created the account. And I was like, Yeah, let's just see if I can find people with similar interests or something that I can talk with them about development. And with that, it just could go on its own. And now that I'm pushing out content every day, and a blog post every week, almost, it kind of became a routine. I can't stop anymore.

Rick 
But is that also something that because now this is going to go a lot into the content side of things? But is it also that you think people expect you to post something? Or is it still primarily driven by your own will to push something out?

Lou 
Well, of course, if I don't post anymore, I will lose the opportunity cycle now. And I will lose some followers as well. But most of it comes out of my own curiosity and my own motivation. Because I could just as well just push out dad jokes all day. But that's not the goal here. It's actually to inform people and give value to the tech community.

Rick 
And then you do not only do that through blog posts, and through Twitter, but you also, you're a speaker, too, right?

Lou 
Yeah, it's just started last month. So that was very fun. I got invited by We Are developers that it's a congress in Berlin, the biggest one, at least in Europe. There were 8000 people out there. So I got speak there. And it was very scary, but I did it. And I'm very proud of it. So yeah,

Rick 
I can imagine and is that something that you would like to continue doing? Or was that nice to do once and then you're done?

Lou 
No, I would love to do it more often. I really like seeing people in real life meeting them networking, but also, again, giving them valuable they may be used later on in their career.

Rick 
Yeah, I can imagine that one. I would like to go back to what we just talked about the fact that you started last summer break. And you did grow exponentially, but there's or at least The your account is that. But then my question would be currently, how welcoming is our community? Since we've had quite a few discussions with different types of people, both male and female. Yeah, that the tech community sometimes tends to get a bit aggressive. And then I think it's been a discussion on Stack Overflow for like, the last, maybe even 10 years that they are not welcoming, or at least not welcoming enough to newcomers. What's your story there?

Lou 
Yeah, that's I didn't actually notice much aggressiveness on Twitter in the beginning, just happens that I get a lot of traction. So there are definitely, especially men that like to get deep, or to be like, oh, you're a programmer, then tell me all the programmers who ever lived? Like those kinds of questions. But what happens is that all women in tech, or at least I have a couple of group chats, with women in tech that's tell each other, if there's some creepy guy out there, and their responses are in the DMS, and that will just block them all together. So that helps a lot because they can't annoy other women in tech anymore.

Rick 
But that's actually kinda sad that that's necessary, right?

Lou 
Yeah, true. Also, it's, it's social media. So you can't stop people being mean, in the kindest way possible said. So yeah, it's just a reality we live in.

Rick 
Yeah, that's true.

Oscar 
That's true. But I think I think we, yeah, we should. Everyone on there should definitely be aware of this behaviour. And I do see, like, bigger personalities, they're triggering on that and showing a good example.

Lou
Oh, for sure. There are more people. That are kind towards woman in tech, and especially on Twitter, then there are people that are not so kind.

Rick 
It even drove you to write this blog post do's and don'ts on Twitter, DMS.

Lou 
Yes. Definitely happens a lot.

Oscar 
So it's a handbook that all idiots should read first.

Rick 
Yes.

Oscar 
Yes, for sure. I get a lot of DMS, it's just say hi. Yeah, and then it goes on to how are you? And I also got a question a couple of times, like, what is your name? Right. Yeah, where you already get the idea that they didn't look at your account at all. Not even at the username? That's also people that asked for laptops, or phones, or money. Then I'm not talking like the cheapest laptop that you can find. But I'm talking about MacBook Pros, or Mac or laptop with the biggest CPU you can imagine

Rick 
But they are asking you to send them or?

Lou 
Yeah.

Oscar 
So it's like, you have 20,000 followers and Twitter pays you of course, 10 euros a month for follower. So you can afford that. No, like, it's ridiculous. Of course, why yes. These people are really weird. But you also say like, questions like, what's your name? I actually read the blog post, of course. And I was completely confused by that one. Like what? On the other hand, it reminded me of another thing, and maybe it's a good idea for blogpost the do's and don'ts for recruiters, actually, because they sometimes also say, oh, this fits your profile perfectly. And I look at it like, Well, no, that's not me. So maybe that's the next topic there. But yeah, like, reading that is, is interesting, because I can tell you that I don't have those DMS. Yeah. And that means that there are two worlds out there. Yeah, for sure.

Rick 
Yeah, that's on one hand. There. No, it's just crappy.

Oscar 
There's no one had no. Yeah.

Rick 
But yeah, but why? I mean, I think we also saw that with a couple of our colleagues who exploded as well, just because they were female and pushing out the same content as somebody else. But then getting a lot more DMS and I mean, grow up.

Lou
Yeah, for sure. Like last week or even a couple of days ago. I got a DM that sets are you looking for a husband? Because you're a developer so you can get lots of money so I'm looking for a girl that has lots of money. So do you want to marry me?

Oscar 
Oh, that's the best pick up line ever. No.

Rick 
That's a gold digger.

Oscar 
Oh, oh, yeah, I don't know if you need to be. Now like, this is so weird. But if we look at your blog post and really see your learning curve, there going through all kinds of technology and accessibility. And you somehow ended up in the .NET. Stack. And that's also probably how we got to know you being visible. How was that for you? And is it? How's the link to what you learn in university?

Lou 
Well, most of my teachers are .NET developers, or C# developers or something in that realm. So my first introduction courses were also in C$. So I actually just kind of stay with it, I liked that you can do so much with one framework or just .NET in general, so you can go every side, game development, web development, app development, you can go on, and I got my first shopping tech in .NET. And I'm still working with .NET. So it's just what I specialize in, kind off. And I really enjoy working with it. And I also liked it the .NET community in the Netherlands is very close to one another. Like, everybody knows, everybody almost.

Rick 
Yeah, it's, we just had a previous episode where we said, it's a small world. But yeah, but that's the case, right? It's a small world, especially here in the Netherlands, where most of the .NET developers seem to know each other, or at least run into one another at a user group, or, or event or something.

Oscar 
Yeah, I think Sure. Because of time traveling. It's actually one of the next episodes but let’s forget about that.

Rick 
Time traveling is a thing right. Yeah, I heard today that we are looking 13 billion years into the past with the latest picture that we took from the sky.

Oscar 
Yeah, we have the telescope up and running and there are actually results coming in.

Rick 
That's quite impressive.

Oscar 
That's, that's a long time ago, like, I'm old. But come on.

Rick 
We can see you in diapers in that picture. Where would you actually like to move from where you are right now? I mean, you're still in school, you're still and you're also working? What is your next step?

The next step of Lou - 17:05

Lou
Oh, that's a hard one. I'm still in the battle between doing something more in public. So going for developer relationships or development marketing, so that I can do speaking and making blog posts making social media posts for developers, my job. Or maybe staying with just software developers, and going to medior, and then hopefully to senior? I still have to pick between those two. I'm not sure yet.

Rick 
I'm not really sure if it needs to be pick, I think you can be a developer, but also create some awesome content out there.

Lou 
Yeah. True. You can also mix it.

Oscar 
It's always weekends, right Rick.

Rick 
And the day has 24 hours, right? No, but that I can understand how that's a difficult choice to make. At least if we look at your at your blog, it seems like you're doing quite well with the tech content. So as far as that's concerned, it should be good to go. If you look at what. NET currently has, is there something that you think that might be lacking? Or is there something that you think, hey, why is this not available? Or how can I do that in an easy way?

Oscar 
Or something that's completely confusing?

Rick 
Because let me give you a bit of context as to why I'm asking this because both Oscar and I have been in the .NET ecosystem for a while now. I'm going to state stated a fairly nice, yeah. But as a relative new addition to the .NET ecosystem, as you are, what, how do you look at that ecosystem? In general?

Lou 
Yeah, that's a hard question. Because the .NET ecosystem is already quite extensive. That like I told you, we can do pretty much anything with it at this part. So yeah, the only thing I had was single page scripting, like do with Python, but with C# 10 that actually got solved already. Because you don't need those classes anymore, or you don't need the namespaces anymore. So I'm actually not sure what I would add to it. Also, just very well done by the Microsoft developers are making it so extensive. That we can, we can still come up with new stuff, actually.

Oscar 
Yeah. It opened up for at least starting in the top-level statements and just writing some code compiled. and runs. But I can also imagine that coming in now, especially seeing maybe some real code, some history, some legacy systems, it might be confusing to see the terms of .NET framework and .NET. Core and now just .NET. Yes. And still ASP. Net, what's still called core and EF is still called core. Like, how do you see those? Because like, you missed that part of history, I guess.

Lou 
Yeah, for sure. I That's my only issue. It's just Googling, I actually made a blog post about it a couple of days ago, about the difference between .NET .NET, framework .NET, core Entity Framework, all that stuff. So I really had to do my own research into this, because I didn't actually experience much of it. Of course, I worked with .NET framework for a bit because school wants me to use Windows Forms for projects. But that's actually our dance Entity Framework, ASP. .NET Blazer was mostly just my own research. And maybe if I had to use for work there

Rick 
talking about school, you are in university here in the Netherlands? I mean, the image some people have from university is yeah, it's all kind of theoretical. And then when you when you go out and get a job, that's when you really start learning how stuff works. Is that still the case? Or have we shifted? And is it a really good foundation for you to explore what's out there?

Lou 
Well, I can't talk for after University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, of course, because I only joined one, but for us after the semester, we have a project. And then we have courses that we can use to make that project. So it's definitely not very theoretical of course we have the theoretical classes, but only if can help with the project we're work, working on. So I definitely think in some ways, it does help me with getting ready for the job. It definitely did. But also a big part of it, of course, is still doing your own research, because it's University at the end of the day. So you have to know how to Google and how to fix stuff out on your own.

Oscar 
Yeah, that's, that's our day job. So I think you're ready. Like we're googling all day, and just pasting in code

Rick 
No, no, I Bing.

Oscar 
You Bing really?

Rick 
No, no, I don't Oscar. Do you know what time it is?

Oscar 
Is it time for a totally random question?

Totally random question - 22:50

Rick 
It is time for a totally random question. Lou, what is the funniest joke, you know, by heart? And you, uh, you as a dad, Joker, you need to have one? Front and centre, right?

Lou
Yes. Why did the developer pass the street? To get to the other site,

Oscar 
To get to the other site? That's a whole different level.

Rick 
It is all different levels. This is probably one of the of the tech related dad jokes, right?

Lou 
Yes.

Rick 
So this is the type of content that you can also expect when you when you follow Lou @Lovelacecoding? For sure. Since this is part of the 20 tech related that jokes to make you smile. And that's actually what it did. It did make me smile. So that's kind of nice.

Oscar 
I think if, if I speak for myself during the day, and we're looking at what's a developer job, and like in real life, I think it's Googling and making dumb jokes. Actually. I think that's the core.

Rick 
Yes, a lot of inside jokes. And really bad jokes. Now, but that's it right? You know, and actually, we talked about this. And this is actually from a previous episode, because it's already out now, but we talked about this with, with Henry who said, You, sometimes as a developer, it's important to not do anything because you're waiting or because you're thinking about some stuff or because you and that's actually I think maybe even a lost trade that you actually take some time to think about what it what it is actually, that you're doing or you're trying to accomplish.

Oscar 
Yeah, it is because you are, in the end doing a creative job. Even though it sounds really scientific. It's always coming up with new outside of the box solutions. So you need downtime to be creative. I'm certain about that. And we talked a lot about that with Henry indeed.

Rick 
And I see that you take your time downtime by spending time with your with your dog or by reading books. So what type of books are those that you're into?

Lou 
I try to be different genres almost every time so that and I also switch between Dutch and English to keep both up because I speak a lot of English, both at school and at work. And in my spare time, the only place where I actually speak that is at home. That's very dense. So I go between fiction and formative nonfiction, I just pick something up that has been on my reading list for a while and see if I like it. And if I don't like that three chapters, I drop it. So like, now I'm actually reading nice girls don't get the corner office. And I've been liking it, it's a bit weird on how to actually read it because it has like a quiz on the front of it. And then you have to pick the chapters that fit into your category on what you are comfortable with, and what's uncomfortable with but I've really liked it so far.

Rick 
But that does actually sound a little bit like you are like you do have a goal for you. And also, if I look on your Twitter, where you say that you're going to be the first woman in tech in your family, but also the first gen college graduate. It kind of does sound like you do have that goal for yourself.

Lou 
Yeah, I mean, I want to be that first woman in tech, I don't want to be the first college graduate just because I can. It's a challenge for me. Of course, I don't just still call it takes four years. So it's definitely something that is, in my mind, a challenge that I can complete. And I'm also just a very curious person. I want to know everything about every topic I'm interested in. So yeah.

Being a role model - 26:40

Rick 
I can imagine that this is this, this can be quite overwhelming. This this tech community and your entire journey in it. Has it always been as easy as it seems to be right now?

Lou 
Well, kind of kind of not. When I started, of course, I had a lot more freedom to say what I wanted to say because people are like, yes, he only has a couple of 100. Followers, Assistant, junior dev, whatever. Now that I have 24,000 followers is a bit more ISO me and maybe people assume that I am way more knowledgeable than I actually am. So I have to keep that in mind. Definitely. I can't just post everything I want to say. But at the other sides, I also think not that much changed. Because I'm still around the same community in a way.

Oscar 
But do you? Do you do you think like, knowing that these eyes are on you is now limiting in in just gathering knowledge. The naive way you started.

Lou 
No, I'm actually still just learning and search in the exact same way as I did before.

Oscar 
I think you should as a developer never stop being open. And being aware that you just don't know certain things

Lou 
Of course. Yeah, if you don't know, you just have to say that you don't know. Yeah. And I also look into other stuff. I also like looking into PHP, and I'm looking into web three right now. So not everything is .NET. And dad jokes. And I'm also fine with that. And my followers are fine with that, too.

Rick 
Yeah. And if they aren't, then then yeah, then it's their problem. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's some sometimes people tend to think that if you are relatively visible, that they get to dictate what you do and what you don't do. But yeah, they don't. Suddenly, power to you for being who you want to be and just doing the things that you think you need to do.

Oscar 
Yeah, I think you're really setting an example. And I don't think everyone should do this. It shouldn't be that public. Or if it's not your thing, then then don't force yourself to do it. But by some of you doing that, I think you're helping more people that might even not follow you or know who you are. But now or in a year, they will come across some question you had in a blog post, and they will pick it up. So it is seriously valuable to have some people this early career already starting that out, because I think mostly when I want to write something or start something, I want to master it before I tell someone else about it. And I think it's really strong to, to be able to just pick it up knowing what you don't know, and, and just going through this process openly,

Rick 
you're sharing your learning journey. And I think that's valuable in itself.

Lou 
Yes, for sure. When I started my web development to help my first one, I was already on Twitter. So people come to see me from just a student at summer brake to go into an internship to go into a job, and now into public speaking. So it's just people can see me going grow.

Rick 
yeah. And then talking about being that role model. This is probably going to help someone out there who looks at that journey and says, well, she did it. I can try, at least for myself. So as far as that's concerned, I do think that you have that role model, maybe even already.

Oscar 
Yeah, and I think by being that also for different generation, and still studying, to also help other people to at least connect, tell them about tech, Twitter about the route the right crowd there. Tell them about the resources. Because, yeah, people are outside of this, doing their jobs, while they could have a world of information, and connections that could help them in career, for sure.

Lou 
Of course, next to tech, Twitter, you also have to remember that there's actually a real world outside there, and that there are also developers that are not on Twitter. So I also like to emphasize very clearly, also in private messages to people that are new to coding, that they should also try like offline events, conferences, meetings, to even reach more people that may be our not on social media, because social media is not everything, everything and not everybody likes social media. So you have to get out there.

Rick 
Yeah, I agree on that one. I mean, it should be an addition to what we do in real life. And then to be honest, if I look at myself, like 20 years ago, when I went to Dev days, or tech days, as they were called back then it can be quite overwhelming. Or you can be quite easily impressed by people that are up on stage when you pass them in the hallway. But at least as I'm, as far as I'm concerned, I think I speak for Oscar as well. If anybody ever wants to just ask us something or approaches, please do so. And I think the overall community has grown to accept that more and more. And we there are no rockstars, right? Some people might look like a rockstar, but in the end, everybody is pretty approachable, off stage. So I think the best advice there is, get the courage, walk up to someone start a conversation, and you'll see that they're actually just human.

Lou 
Yes, I definitely agree.

Closing - 33:53

Rick 
Lou, thank you so much for being a guest today. Is there anything that you would like to get back to or that you would like to add to what we already discussed?

Lou 
Well, if you have any questions just reach out to me, don't be scared. As long as you don't just send hi or I need money, what's your name? We're fine.

Rick 
Let's make sure that we first list your blog posts on the do's and don'ts with Twitter, DMS. And then the next line, I will put a link to your profile so that if people read the blog post that after that they can contact you.

Lou 
Sounds like plan

Oscar 
A small flowchart there.

Rick 
Yeah, and a checkbox. Have you read the terms? In the blog post?

Oscar 
Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for being our guest.

Lou 
No problem, was fun. Thank you.

Oscar 
Thank you for listening to Betatalks the podcast. We publish a new episode every two weeks.

Rick 
You can find us on all the major streaming platforms like Spotify and iTunes.

Oscar 
See you next time.

Rick 
Bye.