Today we have a special treat. A conversation with Brian Kernighan! Brian’s been in the software game since the beginning of Unix. Yes, he was there at Bell Labs when it all began. And he is still at it today, writing books and teaching the next generation at Princeton.

This is an epic and wide ranging conversation. You’ll hear about the birth of Unix, Ken Thompson’s unique skillset, why Brian thinks C has stood the test of time, his thoughts on modern languages like Go and Rust, what’s changed in 50 years of software, what makes platforms like Unix and the web so powerful, his take as a professor on the trend of programmers skipping the university track, and so much more.

Seriously, this is a must-listen.

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Featuring:

• Brian Kernighan – Website
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
• Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Brian’s Wikipedia
• PDP-7 on Wikipedia
• Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security
• The C Programming Language
• UNIX: A History and a Memoir
• The Go Programming Language
• The Mythical Man-Month
• Dick Hamming’s You and Your Research
• Brian on Lex Fridman’s podcast

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!