Changelog Interviews Wisdom from 50+ years in software
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.
Changelog++ members get a bonus 2 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!
Sponsors:
- Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at changelog.com/square to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you.
- InfluxData – The time series platform for building and operating time series applications — InfluxDB empowers developers to build IoT, analytics, and monitoring software. It’s purpose-built to handle massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications, and infrastructure. Learn more at influxdata.com/changelog
- FireHydrant – The reliability platform for every developer. Incidents impact everyone, not just SREs. FireHydrant gives teams the tools to maintain service catalogs, respond to incidents, communicate through status pages, and learn with retrospectives. Try FireHydrant free for 14 days at firehydrant.io
- MongoDB – An integrated suite of cloud database and services — They have a FREE forever tier, so you can prove to yourself and to your team that they have everything you need. Check it out today at mongodb.com/changelog
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!