Brian Kernighan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University. He co-authored the C Programming Language with Dennis Ritchie (creator of C) and has written a lot of books on programming, computers, and life including the Practice of Programming, the Go Programming Language, his latest UNIX: A History and a Memoir. He co-created AWK, the text processing language used by Linux folks like myself. He co-designed AMPL, an algebraic modeling language for large-scale optimization. Support this podcast by supporting our sponsors: – Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/lex – Raycon: http://buyraycon.com/lex If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 04:24 – UNIX early days 22:09 – Unix philosophy 31:54 – Is programming art or science? 35:18 – AWK 42:03 – Programming setup 46:39 – History of programming languages 52:48 – C programming language 58:44 – Go language 1:01:57 – Learning new programming languages 1:04:57 – Javascript 1:08:16 – Variety of programming languages 1:10:30 – AMPL 1:18:01 – Graph theory 1:22:20 – AI in 1964 1:27:50 – Future of AI 1:29:47 – Moore’s law 1:32:54 – Computers in our world 1:40:37 – Life

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. Join the discussionChangelog++ 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 – WebsiteAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow 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!

Brian Kernighan, software veteran with over 50 years of experience, discusses the birth of Unix, the longevity of the C programming language, modernizing C code with memory safety, embracing new technology, the foundations of Unix and the web, web three and decentralization, and appreciates the host's questions.

Brian Kernighan, a pivotal figure in computer science known for his work on Unix and the C programming language, shares his insights on innovation and legacy. He reflects on his time at Bell Labs, the unique environment that fostered creativity, and the contributions of overlooked figures like Doug McIlroy. Kernighan discusses the evolution of programming concepts like associative arrays, the ongoing relevance of Unix philosophies, and the challenges of modern tech innovation. He also muses on whether another groundbreaking idea like Unix could emerge today.

Dr. Brian Kernighan discusses writing 'The Practice of Programming', Bell Labs experience, AI, and LLMs, layers of abstraction, future excitement, programmatic thinking in humanities, and favorite books on a Book Overflow episode.