My Favorite (Tech) Talks
Watching (tech) talks is a hobby of mine. It puts me in a kind of meditative mood while watching the explanation unfolding.
Here’s a list of my all-time favorite talks. Very few of them are about a specific language / framework. The majority is to make you think and re-assess your mental models.
Updated - 02/10/2025⌗
- The Big OOPs - Casey Muratori
- Dynamic Phase Alignment in Audio - Sander J. Skjegstad
- File Pilot: Inside the Engine - Vjekoslav Krajačić
- Terence Tao continuing history’s cleverest cosmological measurements - 3Blue1Brown
Updated - 01/03/2021⌗
Here are the new talks (Description in the following tables):
- Programming Clojure With Hand Tools - Tim Ewald
- Art of code - Dylan Beattie
- Indistinguishable From Magic - Todd Fernandez
• • •
General⌗
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Boundaries - Gary Bernhardt | Thoughts on architecture of a project and how to define the boundaries between modules |
| Growing a Language - Guy Steel | Deep thinking about the emergence of a programming language and the paradigm that stems from it |
| Hammock Driven Development - Rich Hickey | How to tackle complex problems |
| How To Design a Good API - Joshua Block | A gold mine of advices to build a solid architecture |
| Inventing On Principle - Bret Victor | A complete different take on how programming is a tool to create |
| Livable Code - Sarah Mei | What does software archicture mean today? What is going with this building metaphore? |
| Simple Made Easy - Rich Hickey | The difference between simple and easy. Simple can become complexe, easy becomes complicated |
| The Big OOPs - Casey Muratori | Where does OOP come from? How is it used and mis-used? 2h30, and every minute is worth it |
| What We Know We Don't Know - Hillel Wayne | We pride ourselves with our “scientific thinking”. We are however deeply driven by beliefs. What works? what doesn’t? What can we really prove? |
Low Level⌗
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| A talk near the future of Python - David Bazley | 1h of LiveCoding to build a complete machine, compiled in WASM. Bonkers. |
| CPU Caches Why it Matters - Scott Meyers | How does the CPU works and how can we leverage its power |
| Containers From Scratch - Liz Rice | Build Docker from scratch in 30mins in Go to understand what Docker is about |
| Data-Oriented Design and C++ | Technical architecture to yield the maximum performances with your data structures |
| Dynamic Phase Alignment in Audio - Sander J. Skjegstad | How to compensate phase-shifting when recording 2 mics with incredible graphics |
| File Pilot: Inside the Engine - Vjekoslav Krajačić | What’s more common than a FileExplorer? Watch and see how incredibly optimized it can get |
| Indistinguishable From Magic - Todd Fernandez | Todd worked on CPU production and explains the process of building one. So much complexity |
| JSON Explained - Jesse Wilson | Deep dive on how JSON parsing works and why it works that way |
Functional programming⌗
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Programming Clojure With Hand Tools - Tim Ewald | An elegant analogy of programming and woodworking. It starts slowly, but so satisfying |
| Solving Problems The Clojure Way - Raffal Dittwald | 3 ways to solve the same problem: procedural, object oriented, functional (written in JavaScript) |
| Why isn’t Functional Programming the Norm ? - Richard Feldman | History of programming language to understand why the functional paradigm is adopted (or not) by the industry |
Fun & Crazy⌗
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Art of code - Dylan Beattie | An exploration of every form of art using code. Fractals, music, Conway’s game of life, you name it |
| Improper Hierarchy - Tom Murphy | This dude reverse engineers a Nintendo console in a peculiar way. Mind blowing. |
| Wat - Gary Bernhardt | Lightning talk about JavaScript quirkness |
| How to Hack a Painting - Tyler Hobbs | Mixing art and programming to (re)produce abstract paintings |
Non Tech Talks⌗
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Creativity - John Cleese | Monty Python’s John Cleese explains how he sees and ritualizes creativity. Fun and insightful |
| Higgs Explained (CERN) | A multi-part CERN serie that explains the Higgs boson in layman terms |
| Terence Tao continuing history’s cleverest cosmological measurements - 3Blue1Brown | The famous mathematician Terence Tao explains how we measure astronomical distances |
| The Craft of Writing Effectively - Larry McEnerney | Mr McEnerney deconstructs the non-fiction writing process to be the most effective |
| What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System | An incredible biotech talk that explores how the body might be linked to eletrical signals |
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