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Ask HN: Inspiring hacker talks and presentations?

20 points by zenlikethat ↗ HN
Hey HN, I had a great time working yesterday to the sweet tunes of Alan Kay's OOPSLA talk "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY) -- it really got the creative juices flowing. I love that kind of stuff. Douglas Engelbart's "The Mother of All Demos" is another good hacker classic -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY.

I'm seeking more content in that wheelhouse. What are your favorite hacker talks or presos?

9 comments

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iwwr
Rich Hickey - Hammock-driven development: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

Brett Victor - Inventing on principle: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiPFmIMxFc

Programming is terrible: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=csyL9EC0S0c

Dave Beazely - Python concurrency from the ground up (applicable to languages in general, with generator and corourine functionality) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4

Functional programming, with birds: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6BnVo7EHO_8&t=1009s

Short and classic: Wat https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

mikewarot
>Brett Victor - Inventing on principle: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiPFmIMxFc

This gave me a sharp moment of clarity, thank you so much for this!

I'll work on the wording over time, but here's a rough sketch of my principle:

My principle is that no person should ever be forced to blindly trust a computer to do the right thing. Computing shouldn't be either blindly trust the black box, or get nothing done.

Nobody should have to hand over their wallet to buy an ice cream cone, you can just take the exact change out and pay. Why should you have to give a program access to everything when you just want to edit one text file?