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Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

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Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#31

Post by carterdmorgan »

goosejuice wrote: post #26
carterdmorgan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last interview cycle I interviewed with some big names (Stripe, Square, Shopify, etc.) and was pleased that none of them asked any LeetCode style questions. All pretty practical programming stuff. Stripe had an interview where they had forked the Jackson Java library, introduced a bug, and then asked me to find and fix it. Pretty unique style, but much more applicable to the actual job of programming.

That's a clever interview question, but wouldn't that suffer from diffing origin/main? Or was this a in person / on screen interview with no git history?

It was an on-screen virtual interview, so while I believe they had scrubbed the Git history, you weren't allowed to look it up.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#32

Post by mr_toad »

mettamage wrote: post #6
carterdmorgan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just found out we cracked the Top 20 on Hacker News! Crazy! I’m Carter, one of the podcasters from the video. I’m glad you’re enjoying it! It was such a huge honor to talk to Brian Kernighan.

How did you get him on your podcast? That's amazing!

Authors seem to treat podcasts the way celebrities treat talk shows, it’s basically free marketing.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#33

Post by carterdmorgan »

commandersaki wrote: post #28

Love Kernighan, such a humble person. In one of the videos that he was featured on in youtube, he spoke about how he was solving a difficult problem in his thesis which turned out to be NP-complete before the theory had been fleshed out. Emailed him for his thesis and got a pretty quick response, was a really interesting read.

It's a rare combination to find someone both as intelligent and humble as he is. Truly a blessing to our industry.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#34

Post by lokar »

carterdmorgan wrote: post #23
opello wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can appreciate supporting the effort, but the "stickiness" of Amazon affiliate links seem pretty pernicious. I briefly tried to find a source for this and failed, but my understanding is that the affiliate can see any product purchased while the affiliation through the link is active, which is something like a 24 hour timeout or another link for a different affiliate is used. Maybe my perspective is out of date, if…

Yeah, definitely not my area of expertise. We’ll need to explore it further and make sure there’s nothing sketchy before making a decision.

You can always provide two versions of each link (affiliate/direct)

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#35

Post by carterdmorgan »

mr_toad wrote: post #32
mettamage wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get him on your podcast? That's amazing!

Authors seem to treat podcasts the way celebrities treat talk shows, it’s basically free marketing.

That's been my experience so far, especially because the focus of the podcast is explicitly on the book. It's not, "Hey, come on my podcast to discuss the latest AI development and then maybe plug your book at the end," it's "Hey, come on my podcast solely dedicated to discussing the book you've written." Authors seem pretty eager to participate in that.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#37

Post by carterdmorgan »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #36

The "g" is silent, folks. You should try to get Rob Pike on. He'd probably make it a point to correct your pronunciation. I can hear him now...

Yeah, someone on YouTube pointed out the same thing. D'oh. I wish Brian would have corrected us!

We'd love to get Rob Pike on too! Currently working on it, although he's a little harder to get a hold of.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#38

Post by fuzztester »

commandersaki wrote: post #28

Love Kernighan, such a humble person. In one of the videos that he was featured on in youtube, he spoke about how he was solving a difficult problem in his thesis which turned out to be NP-complete before the theory had been fleshed out. Emailed him for his thesis and got a pretty quick response, was a really interesting read.

see the publications section here for more of his books:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#39

Post by richrichie »

256_ wrote: post #18

I read the Elements of Programming Style and the Practice of Programming around the same time and they became completely mixed up in my mind. I'll often remember something from one of those books but be completely unable to remember which one it was from. Both good books, and both were co-authored by Kernighan. I think they complement each other well.

There is a talk he gave at IAS on this. Pretty good one. I think it is available on You Tube.

Re: Brian Kernighan on “The Practice of Programming” [video]

#40

Post by bigdict »

carterdmorgan wrote: post #9
JetSetIlly wrote: post #8

I love the Practice of Programming. Of all the books on programming that I've read, the lessons of that book are the ones that remain strongest in my mind. I've not read it in many years but I feel it influences my practice everyday.

It was the first time I’ve ever read it and I was surprised how much of it still held true given it’s 25 years old. Some of the specific programming examples are pretty outdated, but the general ideas are as solid as ever!

Curious what examples you felt were outdated.
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