HACKER Q&A

  👤 beefman Accepted Answer ✓
The Soul of Erlang and Elixir, by Sasa Juric

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvBT4XBdoUE

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20942767

Preventing the Collapse of Civilization, by Jonathan Blow

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19945452


👤 huy-nguyen
“Why isn’t functional programming the norm?” by Richard Feldman. Spoiler: not on the basis of merits. https://youtu.be/QyJZzq0v7Z4

“React to the future” by Jordan Walke. Why ReasonML is a logical extension of ReactJS’ programming paradigm. https://youtu.be/5fG_lyNuEAw

“Typing the untyped: soundness in gradual type systems” by Ben Weissmann. The trade offs that various gradual type systems make based on their language constraints. https://youtu.be/uJHD2xyv7xo

“Let’s program like it’s 1999” by Lee Byron. How the mutual feedback loop of abstraction, syntax and mental model drives the evolution of web technologies. https://youtu.be/vG8WpLr6y_U


👤 forgotmyhnacc
Most people in this thread are posting a link and a title of the talk. I think it would be useful to hear why you thought the talk was the best.

👤 majewsky
A bunch of the best talks of the year may still be to come when 36C3 takes place from the 27th to 30th. The schedule is already up [1]. Speakers include David Graeber, Edward Snowden, Daniel J. Bernstein, Moxie Marlinspike, and over a hundred others.

All talks will be livestreamed (and usually become available for download one day later) at [2].

[1] https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2019/Fahrplan/

[2] https://media.ccc.de/


👤 divan
"Performance matters" by Emery Berger on StrangeLoop'19 is a great talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TLSBdHe1A

Also, rest of his talks are also fascinating:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRAP3lBivYM

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyWKxFxyyrQ


👤 zeusly
Rich Harris - Rethinking Reactivity

Talk about Svelte v3 and the (possible) future of frontend frameworks

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdNJ3fydeao

HN discussion regarding Svelte 3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19719118


👤 GVRV
For me, personally, it was David Beazley's Keynote (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT386_GKI8) at PyCon India this year.

👤 itcrowd
Not a talk from 2019, but discovered it this year: "1177 BC, the year civilization collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)" https://youtu.be/bRcu-ysocX4

Excellent informative and hilarious talk about his (at-the-time) new scientific hypothesis to explain the end of the Bronze Age ca. 1200 BC.

Multiple civilizations collapsed within a few decades of each other with the ability to read, write and make high buildings being lost all across the Eastern Mediterranean simultaneously. The Bronze Age is magical and interesting of itself, the talk gives a great introduction as to why we know much more about it than we think.. definitely recommended.

Duration ~1 hour (feels like 20 minutes)


👤 ollerac
David Rusenko - How To Find Product Market Fit - YC Startup School

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LNQxT9LvM0

I learned so much for this talk. I had a much different idea of the point of iterating rapidly and what product-market fit meant before this video.


👤 rsln-s
Scott Aaronson's three Paul Bernays Lectures on computation

1. The Church-Turing Thesis and Physics 2. The Limits of Efficient Computation 3. The Quest for Quantum Computational Supremacy

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4301


👤 znpy

I don't know if Bryan Cantrill has done any speeches this year, whenever i see some speech featuring him on youtube I watch it regardless of the year.

That man is a gold mine. And I always learn something interesting.


👤 joaovitor
AWS re:Invent 2019: BPF performance analysis at Netflix (OPN303-R1)

Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16slh29iN1g

Blog post: http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2019-12-22/bpf-theremin.htm...

Why?

Brendan presents news tools and new flows that can be used to analyse performance bottlenecks.

He get you in the demo and you stay to receive more and more information. It seems to be a talk that he has been improving over the years. Totally worth your time seen it.


👤 joshschreuder
I thought this was a pretty good one

https://youtu.be/jyNqHsN3pEc

Composing music functionally, aka functional composition :)


👤 chipz
Rust, WebAssembly, and the future of Serverless by Steve Klabnik video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMB6AlE1QuI&t=1854s

👤 sktrdie
Append only development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuvCMG21Ss

Shameless plug since I'm the speaker. The reason I'm posting this in "best talks of 2019" is not because I think it was a good talk (my ego isn't that big yet) but because I think very few talks exist on the subject of Behavioral Programming, and it's a subject I'm hoping can get more attention.


👤 abraham
The main thread is overworked & underpaid

https://developer.chrome.com/devsummit/sessions/the-main-thr...


👤 gitgud
A [1] video essay about modern art by Jacob Geller. For me, it completely reversed my opinion on modern art and it's worth.

This [2] talk about building worlds in Blender by Ian Hubert.

[1] https://youtu.be/v5DqmTtCPiQ

[2] https://youtu.be/whPWKecazgM


👤 Stormwalker
My favorite talk of this year is Raymond Hettinger talking about mental gymnastics which helps you to structure your problems into ones that which you can solve. The mental game of Python: youtu.be/UANN2Eu6ZnM

👤 bitofhope
For the Unix history fans, BWK's interview of Ken Thompson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o

👤 lawrenceyan
Caltech Guest Lecture: Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor - Professor John Martinis, Chief Scientist Google Quantum Computing Division

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklMpRiTeTA


👤 doubleg
"Solving Problems the Clojure Way" by Rafal Dittwald at Clojure/north. Comparing a simple JS cardgame the imperative, OOP and functional way.

👤 alecco
ZFS for newbies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oG-1U5AI9A main ideas behind ZFS and why it blows out the competition in many scenarios

Making C Less Dangerous in the Linux Kernel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY9SbqTO5GQ

NUMA optimizations in the FreeBSD stack (Netflix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NSzkYSX5nY

How we fit a NES game in 40KiB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWQ0591PAxM


👤 generalpass
NLNOG 2019 - DNS over HTTPS considerations - Bert Hubert

https://youtu.be/pjin3nv8jAo


👤 stazz1
Paul Stamets 2019:

not, the survival of the fittest. it is:

the extension of generosity of surplus

to other members in the ecological community

to build biodiversity

not the individual that survives but the community that survives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBkg70fhV2A


👤 Ylodi
Kyle Kotowick - The 737 MAX: Human Factors in Complex Systems

https://2019.webcampzg.org/talks/the-737-max-human-factors-i...


👤 mister_hn
The closing Keynote of Meeting C++2019

Crazy Code, Crazy Coders

https://youtu.be/OAmWHmwlMwI


👤 teddyc
I thought this talk about Async in Rust was pretty cool (RustLatam 2019 - Without Boats: Zero-Cost Async IO): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skos4B5x7qE

👤 berkayozturk
Objectionable Content (Python Object Model) by James Powell

James Powell never disappoints :)

https://youtu.be/AmHE0kZhLIQ


👤 haecceity

👤 arminiusreturns
I've got a few in the queue I haven't gotten to, but I immediately thought of Alice Goldfuss's recent talk at LISA19 "The Container Operator's Manual"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm2tDgf40ss


👤 adait
Pretty great talk about Kafka at Tesla: https://www.confluent.io/kafka-summit-san-francisco-2019/0-6...

👤 scottLobster
Professor Mark Blythe: Gobal Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy

https://youtu.be/KGuaoARJYU0


👤 PascLeRasc
Behind the scenes of iOS and Mac Security: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3byNNUReyvE

Good talk behind the reason for the T2 chip and some other Apple security stuff


👤 tphan
This video by Mark Dalgeish got me really thinking about design systems from a developer of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnV1u67_yVg


👤 marios
EuroBSDcon 2019 Keynote by Patricia Aas: Embedded Ethics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfNIiitVFtc / slides: https://www.slideshare.net/PatriciaAas/embedded-ethics-eurob...)

Because, sometimes you need to worry less about the gritty details of the tech and take a step back and look at the bigger picture.


👤 rayslinky
Depression Memes for Devops Teens: Self-Care for Server Janitors and Other Humans: https://youtu.be/TcvWEbaOg-Q

👤 james33
Building Distributed Systems with Node.js - James Simpson (Nordic.js 2019)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUtd-zEDgjQ

Slides/Code: https://github.com/goldfire/Building-Distributed-Systems-Nod...


👤 Fazel94
Ask the Ecosystem: Lessons from 200+ FOSS Applications - Mahmoud Hashemi

Basically made an awesome list of applications written in Python(now is 380+), then answered the frequently asked questions by the community about how to develops applications using Python.

The data is also available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1lvsmcPEcE


👤 ttttodayjunior
Big Business Hates Your Family, by Tucker Carlson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXGoWtK1NnY

Most interesting development for me in 2019 were the ongoing political realignments - the right no longer sees the free market as compatible with their social values.


👤 whoisstan
Chairman Bruce at SXSW2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV1XMAP-Uh8

Bruce Sterling has been around in the intersection of art and technology since the dawn of the internet. His gothic, villain, medival high tech scifi world are a hilarious inspiration.


👤 bigoldie
The race to Mach 2.0 at scale by Nickolas Means https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sIzfGzf_50

I find all the presentations from him very great. He talks about certain things in other industries and reflects back to IT. Very fun to watch.


👤 techman9
Build Impossible Programs - Julia Evans: https://jvns.ca/blog/2018/09/18/build-impossible-programs/

👤 winrid
Related thread (computing related videos): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21737922

👤 andrei_says_
Richard Wolf’s Global Economic Update from November 2019 changed how I perceive the US tax system, US political candidates and their proposals on how to fund various solutions. He also speaks about political parties and their purpose in the context of capitalism, and separately, libertarianism.

Lastly, covers the US/China “trade war”.

Fascinating and very well structured talk, revealing the hidden (to me) forces behind economic structures and decisions.

https://youtu.be/THwqz5dTzkA


👤 weishigoname