Programming Talks

I watch a lot of talks that I love to share with my friends, fellows and coworkers. As I consider all GitHubbers my friends (oh yeah!), I decided it's time to share the list.

There are talks on programming language specifics as well as a more general section I call "theory". But don't expect to always get theoretical computer science for every talk there; most of them are on the architecture and design of software.

I welcome every contribution to the list; for guidelines look below.

Disclaimer: I did not give any of the talks on the list and am responsible neither for their content nor for their presentation. All links below will direct you to external sites (mostly YouTube, really), be aware of that. If you are one of the people responsible for the talks or the platform presenting it and want it removed, tell me and I'll sort it out with you.

[A] after a talk name denotes a talk that someone thought could be listened to as audio, without needing the video. This may not reflect your experience with the talk, but you can make a pull request to change it.

Names to look out for

To make choosing the right speakers a tad easier, let me give you a quick overview over my favourite speakers in no particular order:

• Scott Meyers (C++): Scott Meyers is one of the most entertaining and knowledgeable speaker when it comes to all things C++. His talks cover a variety of topics, from type inference to API design and cache lines.
• Rich Hickey (Clojure): I am not a Clojure programmer, but I like reasoning about and building programming languages. Even if you don't, Rich Hickeys talks are inspiring and thought-provoking. Whenever he talks about the fundamentals of programming and reasoning, you are sure to learn a ton. Oh, and if you program in Clojure, you have no excuse for not watching this guy speak.
• Reginald Braithwaite (JavaScript): one of my favourite JavaScript speakers. He also has a variety of talks on my list, but is more true to his realm (JavaScript) than most of the other speakers on my list.
• David Nolen (Clojure/Clojurescript): The core maintainer of Clojurescript. His talks mostly focus on immutability and share a bit of their structure. He doesn't get boring, though, and is another very smart person with deep insights in such fields as immutability.
• David Beazley (Python): The person who singlehandedly made me a Pythonista. Need I say more? He has a lot of low-level knowledge about Python and makes poking at the Python interpreter seem more fun than it actually is.
• Joe Armstrong (Erlang): One of the few people I actually had the chance to see live already. He is a funny, witty and smart guy and if you want to learn about Erlang, watch his talks. Most of his talks are also very beginner-friendly.
• Brandon Rhodes (Python): Yet another Pythonista. His talks are enjoyable, enlightening and his way of talking is just enjoyable - you might think that is secondary, but it is really important. His talk on Tolkien is one of the most enjoyable diversions on this list (and a bit off-topic, mind you).
• Aaron Patterson (Ruby): Probably the most entertaining speaker on the list. As a core developer of both Ruby and Rails, he works close to the heart of the Ruby community.
• Philip Wadler (Haskell, Theory, ...): Incredibly knowledgeable gentleman. If you use generics in Java, you owe that to him. If you use Haskell and/or monads, you probably already know him, but in case you do not, try to change that fact. He makes theoretical computer science more approachable than it actually is, and that is a good thing.
• Zach Tellman (Clojure, Theory): Another person in the Clojure landscape with interesting, important insights that do not only apply to Clojure. His talks on theory should inspire you to think more deeply about what you are doing, which is probably the most important thing to take away from anything ever.

Contents

• On Programming Languages
  • Alpaca
  • APL
  • Assembly
  • Bash
  • C
  • Clojure
  • C++
  • Crystal
  • CSS
  • D
  • Elixir
  • Elm
  • Erlang
  • F#
  • Factor
  • Frege
  • Go
  • Hackett
  • Haskell
  • Idris
  • Java & Android
  • JavaScript
  • Julia
  • Lisp
  • Objective C
  • OCaml
  • Prolog
  • PureScript
  • Python
  • Racket
  • Ruby
  • Rust
  • Scala
  • Scheme
  • Smalltalk
  • Swift
  • Unison
  • VimL
  • Wolfram Language
• On theory
  • Compilers/Interpreters
  • Computer Graphics and Vision
  • Creative Technology
  • Databases
  • Data Science
  • Data Structures & Algorithms
  • Debugging
  • DevOps
  • Distributed Systems
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Functional Programming
  • Game Development
  • Hardware
  • Logic Programming
  • Machine Learning
  • Mathematics
  • On Languages
  • On the Industry/Community
  • Operating Systems
  • Performance Engineering
  • Programming Language Design
  • Program Synthesis
  • Research
  • Robotics
  • Security
  • Software Development
  • System Architecture
  • Testing
  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Type Theory
  • UX/UI
  • Web Development
• Miscellaneous
• Contributing

On Programming Languages

Alpaca

• Alpaca: Static Typing on the BEAM [00:45:34] by Jeremy Pierre (2017)

APL

• Lessons for the Masses from the Trenches of Co-dfns [00:21:53] by Aaron Hsu (2019)

• Tacit Techniques with Dyalog version 18.0 Operators [00:28:53] by Marshall Lochbaum (2019)

• Patterns and Anti-patterns in APL: Escaping the Beginner's Plateau [00:59:02] by Aaron Hsu (2017)

• 50 Years of APL Datatypes: From Booleans to Hypercomplex Numbers [00:39:21] by Bob Smith (2016)

Assembly

• Enough x86 Assembly to Be Dangerous [00:30:58] by Charles Bailey (2017)

• The Teensy ELF Executable [00:49:03] by Brian Raiter (2014)

Bash

• The Functional Tao of Bash [00:48:12] by Garrett Smith (2015)

C

• What is new in C and POSIX? [00:49:50] by Peter Eisentraut (2025) (held at PGConf.dev, so from a PostgreSQL PoV)

• Advanced C Coding For Fun! [00:46:53] by Rusty Russell (2014)

• Writing application fault handlers [00:49:03] by Gilad Ben-Yossef (2008)

Clojure

• Evolving Clojure with Virtual Threads [00:40:24] by Alex Miller (2025)

• Making Tools Developers Actually Use [00:27:33] by Michiel Borkent (2025)

• Expeditious Code via Inference [00:45:36] by Mike Fikes (2019)

• fn and Games with Arcadia [00:53:49] by Ramsey Nasser (2019)
• Rethinking Identity with Clojure [00:41:53] by David Nolen (2019)

• Solving Problems the Clojure Way [01:02:55] by Rafal Dittwald (2019)

• Every Clojure Talk Ever [00:27:36] by Alex Engelberg & Derek Slager (2018)

• Functional Programming in Anger [00:42:05] by David Nolen (2018)
• Java Made (Somewhat) Simple [00:40:45] by Ghadi Shayban (2018) [A]

• REBL [00:33:05] by Stuart Halloway (2018)

• Core.Async in Use [00:34:04] by Timothy Baldridge (2017)

• Symbolic Assembly: Using Clojure to Meta-program Bytecode [00:39:42] by Ramsey Nasser (2017)

• Bare Metal Clojure with clojure.spec [00:36:07] by Michael Reitzenstein (2016)

• Clarifying Rules Engines with Clara Rules [00:37:07] by Mike Rodriguez (2016)
• Clojure at DataStax: The Long Road From Python to Clojure [00:29:28] by Nick Bailey (2016)
• Composing music with clojure.spec [00:46:30] by Wojciech Franke (2016)
• Creating DSLs - A tale of spec tacular success and failure [00:39:46] by Claire Alvis (2016)
• Full stack FP in Datomic, Clojure, and ClojureScript [00:51:30] by Priyatam Mudivarti (2016)
• Live-Coding Mathematics Your First Clojure Proof [00:41:54] by Frederic Peschanski (2016)
• Managing One of the World's Largest Clojure Code Bases [00:41:05] by Donevan Dolby (2016)
• Parallel Programming, Fork Join, and Reducers [00:40:53] by Daniel Higginbotham (2016)
• Proto REPL, a New Clojure Development and Visualization Tool [00:30:10] by Jason Gilman (2016)
• Spec-ulation [01:16:23] by Rich Hickey (2016)
• The Next Five Years of ClojureScript [01:00:57] by David Nolen (2016)

• Using Clojure with C APIs for crypto and more [00:41:07] by lvh (2016)

• Bottom Up vs Top Down Design in Clojure [00:36:41] by Mark Bastian (2015)

• Building a Bicycle for the Mind [00:26:39] by David Nolen (2015)
• Clojure, Made Simple [01:00:43] by Rich Hickey (2015)
• ClojureScript + React.js: How I learned to stop worrying and love the browser [00:52:24] by Norbert Wójtowicz (2015)
• ClojureScript for Skeptics [00:41:08] by Derek Slager (2015)
• Condition Systems in an Exceptional Language [00:33:31] by Chris Houser (2015)
• Data Science in Clojure [00:44:03] by Soren Macbeth (2015)
• Developing ClojureScript With Figwheel [00:45:30] by Bruce Hauman (2015)
• Domain Specific Type Systems [00:40:05] by Nathan Sorenson (2015)
• From REST to CQRS with Clojure, Kafka, & Datomic [00:44:24] by Bobby Calderwood (2015)
• Game Development Development [00:35:09] by Michael Nygard & Ragnar Svensson (2015)
• Genetic Programming in Clojure [00:40:07] by Lee Spector (2015)
• Hoplon and Javelin, WebDev Alternative Reality [00:22:07] by Micha Niskin (2015)
• Om Next [00:39:22] by David Nolen (2015)
• [Purely Random](https://www.youtub