Ranked #1
Talking to Machines: LISP and the Origins of A.I.
Talking to Machines: LISP and the Origins of A.I.
Creating a machine that thinks may have seemed like science fiction in the 1950s. But John McCarthy decided to make it a... Read more
17 Sep 2019
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27mins
Ranked #2
Learning the BASICs
Learning the BASICs
Becoming a programmer used to require a Ph.D. and having access to some serious hardware. Then, in 1965, a couple of eng... Read more
9 Jul 2019
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25mins
Ranked #3
Bonus: Developer Advocacy Roundtable
Bonus: Developer Advocacy Roundtable
Developer advocates play important roles in open source communities. We brought a few of them together to explain how an... Read more
17 Dec 2018
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29mins
Ranked #4
Fail Better: Embracing Failure
Fail Better: Embracing Failure
Failure is the heartbeat of discovery. We stumble a lot trying new things. The trick is to give up on failing fast. Inst... Read more
23 Oct 2018
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27mins
Ranked #5
The One About DevSecOps: Evolving Security and Reliability
The One About DevSecOps: Evolving Security and Reliability
Bad security and reliability practices can lead to outages that affect millions. It’s time for security to join the DevO... Read more
6 Nov 2018
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25mins
Ranked #6
The Infrastructure Effect: COBOL and Go
The Infrastructure Effect: COBOL and Go
Languages used for IT infrastructure don’t have expiration dates. COBOL’s been around for 60 years—and isn’t going anywh... Read more
20 Aug 2019
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26mins
Ranked #7
Python’s Tale
Python’s Tale
A benevolent dictator for life steps down and changes the course of the Python language forever. Guido van Rossum’s “Tra... Read more
25 Jun 2019
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28mins
Ranked #8
Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World
Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World
The floppy disk was one of the greatest breakthroughs in computing. It helped spin up the software industry with a forma... Read more
10 Mar 2020
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36mins
Ranked #9
Creating JavaScript
Creating JavaScript
A mission to set the course of the world wide web in its early days. 10 days to get it done. The result? An indispensabl... Read more
23 Jul 2019
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26mins
Ranked #10
Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution
Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution
The Altair 8800 is why we have computers in most homes today. It was initially designed for hobbyists. But a few visiona... Read more
25 Feb 2020
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32mins
Ranked #11
Diving for Perl
Diving for Perl
Languages come and go. A few have the right stuff to rise to the top—and fewer stay there. Perl had a spectacular rise, ... Read more
6 Aug 2019
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27mins
Ranked #12
The C Change
The C Change
C and UNIX are at the root of modern computing. Many of the languages we’ve covered this season are related to or at lea... Read more
1 Oct 2019
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25mins
Ranked #13
Mainframes: The GE 225 and the Birth of BASIC
Mainframes: The GE 225 and the Birth of BASIC
The computing industry started booming after World War II. General Electric’s CEO refused to enter that market. But a sm... Read more
11 Feb 2020
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30mins
Ranked #14
Minicomputers: The Soul of an Old Machine
Minicomputers: The Soul of an Old Machine
They don’t fit in your pocket. But in their day, minicomputers were an order of magnitude smaller than the room-sized ma... Read more
28 Jan 2020
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29mins
Ranked #15
At Your Serverless: Development Empowerment with Control
At Your Serverless: Development Empowerment with Control
What does serverless really mean? Of course there are still servers—the basics of the internet aren’t changing. But what... Read more
4 Dec 2018
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28mins
Ranked #16
Heroes in a Bash Shell
Heroes in a Bash Shell
Shells make large-scale IT possible. They’re a necessary component to modern computing. But it might not have turned out... Read more
3 Sep 2019
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27mins
Ranked #17
Open Curiosity: NASA, Mars, and Beyond
Open Curiosity: NASA, Mars, and Beyond
The best and brightest took us to the moon with the computing power of pocket calculators. Now they’re taking us farther... Read more
18 Dec 2018
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28mins
Ranked #18
The Data Explosion: Processing, Storage, and the Cloud
The Data Explosion: Processing, Storage, and the Cloud
Big data is going to help solve big problems: how we grow food; how we deliver supplies to those in need; how we cure di... Read more
20 Nov 2018
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26mins
Ranked #19
Ready to Commit: Contributing to Open Source
Ready to Commit: Contributing to Open Source
Looking to get into open source but not sure where to start? Are you a contributor trying to understand why only some pu... Read more
9 Oct 2018
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26mins
Ranked #20
Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate
Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate
It’s not easy to learn how to use computers when you can’t actually touch them. But that’s how Dr. Clarence Ellis starte... Read more
8 Dec 2020
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27mins