I don’t usually recommend videos when it comes to learning a programming language. There are multiple reasons that I already talked about in other articles, but, in a few words, I find that they don’t let you learn at your own pace, and also push people to copy-paste without understanding. Coding is learnt by doing, not by listening to a presentation.
That said, when it comes to more theoretical knowledge, conferences are a great medium to learn from the most experienced and brightest minds in our domain. Programming being a relatively new thing (the first program was made in 1946), we are lucky to have the possibility to talk and listen to some of the Founding Fathers of modern programming.
In this article, I want to share some of the videos that I have watched and that present some of the core principles of software engineering.
The Clean Coder, by “Uncle” Bob Martin
Bob Martin is a famous software engineer and best-selling book author that is well known for his many contributions on the topic of clean code and Agile development. He’s also a very entertaining presenter.
In this conference, he speaks about architecture in software, the importance of decoupling, MVC, separation of I/O and business logic, etc. It’s a great talk presenting those core concepts that I would recommend everybody to watch.
If you are interested in learning more about the topic that he quickly mentions of governments policing programmers, he has another talk called “The Scribe’s Oath” that you can watch.
The Future of Programming, by “Uncle” Bob Martin
From the same presenter, someone that has lived through most of it, this conference presents the history of programming, what did it look like when it started, what did it take to get to where we are today, and what does the future of programming look like.
Note that some of the topics are similar to the previous talk, but most of the presentation is different.
Test-Driven Development, by “Uncle” Bob Martin
Yep, him again. This video is a presentation of what is Test-Driven Development (TDD), what are the 3 laws of TDD, and also a hands-on demonstration of how to apply TDD.
I particularly recommend this talk, because TDD is a very important topic in software engineering, and you WILL hear about it all the time, if you haven’t already. The hands-on demo is also really cool to watch.
If you want to contrast a bit the absolute views of Bob Martin when it comes to TDD, I recommend to watch the following video: Jim Coplien and Bob Martin debate TDD.
Agile is Dead, by Dave Thomas
Dave Thomas is another one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto for Software Development, alongside Bob Martin. He also created the very famous “DRY” (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle, in one of his many publications in the domain of software engineering.
Contrarily to what you may think, this talk is not bashing Agile principles (as I said, he co-authored the manifesto that gave birth to Agile development), but it’s more a presentation of the history of Agile development and how it has evolved since then to become something different than intended.
Scrum, by Jeff Sutherland
Related to the previous video, and presented by another member of the Agile Manifesto, this conference is about the history of Scrum, presented by the person that came up with it, Jeff Sutherland.
The Essence of C++, by Bjarne Stroustrup
Bjarne Stroustrup is the creator of one of the most famous programming languages in the world: C++. In this talk, he presents the concepts and thought processes that are behind the creation of C++ and the different features of the language.
I recommended this talk even if you don’t program in C++ (although it might be hard to follow everything if you don’t have any knowledge of the language), because of the principles that guided its creation, which are applicable in software engineering in general.
Conclusion
You would need more than a lifetime to watch all the conferences or talks on programming that are freely available on the internet. In this article, I wanted to focus on core topics presented by famous figures in the field, but I welcome you to share other conferences that you have found valuable in the comments of this article.
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