"Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming"
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as an engaging overview of programming history and an argument for professional standards, citing the agile manifesto section and the claim that software has advanced little since the 1950s.
What it is
Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) traces the history of software from 1948 to today, looking at the problems programmers faced, how they were solved, and what mistakes the profession made. He then projects where the field is going, including professionalism and regulation.
Recommended by 10 HN commenters across 10 different months, 2016 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec kartan · 2017-10 · on “Tech workers worry about age discrimination at age 40: Study”
For an informed answer you can see: "Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming" [this video] Please, see the video. It is an awesome informative and it will give you a lot of insight on our current situation. It is not about startups, but about the maturity of the industry itself.
Strong rec rb808 · 2018-07 · on “Computer science as a lost art (2015)”
Bob Martin has a great talk [this video] , which illustrates a lot of history of computers. He asserts that the number of devs is doubling every 5 years which means that half the developers have < 5 years experience. The industry has lots much of its scientific discipline which has to return, or regulations will force more structure. Anyway he's a great speaker and this is one of my favorites.
Strong rec neovive · 2019-12 · on “Say it's 1962, you're lucky enough to be a programmer working with an IBM 7090”
For those interested in the history of computer programming, "Uncle" Bob Martin gave an excellent talk in 2016 called "The Future of Programming", starting with Alan Turing in 1936. It's a fascinating introduction to the evolution of hardware and programming languages. I was particularly amazed at how Turing used CRT screens for memory and output. The history discussion starts at around 11 min: [this video]
Strong rec ghoward · 2022-07 · on “What’s the end goal for you programmers?”
I am not working in industry; I'm such a loner programmer that I struggle in industry. But since my wife likes her work, I have space to write the software I want to write. My first goal is to make that software good enough and useful enough to create an engineering-only company like Hwaci, the company that does SQLite and Fossil. If I succeed at that, I'll see about trying to pull in enough money to retire early and do charity work through my church. But I have another goal for while I'm still in industry. I want to change our industry such that it is a professional industry, with a code of ethics, to where we create software that serves users , not our employers or government. This means f
Recommends algold · 2016-10 · on “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”
Really good talk! This is a newer and also really good talk about programming languages and their future: "Uncle" Bob Martin - "The Future of Programming" [this video]
Recommends EdSharkey · 2017-01 · on “My Response to “Are we overcomplicating software development?””
To me, the real issue is that the managers got ahold of agile. Most managers just want waterfall, I'm convinced, which I suspect is where so much of the head scratching about Agile comes from. We developers have done an abysmal job developing, socializing, and formalizing our standards and practices. Needing to keep agile things loose because teams and industries and people and projects differ is one thing. But, we don't even try to establish unambiguous definitions for general topics like test-driven development, big visible charts, or sprints. Frankly, we need industry leadership and earned certifications for developer craftsmanship. Uncle Bob recently has shared some good food for thought
Recommends geksilla · 2018-04 · on “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”
Rich Hickey - "simple made easy" [LINK] Rob Pike - "concurrency is not parallelism" [LINK] Uncle Bob Martin - "future of programming" [this video] Martin Kleppmann - "transactions: myths, surprises and opportunities" [LINK] Simon Brown - "software architecture vs code" [LINK]
Recommends fogetti · 2019-04 · on “How the Boeing 737 Max disaster looks to a software Developer”
Let me tell one thing: I absolutely hate sloppy engineering. And by sloppy I also mean rushing. There is a class of engineers and engineering managers who think that they are rockstars because they can churn out code quickly. I am absolutely disgusted and sick of this attitude. And why do I bring it up here? Because I suspect this kind of attitude was partly blamed for this fatal and tragic accident. Of course this is pure speculation. But my 12 years experience in the software industry makes me believe that's what happened. Also a relevant talk by Uncle Bob: [this video]