Computer Science - Brian Kernighan on successful language design

Professor Brian Kernighan presents on 'How to succeed in language design without really trying.' Brian Kernighan is Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University and Honorary Professor in the School of Computer Science at The University of Nottingham.

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[serhiicho]

The fact that someone added subtitles to this video is incredible

[TheIkarus]

Man...this guy is just incredible. He has almost a legendary status in the history of computer science yet he is so humble and so down to earth. His presentation skills are just awesome -I didn't loose focus even once during whole video, which happens every 30 seconds when the profs at my uni try to teach. He explained everything in very clear and concise way, no BS at all. No trying to sound smart, no cryptic explanations, no ego at all. I wish lecturers at my uni were a bit more like him...

[RhysYorke]

Thank you for making this talk available to the public.

[saifulbordeaux]

His lecture is electrifying, and he's 70s, put many younger guys to shame. A legend yet so humble and not condescending to his audience like current conference speakers. Top guy.

[rhymereason]

I literally owe my career to Mr. Kernigan. As a young programmer writing PL/1 and COBOL code on IBM MVS platforms, I discovered "The C Programming Language" in the library in 1984 and checked it out as a curiosity... I'd never heard of the language. The terseness of the language and elegance of his examples in the book blew me away! I knew I had to learn this language - even though I really liked PL/1, so I bought the only C compiler available for a PC at the time (Whitesmith's C Compiler), and taught myself the language. A year later I was working in Unix and C for a major Aerospace company and never looked back. Thank you Mr. Kernigan.... my career was a blast because of you and Dennis Richie, et. al.

[unclefreddy]

I could listen to Prof Kernighan speak all day long. What a clear thinker

[erikwg]

I like to imagine that this humble man uses Comic Sans in his code editor as well. Great talk and thanks for C!

[MrPoutsesMple]

13:54 I've noticed something that could be a pattern. Many legendary scientists seem to be humble in general and are not afraid to admit that their knowledge is limited.

On the other hand, there are many people that are very arrogant, in contrast to what they have achieved (i.e. not much).

I couldn't expect less from such a legend...

Thank you U.o.Nottingham for sharing this lecture.

And thank you Prof. Kernighan, for C and Unix.

[icantfindausernamehe]

I still picture him reclining in the chair describing how Unix works.

[dogriffiths]

The man who introduced him taught me language design.

[saeedbaig]

Another reason I would add that (partly at least) helps some languages to thrive is marketing. Most of the most well-known languages of the new millennium (e.g. C#, Go, Swift, Rust) were developed or backed by major companies (Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla respectively). The most successful language is not alway the one with the best specs, but with the best hype.

[adamhaney]

Someday, I would love to possess 1/10th the knowledge and humility that Brian Kernighan has.

[hankigoe]

That's how you do an intro, people. 5 seconds and get the star on stage.

[elclippo]

CS == Computer Science? No
CS == C#? No.
CS == Comic Sans? Yes!

[bsitney]

At 25:07 you have the most concise example of an associative array. Period. Thank you Dr. Kernighan for this precious gem.

[solderbuff]

58:12 - "But you wonder whether it [C++] has passed beyond some threshold of complexity that's beyond mortals." 😂

[halhal]

B.K..?! Hands down.. Couldn’t agree more that Youtube is a real treasure island in our time. Thank you

[eugrus]

11:26 "People in 70s discovered, that you could program in the command interpreter."
Microsoft in 2009: "I think now I'm starting to get it..."

[thingsiplay]

The 64 dislikes are all pure functional programming programmers.

[seye]

I bought a wallet from the University of Nottingham and it fell apart within a year. This talk was so good that now I feel I owe you money.