Show Notes
Brian Kernighan is a former Bell Labs member of technical staff, co-author of the original C book, and the one who popularized “Hello World.” We talked about what Bell Labs was like and the stories behind all the famous tools that were built there.
• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/ • The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done
Podcast links:
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMllOlxVgD0 • Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 • Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/e072-brian-kernighan
Thank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:
• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro (00:42) What Bell Labs was and how he got hired (06:34) Why so many inventions came from Bell Labs (14:15) A day in the life at Bell Labs (27:55) The most impressive people he worked with (33:50) The AT&T film explaining Unix (39:46) Why C was so influential (43:25) How awk was created (48:40) What he misses most about Bell Labs (54:10) Are LLMs bad for computer science education (01:01:46) His 1972 commit in the Go repo (01:03:43) Grace Emlen, the fake Bell Labs employee (01:07:39) Why he writes so many books (01:19:58) His favorite and least favorite languages (01:24:28) Advice for students and young people (01:27:42) Outro
Where to find Brian:
• Personal website: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ • Princeton University faculty profile: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/people/profile/bwk • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman
Referenced in this episode:
• UNIX: Making Computers Easier to Use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDZLjaCJuw • Brian Kernighan’s first Harvard CS50 lecture (1996): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ba1XFVy7qw • A Beautiful Mind: https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/a-beautiful-mind • Shifts: Important Ideas in Computing: https://www.amazon.com/Shifts-Nine-Ideas-Revolutionized-Computing/dp/0262064294/ • Labscam (Penn & Teller at Bell Labs, 1989): https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/labscam.html • Labscam video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnsmDNamd2g • Understanding the Digital World (new edition): https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Digital-World-Computers-Internet/dp/0691288879
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