Stop Writing Classes
Jack Diederich·2012·PyCon US·27 minA short, pointed argument that most classes in Python codebases want to be functions — and a useful checklist for when an object is actually pulling its weight.
Transforming Code into Beautiful, Idiomatic Python
Raymond Hettinger·2013·PyCon USHettinger reworks ordinary Python code into the idiomatic version, pattern by pattern — the talk that taught a generation what Pythonic actually means.
The Wet Codebase
Dan Abramov·2019·DeconstructAbramov on what DRY actually costs once you've lived with a too-clever abstraction — and why writing the same code twice is sometimes the right answer.
Maybe Not
Rich Hickey·2018·Clojure ConjHickey takes aim at Maybe/Optional and the conflation of optionality with absence — arguing that wrapping types is the wrong place to encode 'I might not give this to you.'
Spec-ulation
Rich Hickey·2016·Clojure ConjHickey on versioning, breaking changes, and the quiet violence we do to downstream users when we 'fix' our APIs in place.
The Evolution of Go
Robert Griesemer·2015·GopherConRobert Griesemer on the design choices behind Go — its lineage from Oberon, its deliberate omissions, and the discipline of saying no to features other languages embraced.
Nothing is Something
Sandi Metz·2015·RailsConfSandi Metz on the hidden defaults and conditional checks that quietly accumulate in object-oriented code — and how naming the 'nothing' is what unlocks better designs.