The Mother of All Demos
Douglas Engelbart·1968·Fall Joint Computer Conference·1 hr 40 minDoug Engelbart's 1968 demo that introduced hypertext, the mouse, video conferencing, real-time collaborative editing — most of what you'd recognize as a personal computer.
The Future of Programming
Bret Victor·2013·Dropbox DBXBret Victor, in costume as a 1973 researcher, surveys the ideas the field once had — and the ones we quietly stopped pursuing.
Inventing on Principle
Bret Victor·2012·CUSECBret Victor on the principle that creators deserve an immediate connection to what they create — and a demo reel that still feels years ahead of the tools we ship today.
Crafting quality that endures
Karri Saarinen·2025·Figma ConfigThe Linear CEO on why software quality is something a company has to value out loud — and how Linear's process keeps the bar from drifting as it scales.
Design in Practice
Rich Hickey·2023·Clojure ConjAfter years of talking about design in the abstract, Hickey demystifies the actual practice — the concrete moves and habits that turn 'design' from a noun into a verb.
Stop Writing Dead Programs
Jack Rusher·2022·Strange LoopJack Rusher argues that most of our languages are still, accidentally, designed around the punchcard — and shows what a living programming environment could look like instead.
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.