Talks

I am always happy to talk: please see this rider for details.

Sex and Drugs and Guns and Code

Outlines what a course for programmers on civics and society might contain and how it ought to be presented.
HTML; last updated July 2025.

Giving a Tech Talk That Doesn't Suck

A few simple rules (or questions) for giving technical pressentations.
HTML; last updated July 2025.

Software Engineering's Greatest Hits

Software engineering is in the process of turning itself into an evidence-based research discipline. This talk describes how that is happening, why it matters, and a few of the more interesting, surprising, and controversial results to date.
HTML; last updated May 2023; video.

Writing a Technical Book

I've written several technical books and edited several others. This talk summarizes what I've learned that first-time authors might find useful.
HTML: last updated November 2022.

Software Design for Data Scientists

Many data scientists are self-taught programmers and have never been shown how to think about design in the large. This talk presents ten different approaches, each of which gives different insights.
HTML; last updated July 2021.

Teaching Tech Together

Having tried to cram a dozen books about teaching into a two-day course, I have now tried to cram key ideas from that course into this one-hour talk.
Slides; last updated July 2021; video.

How to Run a Meeting

A few simple rules that can make everyone's life run a little more smoothly.
Slides; last updated July 2020; video.

Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Ike Quebec

Keynote at CarpentryCon 2018 in Dublin.
HTML; last updated May 2018; video.