Talks

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

Twelve Ways to Be Wrong About AI-Assisted Coding

Outlines twelve common methodological errors in studies claiming to measure the productivity impact of AI coding tools.
HTML; last updated May 2026.

Thirty Years of Python

A personal look at how Python has evolved over three decades and what that evolution has cost in learnability.
HTML; last updated February 2026.

Cocaine and Conway's Law

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

Giving a Tech Talk That Doesn't Suck

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

Software Engineering's Greatest Hits

Software engineering is turning itself into an evidence-based discipline. This talk describes how, why it matters, and a few interesting findings.
HTML; video; last updated May 2023.

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.
OpenOffice; Google Slides; video; last updated July 2021.

How to Run a Meeting

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

Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Ike Quebec

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