Brian Kernighan Reflects on "The Practice of Programming"

In this very special episode of Book Overflow, Dr. Brian Kernighan, the author of "The Practice of Programming" joins us to discuss his experience writing the book! Tune in as he talks about his experience at Bell Labs, what it was like co-authoring the book with Rob Pike, his thoughts on LLMs and the future of programming, and more!

00:00 - Intro

02:38 - Why write this book?

12:23 - Working at Bell Labs

16:29 - Life Learning Process

22:33 - What motivates you to write a book? 

28:13 - AI and LLMs

35:48 - Layers of Abstraction

37:50 - What excites you about the future?

41:34 - Programmatic Thinking in Humanities

50:13 - Favorite Books

57:39 - Closing Thoughts