Ask HN: What are some great technical presentations? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some great technical presentations?

9 pointssillypudding7 comments

I have been pretty bad at presentations and public speaking, in general, all my life. Back in middle school and high school, the only occasions I spoke to a gathering was when my family or teachers forced me to do so. College was the same story.

After having worked in the industry for a while, I feel that _decent_ presentation skills (let alone stellar) are a necessity once you move beyond junior roles. So, here I am looking for examples of great _technical_ presentations.

I am specifically looking for presentations targeted at programmers (Computer Scientists, Software Engineers, etc), on a topic that is sufficiently complex (say, the construction of some particular compiler or an OS subsystem). I know that creating a presentation that is more accessible to non-programmers is going to be much harder than one targeted at a specific audience, so I am not looking for those at the moment.

I am also aware of groups like Toastmasters as well as the fact that there are several books, even full courses on effective technical presentation (I did actually take a required class on writing and presentation back in college, but ironically it wasn't really effective). But I'll leave those for another day and another post.

All that said, if you think there is a presentation that must be on every programmer's bucket list, please feel free to list it!

I would say anything by Kate Gregory is good to watch. She talks about C++, but her talks are always fun, and easily digestible which I think are good goals to have for presentations. You want your audience to be engaged, and you want them to understand what you're talking about which I think she does well.

In the same area, Chandler Carruth is also quite good IMHO. For both, you can find cppcon talks on Youtube.

Sorry, it too me a while to get around to reviewing the suggestions here. I just watched [1] and found Kate's style quite impressing. For instance, I loved the analogies she used (the weird complicated statue, the simple metal ball, the legos) to convey what she means by simplicity], as opposed to what people would normally think "simple code" would mean. I think this is not too different from how great presenters sometimes use cultural references, even memes, to tell a mini-story about their ideas.

Thanks for mentioning her - I'll definitely watch more of her talks.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Ak6xtVXno

Check out https://decker.com

My work used to bring in the Decker folks for trainings onsite. We stopped a few years ago before I could get in (my manager said I had decent skills already and there were others in more critical need of the trainings). I've hear nothing but positive experiences. It was a small group training where you give multiple on the spot presentations and the pros helpfully critique and provide help. You learn stage presence and how to not fill silence with filler words and such.

I don't know much about how to deliver a good talk, and neither do I have many presentation experiences. But I recommend this recent one that I deem as the greatest conference talk so far: vivid, humor, informative, ...

James Bottomley's talk on container security in Vancouver LPC2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqAMGMUOFs

I loved that talk, particularly his delivery and his use of humor. I may not agree with all the arguments he made on that particular topic (maybe because I read [1] a few weeks back...), but I'm quite sure this talk would've persuaded me to accept his arguments wholesale if I wasn't loosely familiar with the topic :)

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/773976/

I found https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9064-the_ultimate_apollo_guidanc... surprising in how much detail they managed to cram into a talk slot while keeping it follow-able.

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