Cover image of Command Line Heroes

Command Line Heroes

Stories about the people transforming technology from the command line up.

Ranked #1

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Talking to Machines: LISP and the Origins of A.I.

Talking to Machines: LISP and the Origins of A.I.

Creating a machine that thinks may have seemed like science fiction in the 1950s. But John McCarthy decided to make it a... Read more

17 Sep 2019

27mins

Ranked #2

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Learning the BASICs

Learning the BASICs

Becoming a programmer used to require a Ph.D. and having access to some serious hardware. Then, in 1965, a couple of eng... Read more

9 Jul 2019

25mins

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Ranked #3

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Bonus: Developer Advocacy Roundtable

Bonus: Developer Advocacy Roundtable

Developer advocates play important roles in open source communities. We brought a few of them together to explain how an... Read more

17 Dec 2018

29mins

Ranked #4

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Fail Better: Embracing Failure

Fail Better: Embracing Failure

Failure is the heartbeat of discovery. We stumble a lot trying new things. The trick is to give up on failing fast. Inst... Read more

23 Oct 2018

27mins

Most Popular Podcasts

Ranked #5

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The One About DevSecOps: Evolving Security and Reliability

The One About DevSecOps: Evolving Security and Reliability

Bad security and reliability practices can lead to outages that affect millions. It’s time for security to join the DevO... Read more

6 Nov 2018

25mins

Ranked #6

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The Infrastructure Effect: COBOL and Go

The Infrastructure Effect: COBOL and Go

Languages used for IT infrastructure don’t have expiration dates. COBOL’s been around for 60 years—and isn’t going anywh... Read more

20 Aug 2019

26mins

Ranked #7

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Python’s Tale

Python’s Tale

A benevolent dictator for life steps down and changes the course of the Python language forever. Guido van Rossum’s “Tra... Read more

25 Jun 2019

28mins

Ranked #8

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Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World

Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World

The floppy disk was one of the greatest breakthroughs in computing. It helped spin up the software industry with a forma... Read more

10 Mar 2020

36mins

Ranked #9

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Creating JavaScript

Creating JavaScript

A mission to set the course of the world wide web in its early days. 10 days to get it done. The result? An indispensabl... Read more

23 Jul 2019

26mins

Ranked #10

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Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution

Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution

The Altair 8800 is why we have computers in most homes today. It was initially designed for hobbyists. But a few visiona... Read more

25 Feb 2020

32mins

Ranked #11

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Diving for Perl

Diving for Perl

Languages come and go. A few have the right stuff to rise to the top—and fewer stay there. Perl had a spectacular rise, ... Read more

6 Aug 2019

27mins

Ranked #12

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The C Change

The C Change

C and UNIX are at the root of modern computing. Many of the languages we’ve covered this season are related to or at lea... Read more

1 Oct 2019

25mins

Ranked #13

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Mainframes: The GE 225 and the Birth of BASIC

Mainframes: The GE 225 and the Birth of BASIC

The computing industry started booming after World War II. General Electric’s CEO refused to enter that market. But a sm... Read more

11 Feb 2020

30mins

Ranked #14

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Minicomputers: The Soul of an Old Machine

Minicomputers: The Soul of an Old Machine

They don’t fit in your pocket. But in their day, minicomputers were an order of magnitude smaller than the room-sized ma... Read more

28 Jan 2020

29mins

Ranked #15

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At Your Serverless: Development Empowerment with Control

At Your Serverless: Development Empowerment with Control

What does serverless really mean? Of course there are still servers—the basics of the internet aren’t changing. But what... Read more

4 Dec 2018

28mins

Ranked #16

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Heroes in a Bash Shell

Heroes in a Bash Shell

Shells make large-scale IT possible. They’re a necessary component to modern computing. But it might not have turned out... Read more

3 Sep 2019

27mins

Ranked #17

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Open Curiosity: NASA, Mars, and Beyond

Open Curiosity: NASA, Mars, and Beyond

The best and brightest took us to the moon with the computing power of pocket calculators. Now they’re taking us farther... Read more

18 Dec 2018

28mins

Ranked #18

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The Data Explosion: Processing, Storage, and the Cloud

The Data Explosion: Processing, Storage, and the Cloud

Big data is going to help solve big problems: how we grow food; how we deliver supplies to those in need; how we cure di... Read more

20 Nov 2018

26mins

Ranked #19

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Ready to Commit: Contributing to Open Source

Ready to Commit: Contributing to Open Source

Looking to get into open source but not sure where to start? Are you a contributor trying to understand why only some pu... Read more

9 Oct 2018

26mins

Ranked #20

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Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate

Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate

It’s not easy to learn how to use computers when you can’t actually touch them. But that’s how Dr. Clarence Ellis starte... Read more

8 Dec 2020

27mins

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