Brian Kernighan: Inside Bell Labs, The Best Programmer, Why C Won

Brian Kernighan is a former Bell Labs member of technical staff, co-author of the original C book, and the one who popularized “Hello World.” We talked about what Bell Labs was like and the stories behind all the famous tools that were built there.• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-donePodcast links:• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMllOlxVgD0• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/e072-brian-kernighanThank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:42) What Bell Labs was and how he got hired(06:34) Why so many inventions came from Bell Labs(14:15) A day in the life at Bell Labs(27:55) The most impressive people he worked with(33:50) The AT&T film explaining Unix(39:46) Why C was so influential(43:25) How awk was created(48:40) What he misses most about Bell Labs(54:10) Are LLMs bad for computer science education(01:01:46) His 1972 commit in the Go repo(01:03:43) Grace Emlen, the fake Bell Labs employee(01:07:39) Why he writes so many books(01:19:58) His favorite and least favorite languages(01:24:28) Advice for students and young people(01:27:42) OutroWhere to find Brian:• Personal website: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/• Princeton University faculty profile: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/people/profile/bwk• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_KernighanWhere to find Ryan:• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpetermanReferenced in this episode:• UNIX: Making Computers Easier to Use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDZLjaCJuw• Brian Kernighan’s first Harvard CS50 lecture (1996): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ba1XFVy7qw• A Beautiful Mind: https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/a-beautiful-mind• Shifts: Important Ideas in Computing: https://www.amazon.com/Shifts-Nine-Ideas-Revolutionized-Computing/dp/0262064294/• Labscam (Penn & Teller at Bell Labs, 1989): https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/labscam.html• Labscam video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnsmDNamd2g• Understanding the Digital World (new edition): https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Digital-World-Computers-Internet/dp/0691288879