Ask HN: What is your favorite Tech Podcasts these days?

75 pointsHixon103y ago76 comments

During COVID-era we got a lot of new podcasts. So I am wonder, what is the current list of Tech Podcasts, which you consume these days?

My current list:

1. https://www.codingblocks.net/category/podcast/ - deep dives into different tech topics

2. https://anchor.fm/happypathprogramming - scala/kotlin/java + interviews with different tech people

3. https://postgres.fm/episodes - deep dives into different parts of PostgreSQL database

4. https://www.softwareatscale.dev/archive - interviews with different tech people

5. https://bootifulpodcast.fm/#/all-podcasts - java/spring + interviews with different tech people

Ask HN: What is your favorite Tech Podcasts these days?

75 pointsHixon103y ago76 comments

During COVID-era we got a lot of new podcasts. So I am wonder, what is the current list of Tech Podcasts, which you consume these days?

My current list:

1. https://www.codingblocks.net/category/podcast/ - deep dives into different tech topics

2. https://anchor.fm/happypathprogramming - scala/kotlin/java + interviews with different tech people

3. https://postgres.fm/episodes - deep dives into different parts of PostgreSQL database

4. https://www.softwareatscale.dev/archive - interviews with different tech people

5. https://bootifulpodcast.fm/#/all-podcasts - java/spring + interviews with different tech people

76 comments

75 comments · 42 top-level

nicolaslem3y ago· 7 in thread

Without doubt Darknet Diaries, it should be a mandatory listen for anyone touching computers. It is a crash course on building secure systems by learning from the failures of others.

I highly recommend starting from episode #1 because they are almost all great and episodes often reference past topics.

https://darknetdiaries.com

Raed6673y ago

I like Darknet Diaries, but I feel it is geared towards techies and not engineers.

The concepts are high level, the details are vague and the stories take a lot of shortcuts to make the podcast accessible to more people.

Maxburn3y ago

True, but it's an entertaining listen which is something that can't be said for a lot of the more technical and complex podcasts. The engagement he gets has enough technical that you can jot something down and research it but the overwhelming takeaway on WHY such and such failure or vuln was a problem is more important IMO.

Timpy3y ago

I listened to quite a bit of Darknet Diaries back in 2018 but he had a few episodes that were such complete misses for me that I hopped off the train. The episode about trying to get to the top of Apple's podcast charts wore my patience, but a few episodes later the content was padded out with getting up to date on some Youtuber drama or something? I figured it was just hard to keep finding content for this niche. Should I give it another chance? There's 100+ more episodes now than the lats time I looked.

thehappypm3y ago

It’s true, not every episode is amazing. It’s a bit of a tangent, but I feel like podcasts don’t make it easy to get started. Unlike a TV show, where you obviously should start with S1E01, lots of podcasts either get outdated over time or have hugely improved over time and starting with a recent episode is better. But then you dive in and you don’t get any of the references, get blasted by ads, and so on!

swah3y ago

Hah, they have a link for "start at the beginning": https://darknetdiaries.com/reverse/

QuibbleQuota3y ago

Could you recommend some episodes?

I started with “Jeremy From Marketing” and really liked that one

nicolaslem3y ago

One that stuck with me was Ep 86: The LinkedIn Incident. It is about how one seemingly inconsequential device at home being compromised can lead to a massive data breach.

mellosouls3y ago· 6 in thread

I wonder if there is a gap in the audio market for low-level podcasts aimed at building technical "muscle memory".

Example: repeated syntax step-throughs in a rote/kata style, like foreign language courses.

I've never seen anything like that and have often wondered if it could work without the visual accompaniment.

nsteel3y ago

Do you mean like https://newrustacean.com by Chris Krycho? Although you have to really concentrate when he starts reeling off those generic method signatures, I love that he went that way with it. And I think it works.

Please do some more, Chris!

mellosouls3y ago

I was actually thinking more of an audio version of something like learnxinyminutes [1] but yes, that also seems a good use of the medium at a higher level, thanks! I didn't get to the method signatures/other syntax recital part yet, so it may be what I'm thinking of as well.

[1] https://learnxinyminutes.com/

dewey3y ago

I don't see how this would be that useful. If you are learning a foreign language, you already know what you want to say, but not how to say it in the new language.

Syntax doesn't really matter after programming for more than a year, as the important part is how to solve a problem, and not how to write down that solution.

mellosouls3y ago

True, but stumbling over even basic idioms and syntax can be quite frustrating if you have not used them enough to absorb them, especially for those like me with dodgy memory retention.

1 more reply

frou_dh3y ago

I've actually found it quite an active/engaging experience to take in some normal code-presenting videos/screencasts as audio-only (i.e. earphones in, phone in pocket), because you build up in your minds eye the code they're talking about.

mellosouls3y ago

Ah yes, that's a good idea. I think I've actually done that in the past, come to think of it, when walking; listening to a video course and occasionally screenshotting the phone at a bit I wanted to come back to.

frou_dh3y ago· 4 in thread

Software Unscripted https://twitter.com/sw_unscripted is good. I don't know whether it's well known or not. Possibly a hidden gem.

Already mentioned, but Signals & Threads https://signalsandthreads.com is a very notable one. Probably the best episode hit-rate of any development-related podcast I've listened to.

Core Intuition https://coreint.org Apple-platform focused. Hosts have endearing personalities.

The Changelog https://changelog.com/podcast Good interviewers and wide-ranging episode topics (some get deleted - I won't subject myself to Kubernetes-related blather!)

thekaleb3y ago

I could not figure out how to subscribe to software unscripted with a regular podcast application. I don't see an RSS feed anywhere.

zantana3y ago

I usually end up using podbay.fm for finding rss feeds for shows which don't list them on their web pages (or anywhere else). https://podbay.fm/p/software-unscripted

frou_dh3y ago

Here it is: https://feeds.resonaterecordings.com/software-unscripted (that URL was surfaced by my subscription in Overcast).

thekaleb3y ago

I haven't really used the Apple podcasts website before but apparently I can find it there.

swyx3y ago· 4 in thread

here's my list: https://www.swyx.io/fave-podcasts#tech

and i've done annual updates you can find at the top of the post

b0afc375b53y ago

That's a lot of podcasts. You must have one hell of a commute.

But seriously, how do you find time to listen to all of these?

swyx3y ago

i work remote, no commute haha. i just play these in the background while i work (example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvd9JFFRI5Y). also i skip pretty aggressively if i dont like a guest or topic. you should skim podcasts like you skim HN titles and tweets.

Hixon10OP3y ago

But what exactly podcasts from the list do you consume?

swyx3y ago

probably the more recent (2022, 2021, 2020) are more consume-heavy. the original list is pretty old by now but reflective of where i started out when leveling up in tech

ilt3y ago· 2 in thread

For UX and Web Design, I highly recommend The Boagworld UX Show, although it is over now but it has a huge repository of over 15 years, with transcripts. It's a timeless relic.

achow3y ago