Programming Throwdown

This podcast has a modest objective: to discuss a different programming language in each episode, or at least in most episodes : but to supplement this already weighty task the presenters also come equipped with their favourite news stories of the day, and a tool that they would like to recommend, a favourite book to discuss, and any other matters they want to get off their chest: in fact Jason and Patrick unselfconsciously invite you into their daily concerns...  James Gosling being hired by Google is news, but so is having your bicycle stolen, and the boys see no reason not to devote equal time to these two topics.

Listening between the lines, so to speak, it is evident that the hosts are pretty smart professionals who could discuss their specialist topic areas in great depth.  However, they see their role as being to report back on diverse areas that might be new to us or even new to them - but which they think will be of interest to the rest of us.  They are out there yelling, hey, guys, come and check this out - we don't understand it yet but it looks totally awesome...

And I for one am grateful for that - I mean, I can't research everything that's going on out there by myself, nobody can, right?

But you might ask, seriously, when they do devote some time to their nominal topic of the day, how much can these two guys teach me about Swift, say, or Haskell, in one hour?  The answer is: exactly enough for me to know whether I need to learn more.  And that knowledge, delivered with fun and warmth, is absolutely worth an hour of my time.

Highly recommended.