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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Check out <a href="https://decker.com" rel="nofollow">https://decker.com</a><p>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, ...<p>James Bottomley's talk on container security in Vancouver LPC2018: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqAMGMUOFs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aqAMGMUOFs</a>
I found <a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9064-the_ultimate_apollo_guidance_computer_talk" rel="nofollow">https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9064-the_ultimate_apollo_guidanc...</a> surprising in how much detail they managed to cram into a talk slot while keeping it follow-able.