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Topics

Development

Featured in Development

How to Use Apache Spark to Craft a Multi-Year Data Regression Testing and Simulations Framework

Vivek Yadav, an engineering manager from Stripe, shares his experience in building a testing system based on multi-year worth of data. He shares insights into why Apache Spark was the choice for creating such a system and how it fits in the "traditional" engineering practices.

All in development

Architecture & Design

Featured in Architecture & Design

Where Architects Sit in the Era of AI

As AI evolves from tool to collaborator, architects must shift from manual design to meta-design. This article introduces the "Three Loops" framework (In, On, Out) to help navigate this transition. It explores how to balance oversight with delegation, mitigate risks like skill atrophy, and design the governance structures that keep AI-augmented systems safe and aligned with human intent.

All in architecture-design

AI Infrastructure

Featured in AI, ML & Data Engineering

Ecologies and Economics of Language AI in Practice

Jade Abbott discusses the shift from massive, resource-heavy models to "Little LMs" that prioritize efficiency and cultural sustainability. She explains how techniques like LoRA, quantization, and GRPO allow for high performance with less compute. By sharing the "Ubuntu Punk" philosophy, she shares how to move beyond extractive data practices toward human-centric, sustainable AI systems.

All in ai-ml-data-eng

Culture & Methods

Featured in Culture & Methods

Changing Power Dynamics: What Senior Engineers Can Learn From Junior Engineers

Beth Anderson discusses the "power distance index" and its critical role in communication. Using the Korean Air Flight 801 tragedy as a case study, she explains the dangers of hierarchy-driven silence. She shares actionable frameworks for building the 4 stages of psychological safety, implementing reverse mentoring, and using PRs as tools for knowledge sharing rather than gatekeeping.

All in culture-methods

DevOps

Featured in DevOps

DevOps Is for Product Engineers, Too

Lesley Cordero discusses platform engineering as a sociotechnical solution for scaling organizations. She explains the CALMS framework, the "pendulum of tension" between reliability and velocity, and how to transition from reactive to proactive leadership. By focusing on communal learning and distributed power, she shares how to build resilient systems without sacrificing human well-being.

All in devops

Events

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QCon AI New York 2025

Go from AI demos to real engineering impact. Learn to embed LLMs, govern & scale securely.

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InfoQ Architect Certification

Join Luca Mezzalira for this 5-week online cohort. Master socio-technical architecture leadership.

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QCon London 2026

Learn what works in AI, architecture, data, security & FinTech.

Early Bird ends Jan 13.

Learn how leading engineering teams run AI in production—reliably, securely, and at scale.

Early Bird ends Jan 13.

InfoQ Homepage Interviews Guy Steele Interviews John McCarthy, Father of Lisp

Guy Steele Interviews John McCarthy, Father of Lisp

56:06

Bio

John McCarthy has been involved in Artificial Intelligence since 1948, a term he coined in 1955. He has been mainly interested in formalization of common sense knowledge. He designed LISP in 1958 and developed the concept of time-sharing. Among others, he has received the Turing Award, the Research Excellence Award, and the Kyoto Prize.

About the conference

Starting in 1986, OOPSLA Conference has proven to be the cradle of many techniques and methodologies that have become mainstream over the years: OOP, Patterns, AOP, XP, Unit Testing, UML, Wiki, and Refactoring. Gaining its prestige with 3 academic tracks, OOPSLA Conference has managed to attract researchers, educators and developers every year. The event is sponsored by ACM.

May 01, 2009

Interview with

John McCarthy

by

Guy Steele

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