Been a while. Here’s a short one on some of the stuff I listen to when I have the time. It’s intended primarily to solicit responses of the ‘You like that? Then you’ll like this!’ variety – I need more material.
So, top five.
Ruby Rogues
An indisputable number one. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a Rubyist – you’ll get something from this. It’s very well produced, the regulars are well-practised, and the guests are frequently stellar (Kent Beck, e.g.). Despite (or perhaps because of) the Ruby focus, the topics tend to be relevant to software engineering in general, especially the reading list episodes: Patterns of Application Architecture, Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, Growing Object Oriented Software … it’s the canon, not just the Ruby stuff. Highly recommended.
The Changelog
An overview of what’s happening in open source. Very on the pulse. Great guests, good production values and educated hosts (although, in the nicest possible way, Adam Stacoviak would benefit the show by doing more listening and less talking).
Javascript Jabber
I’m paying less attention to Javascript these days, but I still subscribe to and enjoy this podcast. Same stable as Ruby Rogues, and same presenter (the very personable Charles Max Wood); similarly high production values, too. Good guests and high-level chat.
Mostly Erlang
It’s interesting to get a bit out of your comfort zone. Erlang people talk about different stuff. The show is patterned after the Ruby Rogues/Javascript Jabber format, but the nature of the community is so different that it’s not really comparable; production values are lower, but the guests, and the general tone, are much more oriented toward serious systems engineering, which makes a refreshing listen, for me.
Pragmatic Podcasts
Somewhat few and far between (it’s hard to tell if they’re even still going), these are what you’d expect from the PragProg stable: serious, somewhat conservative, but very valuable. At their best they afford a very high-level view of the practice of software development.
Honourable mentions: NodeUp, Git Minutes, Food Fight.
Don’t even talk to me about the Dev Show.