Kopec Explains Software

By David Kopec, Rebecca Kopec

What's Kopec Explains Software about?

Each week we make a software-related technical topic intelligible. We aim to help you develop an intuitive understanding of each subject, instead of emphasizing formal definitions. Join us as we learn about the wide world of software.

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Kopec Explains Software episodes:

12.27.2021
#81 Is Software Getting Faster?
Software runs on hardware. And of course, hardware has gotten faster over the past few decades by orders of magnitude. So, clearly our software is getting faster. But what do we mean by faster? And why doesn't it always "feel"...
12.20.2021
#80 Logging and the Log4J Vulnerability
Almost every large piece of software creates log files. Log files record events that happen during the execution of a program. These could be significant routine events or errors. Logs help software developers fix issues. Last week a significant vulnerability...
12.13.2021
#79 The Logo Programming Language
Logo is an educational programming language that was popular in elementary school computing labs in the 1980s. A generation of programmers began their careers with Logo. Logo is based on turtle graphics, which is centered on commands that guide a...
12.06.2021
#78 How Does Amazon Make Money?
Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. But they are so much more. They sell cutting-edge consumer electronics like the Kindle and Echo lines, they provide services to ecommerce vendors, they provide consumer streaming services, they own physical stores, and...
11.29.2021
#77 What is a Memory Leak?
Memory leaks occur when a program allocates memory and fails to free it when the memory is no longer being used. They can cause the memory use of a program to balloon over time, eventually leading to performance problems or...
11.22.2021
#76 What is Protected Memory?
Memory protection is a mechanism for protecting one program from another program, which ultimately protects the user. It stops malicious programs from interfering with legitimate programs, and it stops programmer errors in one program from taking down another. Every time...
11.15.2021
#75 Why are Technical Interviews so Intimidating?
The application process for a job in software development or software engineering typically involves what's known as a "technical interview." Technical interviews are notorious for being intimidating and exclusionary of otherwise good candidates. Technical interviews may involve whiteboarding, live coding,...
11.08.2021
#74 Hackers (1995): Fact or Fiction?
Hackers is a cult classic 1995 movie about a group of teenage hackers and their counter culture. The plot revolves around an online battle between the teenagers and a nefarious corporate cyber security expert. In this episode we breakdown how...
11.01.2021
#73 The Swift Programming Language
Swift is one of the top ten most popular programming languages in the world by almost any ranking or measure. Yet, it's also a niche language. That seems contradictory, until you know that it's only widely used for building apps...
10.25.2021
#72 The Missouri Governor and Tech Illiterate Leadership
Last week a journalist in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a vulnerability they discovered in the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's website that exposed the social security numbers of individual educators. The social security numbers were being...
10.18.2021
#71 How Does Facebook Make Money?
Facebook's been in the news again, and as usual it's not a positive story. In this episode we dive into some of Facebook's financial statistics from their most recent quarterly filing with the SEC. We then talk about their business...
10.11.2021
#70 Steve Jobs Remembrance
Last week marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. We discuss his legacy and how he inspired people in the tech industry. David also tells the personal story of his Steve Jobs fandom. Show Notes Episode 16: The Personal...
10.04.2021
#69 The Objective-C Programming Language
Objective-C was developed nearly contemporaneously with C++, yet it never achieved the same widespread level of industry acceptance. Both languages attempted to add object-oriented features to the C language, but they went about doing it in very different ways. Objective-C...
09.27.2021
#68 Open Source Business Models
Open source does not mean non-commercial. We start this episode by dispelling the common myths amongst the general public about the relationship between the business world and open source software. We then get into the many different business models that...
09.20.2021
#67 Clive Sinclair and his Personal Computing Legacy
Last week, influential British inventor and entrepreneur Clive Sinclair passed away. Sinclair invented some of the first slim calculators, handheld televisions, and digital watches, but he is perhaps best known for being one of the pioneers of the British personal...
09.13.2021
#66 What is a Firewall?
Firewalls protect computers and private networks from threats originating across the wider Internet. They come in both hardware and software flavors. They ensure unwanted network traffic is turned away or dropped and that legitimate traffic is only routed to the...
09.06.2021
#65 What is a Device Driver?
Every hardware peripheral connected to your computer is powered by a device driver. A device driver sits between the operating system and a hardware device. It speaks the language of the hardware. It understands its commands. It's a point of...
08.30.2021
#64 What is a Content Management System?
A content management system (CMS) is a piece of software that lives on a web server for the dynamic generation of web sites based on content that lives in a database. A CMS frees a site developer from the need...
08.23.2021
#63 Intel's Current Challenges
Intel has received a lot of bad press the last few years. It never successfully made the leap into the smartphone market. Its fab got stuck at a 14 nanometer (nm) node for several years while competing fabs pressed on...
08.16.2021
#62 What is an Algorithm?
Algorithms are at the heart of computer science. And they're actually a really simple concept. What are the steps we need to take to solve a problem? The best algorithms are generic enough to be used on different problems of...
08.09.2021
#61 What is a Data Structure?
The official definitions of data structures are very vague. For example, Introduction to Algorithms defines a data structure as "A way to store and organize data in order to facilitate access and modifications." They're really about collections of data. How...
08.02.2021
#60 What is JavaScript?
JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages in the world for a simple reason: it's the only client-side programming language in every web browser. In this episode we'll discuss its purpose, history, and all of the places that...
07.26.2021
#59 What is HTML and CSS?
HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language, describes the content and structure of web pages. A web browser can also be thought of as an HTML document viewer. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a styling and layout description language that works...
07.19.2021
#58 GitHub Copilot's Controversies
GitHub recently launched its AI programming assistant, Copilot, in beta. Copilot can suggest lines of source code or even entire functions to the programmer for instant addition to their project. Copilot's machine learning algorithm was trained on millions of open...
07.12.2021
#57 Version Control Systems, Git, and GitHub
Version Control Systems make it possible for software developers to seamlessly work together on large projects. In this episode we explain how version control systems are used and how the different kinds of version control systems compare to one another....
07.05.2021
#56 What is the Cloud?
The cloud is an amorphous term that at its heart refers to computation or storage resources that are remote, aka not on your device. What backs the modern cloud are large providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google...
06.28.2021
#55 What is Java?
Java, the most popular programming language in the world, is also a platform. It enables software to be written once, compiled into platform-independent bytecode, and then run on any computing device with a Java Virtual Machine. We discuss why Java...
06.21.2021
#54 What is Compression?
Compression is a classic trade-off between space and time. Compressed data uses less space than the original, but it takes computational time to compress and decompress the data. In this episode we discuss the purpose of compression, some basic ways...
06.14.2021
#53 Developer Tools
You need programs to make programs. In this episode we discuss the tools programmers use to make the software you love. We discuss compilers, text editors, debuggers, profilers, documentation, integrated development environments, and more. By the end of the episode...
06.07.2021
#52 One-Year Anniversary
On our 1-year anniversary of the podcast we discuss our most popular episodes, our favorite episodes, and where we're going with the podcast moving forward. We also give you a bit of a sneak peek behind the scenes as we...
05.31.2021
#51 What is Lossless Audio?
Lossless audio is coming to Apple Music and Spotify. But what is lossless audio? In this episode we explain the difference between lossy compression, like MP3 files, and the lossless formats that are coming to a streaming service near you....
05.24.2021
#50 What is DRM?
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a software or hardware mechanism that restricts what you can do with your digital media. It may limit a movie from playing without your authenticated credentials, or stop a Nintendo cartridge from working in a...
05.17.2021
#49 Apple vs Facebook on App Tracking
Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple forces developers who want to track users across multiple different apps to get permission on a per app basis. In this episode we talk about the origins of this policy, why it has irked Facebook,...
05.10.2021
#48 What's it Like Studying Computer Science in College?
What is it like to study computer science (CS) at the undergraduate level? In this episode we dive into the qualities you need to succeed, the curriculum that most programs follow, and the likely outcomes of earning your degree. We...
05.03.2021
#47 The C++ Programming Language
Bjarne Stroustrup originally built C++ in the early 1980s as a successor to C with support for object-oriented programming. Since then, C++ has evolved in a myriad of ways, adding both features and complexity. It's found its way into many...
04.26.2021
#46 What is The Internet of Things?
It seems like every electric device that we buy today is connected to the Internet. This movement is known as the Internet of Things, or IoT for short. Some people think "Internet of Things" is a specific term, but the...
04.19.2021
#45 Two Software Disasters
While software has reduced human error in many industries, when software errors are made they can have tragic consequences. The Boeing 737 MAX crashes, occurring shortly after the introduction of the plane, were due in part to a software error...
04.12.2021
#44 Google v. Oracle
Last week the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision in the case known as Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. The case centers on whether the use of certain Java technology in Android infringed on Oracle's copyright....
04.05.2021
#43 The Lisp Programming Language
Lisp is the second oldest programming language still in wide use. Designed by John McCarthy in 1958, it introduced several new ideas to the field of programming languages, including but not limited to homoiconicity (code is data), the centrality of...
03.29.2021
#42 What was DOS?
Microsoft became the dominant player in personal computer operating systems through the release of MS-DOS for the IBM PC. Microsoft would go on to license DOS to the many manufacturers building PC clones, eventually reaching a market share upwards of...
03.22.2021
#41 How to Pick an Internet Service Provider
Selecting an Internet Service Provider (ISP) can be difficult if you don't know the terminology. How is connection speed measured? How does download speed differ from upload speed? What is latency? What's a data cap? We talk about all of...
03.15.2021
#40 What is the Memory Hierarchy?
A modern computer doesn't just have one type of memory. It has disk, RAM, CPU caches, CPU registers, and much more. In this episode we dive into the different types of memory and how they work together. We delineate each...
03.08.2021
#39 All About Bugs
Bugs in computing systems cost billions of dollars and millions of hours of lost productivity each year. In this episode we break down bugs. What are they? What causes them? How can they be prevented? And how are they fixed?...
03.01.2021
#38 The History of macOS
The Macintosh is one of the oldest mainstream computing platforms still in use. Its operating system has had to evolve through multiple difficult transitions to stay relevant. In this episode we discuss the history of the Mac's operating system. Or...
02.22.2021
#37 How do Podcasts Work?
We discuss the history and software infrastructure behind podcasts. Podcasts are distributed using RSS feeds and MP3 files. They are hosted on web servers and podcast feeds are indexed by podcast directories. A podcast player connects to a podcast directory...
02.15.2021
#36 What is XML?
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a data-interchange format that can be used as a meta file format: A format for defining other file formats. Commonly used in Web services for transmitting the results of API calls, it also underlies everything...
02.08.2021
#35 The C Programming Language
Today, by some measures, C is the most popular programming language in the world. The early history of C is deeply intertwined with Unix. But C, a relatively simple language, grew well beyond its roots to become fundamental to the...
02.01.2021
#34 Video Game Distribution and GameStop
Video game distribution has always been split between two different value chains: console games and PC games. In this episode we discuss why console games have historically been distributed differently from PC games. We get into the different kinds of...
01.25.2021
#33 What is the Difference Between Information Technology and Computer Science?
"Information Technology" and "Computer Science" are often confused. But they are really two different disciplines that both involve working with computers. In this episode we explain the differences. We also delve into the multifaceted meaning of the term computer science....
01.18.2021
#32 What is Unix?
Unix is the most influential operating system of all time. In this episode we discuss its history, its evolution, and its philosophy. We trace Unix from its origins at Bell Laboratories, through the Unix Wars, and into the dominance of...

What's Kopec Explains Software about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Kopec Explains Software episodes:

#81 Is Software Getting Faster?

#80 Logging and the Log4J Vulnerability

#79 The Logo Programming Language

#78 How Does Amazon Make Money?

#77 What is a Memory Leak?

#76 What is Protected Memory?

#75 Why are Technical Interviews so Intimidating?

#74 Hackers (1995): Fact or Fiction?

#73 The Swift Programming Language

#72 The Missouri Governor and Tech Illiterate Leadership

#71 How Does Facebook Make Money?

#70 Steve Jobs Remembrance

#69 The Objective-C Programming Language

#68 Open Source Business Models

#67 Clive Sinclair and his Personal Computing Legacy

#66 What is a Firewall?

#65 What is a Device Driver?

#64 What is a Content Management System?

#63 Intel's Current Challenges

#62 What is an Algorithm?

#61 What is a Data Structure?

#60 What is JavaScript?

#59 What is HTML and CSS?

#58 GitHub Copilot's Controversies

#57 Version Control Systems, Git, and GitHub

#56 What is the Cloud?

#55 What is Java?

#54 What is Compression?

#53 Developer Tools

#52 One-Year Anniversary

#51 What is Lossless Audio?

#50 What is DRM?

#49 Apple vs Facebook on App Tracking

#48 What's it Like Studying Computer Science in College?

#47 The C++ Programming Language

#46 What is The Internet of Things?

#45 Two Software Disasters

#44 Google v. Oracle

#43 The Lisp Programming Language

#42 What was DOS?

#41 How to Pick an Internet Service Provider

#40 What is the Memory Hierarchy?

#39 All About Bugs

#38 The History of macOS

#37 How do Podcasts Work?

#36 What is XML?

#35 The C Programming Language

#34 Video Game Distribution and GameStop

#33 What is the Difference Between Information Technology and Computer Science?

#32 What is Unix?

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