Below are some of the talks that I really enjoyed over the last couple of years, these are all language agnostic and focus on general development practices and techniques. So take some time and watch these great talks:
What Makes Code Beautiful - Marcel Molina
This is a great talk that I saw at RubyConf 2007. Some of the interactive pieces in the beginning don't come across as well in the video, but it is well worth it to get through that part. Marcel compares the historical definitions of beauty and how they can be applied to code.
Aristotle and the art of software development - Jonathan Dahl
I really enjoyed this talk, the main take away for me was that programming rules and morals are so similar. Once we think of them in this way it makes alot more sense on how we should approach them.
Writing Code that Doesn't Suck - Yehuda Katz
This was a great talk that covered the need to focus on your external interfaces, especially when it comes to your tests.
-James
