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Simple Made Easy (2011) [video]

by stcg on 12/26/23, 1:30 AM with 40 comments

  • by runetech on 12/26/23, 11:44 AM

    I found this talk to be the single most influential on my way of thinking of all my years on trying to absorb knowledge from the net. Very recommendable no matter your favorite language - I love that the concepts are applicable to a wide range of situations.

    This has led me to his other talks which are heads and shoulders over most comparable content. I have learned more and found more enjoyment & enlightenment in the line of thinking he presents than the alternatives. Not shitting on anyone, just giving credit where credit is due. If you are open and willing to learn and come from a "traditional" background I think you will have your mind expanded like me.

    Thank you Rich! ;-)

  • by Clever321 on 12/26/23, 2:49 AM

    Truly one of my favorite talks on software systems and composition. It's so dense that I had to watch it 3 times to really absorb the subtleties. He also has 'the language of the system', which is excellent, and almost a companion talk to this topic.

  • by dang on 12/26/23, 6:15 AM

    Related:

    Simple Made Easy (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23905051 - July 2020 (30 comments)

    Simple Made Easy (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13660797 - Feb 2017 (36 comments)

    Simple Made Easy (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13313398 - Jan 2017 (2 comments)

    Rich Hickey: Simple Made Easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4173854 - June 2012 (42 comments)

    Rich Hickey: "Simple Made Easy" from Strange Loop 2011 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3135185 - Oct 2011 (99 comments)

  • by frou_dh on 12/26/23, 8:07 AM

    This great talk is a pet peeve inducer, because after watching it you will start noticing how often the word "simple" is still used as a platitude in programming circles.

  • by phtrivier on 12/26/23, 10:00 AM

    Ooh, this time of year when engineers finely get some time to dig into longer tech talks.

    I remember watching the original "clojure" talks during Christmas break too.

    At least it's a found memory that I keep, as opposed to all the troubles getting a somehow functioning clojure dev environment set up back in the day... For all my whining, it has actually got better nowadays, although I still don't know if it's acceptable to use lein as opposed to boot as opposed to deps.edn as opposed to [insert tool].

    I don't think I'll ever professionally work on a things where the costs of clojure (training / mental reshaping / startup performances / etc...) will be worth the benefits (using a map of tuple to sets of immutable records and solve a gnarly problem in 10 lines and 50 parens.)

    But as other said, the sermons _do_ change how you program in any language.

    (I just wish I understood what in meant in "Effective Programs" by "typos are not important". They are, aren't they ? A typo is a runtime error begging to occur during the demo, how is that "not important" ? Never mind.)

    I would advise to immediately go watch anything from Muratori or Blow to get the exact opposite perspective, pounder the fact that they are _both_ right and wrong in their own ways.

    And go back to writing typescript like everyone.

  • by cutler on 12/26/23, 6:58 AM

    Rich Hickey's Sermons On The Mount changed my life as a programmer. 'Trouble is I can't look at OOP anymore without wanting to throw-up.

  • by jasonwatkinspdx on 12/26/23, 10:21 AM

    Just wanna say I ended up sitting next to Rich Hickey at a conference years back and had a fantastic conversation. He is one of the most thoughtful and just nice people I've met in computing.

  • by edem on 12/26/23, 1:40 PM

    This is an absolutely awesome talk. I can't recommend it enough. I never used Lisp or Clojure in production, but I learned so much just by trying it out and understanding how it works. You can't unsee it. Rich is a genius.

  • by dartos on 12/26/23, 3:20 AM

    A true classic. There’s also a 30min version he gave at railsconf once

  • by revskill on 12/26/23, 6:04 AM

    Polymorphism is complex.