4 ms·

Hammock-driven Development

99 points by fogus 16y ago

kylecordes 16y ago
I was at this talk; it was excellent. Watch it.
- kikibobo69 16y ago
  I agree. This is full of rich observations and analogies for anyone who is interested in design from a development point of view. Basically it's full of lots of distilled wisdom from a smart guy who has come up with a fair number of beautiful solutions to hard problems.
  - erikig 16y ago
    I don't know much about Clojure (I wrote my last Java/Lisp code years ago) however I strongly recommend this talk to every developer. As good as it is at clarifying the development process, I also enjoyed it a lot too because it was thought provoking and funny at times.
wccrawford 16y ago
I read the title, watched the first couple minutes, skimmed a few more minutes, and I -still- have no idea where he was going. What exactly was supposed to entice me into watching 40 minutes of that?
- fogus 16y ago
  Clearly Rich failed at fitting the whole of his talk into discrete Tweet-sized portions. For a talk about thinking through problems you would think he would have thought about that angle. Sheesh.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- derekdahmer 16y ago
  About four minutes in he gets to what he's actually going to talk about. For anyone who doesn't want to skim through to get an idea, he talks about his philosophy on thinking about the problems he's working on rather than always going straight through them. When you spend some time away from the computer just thinking about what you're working on, or working through completely separate problems every other day, it gives your brain time to process all the separate components that are too big to fit in your working memory at one time. This allows you to create connections during the day (or after a night of sleep) that lead to seeing the problem and its solutions in a new light.
  - CaseOfEmergency 16y ago
    So...basically the Eureka Phenomenon?
swannodette 16y ago
And after you've watched the video grab something off Rich Hickey's killer list of books (note that the list includes a hammock), http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Bookshelf/lm/R3LG3ZBZS4GCTH http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Bookshelf/lm/R3LG3ZBZS4GCTH
- philwelch 16y ago
  That has to be the only hammock on Amazon with "lisp" and "call-with-current-continuation" as suggested tags: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Pawleys-Island-Hammock-Presidential/dp/B002DEO458/ref=cm_lmf_tit_40 http://www.amazon.com/Original-Pawleys-Island-Hammock-Presid...
puredanger 16y ago
I really want to know what the other two things (besides Clojure) were that Rich thought about for a year.
djacobs 16y ago
It's interesting to me: This talk was much broader than any talk I've heard from him before. I can imagine watching this and thinking "this is all pointless fluff", if I were in a certain mindset. But having worked on a project for a while and encountered this exact problem, I think this talk is genius. (Because the non-fluff, the concrete examples are coming from my own experiences.)
zaph0d 16y ago
I am so proud to proclaim that I was there at that talk in person, and I watched Rich inspire a whole generation of programmers with that talk.
ivank 16y ago
Last year Rich gave a great talk about Clojure's approach to persistent data structures (but really identity and state): http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich...
- jemfinch 16y ago
  Everyone should watch that talk. It's the most compelling I've yet seen for the relevance of applicative programming. I was not convinced, but I was closer than I've ever been to being convinced.
aria 16y ago
Does this mean the Clojure Conj videos are all up?
- zaph0d 16y ago
  No. They are going to be available gradually.
icco 16y ago
Any chance there is a transcript or write up of the talk?

99 points by fogus 16y ago

kylecordes 16y ago

I was at this talk; it was excellent. Watch it.

kikibobo69 16y ago
I agree. This is full of rich observations and analogies for anyone who is interested in design from a development point of view. Basically it's full of lots of distilled wisdom from a smart guy who has come up with a fair number of beautiful solutions to hard problems.
- erikig 16y ago
  I don't know much about Clojure (I wrote my last Java/Lisp code years ago) however I strongly recommend this talk to every developer. As good as it is at clarifying the development process, I also enjoyed it a lot too because it was thought provoking and funny at times.

wccrawford 16y ago

I read the title, watched the first couple minutes, skimmed a few more minutes, and I -still- have no idea where he was going. What exactly was supposed to entice me into watching 40 minutes of that?

fogus 16y ago
Clearly Rich failed at fitting the whole of his talk into discrete Tweet-sized portions. For a talk about thinking through problems you would think he would have thought about that angle. Sheesh.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
derekdahmer 16y ago
About four minutes in he gets to what he's actually going to talk about. For anyone who doesn't want to skim through to get an idea, he talks about his philosophy on thinking about the problems he's working on rather than always going straight through them. When you spend some time away from the computer just thinking about what you're working on, or working through completely separate problems every other day, it gives your brain time to process all the separate components that are too big to fit in your working memory at one time. This allows you to create connections during the day (or after a night of sleep) that lead to seeing the problem and its solutions in a new light.
- CaseOfEmergency 16y ago
  So...basically the Eureka Phenomenon?

swannodette 16y ago

And after you've watched the video grab something off Rich Hickey's killer list of books (note that the list includes a hammock), http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Bookshelf/lm/R3LG3ZBZS4GCTH http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Bookshelf/lm/R3LG3ZBZS4GCTH

philwelch 16y ago
That has to be the only hammock on Amazon with "lisp" and "call-with-current-continuation" as suggested tags: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Pawleys-Island-Hammock-Presidential/dp/B002DEO458/ref=cm_lmf_tit_40 http://www.amazon.com/Original-Pawleys-Island-Hammock-Presid...

puredanger 16y ago

I really want to know what the other two things (besides Clojure) were that Rich thought about for a year.

djacobs 16y ago

It's interesting to me: This talk was much broader than any talk I've heard from him before. I can imagine watching this and thinking "this is all pointless fluff", if I were in a certain mindset. But having worked on a project for a while and encountered this exact problem, I think this talk is genius. (Because the non-fluff, the concrete examples are coming from my own experiences.)

zaph0d 16y ago

I am so proud to proclaim that I was there at that talk in person, and I watched Rich inspire a whole generation of programmers with that talk.

ivank 16y ago

Last year Rich gave a great talk about Clojure's approach to persistent data structures (but really identity and state): http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich...

jemfinch 16y ago
Everyone should watch that talk. It's the most compelling I've yet seen for the relevance of applicative programming. I was not convinced, but I was closer than I've ever been to being convinced.

aria 16y ago

Does this mean the Clojure Conj videos are all up?

zaph0d 16y ago
No. They are going to be available gradually.

icco 16y ago

Any chance there is a transcript or write up of the talk?