Strange Loop Conference
14 HN recommenders · recommended in 18 months, 2022–2026
1:01:39 · 220K views · Sep 2, 2021
Rich Hickey's Strange Loop 2011 keynote distinguishing 'simple' (not intertwined) from 'easy' (familiar or near at hand). It argues that software complexity comes from complecting things and that we should pick simple constructs.
HN treats it as the canonical talk on software complexity, shared constantly and recommended to every programmer regardless of language.
20 comments from Hacker News
Also the point of software engineering is to take the real complexity that actually exists and you can't get rid of and work out how to write simple code to deal with it. Good software architecture does not include complexity because there is complexity in the business. It manages the complexity with simple code. The trouble is when people say "complex" you don't really know what they mean, though. They often just mean "difficult". Every programmer who wants to use that word needs to watch this: this video
loved the take and re-enforcement of a talk I’ve loved forever by Rich Hickey (famous for being integral to the creation of Clojure among other things) called “Simple Made Easy” this video Anyone know of any books that dive deeper into the subject?
As developers, I've come to believe that complexity is the worst sin we commit. Everything we talk about can be traced back to this issue. This is largely due to paying attention to Rich Hickey and learning Clojure. this video
You need to watch this this video We should try not to make technical judgements based in flippant things like how few lines can someone not even familiar with the ecosystem get a hello world working
I'm sure most folks here have seen the talk, but Rich Hickey's Simple Made Easy # is a superb discussion about this in the context of software. # this video