ClojureTV
12 HN recommenders · recommended in 19 months, 2014–2024
39:49 · 333K views · Dec 17, 2012
Rich Hickey's philosophical talk from the first Clojure Conj in 2010. He argues that good design comes from deliberate, away-from-keyboard thinking, and describes how to feed the background mind so it solves problems.
HN returns to it constantly as permission and method for thinking deeply before coding, and as an antidote to always-working anxiety.
20 comments from Hacker News
That and Hammock Driven Development: this video Both of these talks are in my top 5. Edit (okay, here are the other 3): * All the Little Things by Sandi Metz [LINK] * Programming is terrible—Lessons learned from a life wasted. [LINK] * Some talk I saw by Dan McKinley on making Data-Driven decisions. I can't find the original video, but here's a really similar one: [LINK]
The feeling you're describing is called anxiety. Some anxiety is normal, but constant anxiety that interferes with your life is a problem. I think it'd be worth trying that label on: call it anxiety, and ask "how do I reduce my anxiety?". About 1 in 4 people experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, so there's a lot of research and good approaches out there. One thing that stands out to me is that you've made some pretty big and scary claims without a lot of evidence to back them up. Are you actually not a good developer? Are smart people really "capturing" the opportunity (ie there is less opportunity over time)? Do people who aren't working all the time fall behind and never make anything of significance? If so, prove it! Figure out what evidence you would need to definitively answer these questions, and research or experiment until you have that evidence. Anxious thoughts are like dreams: they seem perfectly reasonable in your head, but when you try to bring them into the real world they fall apart. As far as evidence goes, I'd point you in the direction of two of my favourite Richards. The one who did Clojure: this video and the one who got a Nobel for Quantum Electrodynamics: [LINK]
I was searching for exactly the same stuff yesterday, and I found this: [LINK] I usually keep notebooks, but I am ever more convinced of using one because of Rich hickey's talk: this video and we have a better chance of remembering something if we write than type. [LINK] . I have previously read that people like Martin Gardner had an awesome system of keeping notes. I would love to know more about your tips. How do keep your notes? How do you organize stuff, while retaining the freedom to doodle. How do you find stuff again(which is the killer feature for typed notes). Would love to learn from the masters - do you have any books to recommend?
In terms of mind-expanding or intellectually stimulating, I find it's easier to get that from Youtube. I recommend: 3blue1brown for math ( [LINK] ) Everyday Astronaut if you are casually interested in rockets ( [LINK] ) Bret Victor ( [LINK] ) or Rich Hickey ( this video ) for programming and design. Doing a full college course is such a time investment and it usually takes a few weeks to start proving the interesting stuff. I find it more fun to look to shorter content for inspiration. I might realize I don't understand the fundamentals of the topic and then seek out a way to study it.
Rich Hickey, of Clojure fame, has a talk you might find interesting. It goes by multiple titles: * Step Away from the Computer * Hammock-Driven Development this video The idea / hypothesis is that sometimes we need to sit down and think about something for an hour, a day... This seemingly "wasted time" can pay huge dividends in long-term health of a project. Like compound interest. As others have noted, this may seen "lazy" to managers, especially if LOC or sprint velocity is the metric they use.