Clojure Gazette 143: Strange Loop, Activism, Typed Clojure
Strange Loop, Activism, Typed Clojure
Issue 143 - September 28, 2015
Hi!
I got home today from a whirlwind Strange Loop. I saw many great talks and missed even more. There are five tracks so it's impossible to see everything. But the folks at Strange Loop are amazing. You could see them in the back of the theater, while one talk was being recorded, working on the last talks. They're already online. I've pointed out some of my favorites below, but there are too many great ones to put them all in.
To everyone I met, to the organizers, and to all the speakers, thanks for making such a great conference!
Rock on!
Sponsor: Clojure Applied
Have you written a few programs in Clojure and are wondering how to get to the next level? There's a new book out by Ben Vandgrift and Alex Miller that's like a road map for the Clojure subcontinent. It gives you a high level view of the in-language tools and libraries to structure an application, manage state concurrently, test your code, and deploy your software. But it also gives you the detail you need to make informed choices based on practical needs . And don't miss the history and philosophy appendices! If you've ever wondered how to structure your Clojure application, this book has the answer. The print book is available now. Thanks to the authors for sponsoring the Gazette!
Typed Clojure: From Optional to Gradual Typing Youtube
Ambrose Bonnaire-Sergeant gave a progress report of Typed Clojure and where it is heading. He also responds to a recent blog post by CircleCI explaining why they are putting Typed Clojure on hold in their codebase. Spoiler 1: Ambrose asked for the blog post to be written. Spoiler 2: CircleCI experienced slow checking but not incorrect checking. I had the good luck to talk to Ambrose at the conference and he considers CircleCI's 2-year experiment a victory for Typed Clojure, though there's more work to be done.
I See What You Mean Youtube
Peter Alvaro opened the conference with a thought-provoking bang with what turned out to my favorite talk. I had tried to read the paper before but for whatever reason I never made it very far. But after this well-executed keynote I think I'll succeed this time.
Propositions as Types Youtube
Most of you have used programming languages that were invented---not discovered---and you can tell!
Philip Wadler presented this talk about the history of computability from a mathematical and computer science background. Many concepts are discovered in both mathematics and computer science. According to Wadler, this is good evidence that the ideas are discovered. This was on my mind during the whole conference and was a great perspective from which to view the many ideas presented in the conference.
A History of Programming Languages for 2 Voices Youtube
David Nolen and Michael Bernstein traced the history of programming languages alonside the evolution of 20th century society and music.
Laboratory: Doing Science In Production
A library for doing experiments in production to prove that a rewrite is equivalent to the original.
Implementing the Saga Pattern UStream
Caitie McCaffrey talks about the Saga Pattern, which I personally think is a pattern that we don't talk about enough.
Architecture Without an End State UStream
Michael Nygard talks about architecture as an ongoing process.
Promises with core.async
Jonathan Boston shows one way to make promises with core.async.
From Protesting to Programming: Becoming a Tech Activist Youtube
Idalin Bobe presented her story of becoming a tech activist. This is a really important talk about racist and classist issues that have existed for hundreds of years. This was the most empassioned and engaging talk I saw.