Clojure Gazette 148: Performance, Learning, Eventual Consistency

Written by Eric Normand. Published: November 2, 2015.

Performance, Learning, Eventual Consistency

Clojure
Gazette

Issue 148 - November 2, 2015

Hi Clojurists,

I'm constantly reminded of how difficult programming is. Our languages start out high in complexity. And there is so much opportunity to increase the accidental complexity of our software. And that's on top of the essential complexity of the domains we deal with. One of my main tricks as a programmer is to keep one of my mental cores busy looking for ways to remove complexity. It really helps because complexity doesn't add up---it multiplies. So one dedicated core reducing complexity might save three or four cores of accidental complexity.

I'm not an awesome programmer. I know people who can keep the whole stack in their heads at once. I can't. I have to reduce the number of things I have to keep in my head or I can't solve the problem. That's one of the reasons I like Clojure. Its not perfect. It's not the best I can imagine. But there are many choices that free my brain up to think about the practical problems in life.

Rock on!

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