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Are We There Yet - Rich Hickey

Zhang Jian · talk · Watch on YouTube

Functional programmingSoftware architecture & design

What it is

Rich Hickey's talk on time, state, identity and values, arguing that mutable object-oriented modeling fits the world poorly. It lays out the thinking behind Clojure's approach to data and change.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as one of the best explanations of why Clojure and a functional, immutable approach to state exist.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “One of the best "why Clojure" talks that I've seen”

    Why-Clojure talk from OOP perspective

    raspasov, 2021-06 · Strong recommendation · in “Tour of our 250k line Clojure codebase”

  2. “I think "Are We There Yet?" is the most pertinent”

    Hickey's critique of OOP

    simongray, 2022-02 · Recommendation · in “Case against OOP is understated, not overstated (2020)”

  3. “Rich Hickey made a great talk on this in 2009”

    Hickey on modeling entities and information accumulation

    joshlemer, 2022-04 · Recommendation · in “Two Vexing Problems in Functional Programming”

  4. “I found this to be one of the more interesting talks I've watched.”

    Interesting talk on limits of functional languages

    onlyrealcuzzo, 2026-06 · Recommendation · in “My thoughts after using Clojure for about a month”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: rich hickey, clojure, immutability, oop critique, functional programming

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