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"Unison: a new distributed programming language" by Paul Chiusano

Strange Loop Conference · talk · Watch on YouTube

Functional programmingProgramming language designDistributed systems

What it is

Paul Chiusano's Strange Loop 2019 talk introduces Unison, an open-source functional language for distributed, elastic systems. It covers content-addressed code identified by hashes of the syntax tree, a codebase manager, and algebraic effects called abilities.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN treats it as the best introduction to Unison, with commenters finding hash-addressed immutable code mind-blowing.

  • 7 people recommended it
  • 7 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “The fundamental idea of uniquely addressing functions based on a hash of their AST is mind-blowing to me.”

    Hash-addressed functions idea is mind-blowing to the commenter

    reggieband, 2020-01 · Strong recommendation · in “The Unison language”

  2. “watch the first 10 minutes of this video at 1.5x speed”

    First ten minutes make Unison's core idea much clearer

    umvi, 2021-06 · Strong recommendation · in “Unison Programming Language”

  3. “this talk might be a better introduction than just skimming at the landing page.”

    Better intro than the landing page; amazed by the core idea

    dietr1ch, 2023-01 · Strong recommendation · in “A look at Unison: a revolutionary programming language”

  4. “Paul Chiusano gave a nice introductory talk at strangeloop last year”

    Nice introductory talk on Unison

    j1mr10rd4n, 2020-05 · Recommendation · in “Deno Is a Browser for Code”

  5. “code is content-addressed and immutable”

    Intro to Unison's content-addressed, immutable code

    nerdponx, 2021-03 · Recommendation · in “Semantic Versioning Will Not Save You”

  6. “The part relevant to distributed computation is at 30:08”

    Explains Unison's hashed ASTs and distributed computation at 30:08

    sullyj3, 2021-08 · Recommendation · in “Defunctionalization: Everybody does it, nobody talks about it (2019)”

  7. “I remember finding it really interesting and I think dives into it a bit.”

    Somewhat old but interesting deeper dive into Unison

    nimos, 2023-06 · Recommendation · in “Unison Language and Platform Roadmap”

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

Topics: unison, content-addressed code, distributed computing, algebraic effects, functional programming

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