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Spec-ulation Keynote - Rich Hickey

ClojureTV · talk · Watch on YouTube

Software architecture & designFunctional programming

What it is

Rich Hickey's keynote on software versioning, arguing that breaking changes are the real problem and that libraries should only grow by providing more and requiring less. It critiques semantic versioning and ties into Clojure spec.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN returns to it in every versioning and API stability debate as a challenging, contrarian talk worth watching.

  • 10 people recommended it
  • 9 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “He definitely challenged my beliefs, it's likely to be worth your time too.”

    Contrarian talk challenging beliefs about semantic versioning.

    sooheon, 2016-12 · Strong recommendation · in “Ok, let me explain: it’s going to be Angular 4.0”

  2. “Whenever an idea about API versioning springs into mind it is always worthwhile to watch Rich Hickey's Spec-ulation talk”

    Alternative view of versioning worth watching for any API versioning idea.

    smackay, 2017-08 · Strong recommendation · in “APIs as infrastructure: future-proofing Stripe with versioning”

  3. “I strongly recommend this talk from Rich Hickey”

    Talk on giving something usable to others and making a commitment.

    finalfantasia, 2019-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Thank You, Guido”

  4. “Hickey's discussion of the subject obviously has a lot more great points to it, and even when I don't agree, I can't help to enjoy listening”

    Hickey's discussion of semantic versioning offers many great points even when disagreeing.

    opvasger, 2017-01 · Recommendation · in “Is Semantic Versioning an Anti-Pattern?”

  5. “Basically, core.spec is a kind of formal verification tool designed to deal with the growth of software.”

    Explains core.spec as a way to reason about compatible changes as software grows.

    gavinpc, 2017-08 · Recommendation · in “Software Engineering ≠ Computer Science (2009)”

  6. “I invite you to watch this keynote by Rich Hickey”

    Explains why modules remain an unsolved problem in platforms.

    bad_user, 2017-09 · Recommendation · in “Project Jigsaw: Complete”

  7. “A very interesting talk by Rich Hikey (creator of Clojure) on the topic”

    Explains non-breaking changes: provide more, require less, and rename instead of changing semantics.

    _54qb, 2018-07 · Recommendation · in “Be Nice and Write Stable Code”

  8. “For an interesting take on versioning, see the Spec-ulation keynote by Rich Hickey [1].”

    Interesting take on versioning, including SemVer itself being versioned.

    ruuda, 2019-02 · Recommendation · in “What's next for SemVer”

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

Topics: semantic versioning, api design, backward compatibility, clojure, rich hickey

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