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Rails Conf 2012 Keynote: Simplicity Matters by Rich Hickey

Confreaks · talk · Watch on YouTube

Software architecture & designFunctional programming

What it is

Rich Hickey's keynote at RailsConf 2012, a close sibling of his 'Simple Made Easy' talk. He distinguishes simple (not intertwined) from easy (familiar), and argues that software complexity comes from complecting things, with Rails-specific examples including large gem collections.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as an alternative or companion to 'Simple Made Easy', and quotes its ideas about simplicity, complexity and 'hairballs' in discussions of frameworks, JSON and data design.

  • 8 people recommended it
  • 8 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “any talk by Rich Hickey is worth watching”

    Timeless talk on simplicity in software

    stcg, 2023-04 · Strong recommendation · in “The Egison Programming Language”

  2. “maybe watch this version instead, since it's almost the same talk but for a Rails Conference, with a few references”

    Rails-conference version of Hickey's simple versus easy talk

    sivers, 2015-01 · Recommendation · in “Is it really 'Complex'? Or did we just make it 'Complicated'? [video]”

  3. “I liked Rich Hickeys talk”

    Hickey talk on simplicity in software

    NegatioN, 2017-03 · Recommendation · in “How we secretly introduced Haskell and got away with it”

  4. “Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) gave a great talk on easy vs simple”

    Great talk distinguishing simple from easy

    cstrahan, 2017-08 · Recommendation · in “D as a Better C”

  5. “If you have any interest in the topic, I recommend Rich Hickey talk”

    Explores what simplicity means in programming

    hbt, 2017-12 · Recommendation · in “Simplistic programming is underrated”

  6. “Hickey's talk listed among favorite tech talks”

    geksilla, 2018-04 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”

  7. “Rich Hickey's Sermons On The Mount changed the game of programming once and for all.”

    Hickey challenges Ruby developers on complexity at Rails Conf

    cutler, 2019-08 · Recommendation · in “Why Clojure?”

  8. “Rich Hickey’s talks were a great entry point for me”

    Good entry point into Hickey's ideas and Clojure

    tosh, 2020-01 · Recommendation · in “The Roots of Lisp (2001)”

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

Topics: rich hickey, simple vs easy, complexity, clojure, rails

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