I knew who Rich Hickey was. I did not know what a fabulous presentations he gives. And many people other don’t, as on Youtube they do not have a lot of views. Perhaps this comes because they are given mostly at Clojure conferences.
The following series of 3 videos are perfect to be seen sequentiallly, and for any software techie they are a highly recommended watch. For FOSS developers imho they are MUST-SEE videos. And videos, perhaps, to rewatch a couple of times. Because… what Rich is talking about is largely missing in the development approaches we use today. To our own peril, we are so agile and hands-on pragmatic, that we often no longer know what we code (though we think we do), and where it brings us.
Also for the elaboration of SX methodology there are many useful insights to be had. SX helps adding “the missing social layers of the techstack” in how it envisions the Commons based social stack. But in the top levels of the technical layers there’s not much mindshare in the developer community either. Most people are deeper into nitty gritty tech details, lower down the stack even. These video’s contain the ‘transition path’ from where SX delves into the technical realms, to where deeper down FOSS developers typical are.
Hammock Driven Development
Watch this to know better “Why am I coding? What am I coding? For whom am I coding?”. In general what problem is the software designed to solve, and to what extent does it achieve that. Weird questions, right, isn’t it obvious? Just look at the code. Well… Rich Hickey has some things to say about that.
The Language of the System
This video I also posted in Protosocial ActivityPub protocol - #7 by aschrijver where you can find some more information I typed with it. This video deals with the difference between Programs versus Systems, and its a crucial difference. In Free Software circles most people have a mindset that makes them see Programs everywhere, while they are building Systems.
“Design in Practice”
The last video tops off the previous two, by making things more tangible and within reach for programmers and designers to be applied in their day to day practices.
