u/anonymousdeveloperin r/Clojure • Recommends
With all of these crazy libraries available sometime you have to go back to the basics! Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools
0:00 / 0:00
#clojure#datomic#craftsmanship
Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools
ClojureTV
111K subscribers • 135 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 12 people: 9 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters, 1 in engineering communities and 1 curated list.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2014 to 2024.
- Presented by Tim Ewald, Vice President at Cognitect
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
47K views12 years ago12 recommendations
Tools and practiceProgramming languagesFunctional programmingSimplicity and complexityDeveloper productivity
Tim Ewald uses the allegory of woodworking with hand tools to argue for simplicity and craftsmanship in software development using Clojure.
For most of human history, furniture was built by hand using a small set of simple tools. This approach connects you in a profoundly direct way to the work, your effort to the result. This changed with the rise of machine tools, which made production more efficient but also altered what's made and how we think about making it in in a profound way. This talk explores the effects of automation on our work, which is as relevant to software as it is to furniture, especially now that once again, with Clojure, we are building things using a small set of simple tools. Tim Ewald designs and builds software systems. After 20 years using object oriented languages, he embraces Clojure because it provides the closes connection to the work and most directly expresses his intent. Tim works on the Datomic team at Cognitect, where he is a Vice President.Why it's here
12 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended by engineers as a profound talk on software craftsmanship, simplicity, and the philosophy of programming tools.
spacemanmatton Hacker News • Recommends
On “Talks that changed the way I think about programming”
I gotta throw in one of my favorites, because I have not seen another that really speaks so directly to the value of craftsmanship in development. I also deeply enjoyed the allegory with woodworking tools. link to this video
ludwa6on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Woodworking for Engineers”
Must-see presentation (~1hour) for anyone interested in this topic is "Programming With Hand Tools" by Tim Ewald: link to this video
programming-talkscurated list on GitHubRecommends
Under “Web Development”
Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools 00:58:38 by **Tim Ewald** (2014)
mark_hon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Best development book I've read, has no code in it”
There was a talk at Clojure/conj by Tim Ewald on just that: link to this video "Programming with hand tools" Lots of conference reviews nominated it in their favourite talks too.
fmjreyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Beginning Woodworking”
Can't help but mention this great video where an enthusiast woodworking engineer makes a parallel between tools in the real world and tools in computing: link to this video
aidoson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?”
I also think it seems pretty appealing. There have been some interesting things on HN over the years about it. I loved this talk about how the tools you use determine how you look at problems (Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools) link to this video And if you haven't seen him before, you're about to fall in love with Matthias Wandel: link link
aidoson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?”
I'm not a Closure coder but I loved this talk on how as your tooling becomes more complex and automated, you start to lose sight of simpler solutions to problems. It's all about woodworking! Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools link to this video
dataheadon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Cheap Router Table and Lift”
Interesting presentation that explores your question. +1 intersection from this commenter. Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools link to this video
dgb23on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Automation != Leverage”
…lk with emphasis on the craftsmanship side of things and provokes thinking about which parts to automate (or maybe abstract away) and which parts to craft by hand when we're building stuff. Aside: also reminds me of Casey Muratori's Handmade Hero project 1. He is a strong advocate for structuring things bottom up and building them ourselves. 0 link to this video 1 link --- Secondly when reading this: > Regardless, the basic idea is that companies are often faced with the decision of doing N units of shitty work or far fewer than N units of great work. This is obviously oversimplified, but there is an important point that wants to emerge from this line of thought. As someone who grew up on open…
fmjreyon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why software engineers like woodworking”
Unless it's my tiny phone screen I'm surprised this video did not surface yet link to this video (Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools)
refseton Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why software engineers like woodworking (2021)”
"Programming with hand tools" (Tim Ewald, Clojure Conj 2013) is a very memorable talk on this theme: link to this video
adityaathalyeon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why software engineers like woodworking (2021)”
Time Ewald makes a case for "Programming with Hand Tools" in this talk he gave at Clojure/conj 2013. He too makes a connection with wood working. link to this video Summary: For most of human history, furniture was built by hand using a small set of simple tools. This approach connects you in a profoundly direct way to the work, your effort to the result. This changed with the rise of machine tools, which made production more efficient but also altered what's made and how we think about making it in in a profound way. This talk explores the effects of automation on our work, which is as relevant to software as it is to furniture, especially now that once again, with Clojure, we are building things usin…
aidoson Hacker News • Mentions
On “JavaScript: The Right Way”
It's funny, even as someone who knows js really well, having worked with it for a decade (actually, longer!), the explosion in the ecosystem took me by surprise. I left my web agency role over a year ago to work on my start up with a friend so I've been in relative developmental isolation (lots of python and js, not so much keeping up with the latest trends). I came back to help out on a project recently and had to spend a day researching all the new tools. Particularly around package management, bower, grunt, yeoman, node, npm etc. A year ago a js lib was generally delivered as a js or min.js file. Now there's the whole system to sit around it; every project on github now seems to include t…
briantakitaon Hacker News • Mentions
On “The Birth and Death of JavaScript [video]”
The "wat" is a good first step in identifying problems. However, I see is people getting stuck on "wat" and not moving forward. People would rather win an argument than advance knowledge & the practice. Lot's of ego, programmers have. In the mean time, one can learn to appreciate & use javascript strengths. It can be quite fun, liberating, & useful. Anecdotally, I have not run into these crazy issues, and I program in javascript everyday. I also have a large app and the framework I built is custom. I liken this to using C++, Unix, & bash as a base. Yes, you could say these tools suck and spend time creating, marketing, & community-building for a new tool. Or you can iterate & improve upon th…