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Spec-ulation Keynote - Rich Hickey

ClojureTV · 135.5K views · 2016-12-02 · 1:16:14

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 10 HN people across 9 months · HN mentions 2016–2024

Topics

Software architecture & designFunctional programming
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semantic versioningapi designbackward compatibilityclojurerich hickey

What people said

finalfantasia · 2019-10 · Strong recommendation

To anyone who's interested in this topic, I strongly recommend this talk from Rich Hickey about "giving something to somebody that they can use and making a commitment ": Spec-ulation ( [VIDEO] )

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smackay · 2017-08 · Strong recommendation

Whenever an idea about API versioning springs into mind it is always worthwhile to watch Rich Hickey's Spec-ulation talk, [VIDEO] for an alternative view of the world.

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sooheon · 2016-12 · Strong recommendation

This talk [1] by Rich Hickey seems more pertinent than ever. It's a contrarian stance on semver (which, almost as much as vc itself, is lauded as "the Right way" among developers). He definitely challenged my beliefs, it's likely to be worth your time too. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by ClojureTV, played through YouTube.

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