Developers today face an explosion of complexity - data in myriad forms pulled from many sources, complex dependency webs, and a need to maximize use of modern multi-core hardware in cloud based systems. Many such efforts devolve into cobbled together mismatched abstractions that involve seemingly endless transformations from one form to another.
While libraries and infrastructure adapt to meet feature-level needs, they largely fail to address the core issue: incidental complexity. The kind of complexity that hinders development, blows timelines, and undermines stability. The kind of complexity that distracts from delivering real, measurable value. Clojure is a language built to enable developers to attack incidental complexity in their systems, through its use of immutable data structures, pure function transformations, and the separation of state and identity.
Drawing from both expert design principles and real-world use cases, Paul deGrandis will illustrate the "value of values" and explore how Clojure’s core principles of Simplicity, Power, and Focus enable developers to reduce complexity -- both essential and incidental -- to functional simplicity.
Paul deGrandis is a lead developer, architect, and Director of the Research and Innovation Group at Cognitect, where he helps organizations envision and execute a new technical strategies, centered around unlocking value with next-generation information systems. Paul has helped to produce some of the most successful companies, brands, and cutting edge research. He has worked on next-generation cable systems, autonomous internet infrastructure, distributed search and recommendation engines, massive online social game platforms, and more. Paul has volunteered his time with Code for America and as a mentor with the Portland Incubator Experiment, and also has many open source contributions to his name including Clojure, ClojureScript, Pedestal, PyPy and more.
