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Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

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Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#131
It is not only about the content but the energy and how to present it.

They rock presenting great content in a great way.

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Monica Dinculescu (https://github.com/notwaldorf)

PWA starter kit: build fast, scalable, modern apps with Web Components (Google I/O '18)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we3lLo-UFtk

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Kelsey Hightower (https://github.com/kelseyhightower/)

Keynote: Kubernetes and the Path to Serverless - Kelsey Hightower, Staff Developer Advocate, Google

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNa3xK2GFKY

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#132
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that he doesn't understand it, or is it possible that you haven't worked with the same scale of systems he has? Here's my response to his talk, which I found insightful: https://lobste.rs/s/zdvg9y/maybe_not_rich_hickey#c_povjwe Also, I think your comment suffers from the problem here, where you invoke "type theory" without any elaboration: https://lobste.rs/s/zdvg9y/maybe_not_rich_hickey#c_ioeyob Rich ha…

I haven't seen any of Rich's contributions to any major open source Haskell project. I can't really speak to his experiences with Haskell in proprietary code bases. Has he been a prolific Haskell contributor/hacker/user? From his talk he hasn't convinced me that he understands Haskell's type system. Not only does he misunderstand the contract given by `Maybe a` but he conflates `Either a b` with logical disjunction w…

I think this comment is a bit too harsh, and I would rather we just discuss the points he makes, not his credibility. The man has decades of experience in software system development and architecture, and has built one of the most popular programming languages in the world, as well as Datomic. If that hasn't given him the right to give his opinion during the keynote of a conference for the language he built, then I don't know how much you want from him.

To apply your own standards, have you been a prolific Clojure contributor/hacker/user? Have you contributed to any major open source Clojure projects?

Can you actually say what about Maybe/Either he got wrong because it seems like he understands it perfectly well, speaking as a Scala developer.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#134

"Maybe Not" by Rich Hickey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5WdGrpoug Another excellent talk by the creator of Clojure, and like the previous ones, relevant for all programmers.

I thought this was one of the notably bad talks this year. The whole premise that a function of Maybe a should be a function of a without an API change is neither intuitive to me nor really justified by Hickey. Different things are different. It's sad to see someone build such a wall around himself when faced by something (type theory) that he doesn't understand.

The sad thing is that Rich Hickey had some very good videos when Clojure was a new thing back in 2008–2009. Unfortunately, I've disagreed vehemently with most of his talks since then. In this case, it's completely illogical that a function `Maybe a -> b` should be callable as if it were a function `a -> b`. Do you want to know how I know? Because it would be just as illogical to allow a function `Vec a -> b` to be called as `a -> b`. And Rich must agree because Clojure itself does not support that!

I've learned that videos of his talks are just not worth my time.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#135
post #81

Recent but great talk posted here, What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System [1] by Prof. Michael Levin. He talks about how long term low energy electrical networks between all cells in living organisms shape how the organism grows. I think what he talks about will be the future of medicine as it allows for an amazing degree of high level control over how animals grow. 1. https://www…

Whoa, this completely altered my point view regarding animal complexity. Natures scary.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#136

I rather enjoyed RustConf 2018's Closing Keynote, "Using Rust For Game Development" by Catherine West: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLntZcp27M I learned about the ECS pattern and got to see some Rust refactoring in action. Previous HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17977906

This one is one of my favorites of the year too. ECS seems like a pattern which can also be used in other contexts then games. I‘m currently writing a simulation tool and I am considering switching to ECS.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#137
post #81

Recent but great talk posted here, What Bodies Think About: Bioelectric Computation Outside the Nervous System [1] by Prof. Michael Levin. He talks about how long term low energy electrical networks between all cells in living organisms shape how the organism grows. I think what he talks about will be the future of medicine as it allows for an amazing degree of high level control over how animals grow. 1. https://www…

Wow, just wow! I've often felt that we (humanity) have pushed the boundaries of our knowledge right to some really hard lines to cross: relativity won't allow interstellar travel anytime soon, we are making progress in "soft AI" but "hard AI" is still insurmountable, even fusion seems as far as it's always been. Further "real" progress seems sometimes nearly impossible, or very arduous and slow at best. Then this guy…

I definitely agree with you, this feels like REAL progress. I feel like this is a revolution in our understanding of how life as a collection of cells is able to function with such repeat ability and reliability. What is even more amazing is how this talk isn't even just going over our lack of understanding in this area, its saying hey everyone we just filled in this massive gap in our understanding, and look at what real things we can do with it.

It does feel like this research crosses a big line in science. Especially with the recent articles about how gene editing can cause weird defects that we don't understand, this shows we don't need to tinker at the lower levels when life already has the tools for higher level control.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one advantage of formal specs in general that static types inherent: they can enforce a correctness policy on a design that works for all inputs with no runtime overhead. SPARK Ada eliminating entire classes of errors with mostly-automated analysis is one example. Rust blocking temporal and some concurrency errors without GC is another. I'll note they're both hard to eliminate with testing, too. With that, c…

Sure, in return for bending code over backwards to fit rules you get guarantees; but pretending that is anything but a different compromise isn't helping. If Ada was all that, everyone would be using it; and that's not going to happen, because it's not a realistic approach to programming. The academic approach doesn't look very constructive to me, never did. Once you have a language nailed down so hard that errors ar…

"If Ada was all that, everyone would be using it"

Argument for popularity = superiority. By your same logic, we shouldve stuck with COBOL for important apps since all the big businesses were using it. I have a feeling you dont write new apps in COBOL.

"the complexity of dealing with it will be more or less the same as dealing with the errors in the first place."

The best empirical comparison of C and Ada showed the opposite. All studies showed the safer languages had less defects with usually more productivity due to less rework later on. Evidence is against your claim so far.

"I would much prefer a focus on more powerful tools that fit into the current "unsafe" ecosystem while offering a more gradual and flexible path to improved safety."

Me too. Rust and Nim are taking that approach. People are finding both useful in production so far.

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#139

"Maybe Not" by Rich Hickey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5WdGrpoug Another excellent talk by the creator of Clojure, and like the previous ones, relevant for all programmers.

I actually went ahead to learn haskell after one of his recent talks(my motivation was the vehement rejection from the haskell community..on reddit mostly) I haven't turned back since then. It's either he doesn't really understand how types are used or he's intentionally "bad-mouthing" types(which I don't think he's doing)

Re: Ask HN: Best talks of 2018?

#140
It's not a talk, but worth a mention. Joe Rogan interviews Matthew Walker, a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science and author of the book "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

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