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Heart of Clojure
901 Plays7 days ago
An episode that is chock full of surprises and replete with delights.
Expect to shed a few tears.
There is much to consider from our wonderful guests.
Check out Lu and their whimsical work at https://www.todepond.com/
Explore all things McCormick at Chris’s site https://mccormick.cx/
Thanks to Arne and all the folks that made Heart of Clojure such a legendary event.
Most of the talks are up on YouTube now https://www.youtube.com/@LambdaIsland
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Deaf in episode number 100. Thank you, thank you. It's really weird to have immediate feedback. I always imagine there are at least two people listening and cursing at me. like well I'm usually one of them. so yeah yeah I can feel it now in front of my eyes. um yeah so It's been almost eight years, so I don't want to call it an amazing journey like Stupid Startups nonsense. Let's call it ten. We rounded up the episode number. round up the number of years. Yeah, exactly. Maybe a quick introduction. So my name is Vijay from Holland, and we have... Reh from near Leuven in Belgium. Yeah, here nearby somewhere. yeah And then we have the man behind the scenes who has been making us sound good, at least. yeah although I'm on the scene now, literally. is Exactly. oh i'm bel I'm Walter, also from Belgium. Right. It's the intro style.
00:01:11
Speaker
Nice. so um So this is going to be an interesting episode, because this is going to be my last one, or at least you know I'm going to stop and drop off from DeafN. And that's why this is like a peak of DeafN, I guess. I never expected this level of professionals thinking we'll be sitting somewhere in a corner and annoying these two people here. um But yeah, I think ah to to be...
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so fucking nervous. you know Usually there is nobody looking at me, so it's my bullshit my way through the things as if I know things. um Yeah, it's it's been eight years and we started at at a conference when Ray and I met at Dutch Closure Day and it's been Amazing thing for me one of the amazing things for me that has happened in my life because every other Sunday I know please don't complain about the frequency, you know, that is every other Sunday I get to I get to talk to such such kind and generous and and um Intelligent people and and learn from them and but What about the guests though? yeah yeah Okay
00:02:26
Speaker
I'm not talking about Ray by the way. So it's been it's been really fun and I think I was mentioning to somebody yesterday that this is one of the places where ah we never had this off mic and on mic persona and and there was no difference between the way people who who you are listening to ah in the recording and then off the recording. they were They were so genuine and they were so invested in the community, invested in in the language, passionate. So it's been it's been a pleasure. I think I reached a point where...
00:02:57
Speaker
ah Now I want to listen to the podcast, so I want to stop talking to to to the podcast, I don't know, ah through the podcast. So this will be the the last thing. and now um But as every good thing, it should continue, the show must continue. um I think that if I have like a couple of regrets and one is that making convincing Ray to be a real programmer to switch to Emacs, you know, fine.
00:03:24
Speaker
Maybe my my next you know a better replacement of my better version of myself would be able to convince Ray to do this. So I'd like to introduce who's going to replace me. That would be Josh. Welcome.
00:03:42
Speaker
Thanks, P.J. so please ah oh no all alright i'm I'm leaving a living a very small shoe to fill in. I have a small foot, it's fine. but I'm not saying that. but yeah um yeah Thanks a lot for for listening and please do continue to listen and I would really appreciate your your feedback um and and um and thank you for my yacht.
00:04:12
Speaker
I'm going to sit into the wind. I don't want to take too much time so the actual show can go on and then you can enjoy the show. so Thank you. Thanks, PJ. I just want to i just want say thank you. Thank you very much. I think all the people out there really appreciate how you've made the podcast world a better place.
00:04:35
Speaker
and It's a Silicon Valley joke. And so I've got you a few little presents as well, because yeah you don't say goodbye without the gold watch. In this case, it's a golden t-shirt. So Defint, you're the very first Defint alumnus. This is a one-only t-shirt, OK? Super.
00:04:59
Speaker
And also a little, if I can open this properly, a little... You'll only wear that on the irregular basis, I imagine. No, put it on the wall, I imagine. You'll probably put it in a glass plate in the wall or something like that. there But this is something you can use every day to remind you of the little water bottles. Awesome. Yeah, thank you very much to Vijay. I mean, it's been absolutely fantastic. The guy is awesome. He's going to go on to do some other fantastic things, you know, for sure. So, yeah, thank you very much to you, Jay. Thank you, Wada.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, same for me, man. It's been an absolute pleasure to edit out your coughs. for i Somebody mentioned I laugh too much on the podcast. Those I don't need to cut, so it's not ah not as much work. um No, I think it's amazing um um how you did it. It also speaks to ah your breadth of knowledge, you know, like how you managed to you be you You were always very interested in the guests, but also you always had, ah you understand understood the subjects, you had good questions. um You teased out you know the the the best in people that came on. I think this is really special and really unique. um I'd like to thank you for that. um yeah i'm I'm sweating steel now. off and then like
00:06:15
Speaker
And then the final point is I just sort of want to tell a super small story because it ties into like Arnaud's thing and from the beginning as well, which is like how these small things can have lasting consequences. So because at some point um Ray told me, why don't you fucking do it then for the audio of the podcast? Because I have too much feedback. you I started editing the podcast. And then like at some point, as a thank you, Vijay invited to me because he was organizing Dutch closure days at the time. So he invited me um to the speaker's dinner. I was not a speaker there, but like you know I was allowed to attend just sort of as a thank you.
00:06:52
Speaker
And that's how I met the then CTO of the current company that I'm working at. And so there's sort of like a butterfly effect that directly leads to, you know, me having my current job and like really enjoying it by the way. And, you know, VGS generosity throughout these years. Yeah, I make your people's lives and that's the... Even though it's like, you know, us basically bullshitting for almost two hours every other Sunday. It does have meaningful impact. It has made change. It's made my life materially better. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.
00:07:30
Speaker
yeah that's like you did
00:07:33
Speaker
I'm for the man of the hour and Josh and maybe it's nice to you know introduce yourself and then take it over from there. yeah fa offlf I'll see you around and thanks a lot. Thank you. E-Max or some other shit, Josh? Yeah, exactly. um Well, ah thank you. Hello. It's E-Max.
00:07:52
Speaker
Everything else is shit. Fuck. Everything else is shit. How do they get past the interview process? Yeah. And Lou's off. Lou is off. Lou's done. No, no, no, no, no. OK, thank you. I thought about it though. OK, all right. All right. Thank you. So yeah, I mean, I am Josh, as Vijay said. However, I will argue with you, just from the start, Vijay, I am not the man of the hour. Like, we have two people here who are the people of the hour and a half, two hours, five hours that will be here. We'll be half an hour and a half through this. He just took up way too much space. He said he'd take one minute, but he said he'd end up taking 15. Anyway, good riddance.
00:08:32
Speaker
but So yeah, my main thing is that I live in Stockholm. I have been doing like lisp of some variety for quite a while after my beginnings as an arrogant know-it-all person who declared lisp was shit, and it should never be used by anybody. Here I am.
00:08:52
Speaker
20 years later on a frickin' Lisp podcast. um ah So I love Emacs, as mentioned. I love Babashka, hence the t-shirt. I hate NBB, and I wish that bad things would happen to Borkdude for his original song. Oh! No, we've got to edit that out well. No offense, Borkdude. Yeah, cut that part. um But anyway, yeah. This is actionable.
00:09:19
Speaker
Enough about me. Thank you for letting me be part of this. it It has been something extremely special. And I think I met the two of you right before, or right after you released the first episode. and Right, right, right. Well, you've been a guest on the show, so I figured that, you know... I have.
00:09:37
Speaker
We'll eventually go through all the guests on the show, this is a replacement. so It will give you a week or two, try your out, you know, and then we'll see what happens. But okay, let's move on to the main event. Thank you very much. I think we've got the admin out of the way, which is nice. So, um right, ah we have got, from the far end of the room, Lou. You've all seen Lou before. I hope you've been you've seen Lou at the conference before.
00:10:06
Speaker
ah And then we'll just miss out Josh. and everything we've got Is it a shit sandwich? No. i've got either other side of that We've got Chris, who gave a talk about NBB, so this is going to be fun, guys, after that intro.
00:10:23
Speaker
hit above for me yeah OK, so let's just go quickly around and have a quick intros of Lou and Chris and see what see what their backgrounds are, what they've been up to for the podcast audience, even though the the the conference audience probably know a bit about you and ah who you are. But if you wouldn't mind, just give them a bit of a background about like what you're doing.
00:10:48
Speaker
What am I doing? That's what I ask myself every single day. Right, so yeah, I'm Lou, I'm, or Luke, either's fine, it's a really long story. And um yeah, I'm from London, I've lived there my whole life. Actually, most of my career I've been teaching ah really young children. A few years, but but always doing coding for fun. A few years ago, did the switch, and um it's been, yeah, it's been my main job for the last three years. Currently work at a company called TL Draw, which is like a whiteboard canvas library. I mentioned it at one point um in the talk, but I mentioned quite a few things in the talk. I think the sponsor was, is that excited without the idea? I can put you in touch.
00:11:36
Speaker
um I know you do all the podcasts and who get sponsorships. Well, and and as as you may have seen from the talk I gave, I also just do a load of ah stupid shit and put it on the internet and um to my surprise, people enjoy me embarrassing myself in that way. Well, this is very unbranded for this podcast. All the stupid shit on the internet. I've come to the right place. That's great. that's great yeah Okay, Chris. Yeah, I mean, I guess a yeah similar story without the same presence. i
00:12:11
Speaker
i build down i build i like to I use ClosureScript and I, and during my my day work, I do some freelance work building stuff with ClosureScript for clients, a bit of consulting. And then on the side, I like to write software that nobody wants. So I've got a big collection of software I've written that nobody needs.
00:12:32
Speaker
and and it's spell brand for the podcast I was going to say. Nobody wants and nobody needs. We're really good at advertising ourselves. Stuff no one wants, stupid shits. As long as we enjoy it, right?
00:12:47
Speaker
yeah no but i'm I'm currently living in in London, and but I'm really from Australia. My friend told me that my accent has become too British, so umm I'm going to have to drop in some light, throwing some shrimps on the barbie and some stone, the flaming crows, this kind of thing. but right but yeah yeah no But I just really love building things, and I love ClosureScript because it allows me to make things much quicker.
00:13:13
Speaker
yeah Right. I agree with that. yeah And especially NBB. Fucking hell. Right, okay. So moving on, Evz, from the buck fact that you know this is a total pointless exercise. um Right, so but what the hell are you doing at the conference? That's probably the next question. So I think you you know you gave like a ah keynote talk, Lou. I don't want to give a complete recap of that because, you know, yeah They can stream it all. yeah but kind of what What's your what maybe is what's ah the main message that you wanted to like ah bring to the conference? yeah yeah so like ah my My keynote was about openness right and and being open and what it means to be open. right like like What it means to have an open practice. It was something that I like made i guess for this specific conference. you know It's not something that I packaged up.
00:14:10
Speaker
um Because, you know, Arne, the organizer, but like his main organizer, reached out to me a while back. He said, like, hey, Lou, I'm just going to cut to the chase. Like, do you want to do the opening keynote? And and and I replied to him. I said, Arne, you know, I don't do kosher right.
00:14:30
Speaker
And he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, come on, we're very open-minded here, right? And I think there was something about that that sort of stuck, you know? And I looked at the previous part of Closure, watched all the like last time, the last event's talks, saw that the opening keynote last time was also from from someone who wasn't even a developer, right? So actually actually, this is a step you know a step towards the right the right way. You're on the path to Closure. yeah give it listen Listen, I'm getting very convinced from being here. I put out a toot on Mastodon, I i like typed it out, it's like, I love closure now. And I thought, we wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not quite there yet. i am yeah i'm I'm getting one over.
00:15:17
Speaker
Thank you. But I think um Closure the language is not the important thing. It's Closure of the community. That's why I'm still here after so long. Right. Yeah. And and that's what I picked up. So like um you know i I had various calls with honor. like It was quite a while back that. um So we had ah you know I went away and I thought about what I could talk about, what I could write up.
00:15:40
Speaker
and and came back to him with but certain ideas and like more questions about the community. right And i just I just kept getting this i guess like this sense of yeah the heart of closure. right this um there's Because I guess as an ah outsider, you know I didn't quite realise that.
00:15:57
Speaker
You know, I saw the rich hickey talks and all of that, right? As everyone everyone says, I think a couple of speakers have said that, right? and And I guess that was my only like little window into the community. And one thing was, like by by looking a little bit further, I saw so much more. And so I didn't feel like the keynote was me coming and preaching at all. I felt like it was me coming and just saying what I saw, you know, so so I just say it how I see it, you know, um because, you know, I feel like every everyone like.
00:16:36
Speaker
Everyone knew it already, right? Everyone knew it already. It was just sort of me coming and saying, like, look look at what look at what everyone's doing here. Look how, oh my God. The the the the talk earlier, though that the the squint talk. Were you there? I was there. Oh, Monroe. Oh my God. It was great, right? Okay. What's what's that lovely young man's name again? ah Felix. Felix. alex so okay Okay. He was, did you see this?
00:17:03
Speaker
No, I wasn't. Oh my god, that was incredible, right? So he did a live demo. The Walmart is strong now, that's for sure. Right, right. Everything went wrong. everything went local host mean who could have po Local host did not resolve. And then what we saw was this like incredible pair programming session right right with one man and one audience. right yes and And it was a bit bumpy, but oh boy, when when that when that local host's connection hit... like those uproar you know ah That was super inspiring. right That was super inspiring. like The fact that the the audience um was within the whole way, stuck at it, and there was like this element of fun to it. you know yeah yeah um that That one I'm going to remember for a while, I think. yeah right I've been going on a long time. that's good i mean I would just echo the same thing. like The closure community is is amazing. And what what I really value is something you you were saying before, Josh, which was, um
00:18:06
Speaker
there tends you know instead of being a lot of the time where there's some kind of what would normally be a conflict situation where people are arguing over technology you know you get these heated religious debates in technology in the closure community it tends to just be like a honest discussion of like what am I missing here what can I learn and trade-offs and that kind of thing like really evaluating what's the difference in these two viewpoints and let's figure it out And people are honestly trying to just understand each other's viewpoints. And I think that's really magical. um For the most part, except about editors, then it's just right and wrong. Emax and some other shit. Sorry, you're on Emax. Some other shit. You're on Emax. I am neutral in this debate. Let like let it be known. I'm just i'm just like with the popcorn. I'm i'm enjoying the the fight. I love how they moved. The VIM and the EMACS activities. They were going to be in the same building. but That's not good. and they they they had They moved. In the end, they moved. They moved from the tab to the space. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. OK. But yeah, I mean, so Chris, just to recap, though, you were giving a talk here. So what was the sort of main, like, the main thrust or the main kind of message you were trying to bring? Yeah. So, I mean, you know obviously, MBB is fucking awesome. Yeah, MBB is great. I love it. And and anybody could get shot otherwise. not is
00:19:34
Speaker
And it it turned out, and this is weird, like you were giving your NBB talk at the same time as I was giving a Skittle talk, yeah not by design. No. And I talked a little bit about Skittle and I said, I'm so glad you came to my talk, not that other jerks. And I i talked about NBB, I think I said two words about and NBB and the first one was fuck. But go on, your talk. Yeah, so um what I was talking about was full stack closure. He's great with the guests, guys, he's great with the guests.
00:20:04
Speaker
filter will edit that out. more um Yeah, so full stack closure script is basically running closure script on the server side instead of using the JVM. So on on top of running on top of node generally. um Yeah. And again, I think it's like a thing of different trade offs like why would people want to run um their back end on top of a node instead of the JVM. Like maybe their team understands node or has a history with node. Maybe their deployment environment they're using you know Netlify or their internal deployment environment at their work is JavaScript based or um maybe they depend on a library that comes from the node ecosystem and they can't access the same one in Java. So there's these different trade-offs to you know why and why you would use JVM versus node. For me personally it was I just understood the no node ecosystem better.
00:20:55
Speaker
And so I was just grateful that there was this way of running Closure Script. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like that's been a kind of Closure core value from the beginning. It's like Closure is inclusive. It it embraces the host platform and it goes different places. it It meets people where they are, quite literally. And I mean, all joking aside, I usually give the disclaimer at the beginning. So I hate NBB for myself.
00:21:22
Speaker
And I mean, in all honesty, whatever you use, if it brings you joy, that's the right decision for you. So I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You will tell you yourself. I will tell myself sternly in the mirror, if you ever catch me using NBB, Josh, you're doing it wrong. But remember what you said about Lisp. You got me there. You got me there. Oh, that's the first audience reaction. I've heard Josh is out for the count here. Oh, yeah. Sorry. It'd be nice knowing you. BJ, come back. How are you still doing, Picard? I'm done. I'm out of my depth here. You know, Lou, you were talking about openness in keynote. Yeah. And I love that idea. Douglas is taking over as the host. I look at him now. Look at him. He's like, yeah. I'll just go behind the sofa in my shelf. Natural. Defeated.
00:22:14
Speaker
um Yeah, this idea of open practice is so cool. And ah it reminded me of, sorry, a bit of a tangent, but open source. I heard ah Linus Torvalds in an interview talking about open source and what it meant to him. And he said, it means everybody gets to do whatever they want. And I thought that was like quite a deep thing because you kind of think of it as this technical thing, this legal licensing thing. But yeah, everybody gets to do what they want. It's like kind of cool. It's very open. Yeah. ah Yeah. I mean, it's.
00:22:46
Speaker
It's, I think the thing with like definitions, right? Oh, all right. right i got a Water break. Crack open a dictionary. So like, you know, how integrated you are coming into the closure community now. Right. yeah You got to do it. You got to do it. Like, you know, definitions is like this running running joke, you know, it's what you do all day, right? yeah so So the thing is like,
00:23:16
Speaker
you define things however you want. it's like um when You have to do a lot of research to find the definition that supports the point you want to make though. I right i guess i get um play yeah i guess like you know when when we say, like well yeah what is open source? What is open source? Well, the answer is, is you know All words are made up, right? All words are made up. Whatever you want it to be. yeah you know like it's we We want to choose a definition that's helpful to us, right? You want want to choose a definition that makes our community better. And um and do you know what? like that can That can change over time. and you know So it's it's interesting um for me
00:24:02
Speaker
to, I guess, ah look at all the different like viewpoints on open source out there, right? like I think so some people see open sources as like very unopen, really, um and so much so that they they don't want to be open source. So there was like there's this research lab called Dynamic Land, and they and they they... You know this, right? victor Right, Victor. You've got us on. Yeah, yeah and yeah it's this incredible research lab. it' They're doing amazing work on um figuring out like how to do computing with our whole bodies. So naturally, like a lot of people are interested in in seeing the code for that.
00:24:43
Speaker
right But they they make an argument they make an argument that actually they don't want to open source that. Because while it's like it's very open for certain people, for developers, you know it's not so open for for people who are outside that world. right And in that case, right they can't do whatever they want with it. you know yeah Some people can. So when that came out like last week, I was like, shit, am I going to have to like rewrite my whole talk? Has this convinced me that I you know i actually i did? i did
00:25:14
Speaker
like um I did consider it, but I just didn't have enough time. It's like being able to code is a massive privilege, really. That's the thing. True. I was going to say, there's I mean, it's a kind of old trope, really, but ah Bill Gates. Well, you're an old guy. An old guy, yeah. but I remember Steve Jobs once said that ah Bill Gates has chosen the open way, and we've chosen the closed way. I'm not sure about that. I didn't feel like that as such. But I guess they were talking about, at that point, they were talking about, like, plug and play hardware and stuff like that, integration at that level. And and so Windows was more open ah than the Apple was, and it probably still is. so
00:25:53
Speaker
but But yeah to me, it seems like open, this is about visibility, actually. And it's ah it's not because open source is not about people, anyone doing what they want, because you can always do what you want. But it's about leing about enabling it. It's about saying, actually, I'm going to share what I know and what I've got. And then you can do what you want with that. you know So I think, to me, that's the the depth that's a sort of deep version of it. but um interesting right Interesting. So it's so weird. No, but it's it's it's weird, right? Because you have this this word open, which which should mean the door is open, come in, you know yeah join us. But ah the idea of open source at some point, it was grabbed by some people and used as a system of control, which I think is really interesting. Like, I mean, Richard Stallman,
00:26:42
Speaker
Right. Wants to control what you can do with code that's licensed under the GPL. And it's his right to do so. Absolutely. But it's just interesting. And he didn't use the word open source very specifically. He chose free software. Right. Right.
00:26:57
Speaker
um And it was Eric S. Raymond, I think, who came along and made open source. But it's just interesting, like, what different words mean to different people. I mean, just to go down a little little tangent. I mean, I don't know how deep you are in... Tangent on my tangent. A tangent on a tangent. Who tangents it in first? Okay. Tangents all the way around. As far as I'm concerned, it's all maths, you know? Yeah, I mean, obviously. We're in a simulation. It's all maths all the way down. Back to my tangent. okay um Yeah, there was this whole thing ah very recently about like, well, okay, what's what's the difference between like, ah what's the structural difference, if you like, between what between what ah the FSF are doing and what open source is? And it turns out the actual problem is the sort of organisational structure of the FSF itself.
00:27:46
Speaker
And again, I don't know, get into the whole weeds of this, but basically it becomes very difficult. It's not a very democratic organisation. It's quite patriarchal. It's quite organised by a certain elite group. Patriorical, why is that? Yeah, I know. But the the problem is that it turns out that they can rewrite the licence. Right. and so And they have done this ah in a fairly benign way so far, but that but it's sort of worried people that they actually have the ability to rewrite the licence in ways that are non-democratic.
00:28:13
Speaker
I mean, are you talking about the GPL version 3 when they did that? No, no, no. Well, just small amendments to it. But GPL in general and the FSF in general have this sort of control over those licenses that are on all these devices. They're all over the place. What's that thing in Star Wars where you get this message 66 or whatever and all the codes just go evil? Order 66. Order 66, yeah. That's sort of feasible with the FSF annoyingly. So it's kind of awkward. You can't just ask the audience. They are your reference to this point. This is a caching system. I've got you first. I went to this wide area network. It's very unwind. There's definitely more expertise out there. Somebody will just well act. Just from the crowd. Anyway, sorry. Back to your tangent. There was meant to be a structure to this. but we're out in the deep end. But getting back to the sort of, so the thing, one of the things I wanted to just quickly round up on, I mean, we've still got a bit more time, still got another half an hour, so we're doing all right. But I wanted to get your impressions of the conference, not just of sort of, you know, of the Closure Community at large, but what about this lovely heart of Closure Conference? So we go with the Insider first. Right, okay. And why am I an Insider? Yeah, I'm always an outsider. You're a Closureist.
00:29:38
Speaker
Lewis and aspiring closureists. I see what you mean. Yeah, it's been great. I mean, I've seen so many good talks and I absolutely loved Pulu's live set last night. so Really awesome. And Haskell though, but whatever. um yeah The right tool for the right job. But the um back end was running on OS 9, on Mac OS 9, which was super cool. Like this old version of Super Collider. so Anyway, yeah. Okay, cool. My favourite thing about the conference was Haskell. Haskell and OS 9, whatever. And I guess I'll never see anyone again, so... See you later. That's been lovely. Mic drop. um You want my outside view? Yeah, but I mean, you should be insider. Oh, right, right, right. You're inside view of the yes outside conference. Okay, I go to a lot of conferences and this is... This is but i'm not okay this is by far my most favourite conference I've ever been to. I'm not just saying that. I'm not just saying it, okay. because
00:30:50
Speaker
I think there's something, the the feeling of it, right? The feeling of it um is so different to normal. It it really has this unconferences vibe to it. You know, the fact that we have these two spaces but you that you you go between, they have very different characters, right? And there's there's all these pop up activities going on.
00:31:12
Speaker
you know There's all these like extra activities like Pulisa and and um just all ah all of the extra things happening. And the fact that... Like there's so much time, like the point is to meet new people or chat with old friends. You know, that's the point. And I think that's what a lot of conference, that's my favorite part of conferences usually, but you don't have time. You know, you don't have time. It's such a rush between the talks that you don't want to miss. You know, so many to see, but I think... hats off to the organizers and all of the volunteers. This has been an extremely special experience. And I think I've taken a lot from this in terms of what kind of conference should I go to? What kind of conference should I help to encourage or create? So I don't want to leave. You can just extend it. A round of applause to the conference. I think that they've got an absolutely spectacular job. And the volunteers, all the speakers, they're super. And actually, I think that with the Compass app, we can extend the conference for as long as we want. We can still keep adding activities. Right, okay. So, yeah. Do you remember during the pandemic when they had conferences, so there was no hallway track? It was just excruciating. It was like, what's the point of this? I mean, not the closure ones. They were all good. Yeah, of course, of course. But I think I'm glad you said that. Because we were having a discussion, maybe us, maybe some other people. No, it was me and Mihau were talking about what it is about the closure community that like, how did we get this kind of community?
00:32:59
Speaker
And, um you know, I think one of the things is we have like role models out there, right? Like Arna, for example, is somebody whose name is known, right? um You know, Weave Jester is a a person whose name is known. Borkdude is a lovely human being. I apologize for the mean jokes. um A few stands on his character, but other than that... Yes, except for the NBB thing. And like these these people, every single day, set a wonderful example of being friendly, of being welcoming, of being helpful to people, of just being like genuinely kind to people. And like these are the these are the people we look up to in our community. So a conference like this, just the fact that the community does not roll its eyes at the idea of a you know inclusive conference. right like I love that about this community, that people are like,
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, of course, the heart of closure, because that's how we've always been. So let's just do it. So I i am so glad you said that as someone kind of new to our community. and Yeah. Yeah. Please stay. I will. You know, like, um yeah, I think I remember back to like, my you know, my first message in messages and chats with Ana, you know, and I didn't get it back then, you know, I didn't get it, like,
00:34:17
Speaker
Me? you know and You know, I think that's that's that so important to, you know, like, I guess, say that, yeah, yeah, we are open to outsiders, you know, we are welcoming. I've had multiple people say like, Lou, Lou, Lou, come with me, come with me. I want to teach you how to make sand enclosure because that's so nice's like, you know, like I'm always trying to make sand in new things. and and it's i don't know yeah It's just this excitement this excitement around um around yeah welcoming new ideas in. yeah yeah it Without getting too meta, though i mean but and you do another podcast, podcast about podcast about podcast. Maybe it's recursive, it's better than meta.
00:35:01
Speaker
but A recursive method of programming. I've heard that somewhere. anyway the Can you tell us a little bit about that? because i i yeah like ah like sure I think it's worth explaining a bit about what this ah future of computing, future of recording future of coding. It goes by many names. it goes names because recording all right so The Future of Coding was is this is this podcast that was set up by Steve Krause back in the day. I think at some point um he didn't want to do it anymore, so he let his editor
00:35:36
Speaker
Take over. what ha right you have yeah your yeah You could consider it. but um And so that was Ivan Rhys, who is an absolutely lovely guy, has really weird aesthetic tastes, and I mean that as a compliment. right yeah good um and ah he He's been doing this thing with his co-host Jimmy Miller where they like look back at old papers from computing history, like like the big ones, right like No Silver Bullet,
00:36:07
Speaker
um like ah ah oh my god what am I doing like like the one that's like bad no worse is better worse is better i was like bad is good no good is bad worse is better my memory is bad everything looks better and um at some point they uh wanted to cover like But it's not just a papers we love, is it? it's ah No. There's a sort of vibe to that podcast that is a little bit special, I would say. And it's definitely not always papers we love. Like sometimes they do like a hate read. But it's good because like usually one person's hate reading it, the other ones love reading it. okay you know And yeah and and you know there's like a struggle, there's like a struggle they they go through and now that I go through, right? So anyway, at one point they decided we're gonna do this ah paper, Intercal, right? Do you know about Intercal? yeah the Intercal is, just I think it was the first joke to language, right? So of course they asked experts on joke languages, me, to come on so onto it as ah like a cameo.
00:37:17
Speaker
Right. And um I think they were hoping they were hoping that I would like it and want to stay and do more. But you see, I'm British. yeah So after that, I said, oh, yeah, no, it was quite nice. okay how that you It might be nice. Right. Well, I did it through message. right but That was the problem. Right. It was pretty good. Yeah. I wouldn't be doing it again. And then I met them in in person for the first time in Strange Loop. right And they said to me, oh, it's such a shame you didn't want to do more.
00:37:50
Speaker
And um I was like, why the fuck didn't you ask me to do any more? Anyway, so now I'm on the show full time and basically um ah the three of us bicker for three hours and people seem to enjoy it. No, no, no, no. we we like to we like to it's It's nice to sort of bring up papers that we think people haven't found like ever seen that we think are really, really worth reading. So like most recently I brought forward one that by this this guy called Alexander Reppening that not many people have heard of this paper. Well, actually many people have, but not enough. And so it was really nice to introduce that to people. He sent us an email and afterwards
00:38:36
Speaker
um And after he had listened to it, he said, he said you know, thanks for like the three hour feedback session. that One liner. It was a very lovely email. He said like he's still using that that set of tools to like work with kids and teach kids to program, send us a nice little photo of his class. So you fuzzy so sometimes uh sometimes we're quite jokey i do worry that like uh we you know we're kind of in character a little bit as we're sort of expressing our frustrations with these things so um like you told me yesterday you're did you tell me that you're a bit har um harsh on Brett Victor right i thought that you were I'm loving Brett. But i but there's the thing where when when you like someone's work so much, like when something's so good, it means it's like worth picking apart what you like and what you don't like about it. true you know So the fact that we do these things that are so long, it means we end up going in in in so much detail. As you can tell now, just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. But that's that's the futures of coding. yeah bri bri
00:39:52
Speaker
yeah and yeah so Chris, what what kind of things do you get inspiration from in in your life? you know its Other than this podcast of course. Why are you spitting water out of it? That spit take was unplanned. obviously deafen here the main thing but oh it's the dead planet definite A lot of like so art and music, you know like i said I don't know if this is an embarrassing admission or not, but I spend a lot of time on Pinterest just like collecting images, science fiction, all kinds of different things.
00:40:29
Speaker
um yeah and know Nature, I don't know, I like going for walks in the forest. um Why would it be embarrassing to collect things you love, though? That sounds lovely to me. Yeah, why is that embarrassing? All right, so I guess I don't need to pay a therapist anymore. No, I'm here, am I? I'm here, yes. We're on a couch. We're on a couch. You want to recline. You can lie down. How is your relationship with your mother?
00:41:03
Speaker
Oh, Lord. I just don't go there, OK? We'll take this off there. okay But you're inspired by collecting pictures on Pinterest, taking walks in nature, music. I grew up with a lot of music, playing in bands and stuff like that. And a lot of the software I write is music software. That's the thing. That didn't come out to me from what we've talked about so far, that you're actually doing software is around music. Can you expand on that a little bit? Because I feel like that's kind of like a... I have this app called Melody Generator, which you can... Melody Generator. The bloody Australian accent, mate. Melody Generator, mate. Through the shrimp of melodies on the generating barbecue. And yeah, so it's just like this app, it's an online thing and it generates melodies. And what I found was, I always name my software after what it does. And often you get a .com, so you say like, what is the software like? Recipe Finder, recipefinder.com. Amazing. Do you have that? No. I wouldn't be here if I had that.
00:42:33
Speaker
poem is why crazy get off you know No, no, no, of course I'd be here. um ah He's doing a Josh now, eating his words, which is good to see you live.
00:42:45
Speaker
yeah okay Music, melody generator. Yeah, so melody generator is this thing. Also, it's a bit like, ah what should we say? High level. Let's just go down a bit more. What melody does it generate any melody for?
00:42:59
Speaker
It's actually a simple algorithm that it makes like MIDI files and then plays them for you and I think musicians use it for like when they get stuck you know like you get stuck and so you're like I need to get unstuck and then create a melody but what other guidelines I mean does the user drive it in some way or yeah of like this is a blues, generate me a blues or is it a sort of like, no, it's a lucky, you know, what do they, what do they say on that horrible search engine thing? My lucky day. It's my lucky day.
00:43:30
Speaker
I'm not sure. I don't know what that is. Google has two buttons. oh like I'm feeling lucky. i'm feeling my lucky stay i like that Do they still have that? I don't know. I haven't used them forever. so yeah yeah no no yeah It has some controls and stuff like that. You can specify the the the scale that you want and how long you want the melody to be. in s stoker okay So is that something that you like you had you found yourself, like you you were getting stuck and you wanted to help with melodies? Usually my strategy is to ignore the everything everyone else is doing, yeah like all the great stuff out there that's like already written and just build it from scratch myself from first principles. You're gonna fit in well here. I know, I know.
00:44:10
Speaker
This couch is the right couch to be on. And every now and then. It's an actual theme. It is new everyone. But I think your talk really resonated with me. And I talked to a few other people, including you. You were one of them I talked to. And I think the thing is, if you're open about what you're doing, if you're open with, I am just messing around. Other people have done this, have done this much better. I don't care. I'm doing this. This is fun for me. I'm going to share it with you. If you want to engage with it, wonderful. We can maybe be internet friends. And if you don't, please don't leave a hateful comment. But if you have to, I will just ignore it and we'll just go on. Or I'll take a screenshot of it and put it in a talk.
00:45:02
Speaker
It's been fun. like I remember really worrying about that um like a long time ago. and now it's And now I kind of relish it. And now I'm like now i'm putting in welcome they hurt yeah well i'm putting in intentional intentional mistakes into videos now. But like it's always the same mistake. So people like the I guess the people who watch them all, they know. And then um and then it's like bingo to see the comments.
00:45:28
Speaker
um um know kind of like It's like how you manage your manager, you you always write a paper or do something or you get a PR or something, you leave a deliberate thing that they can feel good about. yeah So this is sort of like that this idea of it's kind of done in a bit of love in some ways is really what you're saying. You're kind of making this mistake because you love the fact that they get some pleasure out of hating on something. That's that's wonderful. but where do where Where do you put your stuff? And how do people tend to engage with it? Well, first I was going to say that yeah all the mistakes in my software are all intentional as well. Of course, of course. yeah yeah but um choices Sorry, what was the question? ah Let's see. No, where do you put your stuff? How do you put it out? How do people... That's a bit generic though, isn't it? Like, what is clothes or... Dude, just checking here. I'm getting feedback. Am I wrong?
00:46:25
Speaker
and So it's an important thing, though. like Somebody else asking a question. Ray, he just said it's an important thing, what I ask. Oh, right. OK, I'm sorry. i'll go Actually, i mean like ah I spent a lot of my life building things. like I was joking before, building things nobody wants. But often, like you don't even get to the point of finding out that nobody wants, and because you just build them, and then they're in on your hard drive. Or maybe you upload them to GitHub, and you don't tell anyone. And someone explained to me once that marketing is just like telling people what you did. And like marketing is gross.
00:46:53
Speaker
but Telling people what you did is not that gross. like Kind of cool. and then you can And also you very quickly can find out that nobody wants it. So there's that side of it as well. but you know i find um So my theory is, yes, like you, I ignore everything else that exists in the world. And I just focus on this one thing that I want. And so whether that's and I loved also how you talked about you put out one thing a day. But a thing can be you know ah a fragment of a thought. Or it can be like ah a full video or it can be anything in between. So like i put out you know I put out blog posts, I occasionally put out, I don't know, software, I guess. Usually it's software and then blog posts about the software. and um But you know I write this stuff for myself and it brings me joy.
00:47:42
Speaker
And I put it out there, and if there are other people in the world who also derive joy or amusement from my stupid shit, then that's great. And if there aren't, it's still great, because I was happy while I was doing it. Yeah, that that's that's exactly how I think about it. like If I like it, there's a possibility that no one else will like it. right But then that's OK, because I like it. yeah whereas if you know So actually, like ignoring other people there can be good. But if i'm if I'm too focused on what other people or I think other people want to see, then there is a chance that I don't like it, and also no one likes it. right But I know what I like, essentially. And I think you know that's ah like the same with you if you. You want a melody? I want to generate melodies? Make a melody generator. oh I love that naming scheme. Call it melody generator as well. Have you got other yeah are your other things that are named similar ways? ah Well, I'm working on Beatmaker at the moment. Nice. I love it. I love it. Yeah.
00:48:47
Speaker
ah no but and I loved in your keynote, um you were talking about how you get the 50 nerds. That's the other advantage. Oh, yes. What did you say you awaken 50 nerds? Yeah, There's nothing better. Something I really love is when you get like a GitHub issue where someone's actually like very entitled and rude, and then you manage you you extract the bug from what they've said, and you reply to them like super politely, like, thank you so much for reporting this bug to me. And it's always like, I've i've seen Bork do this a lot of times actually, where it's like, someone's actually like quite entitled and rude, and he's just like, cool. That's usually me. Yeah, about, have you deleted and NBB yet? What the fuck? it's been interesting to like hear different like different open, people involved in open source, how they deal with all of that. And just like the shit, sometimes, you know, you know I think some people would love
00:49:47
Speaker
PRs and issues. And so sometimes on bigger projects, on community projects, you know it can be overwhelming. you know and And there's this question of of what to do with it. And I think, you know. Rich Hickey has an opinion. Right, right. So I'm i i'm thinking of, like in I guess, in the JavaScript world, there's there's like the Vue team. there's like There's this guy, Daniel Rowe, who works on Nuxt, was telling me about how it's got so much work. Because people people have started doing like AI-generated pull requests. right hard right And it's like this this real, um it's it's interesting because it's like nice that you're getting all of this attention, but it's it's serious work. and yeah um so Does he have any idea to review it?
00:50:33
Speaker
does he have Does he review those? Does he have an AI to review those? Yeah, so that's what he was telling me. this It was at middle to the front end after a couple of points. But he was telling me, look, I've got this plan. And now everyone knows. I've got this plan. We turned the AI against the AI. And then we so we saw and it. But you know, it's it's there's no easy answers.
00:50:55
Speaker
Anyway, okay, this is great. Now, I think we're pretty much running out. I mean, normally on a podcast, we don't give a shit about time, we just keep on going. And I have a feeling this could have gone on for a lot, lot longer. yeah But I've just noticed that we're kind of running up against the time. I actually want to make a little bit of use of the live audience as well. That's what I'm saying, yeah. love the audience. I didn't know about that. Yeah, I know. There are three people out there listening intently.
00:51:21
Speaker
I think we should give a round of applause for the three. Yeah, actually, yes. Thanks for staying.
00:51:28
Speaker
Yeah, just before we go, i mean we can't just wrap up here, but I want to sort of throw it open to the audience just um for like any question or any comment. you can if if you If you don't say anything, it doesn't really matter. We'll just wrap it up and we'll leave, and everyone will get on with their lives. But ah since we've got people here, I figured, OK, let's just throw it open. And if anyone wants to just shout out or say anything, then please feel free.
00:51:54
Speaker
What does Beatmaker do? We'll give you three guesses. Does it make beats? Wait, was that Velter who asked the question? Okay. because That's good. That's actually an audience member. True. That's the first ever audience member question on Deffen, by the way. This is the first ever live Deffen. So Chris, wow it's up it's on you, mate. Make it, right? See us after... we'll We'll get you a pint.
00:52:21
Speaker
It makes beats. wow okay i say so so you've got to give us more than that it's It's basically a drum machine online. so ah right okay It's an online drum machine and it creates the samples for you because one of the annoying things when you're writing music it's like you have this big folder full of samples and you're like digging through it and it's always a pain.
00:52:44
Speaker
And so I made a thing where you just click a button and it like generates a new sample. And it doesn't use any AI. Even though the domain for my website is dope loop.ai. You can write that down. Dopeloop.ai. okay But there's no actual AI in there. I registered the domain name before this whole AI hat thing happened. And now I'm like, oh, you're such a hipster, dude. Do I have to? Yeah. But your company can be worth a fucking fortune now. True. yeah's right I heard why Combinator is looking for new startups. You're not allowed to ask any questions. then i would have to interact okay right We've got one more question coming in. but We can have many questions.
00:53:23
Speaker
just be again
00:53:26
Speaker
artificial Artificial AI. The phrase from the audience was coined artificial AI. When did you coin this?
00:53:36
Speaker
It was coined yesterday. Amazing. That's a round of applause right there. Thank you. Thank you. Artificial AI. And so what does it mean? I've got no idea. um We're moving on. right anybody ah Any other shout outs from the audience? we've We've got a few minutes left. There's also the Tennegan AI, where the AI is a person.
00:54:00
Speaker
What? What? Potemkin AI, where AI is a person. Is there a conspiracy theory, or did I just make this up, where um there is no every time you send something to, like, chatGDP or whatever, there's actually someone. Is that what Potemkin AI is? There's someone on the other side, and they're just like really quickly typing up the response for you. Yes, but It's real. Yes, but it's real. I really want to make this. ChatGDP is too ChatGDP is too fast.
00:54:31
Speaker
um yeah Also, I really appreciate how clearly you shouted this out. like I don't think I can shout at that distance, but also with such great intonation. Anyway, so thank you very much. I know wearing a mask as well. I mean, what is this supposed to prove? that I'm very impressed. It's a safe conference. that's ah That's a person with theatre background. yeah Do you have theatre background?
00:54:55
Speaker
No, apparently. All right. Oh, yes, you do. Change careers to the theater. so um
00:55:10
Speaker
oh Do you think, as the audience, it's about time that Rich Hickey got his lazy bomb out of retirement and came back and spoke at a conference? I don't think he said lazy bomb. but okay i think He didn't say lazy bomb. Well, neither did I. felter fix that I wonder if he's working on something in secret.
00:55:31
Speaker
yeah yeah Spek 2 coming any day. should Oh my god. Spek 2, the specter. The specter. It's uh. Go your head in your head. Serious question. Yeah, yeah.
00:55:46
Speaker
ah the language the founders keep putting out thank you you that
00:55:53
Speaker
that seen at
00:55:59
Speaker
Oh, so interesting. if I'll paraphrase. um When language creators step away from the language they created, that there is a perception sometimes that that language is no longer relevant. Is is there a danger of that here? Did I paraphrase correctly? but Maybe members I'll have a stab at that to begin with. Well, not a stab. Please. You're a vegan, mate, come on. Swipe, have a swipe. I kill my own ideas. Padded gently on the head. yeah but um so as i say it was that i think I think the issue is not really rich per se. i think what The issue is a succession issue. like Whenever you have a dictatorship, it's always a pleasure.
00:56:44
Speaker
No, I'm not trying to say that Rich is sort of a bad dictator, but he is a BDFL, this sort of, you know, beneficent dictator for life. There's a dictator is in there, you know. So if you have a dictatorship, there's a problem of succession. And and I think that's really the hint that you're talking about, is like, how, if Rich is not doing it, if he's if he's retired, he's but he's retired, he says he's retired from New Bank,
00:57:07
Speaker
Not retired from Clojure. So that's a very important distinction. So I think we should we should like clarify that. um Now, is he doing things? Yes, he is. Clojure 1.12 just came out. He's contributed to it. So things are happening. And 1.12 was a big release. So I mean, a lot of it was like catch up with Java. But at the same time, I think it was substantial. Also, there was a ah key contribution from somebody sitting on this stage in 1.12. Let's not go there.
00:57:36
Speaker
I don't want talk about that. This is a very the minor, my most minor, minor patch. So anyway, but um but the main point is that I think, you know, he's retiring. But if it breaks, we can blame you, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. 112 is shit. yeah Oh my God.
00:57:51
Speaker
ah But yeah, so the so the thing is that I think he has he has retired from New Bank, and maybe he's from Detomic, I don't know, but certainly not from Closure, and Closure is still his baby. So I think my guess is that he will speak at the conge, but I don't know, obviously can't talk for him, but but I think he's still contributing, he's still doing things on the on a Jira and stuff like that. so I don't know how I've got no idea about how his presence or lack of presence or but in general statistically there's not enough evidence statistically I think about language behavior. I could say that like as an outsider you know I think when I'm thinking about
00:58:29
Speaker
Am I going to use closure or not? It's not about one man. you know yeah you know like It's not about one man. You know, like I was saying earlier, the things that are making me think, oh, I want to get involved in this. I want to get involved in this community. You know, it's the community. it's it's um you know um I'm sure you know there are there are many like key figures behind languages. you know Some of them are ah great, some of them are not so great, some of them are more involved, some of them are really uninvolved. you know and you know there's um you you know I have respect for anyone for like designing and creating a ah language. right but But at the end of the day, a community is about the community, not about... sort of of following one individual, whether that's the language creator or and anyone else. you know And I think um ah it can it can it can like be shooting shooting ourselves in the foot if we do that, I think, a little bit. If we're if we're putting all our eggs in one one basket, I think you know this conference is like a testament to the fact that
00:59:40
Speaker
it's a collective It's a collective operation, isn't it? like yeah Building up a language. It's true. And we have i mean we have like Mike Fikes and David Nolan on the Closure Script compiler, Borkdude, who has written the Small Closure Interpreter, which powers everything else. NBB. Anyway, moving on.
01:00:05
Speaker
um So we have these key, feet and I'm not gonna put words in Bork Dude's mouth, but I guess that one of the reasons why, no, I know this for a fact, one of the reasons why Bork Dude can be so prolific and wonderful is because the the community supports Bork Dude, right? We have closures together, we have all of these ways to yeah support people not only emotionally, um but also financially, and I think like,
01:00:31
Speaker
That's not going to go away. Like you said, the the great man of history theory does not bear out because, okay, you know, maybe Rich Hickey had an idea that got us here, but here we are, and we're not going anywhere. Yeah, like um languages language is shared, right? I'm voting Alex McLean again. I'm obsessed with him. Anyway, so... um You just admitted that on a very old podcast.
01:00:59
Speaker
i'm I'm deep into that Josh, by the way, we've got to talk about that. like Like a language is only helpful because multiple people speak it, right? And so where um you know someone has to speak it first.
01:01:14
Speaker
had Someone has to do that, but then someone has to speak it second and then third and then fourth, and there's a culture around that language. But like I said, I'm an outsider. That's just my perspective. yeah Do you have any thoughts, Chris, before we sort of wrap up? Yeah, I mean, two things. There's this repository or some closure likes, which has like a list of like um closure like implementations on all different platforms. It's got heaps of them. And and there's, you know, I think the idea that closure is ah in under the decline or whatever is doesn't, is it doesn't you know, the the evidence doesn't back that up that well, because
01:01:54
Speaker
Although the raw numbers may be coming down, there's like so much activity and things like jank and the bork dude stuff and yeah thiss all happening in the space. The bork dude stuff, the bork-averse. The bork-averse, yeah. um The canonical name. There's a lot going on. and ah What was the other thing I was going to say?
01:02:13
Speaker
that Cenk is great. Yeah, it's all good. No, and yeah. I heard a woo. That was Jay. Oh, that was Jay. Okay. Wooing his own thing. The other thing I was going to say was there was actually a talk about this yesterday. Oh, really? So we're like rehashing ground that's already been covered. And someone told me that there was a... We'd never do that normally. There was a great metaphor from it, which really stuck with me, which was you've got a city like Leuven, and then you've got a city like Brussels, and you've got a city like Paris and London. And Leuven is not trying to be Brussels. It's like a different thing. And Leuven is closure. It doesn't have to be massive. It doesn't have to be growing. It can be even declining. I don't care if it's declining, because I'm not going to stop using it. You know what I mean? Whoa, on that bombshell. Yeah, on that bombshell. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
01:03:12
Speaker
Thank you very much, Lou. Thank you very much, Chris. And welcome, Josh. And thank you very much for attending this first ever and probably only ever live deaf. First and last, yes. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think we're all done. Thanks. Thank thank you. Thank you.
01:03:28
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Deaf and and the awesome vegetarian music or the track is Melon Hamburger by Pizzeri and the show's audio is mixed by Wouter Dullert. I'm pretty sure I butchered his name. um Maybe you should insert your own name here, Dullert.
01:03:45
Speaker
Wow If you'd like to support us, please do check out our patreon page and you can show your appreciation to all the hard work or the lack of hard work that we're doing and You can also catch up with either ray with me for some unexplainable reason and If you want to interact with us then do check us out on Slack, Closureion Slack or Closureverse or on Zulep or just at us at
01:04:50
Speaker
Well, I know this gentleman what it feels like, I don't know, a decade. You would think that I probably know how to pronounce his name, then you'd be completely misunder estimating my enormous stupidity.
01:05:07
Speaker
Anyway, here it goes. He has been working on our podcast for, I don't know, for over a decade, helping with all sorts of stuff. It makes us sound good, basically. So thanks a lot for for all the hard work.
01:05:25
Speaker
loud to you so um so large so la ah lot but to delete yeah let you do it so about
01:06:00
Speaker
No, that should do it.