talk · general · evergreen
"The Mess We're In" by Joe Armstrong
Strange Loop Conference · Sep 19, 2014 · 45m 50s
What this video covers
Joe Armstrong, co-inventor of Erlang, gives a funny and opinionated Strange Loop talk on the tangled state of software: build tools, package managers, entropy and the physical limits of computation. He argues for ideas like naming things by content hash and throwing away your first version.
Why it surfaced in Hacker News
HN returns to it constantly as a witty, still-accurate diagnosis of why software is bloated and messy, and as a go-to recommendation in any thread on modules, package managers or software quality.
- 10
- distinct recommenders
- 8
- recommendation months
- 3
- strong recommendations
Recommendation context
Short excerpts from positive mentions. Open the source to read the full Hacker News discussion.
“Highly recommend his thesis (2003) and a few of his great interviews/presentations”
“one of those talks which were incredibly funny and informative at the same time”
“Fantastic watch, thanks for recommending.”