One reason programming is hard is because it is so difficult to observe what is happening when a program runs. Programming languages and libraries rely on abstractions which either hide important details or produce too much information to consume. Developers come to depend on ever-more-sophisticated tools to examine programs and diagnose failures. However, with a little care and design, it is possible to build systems which lend themselves to easier comprehension. This talk will introduce some general guidelines for designing systems which make their data and abstractions more transparent to developers, using code examples in Clojure.

Business applications are demanding ever-greater flexibility, yet responding to evolving requirements is still a challenge for software developers. Programming languages and frameworks are often brittle and inflexible, prone to unpredictable second-order effects which make change not merely difficult but often risky. Can we do better? This talk will explore techniques for designing software systems to be both robust and adaptable.

For examples of patterns which enable flexibility, this talk will focus on Clojure, a dynamically-typed functional language; Datomic, a transactional, distributed database; and clojure.spec, a dynamic testing and validation library.

Business applications are demanding ever-greater flexibility, yet responding to evolving requirements is still a challenge for software developers. Programming languages and frameworks are often brittle and inflexible, prone to unpredictable second-order effects which make change not merely difficult but often risky. Can we do better? This talk will explore techniques for designing software systems to be both robust and adaptable.

For examples of patterns which enable flexibility, this talk will focus on Clojure, a dynamically-typed functional language; Datomic, a transactional, distributed database; and clojure.spec, a dynamic testing and validation library.

Business applications are demanding ever-greater flexibility, yet responding to evolving requirements is still a challenge for software developers. Programming languages and frameworks are often brittle and inflexible, prone to unpredictable second-order effects which make change not merely difficult but often risky. Can we do better? This talk will explore techniques for designing software systems to be both robust and adaptable.

For examples of patterns which enable flexibility, this talk will focus on Clojure, a dynamically-typed functional language; Datomic, a transactional, distributed database; and clojure.spec, a dynamic testing and validation library.