Rich Hickey Fanclub Save

A collection about Rich Hickey's works on the internet.

Work

• Clojure
• Datomic
• Harmonikit

He also made other not as well known lisps prior to Clojure.

On the internet

• GitHub
• Gists
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Clojure mailing list
• Hacker News
• Reddit
• Lambda the Ultimate
• Disqus *
• Amazon
• SourceForge

* Unfortunately, some comments aren't being shown on his user page (such as this one).

Talks

• Design in Practice (Apr 2023)
• A History of Clojure (Jun 2021)
• Maybe Not (Nov 2018)
• Datomic Ions (Sep 2018)
• Effective Programs - 10 Years of Clojure (Oct 2017)
• Spec-ulation Keynote (Dec 2016)
• On clojure.spec (Nov 2016)
• Clojure Made Simple (Jun 2015)
• Inside Transducers (Nov 2014)
• Transducers (Sept 2014)
• Implementation details of core.async Channels (Jun 2014)
• Core.async - Communicating Sequential Processes using Channels, in Clojure (Nov 2013)
• Harmonikit (Nov 2013)
• Design, Composition, and Performance (Nov 2013)
• Clojure core.async (Sep 2013)
• The Functional Database (Jun 2013)
• Design, Composition and Performance (Apr 2013)
• Clojure Data Structures Part 1 (Dec 2012)
• Clojure Data Structures Part 2 (Dec 2012)
• The Language of the System (Nov 2012)
• Deconstructing the Database (Nov 2012)
• Datomic with Rich Hickey (Jul 2012)
• The Value of Values (Jul 2012)
• Deconstructing the Database (Jul 2012)
• Reducers - A Library and Model for Collection Processing (Jun 2012)
• The Database as a Value (Jun 2012)
• Keynote: The Value of Values (May 2012)
• Writing Datomic in Clojure (May 2012)
• Reducers (May 2012)
• Keynote: The Datomic Architecture and Data Model (May 2012)
• Keynote: Simplicity Matters (Apr 2012)
• Simple Made Easy (Mar 2012)
• The Design of Datomic (Mar 2012)
• Keynote - Areas of Interest for Clojure's Core (Nov 2011)
• Simple Made Easy (Sep 2011)
• ClojureScript Release (Jul 2011)
• Hammock Driven Development (Oct 2010)
• Are We There Yet? (Sep 2009)
• Persistent Data Structures and Managed References (Mar 2009)
• Clojure (Sep 2008)
• Clojure for Lisp Programmers Part 1 (Sep 2008)
• Clojure for Lisp Programmers Part 2 (Sep 2008)
• Clojure for Java Programmers Part 1 (Jun 2008)
• Clojure for Java Programmers Part 2 (Jun 2008)
• Clojure Concurrency, version with slides (Mar 2008)
• Clojure Concurrency (Mar 2008)
• Clojure (the first talk) - Rich Hickey at LispNYC (2007)

There's also slides from a talk named "Clojure: What just happened?". Transcripts of some of his talks can be found on matthiasn/talk-transcripts.

Interviews

• Problem Solving and Clojure 1.9 with Rich Hickey (May 2018)
• clojure.spec with Rich Hickey (Jun 2016)
• Rich Hickey and core.async (Jul 2013)
• Rich Hickey on Datomic, CAP and ACID (Jan 2013)
• Interview with Rich Hickey at Tech Mesh 2012 (Dec 2012)
• Rich Hickey on codeq (Oct 2012)
• Rich Hickey on Datomic, Data Storage, Functional Programming and Immutability (Sep 2012)
• Expert to Expert: Erik Meijer and Rich Hickey - Clojure and Datomic (Aug 2012)
• JAXConf 2012 - Rich Hickey, Clojure/Datomic creator (Jul 2012)
• Rich Hickey (Jul 2012)
• Rich Hickey on Clojure 1.4's Extensible Reader, ClojureScript (Apr 2012)
• Rich Hickey on Datomic: Datalog, Databases, Persistent Data Structures (Apr 2012)
• Clojure inventor Hickey now aims for Android (Mar 2012)
• (first (rich-hickey)) (Jun 2011)
• Rich Hickey Q&A (2011)
• Rich Hickey on Protocols and Clojure 1.3 (Dec 2010)
• Computer World: The A-Z of Programming Languages: Clojure (Aug 2010)
• ELC 2010: Rich Hickey and Joe Pamer - Perspectives on Clojure and F# (Aug 2010)
• Economy Size Geek - Interview with Rich Hickey, Creator of Clojure (Apr 2010)
• Episode 158: Rich Hickey on Clojure (Mar 2010)
• Rich Hickey: Geek of the Week (Mar 2010)
• Expert to Expert: Rich Hickey and Brian Beckman - Inside Clojure (Oct 2009)
• Rich Hickey on Clojure's Features and Implementation (May 2009)

Writings

You can find a few on Clojure blog, Cognitect blog, and InfoQ. He also wrote about how Open Source is Not About You (comments).

There's an old paper (1994) on C++: Callbacks in C++ using template functors. He made some comments on it in an interview years later:

Fogus: In an old paper of yours, “Callbacks in C++ Using Template Functors”, you write favorably about C++, OOP, and static typing. Why did you change your mind?

Hickey: I’m not sure I did. I said C++ was flexible—it is—and that, when implementing a callback system for C++, one should remain aligned with its object orientation and static typing. More interesting to me, in rereading it, is that I am still now making the same arguments I made then, fifteen years ago, against mixins and derivation as extension mechanisms.

That said, I certainly was a fan of C++ in the day, and five more years of it cured me of that. The complexity is stunning. It failed as the library language it purported to be, due to lack of GC, in my opinion, and static typing failed to keep large OO systems from becoming wretched balls of mud. Large mutable object graphs are the sore point, and const is inadequate to address it. Once C++’s performance advantage eroded or became less important, you had to wonder—why bother? I can’t imagine working in a language without GC today, except in very special circumstances.

Along the way, I discovered Common Lisp, which was much more flexible, dynamic, simpler, and fast enough, and decided that was how I wanted to program. Finally, with Clojure, that is becoming possible, and practical, for me.

Rich's A History of Clojure (2020) was accepted and included in HOPL-IV. It details history, rationale, process, and people behind Clojure development.

Other people

Here are some people comments on Hickey's work.

• How rich is Rich Hickey? (Jul 2014)
• Rich Hickey’s Greatest Hits (Sep 2013)
• In Retrospect: QCon NYC 2013 (and a conversation with Rich Hickey on languages) (Jul 2013)
• The Unofficial Guide to Rich Hickey's Brain (Dec 2012)
• Rich Hickey (Oct 2011)
• Simple Hickey (Oct 2011)
• Rich Hickey’s hammock-driven development (Jul 2011)
• Rich Hickey on Clojure (SE Radio) (Jun 2010)
• People Who Make Me Feel Stupid: Rich Hickey (Mar 2010)
• Rich Hickey on Clojure at LJC (Mar 2009)
• Rich Hickey does it again: Foil – a Foreign Object Interface for Lisp (Feb 2005)

There's even a fake twitter account, some questions on Quora, a drawing on DevianArt, and a song on SoundCloud.