While I have much sympathy for Rich (way more than for Clojure), I find his talks to be extremely simple. He can talk hours about very basic and obvious things. Overall, at the end, I'm not getting much new from it.
> Overall, at the end, I'm not getting much new from it.
The trick here is to pretend for a bit that you're not yet as amazingly well educated and developed as you no doubt are and then to realize that there are a large number of people like that. As one of those I'm really happy he takes the time out to do these. To you it would obviously be a waste of time so no need to watch them, but I definitely get some value from them. I like that 'much' in there.
Oh shit, I have learned a lot from Rich's talks... so your talks must be much more useful. Where can I find them? Please tell me you have some talks? You have such great ideas, or communicate such "extremely simple" ideas so well that others (or even you yourself) have recorded them for me to watch. No talks? So you keep this knowledge to yourself and shit all over a guy who shares his knowledge with a community?
Your comment is terrible. You shit on Rich, you shit on Clojure, and say nothing other than you're so superior that you get nothing from anything Rich says. Fuck you (yes, that's not subtle, but your comment is passive-aggressive bullshit or perhaps you lack the ability to clearly state WHY you do not think a talk is useful).
I really wish this is the last time I see a comment like this on HN. This is nothing but an angry, sarcastic rant by somebody who, I can only presume, had a really bad day. There is absolutely nothing civil in this comment.
While I completely disagree with the grandparent comment, I understand that that's his/her opinion, nothing more. What Hickey talks about may seem obvious, but only in hindsight, at least to me. It seems that most of the commenters in this thread feel the same way. However, I can accept that there are people, like Zerr, who would find Hickey's talks to be rather boring stuff, since they are already well aware of everything he talks about. So there's really no need to reply to these people with hateful comments like this one.
I had a pretty good day and I'm not an angry person. I was very uncivil in response to what I understood to be a dismissive comment wrapped in civility. Comments tearing down someone else's real work without offering alternatives or constructive criticism are easy to make and damaging, but my tone and choice of language didn't communicate my message. I'm sorry that it bothered you. I generally do not post w/ this tone and will be more careful in choosing the right tone to communicate my meaning in the future. Thanks for your feedback.
I'm going to reply to myself to clarify my harsh words. It is very easy to say something sucks. Windows sucks. Linux sucks. Lisp sucks. Apple Sucks. Google Sucks. It doesn't mean anything to say it. It is not useful to say something sucks, you cannot fix "sucks". Saying what is wrong with something is useful. Saying Rich's talks are "simple" is something, except most people don't seem to agree, so it would be much more useful to cite the things you know beyond the "simple" things Rich has talked about... "Rich is ok, he says simple things, but read X, or watch Y" is useful. I may disagree with you but at least I have something to investigate. In a better mood this probably would have been my first post, but HN seems to be about shitting on stuff these days so I guess I just went with that.
Hey, stop it. Grandparent presented his opinion about the talks. It's perfectly possible that for him they are not new or interesting. He's not shitting on anything, he's just presenting his feelings about some things. While it's somewhat off-topic, it doesn't deserve a response like yours.
Personally I like Rich talks very much, they were eye opening for me, although I agree that they focus on simple things. That's why they are so interesting. On the other hand I'm not a fan of Clojure - I'm trying to be, but my love for certain other Lisps gets in the way.
Are you going to tell me to fuck off because I said, in effect, that in my opinion there are better Lisps than Clojure?
After re-reading my initial comment a few times I agree that my language wasn't helpful in communicating my real frustration with the GP's comment. My intent was to call out a dismissive, superior and mostly unhelpful comment, but my intent was lost in my presentation. Your approach to me would have been a more effective choice. Thanks for replying.
I didn't have much of a problem with the GP's mildly dismissive comment about Hickey's talks, nor was I hugely concerned that you opened a can of worms about it. What I would, however, like to remark on how your comment forced me to think of you as a complete dumbass who has no business mingling with people who, like most of us, get paid for our ability to think logically.
In your "clever" attempt at irony, you ask your parent about his own, presumably better talks. Please take a moment to reflect on how utterly stupid this line of attack is!
Give up? OK, here's the explanation, by analogy: I'm completely incapable of building an automobile. Yet, having driven both, I'm qualified to comment that a Geo Prizm is an underpowered, shoddily constructed car - at least when compared to my Lexus. A talk is a product created for the benefit of an audience, and as the consumers of such a service, the audience - including the GP - is probably best qualified to judge it. To imply that only a producer of talks may have an opinion on a talk is shockingly stupid.
Before you attempt another such put-down, please consider how it will reflect on you, and whether it might not be more sensible to keep your mouth shut!
@zerr: Sorry for my language and insults in response to your comment. I don't agree w/ your comment, and I chose a contradictory tone to express my disagreement, but that tone and my choice of words was not helpful to any discussion. Regardless of my intent I apologize for how I responded to you. I owe you a beer.
Although more on the motivational than in the technical side, I learned a lot from his talks. To me, the feeling after one of his talks is more akin to "it's is so obvious to me now, I should have been thinking like this all along".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
I think I'm prone to cascading realization more than most. I often watch (or read) things multiple times, each time seeing it in a new way. For me, it's not so much the process of getting a principle intellectually, but a long process of internalization, often of simple ideas, and putting them into practice in my everyday work. The colloquial term for this is 'stupid', I think, but I prefer to think of it in a more positive light. =) It actually makes me think of my favorite T.S. Eliot quote:
'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.'
I often return to basics and understand them in a new way after some time away, and Rich's talks evoke that phenomenon for me more than most.
He also has an excellent ability to make the complex and abstract seem simple and obvious. His talks are not bullet points of "how to program good" that you're supposed to check off as you code - they're deeper-but-general ideas that are supposed to simmer and percolate.
All the smartest people I know (far smarter than me) are constantly impressed by his talks - and discussing with them often makes me realise I've missed some bigger-picture concepts.
So my conclusion (in lieu of a chat over a beer with the person to dig deeper) is to assume that superficial dismissal of his talks mostly demonstrate a superficial understanding of the content.
I think his talks [that I've watched] are more about the taste. So the fact that I mostly agree with him, i.e. have a similar taste, doesn't necessary correlate with a superficial understanding.
The trick here is to pretend for a bit that you're not yet as amazingly well educated and developed as you no doubt are and then to realize that there are a large number of people like that. As one of those I'm really happy he takes the time out to do these. To you it would obviously be a waste of time so no need to watch them, but I definitely get some value from them. I like that 'much' in there.