30 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
30 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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date: 2025-03-03T09:19:07-07:00
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description: "I learned the importance of taking time away from the computer in software development"
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lastmod: 2025-03-03T09:19:07-07:00
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showTableOfContents: true
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type: "tils"
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title: "TIL: Hammock Driven Development"
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image: "images/hammock.jpg"
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alt: "hammock with a cat"
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tags: ["clojure", "practices", "rich hickey"]
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---
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# Context
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I started learning Clojure recently with the [Clojure for the Brave](https://www.braveclojure.com/) book, and found online a mention of [Rich Hickey's Greatest Hits](https://changelog.com/posts/rich-hickeys-greatest-hits).
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Curious, I listened to his [Hammock Driven Development](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc) talk and had my mind changed about planning in software.
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In essence, hammock driven development emphasizes thinking through the problem, uninterrupted and consistently, thus creating agenda notes for our background mind to mull over the problem.
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Done correctly, you experience what Rich Hickey describes as a "delicious cake"[^1] of a solution.
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[^1]: Quote from [his talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc)
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# Reflection
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I think in the 90's / early 2000's the sun started to set on the big boom of software planning, epitomized in the [waterfall methodology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model).
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But in my opinion, we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water here. I may be too Primegen-pilled, but I've shared his opinion that the best way to learn is to charge forward,
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spewing out code, breaking things, only dipping my toes into docs long enough to cobble together what I need. Then, once I understand the problem space, I can really start to design my
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software for the space.
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