About this blog

The philosophy and vision of this blog is directly inspired by Rich Hickey, the creator of the programming language Clojure. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with him after having seen the name of this blog.

The verb to complect or the adjective complected is introduced to us by Rich in his famous talk Simple made Easy. To complect is to make complex, to couple concerns, to confuse separate concepts. Rich teaches us that we must seek to do the opposite. He teaches us that investing time and thought in understanding things on a deeper level is essential for simplicity, which in turn is necessary for work of the highest quality. For this, and his repeated demonstrations of mastery thereof, he is revered in the Clojure community.

But to truly understand these things, even when explained clearly and repeatedly, is no easy task. Naturally, trying to understand the solution before the problem is futile. However, explaining a problem is much harder than explaining the solution, as the problem—due to the inherent complexity of computer programs—requires real-life experience to be appreciated.

This asymmetry is a major obstacle. Rich does a great job of explaining the problems he sees; no doubt a result of understanding them deeply. Many experienced programmers may grasp most of his explanations right away, but most will not.

Hence, the purpose of this blog is to explore and explain the teachings and insights of Rich Hickey in the way I see them. The way I see things is likely to change over time; so too are the people with whom my explanations are likely to resonate.