Pre-conj Prep: Paul deGrandis

October 12, 2014

Talk: Unlocking Data-Driven Systems

Paul deGrandis' talk at the conj is about the design tradeoffs when building your system in a Data-Driven way.

Background

The recommended priority for choosing an implementation strategy is Data > Function > Macro. Macros are made for humans, not machines, so they are the least composable. Functions are composable, but opaque. Their only meaning is their side-effects and their return value. Data, however, can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the context. If one can design it right, a data-driven system can be both easy for a person to read and write and reusable for many problems.

This talk is part of an ongoing discussion about data-driven systems in Clojure. Data-driven design has been around far longer than Clojure has. Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming is the book on the subject, showing its use in Common Lisp. Christophe Grand gave a talk at the Clojure/conj in 2010 that explained in depth why macros should not be the first choice when building DSLs.

Many systems use data as their primary interface. Datalog queries in Datomic are just Clojure data. Prismatic Schemas are data. Leiningen project files are data (with a small macro for human convenience). Data-driven system is related to code-as-data, that all Lisps share. If code is data, why can't data be code? Clojure makes data-driven solutions easy with its variety of literal data structures.

Why it matters

The conversation about how best to design data-driven systems is not over. Active Clojure developers are still experimenting and testing the approach. This talk will show data-driven systems taken to an extreme, where an entire ClojureScript application is represented as data. Many people already agree with the approach and are eagerly awaiting the deeper analysis this talk promises.

About Paul deGrandis

Github - Twitter

This post is one of a series called Pre-conj Prep, which originally was published by email. It's all about getting ready for the upcoming Clojure/conj, organized by Cognitect. Conferences are ongoing conversations and explorations. Speakers discuss trends, best practices, and the future by drawing on the rich context built up in past conferences and other media.

That rich context is what Pre-conj Prep is about. I want to enhance everyone's experience at the conj by surfacing that context. With just a little homework, we can be better prepared to understand and enjoy the talks and the hallway conversations, as well as the beautiful venue and city of Washington, DC.

Clojure/conj is a conference organized and hosted by Cognitect. This information is in no way official. It is not sponsored by nor affiliated with Clojure/conj or Cognitect. It is simply me curating and organizing public information about the conference.