"We Really Don't Know How to Compute!" - Gerald Sussman (2011)

Why HN readers recommended it

HN commenters recommend it as a mind-expanding talk on rethinking programming, and cite it in threads on propagators, constraints and brittleness.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Strange Loop Conference

Topic

rethinking computation

Format

talk

Level

advanced

HN recommenders in dataset

5

HN mentions in dataset

20

Recommendation years in dataset

2022–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Not writing, but I have found all of Brett Victor's speeches to be incredibly inspiring on how I think about what I want to work on and where we're going. Inventing on Principle by Brett Victor: [LINK] Growing a Language by Guy Steele: [LINK] We …

• you might be interested in [VIDEO] "We Really Don't Know How to Compute!"- Gerald Sussman (2011) [1:04:18]

• For some reason programming is not getting any easier, I can even make an argument its getting worse despite all the improved tooling and andragogy investments we have done. Programming is in some sort of local minimum and we keep going in circles. Few years …