THE VIDEO SHELF · type-driven data modeling
"Making Impossible States Impossible" by Richard Feldman
Richard Feldman's elm-conf talk on designing models so that bugs from impossible application states cannot occur, using Elm's compiler and types. It demonstrates techniques for making invalid states unrepresentable.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN repeatedly recommends it as a talk that changed how people model data, with ideas that apply well beyond Elm to any typed language.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- elm-conf
- Topic
- type-driven data modeling
- Format
- talk
- Level
- intermediate
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 9
- HN mentions in dataset
- 19
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2017–2026
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.
"Making Impossible States Impossible" by Richard Feldman [VIDEO] Really changed how I think about programming.
joshuahornby on Hacker News · 2018-01
In Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?The type system is a lot more expressive than the ones found in Java/C#/C++, thanks to Algebraic Data Types. Yaron Minsky (Jane Street, largest OCaml user) coined the term "make invalid states unrepresentable" to explain how ADTs help in enlisting the help of the compiler …
jasim on Hacker News · 2018-09
In Try OCamlMaking impossible states impossible" by Richard Feldman: [VIDEO] has really changed the way I approach dealing with data in my code and was very insightful.
kilian on Hacker News · 2018-10
In Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.