Clojurians Log v2

Hello!

Would someone like to comment on my talk abstract:

Beyond Data Transforms - Building composable abstractions Functional programming is all about data transformations . . . or is it? Is there something beyond changing data from one format to another? In a word, yes. This talk will trace the programmer's typical journey to learn functional programming but go one step beyond into robust and composable abstractions. We will end by building a simple drawing abstraction on top of Quil using Conal Elliott's process called Denotational Design.

I'd love to hear from @alexmiller

so is the talk about denotational design?

yes, mostly

Glad you asked that since I wasn’t sure from the abstract either. "We will end by…" makes it sound like just a little piece at the end, not the core of the talk.

agreed

great, thanks!

the question that should be answered is: what do I (as an attendee) get out of seeing this talk

“tracing a journey” is not necessarily interesting

“learning how to X” is

invokes Kathy Sierra

I’d want to know the talk is (mostly) about Denotational Design and enough explanation of it to understand why I’d care (and thus why I’d want to learn it in the first place)

right

from a reviewer perspective, I would add that I would want to see one more level of detail in the non-public “main ideas” section of the proposal form.

the questions I as a reviewer am trying to understand are: 1) what is he/she actually going to talk about (beyond the hook) 2) are those good things :) 3) does he/she have the background/experience to deliver

that I believe i have done

a shorter, catchier abstract is much harder 🙂

yes :)

I would make it more active and direct to the attendee

“Do you want to create robust and composable abstractions? Conal Elliott’s denotational design process helps you to … “ etc - identify the attendee’s problem, lay the hook for what you will teach them and where they will be at the end

use a few hard nouns so they have some clue what you’re talking about :)

Building composable abstractions Do you want to create robust and composable abstractions? Conal Elliott's Denotational Design is a step-by-step and iterative process to refine abstractions to define the essence of a problem. These abstractions lead to more robust code at the core of your application and can be a competitive advantage for your business. We will apply this process to the Quil graphics library to develop a vector graphics system.

how's that^^^

@alexmiller ^^^ (when you get a chance)

"is an iterative process" or "is a step-by-step process"

recursive

"step-by-step and iterative" sounds tautologous — I’m questioning the wording, not the intent.

oh, I see

I think from a big picture pov that’s much better

any identifiable problems?

I could quibble over word choices etc but I’m not sure I would do better or worse than you

:)

so no

ok, submitted!

Thanks @alexmiller and @seancorfield!!!