This is a note of the Rich Hickey’s Maybe Not Talk.

Motivation

Null is a billion dollar mistake. However, it is useful in the following places:

  • optional parameters
  • conditional provision in returns
  • managing partial information in aggreated data

However, in static typed langauge, change a parameter to be optional (weak requirement) or return a non-optional result (strong promise) break existing callers. Haskell Maybe is not a union type. Either is not associative/commutattive/composable/symmetric. Kotlin and and Scala Dotty have union type. Clojure has spec/nilable and spec/or.

Partial Information

Aggreate is a flock/herd of information that travels together. Maps are mathematical functions, also true in Clojure.

Records/Fiedls/Product Types are place-oriented programming (PLOP): field names are not first-class indices (not functions). The product type complects meaning and place.

speck/keys are independent, reusable attributes. They aggregate to form schema – infomration that travles together. The objectives of schema are wrong:

  • maximize schema reuse, don’t want context-driven proliferation, yields more code, less reuse.
  • support symmetric request/response: call partially filled in, get more filled in result.
  • information-building pipelines: many partial information increments.

It is wrong when you specify req or opt because it has no usage context. There is nothing about optionality, when something is missing from a ste, leave it out. Schemas are nested deeply, so are optionality.

Solution

The solution is to split apart schema, the shape, from selection, what’s required/provided in a context.

In schema, only describe shapes only, no requirement. In usage context, for example in function call, define the requirement.

Things to fix spec:

  • schema/select replaces keys
  • better programmatic manipulation of specs
  • refine fn specs