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"Transducers" by Rich Hickey

Strange Loop Conference · talk · Watch on YouTube

Functional programmingSoftware architecture & design

What it is

Rich Hickey introduces transducers in Clojure, a way to make map, filter and similar algorithms composable independent of the data source. This avoids duplicated implementations and intermediate collections across sequences, channels and streams.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN treats it as the original and definitive explanation of transducers, recommended whenever the concept comes up.

  • 6 people recommended it
  • 6 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2014, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “If you want a really good intro, watch Rich Hickey's talk about transducers”

    Really good intro to transducers

    jwr, 2025-11 · Strong recommendation · in “Transducer: Composition, abstraction, performance (2018)”

  2. “I highly recommend watching Rich Hickey's talk for more background”

    Background on collection-agnostic transducers

    rymohr, 2014-10 · Recommendation · in “Transducers for JavaScript”

  3. “Here's another video by Rick Hickey about transducers”

    Another Hickey video on transducers

    ultimape, 2014-11 · Recommendation · in “Rich Hickey – Inside Transducers [video]”

  4. “Transducers. See Richard Hickey's talk about transducers here”

    Explains transducers, implementable with generators

    talkingtab, 2022-11 · Recommendation · in “Why would anyone need JavaScript generator functions?”

  5. “some of you may be interested in the original transducers presentation.”

    The original transducers presentation

    devin, 2023-09 · Recommendation · in “My mental model of Clojure transducers”

  6. “You should watch the video, I think Rich explains the origins of his language very well”

    Rich explains the origins of the transducer terminology

    ThatGeoGuy, 2024-08 · Recommendation · in “Reflecting on transducers in Scheme (2023)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: clojure, functional programming, rich hickey, composition, reducers

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