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Merge pull request #107 from teodorlu/growing-explanations-together
Add new text: Growing explanations together
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‎site/db.edn‎

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:name "Ben Sless"
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:image "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/21342111?v=4"
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:url "https://bsless.github.io/"
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:links [{:icon "github" :href "https://github.com/bsless"}]}]
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:links [{:icon "github" :href "https://github.com/bsless"}]}
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{:id :com.github/teodorlu
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:name "Teodor Heggelund"
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:url "https://teod.eu/"
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:image "https://play.teod.eu/img/teodor-heggelund-skitur.jpg"
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:links [{:icon "github" :href "https://github.com/teodorlu"}]}
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,]
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:affiliation
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[{:id :clojure.core

‎src/civitas/why/growing_explanations_together.clj‎

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^{:clay {:title "Growing explanations together" :quarto {:author :com.github/teodorlu :draft true :type :post :date "2025-10-26"}}}
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(ns civitas.why.growing-explanations-together
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(:require [babashka.fs :as fs]
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[scicloj.kindly.v4.kind :as kind]))
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;; # Growing explanations together
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;;
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;; _reflections from a personal learning journey_
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;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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;; ## You should make a little home for yourself on the web!
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;; “Civitas is stupid, everyone should just create their own static site!”
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;; I read something like this one time.
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;; And I think it's wrong!
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;; I say it's wrong with conviction because I've previously believed it's right.
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;;
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;; But first, let's discover the truth in that statement.
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;;
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;; Our mother's milk as Clojurians is simplicity.
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;; Do create simple systems.
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;; Don't complect.
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;; Don't pull in lots of other people's depencies.
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;; This is how you learn.
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;; This is how you avoid ending up in a frontend hell with 53 MB of javascript required to show anything.
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;; This is how you end up with a simple system!
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;;
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;; The web is a wonderful place, and I encourage you strongly to make a part of it your own!
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;; I find it *completely amazing that I can type up some random shit about [the kind of things I like to learn], make a URL for that idea, and give it to a friend.
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;; How wonderful is that!
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;; And how *quick* is that!
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;; Before the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee had jump through way many more hoops to achieve that.
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;;
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;; [the kind of things I like to learn]: https://play.teod.eu/computing-learning-designing-researching/
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;;
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;; Additionally, a simple web site is just a folder of files.
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;; No program-running necessary!
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;; Just write an HTML file and publish.
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;; In the event that you want a better interface for typing, you are in complete control in order to solve that.
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;; For me personally, [Babashka] has been a super-tool for doing that.
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;; I can write the HTML generation program in the programming language I prefer (Clojure), and regenerate my web site quickly without having warm JVM at hand.
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;; Oh, the joy!
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;; The experience with Babashka-powered knowledge on the web got me so excited I had to present [Build Your Own Little Memex with Babashka] on the first Babashka conference.
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;; Oh, the joy!
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;; Absolutely recommended, you should *totally* do that yourself
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;;
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;; [Babashka]: https://babashka.org/
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;; [Build Your Own Little Memex with Babashka]: https://play.teod.eu/build-your-own-little-memex-with-babasha/
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;;
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;; But.
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;;
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;; After having written, ... let me check, ...
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(comment
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(count (fs/glob "../../teodorlu/play.teod.eu" "*/play.edn"))
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;; => 479
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;; Explanations get better with a Clojure REPL at hand, am I right???
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;;
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;; (this code is evaluated as I'm writing it because other people
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;; shouldn't have to depend on my personal mess.)
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)
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;; After having written 479 documents, what have I gained?
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;;
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;; - I've explored what happens when I let myself have ideas
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;; - I've learned to build my own knowledge system
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;; - … and I've learned that this is *my* thing.
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;; Due to the amount of personalization on my site, it works super well for me.
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;; For others?
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;; I woudn't recommend using it.
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;; Consider stealing a piece or two or fishing for some inspiration, but *please do make your own thing*.
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;;
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;; What about the knowledge-building?
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;; For me, it's superb.
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;; I've learned to learn.
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;; Write an explanation for myself, then I understand it.
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;; The two explanations I'm most happy with are [Easy, explicit parallellism with pipeline-blocking] (collaboration with [Ruben Svealdson])
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;; and [Rainbow tables: what they are, and why we salt passwords before hashing, explained with Clojure] (which I decided to move from my site to Clerk.Garden).
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;;
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;; [Easy, explicit parallellism with pipeline-blocking]: https://play.teod.eu/clojure-easy-parallellism-with-pipeline-blocking/
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;; [Ruben Svealdson]: https://github.com/rubensseva
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;; [Rainbow tables: what they are, and why we salt passwords before hashing, explained with Clojure]: https://github.clerk.garden/teodorlu/lab/commit/1cfe71b8bf1b34ecbcf2fd6d1119985b49eab74c/src/rainbow_tables_2/
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;;
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;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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;; ## Simple, great for learning—but ultimately isolated.
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;;
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;; My personal web site is great for myself, but not comprehensible for others.
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;;
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;; > Lisp allows you to just chuck things off so easily, and it is easy to take
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;; > this for granted. I saw this 10 years ago when looking for a GUI to my
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;; > Lisp. No problem, there were 9 different offerings. The trouble was that
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;; > none of the 9 were properly documented and none were bug free. Basically
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;; > each person had implemented his own solution and it worked for him so that
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;; > was fine. This is a BBM attitude; it works for me and I understand it. It
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;; > is also the product of not needing or wanting anybody else's help to do
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;; > something.
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;;
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;; That's me.
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;; I made my own tiny world, lived in it, and it was awesome.
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;; But I couldn't invite anybody else in.
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;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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;; ## Solving for cohesion and curation
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;;
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;; You exist in context.
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;; People might be interested in what you have to say, and they're also going to be interested in what others have to say.
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;; If you're Alan Kay or Bret Victor, you may be able to create a microworld and invite people in, but most people aren't Alan Kay or Bret Victor.
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;; That means people are going to be experiencing your creations in a context of other people's creations.
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;;
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;; That means my tiny, little static web site is never going to be someone else's world.
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;; Sure, a curious reader may look around prompted by interest, but the reader will finish that trail of curiosity and do something else.
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;;
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;; To reach more with the explanations we create, we want to ensure cohesion with other people's explanations, and curate the very good explanations.
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;;
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;; The Clojure Civitas that Timothy Pratley has created hits the bullseye for that aim.
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;;
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;; Everyone writes in the same Git repository.
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;; That means you can follow one Git log and catch every change, should you want to.
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;; You can write prose and Clojure, and share it.
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;; ## Explanation playlists is the key.
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;;
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;; Curation has not yet been visibly tackled (as I see it), but the foundation has been laid.
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;; In my Memex presentation, I argued that we need [knowledge playlists][knowledge playlist].
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;; Today, I prefer the term _explanation playlist_.
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;; I define an explanation playlist as
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;;
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;; > an ordered list of contextualized explanations that can be consumed from start to end.
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;;
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;; [knowledge playlist]: https://play.teod.eu/knowledge-playlist/
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;;
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;; What's the right medium for an explanation playlist?
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;; Something special, right?
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;; No!
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;; It's just another explanation.
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;; It weaves other explanations together, letting you more easily orient yourself in the bigger picture.
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;; It's just yet another hypertext document.
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;;
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;; Clojure Civitas can help us beat the [Curse of Lisp], and give Clojure the reach it deserves.
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;;
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;; [Curse of Lisp]: https://winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html
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;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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;; ## Consider contributing!
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;;
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;; After being very pleasantly surprised by the Noj-powered tooling that drives Clojure Civitas, I'm excited to lean into Civitas.
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;; My personal web site continues to be a place of eploratory play, but now I have a goal for Clojure content:
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;; Put it on Civitas.
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;; On Civitas it can outlive me, and help grow a commons of knowledge, instead of yet another isolated island.

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