Summary of The Functional Database - Rich Hickey

00:00:00 - 00:45:00

Rich Hickey explains the functional database, which is a data structure that is immutable and allows for functions that take a database or databases as arguments and return a database. This is important because it allows for functional programming with databases, which is difficult to do without these features.

• 00:00:00 The Functional Database is a way to organize programs to make them easier to reason about. It allows for the separation of computationally-oriented code from machine-oriented code, and makes it easier to work with values and functions that are immutable.
• 00:05:00 The Functional Database is a data structure that provides a database as a value, is immutable, and allows for functions that take a database or databases as arguments and return a database. This is important because it allows for functional programming with databases, which is difficult to do without these features.
• 00:10:00 The Functional Database is a database system that separates computation from process, making it easier to compose and transport functions between databases. This separates the data from the application logic, preventing issues when combining data from different sources.
• 00:15:00 The Functional Database provides efficient incremental change, freedom from worrying about coordination of activity, and lack of need to copy data between different contexts.
• 00:20:00 The Functional Database provides a way to "drop" a database value without needing to send it over a connection, which allows for "speculative work" with the database. This allows for "interesting" things to be done with the database, such as changing how reports are displayed or performing tree propagation work.
• 00:25:00 The Functional Database provides a convenient way to program with databases, allowing developers to leave their source code in one file. When transacting data, it returns the database before and after the transaction.
• 00:30:00 The Functional Database is a tool for understanding the behavior of a database. It allows you to see the effect of changes to the data, and it is easy to use.
• 00:35:00 This video explains the difference between a query that binds only three of what are actually five parts of what we call a datum (fact, entity, and attribute), and a query that binds all five parts. The latter is called a "full Kahuna."
• 00:40:00 In this video, Rich Hickey describes the functional database, which allows you to see the values of attributes at different points in time. This is useful for understanding how a database has changed over time or for tracking down old data.
• 00:45:00 The Functional Database provides a simpler, more functional approach to programming databases.