Hi, I'm Aditya Athalye and I eval / apply for joy...

I Eval/Apply for joy and for work

hand-waving (n.) A scientifically proven way to explain deep thoughts.


♥ I eval/apply for joy ♥

To me, eval/apply is not just a deep concept in computing 1. It is also deeply symbolic of the nondual yin/yang nature of thinking-doing, of abstraction-concretion, of idealism-pragmatism.

  • Eval: Think culture over strategy, humans over technology, systems over hacks, workflows over tools.
  • Apply: Design by subtraction 2, engineer for simplicity, produce output iteratively, ship continuously.

My interests include #systems thinking, understanding and taming #complexity, software #architecture, #functional​_​programming, and my favourite programming language, #clojure.

Keenly aware that I stand on the shoulders of giants, I'm here to pay it forward…

Among other things, I've been writing here in the spirit of thinking in public. Each year, I try to demo or teach at least one thing I've explored, at community-run tech conferences. I love to "learn generously" 3 with friends, colleagues, and fellow gentlenerds (like you?).

And—unless I missed a memo—none of it has to feel like reading dry prose on dusty wrinkled parchment, right? … Right?


  1. LISP as Maxwell's Equations of Software: GNU Mes manual.↩︎

  2. "It is not daily increase but daily decrease, hack away the unessential. The closer to the source, the less wastage there is." — Bruce Lee↩︎

  3. Learn generously is a "self-directive" coined by the gentlepeople at my favourite programmers' community, the Recurse Center.↩︎