Solving the Boolean Identity Crisis

Powerful in its simplicity, the boolean can be limiting. In this talk, we will look at examples where booleans obscure the meaning of code and make it harder to maintain. You will learn patterns such as ADTs to write clear code without booleans and gain greater empathy for your teammates and users.

The primary goal of this talk is to teach attendees the importance of usability in the code they write and UIs they design. At some level I hope to encourage attendees to developer better empathy towards others in this process. My vehicle for exploring this topic will be misuse of booleans in Elm. Therefore, the practical, secondary goal of my talk is to teach attendees how to write cleaner code by using union types and higher-order functions instead of booleans. I want attendees to learn that union types and higher-order functions help declaratively model intent and domains in code better than booleans.