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Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

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Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#41

Post by mark_l_watson »

Grue3 wrote: post #19

Is Ruby supposed to be an example of "not dying" language? Because it has certainly passed its glory days as well. Also Common Lisp is better in every way ;) There's even a JVM implementation (ABCL) for people who like that sort of stuff.

I agree with you, Common Lisp does seem better and ABCL does well with Java interop (as does Clojure).

While the community around Clojure is fantastically good, I don't like the language itself as much. Personally for my hacking pleasure, Haskell, Common Lisp, Chez Scheme (or other Schemes), and Ruby are all more fun for me to use.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#42

Post by ledgerdev »

boubiyeah wrote: post #31
modularfurnitur wrote: post #26

I think Clojurescript might be the thing. With advances in the Google Closure compiler, it's getting better and better. And the front end developer tools and libraries in Clojurescript are _the best_ out there. The holy grail for javascript exists in Clojurescript. Until then I'll keep making my Javascript env look like Clojurescript. With janky react devcards, Immutable.js, and react-redux.

Well, clojure is better designed than javascript, that's for sure. But the holy grail for me would absolutely need static typing.

You should look into Clojure Spec. It's a very nice balance of trade-offs for helping developers build correct software. While it uses a different approach than static typing, it seems a more natural fit for dynamic languages. Plus it's sort of a toolkit to be used in many different ways.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#43

Post by virtualwhys »

swannodette wrote: post #21
virtualwhys wrote: post #7

Clojure's not dying, but it's also not thriving[1]. I think it will continue on as a solid niche language for the foreseeable future, but it's highly unlikely that the language will grow by leaps and bounds barring some must-have innovation in the Clojure language and/or ecosystem that gets the tech world to take it more seriously. There are so many options these days that it's tough to stand out from the crowd. Cloj…

I don't really have anything to say about your other points, but the only comparable compile-to-JS tech in your list to ClojureScript is Scala.js. The other options assume you don't see significant value in using the same programming idioms across client and server.

The point is that most server languages these days compile to javascript. OCaml has Bucklescript, Haskell has GHCJS, Kotlin and Rust compile to JS, etc.

Clojurescript and Scala.js are probably the most mature, but getting developers to make the switch when their server language is not Clojure or Scala is an uphill battle. Case in point: I find Bucklescript to be absolutely amazing (generated binaries on par with size of hand written JS) but Scala.js is a better fit since I've been writing Scala for 6 years.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#44

Post by mirekrusin »

ufmace wrote: post #23
virtualwhys wrote: post #7

Clojure's not dying, but it's also not thriving[1]. I think it will continue on as a solid niche language for the foreseeable future, but it's highly unlikely that the language will grow by leaps and bounds barring some must-have innovation in the Clojure language and/or ecosystem that gets the tech world to take it more seriously. There are so many options these days that it's tough to stand out from the crowd. Cloj…

I'm a Rubyist and don't know much Clojure, but that sounds pretty reasonable. I'm not sure if Ruby would have taken off if it wasn't for Rails. AFAIK, Rails pushed forward a lot of new ideas in web development and really brought Ruby into the mainstream. Going by that comparison, I would think it'd be hard for Clojure to really catch on without a revolutionary framework that you need it to work with, which may be tou…

Rails was definitely responsible for Ruby going mainstream, without it, it would slide below Python.

More than that: I think that combination of TextMate and Rails brought a huge number of web devs from Windows to MacOS as well. I remember around maybe 2005/6 people were switching from Intel based Windows to, at that time, PowerPC based Macs (transition to Intel was about to happen) just to use TextMate and Rails - image how huge change it was for developers - and they did it and liked it. Good times.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#45

Post by ledgerdev »

coolmitch wrote: post #20
graphememes wrote: post #2

I'm still left with the question of "why all the parenthesis?" While it might sound silly and reductionist, it is ostensibly the single hurdle I could never overcome when it came to lisp languages. The majority resides with the fact that it could work without them, so I see it as an ancient artifact.

I'll plug Parinfer as the best tool I've found for removing the pain of editing s-expressions. It's done wonders for my own workflow, and there's almost nothing to learn before you can use it effectively (compare to Paredit which requires you to know quite a few shortcuts before becoming productive) I almost never have to think about the parentheses while editing, any more than I would braces in a c-like language. It…

I feel most syntax themes are designed for syntax based languages and make the parenthesis far too dark/prominent and it's visually overwhelming.

If you dial back the color of parenthesis and brackets to a lighter grey, the experience is almost like writing python with parinfer.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#46

Post by swannodette »

virtualwhys wrote: post #43
swannodette wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have anything to say about your other points, but the only comparable compile-to-JS tech in your list to ClojureScript is Scala.js. The other options assume you don't see significant value in using the same programming idioms across client and server.

The point is that most server languages these days compile to javascript. OCaml has Bucklescript, Haskell has GHCJS, Kotlin and Rust compile to JS, etc. Clojurescript and Scala.js are probably the most mature, but getting developers to make the switch when their server language is not Clojure or Scala is an uphill battle. Case in point: I find Bucklescript to be absolutely amazing (generated binaries on par with size…

That's exactly what I'm saying. You don't choose ClojureScript or Scala.js haphazardly, you're already using Clojure or Scala. Thus it doesn't make sense to lump them into choices that are primarily client-centric like Elm or PureScript.

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#47

Post by jakebasile »

Grue3 wrote: post #19

Is Ruby supposed to be an example of "not dying" language? Because it has certainly passed its glory days as well. Also Common Lisp is better in every way ;) There's even a JVM implementation (ABCL) for people who like that sort of stuff.

Why do you consider Common Lisp better in every way?

Re: Is Clojure dying, and what has Ruby got to do with it?

#48

Post by philbo »

ledgerdev wrote: post #33
modularfurnitur wrote: post #26

I think Clojurescript might be the thing. With advances in the Google Closure compiler, it's getting better and better. And the front end developer tools and libraries in Clojurescript are _the best_ out there. The holy grail for javascript exists in Clojurescript. Until then I'll keep making my Javascript env look like Clojurescript. With janky react devcards, Immutable.js, and react-redux.

Agreed. I suspect one current thing hurting adoption from the JS community is the very heavy JVM based tooling. With the Google Closure compiler now running on top of JS, there would seem to be a path for the CLJS(not clj) tooling to become more JS ecosystem friendly. For the JS developers out there, is this something that's of interest? Or is the existing tooling(lein) good enough? What would be your ideal tooling s…

As a JS programmer with some Clojure experience I can confirm that the JVM is absolutely the biggest turn-off for me personally. Lisp syntax, immutable data structures, laziness, all splendid. The build/runtime environment, not so much.

Sounds like I should revisit CLJS based on your comment.

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