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

lambdaisland.com

141–150 of 261 posts

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

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this an ironic homage to some piece of alarmist writing about something else? If not, it seems way over the top. It was pretty fun to read though.

I feel old now: https://everything2.com/title/BSD+is+dying

Thank you for educating me too :)

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

#142
post #137

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.

Immutable.js when mori.js is available? :) Having tried both I really prefer mori, mori imports some core clojure functions with it. I found working with iterators which was recommended with immutable.js very awkward.

The issue is more that I have to add, and use an immutable library vs it being just baked in to the language. I have to convert from and to JS. Worry about setting a deep value that is regular JS. It's janky is all.

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

#143
post #137

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.

Immutable.js when mori.js is available? :) Having tried both I really prefer mori, mori imports some core clojure functions with it. I found working with iterators which was recommended with immutable.js very awkward.

The issue is more that I have to add, and use an immutable library vs it being just baked in to the language. I have to convert from and to JS. Worry about setting a deep value that is regular JS. It's janky is all.

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

#144
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well at the moment, the tooling is all lein/JVM based. That said, Figwheel hooked up with atom+protorepl+parinfer is pretty amazing if you haven't tried it. https://github.com/bhauman/lein-figwheel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WMga5E7Vsk

Parinfer is a huge game changer. Everyone afraid of writing lisp needs to try again using parinfer.

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

#146
post #6

Going further, it seems like the whole category of alternative languages hit a peak about three years ago, and interest has been dwindling since. It's like coders got their fix of "new ways of thinking about code", and now have gone back to whatever they feel most productive in. Moreover, the buzziest alt languages now (Elixir, Go, Kotlin) seem to be much closer to existing mainstream languages than the buzzy ones of…

Ultimately, the value of a piece of code is decided by the functionality it offers, rather than what language it is written. Thus, project with 'I made X using Y' formula, while it might be a cool personal achievement, doesn't make it go beyond the confinement of its intrinsic functionality. A web server written in clojure, doesn't make it a space rocket, and certainly not making you a rocket scientist.

Alternatively a programming language shapes your way of thinking about a problem which can in turn affect the quality of the end product. If immutable data structures and a functional approach produce easier to test, less buggy code it can be argued those language features contribute to making the world a safer place.

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

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your second example, your JavaScript is wrong. Let's compare the ES2015 JavaScript: ((a, b) => a * b)(6, 4); ...against the Clojure: ((fn [a b] (* a b)) 6 4) Not a lot in it, really, is there?

If we're golfing... (#(* %1 %2) 6 4)

I wonder, does #(* %1) do anything sensible?

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

#148
post #133

I really hope this isn't true, Clojure is my favorite programming language. I feel that it spoiled me. Builds are easy, code is elegant and easy to parse, functional programming combined with immutable data structures is beautiful. It also is great for "full-stack" devs in that there is little context switching between server and client. I think the "killer app" that Clojure needs is that it should be compilable into…

That's the point, Clojure would not die if it were compilable in C / C ++ or had better startup time.

I used to love clojure, I think it has some great ideas, but I switched to Racket because of the lack of two features.

I don't think I'm the only one who did it.

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

#149
post #135
post #133

I really hope this isn't true, Clojure is my favorite programming language. I feel that it spoiled me. Builds are easy, code is elegant and easy to parse, functional programming combined with immutable data structures is beautiful. It also is great for "full-stack" devs in that there is little context switching between server and client. I think the "killer app" that Clojure needs is that it should be compilable into…

Yes, I know there is Chicken Scheme and Guile. I prefer Clojure over them though.

For the niche that Python enjoys (data science, devops, machine learning) there's also Hy (hylang.org) which has more or less the same syntax as Clojure. With Clojurescript, Hy and Clojure you can use Clojure syntax in all 3 major layers: front-end, scripting and compiled/back-end.
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