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The Future of Clojure

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Re: The Future of Clojure

#41

Post by raspasov »

paultopia wrote: post #38
keithasaurus wrote: post #32

Having worked at a company with a large Clojure codebase, I just don't see Clojure growing. It's not well-suited to large projects. The dynamic-ness of it and awkward parts of the language (macros, protocols, ambiguity of laziness, etc) end up inevitably getting used in ways they aren't intended. The idea that you need "wise programmers" is a really big problem. People leave, institutional knowledge is lost, and then…

Maybe a broader version of this point: clojure tries to be something suited both for industry use at scale and for hobbyists wanting to do freaky-deaky stuff at the same time, but those are fundamentally incompatible. I say this as someone squarely in the latter category who has exactly the opposite problem from you: I love clojure the language and its features, but all the major libraries seem to be written by refug…

Using a functional language doesn’t make reality and the complexity of state go away (unless you are writing a compiler or a program/system that fully and purely mathematically controls its inputs and outputs).

Re: The Future of Clojure

#42

Post by kazinator »

clusterhacks wrote: post #31
atdixon wrote: post #27

A common point is being made in the threads here: "The downside of Clojure is that you need good, wise developers..." The converse of this is that good, wise developers are going to (ultimately) _demand_ Clojure. What I mean by this: I was a Java programmer for years and increasingly started writing code in a more functional, immutable, dynamic style with the occasional need for meta-programming -- for the sheer need…

I think that the bigger problem is that developers just don't get taught any way to think about coding other than the object-oriented, use-Java-for-everything approach. I sometimes think I could have massively accelerated my ability to produce decent code in any language if I had been forced to work through "The Little Schemer" and "How to Design Programs" before I saw anything else. But that is probably just hindsig…

When I'm coding in Lisp, I want objects with methods and mutable state.

I made myself a Lisp dialect with a nice little object system.

More precisely, I made it without that object system, but I eventually couldn't stand the situation.

I use objects even in small, throwaway programs used once. Sometimes it turns out that they aren't just used once, and the use of objects makes them easier to read later.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#43

Post by talkingtab »

This will probably earn me lots of negative points, but I used Java for eight years and after much initial enthusiasm came to despise it. It was the least productive language I have ever used. I have twice tried to learn Clojure and each time I have to install the JVM, I simply quit, despite being intrigued by Clojure itself. Sigh.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#44

Post by nojito »

Reverse engineering a Clojure codebase after the devs maintaining it leave is an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Because of the difficulties of sharing knowledge, Clojure will have an extremely difficult time growing.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#45

Post by Scarbutt »

atdixon wrote: post #27

A common point is being made in the threads here: "The downside of Clojure is that you need good, wise developers..." The converse of this is that good, wise developers are going to (ultimately) _demand_ Clojure. What I mean by this: I was a Java programmer for years and increasingly started writing code in a more functional, immutable, dynamic style with the occasional need for meta-programming -- for the sheer need…

I was a Java programmer

Most Java programmers get enlightened and feel relieved as you did when they switched to language X from Java. Is a recurring theme, not specific to Clojure.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#46

Post by Xenoamorphous »

keithasaurus wrote: post #32

Having worked at a company with a large Clojure codebase, I just don't see Clojure growing. It's not well-suited to large projects. The dynamic-ness of it and awkward parts of the language (macros, protocols, ambiguity of laziness, etc) end up inevitably getting used in ways they aren't intended. The idea that you need "wise programmers" is a really big problem. People leave, institutional knowledge is lost, and then…

At the company I work for we've found it hard to find Clojure devs. Not sure if this applies everywhere else, but it's definitely seen as a disadvantage of the language here.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#48

Post by throwaway92938 »

atdixon wrote: post #27

A common point is being made in the threads here: "The downside of Clojure is that you need good, wise developers..." The converse of this is that good, wise developers are going to (ultimately) _demand_ Clojure. What I mean by this: I was a Java programmer for years and increasingly started writing code in a more functional, immutable, dynamic style with the occasional need for meta-programming -- for the sheer need…

> The converse of this is that good, wise developers are going to (ultimately) _demand_ Clojure.

HN seems to blindly accept the idea that developers using niche languages are good but I certainly haven't seen any proof of that and I haven't seen anything to even remotely suggest that good developers gravitate towards Clojure.

Great developers have to be working on hard problems and almost all of the hard problems in our industry, outside of language/chip design and correctness proofs, are being worked on in relatively boring languages (C, C++, Java etc.). Most of the niche language users I've met are working on basic CRUD web applications.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#49

Post by [deleted] »

lmilcin wrote: post #9
sambe wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed that people often use such criticisms against anything they aren't familiar with. If you can find an enthusiastic polyglot who says the same then it becomes a bit more believable. And - of course - the fact that it is so unfamiliar to most is probably a valid criticism anyway.

The truth is that the candidates we are receiving are barely able to code in Java. Not all know differences between linked lists and arrays and if they know what a breakpoint is they are hired. Now, imagine giving the people environment that imposes no structure on your project and gives hyper powerful tools like macros and you are in a big problem. At least with Java you get Spring and this is how you do endpoint, t…

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