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The Future of Clojure

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Re: The Future of Clojure

#141

Post by dustingetz »

lmilcin wrote: post #3
tharne wrote: post #2

I'd love to see clojure take a bigger role in the financial services sector. The fact that it runs on the JVM, gives it a nice foot in the door. Ideally, it would be great if clojure replaced Python and Scala as the defacto language used to interact with Apache Spark. That's probably not likely, though. It's hard enough to get a lot of folks past spark's weirdness without throwing a lisp into the mix. But it does see…

See... I work for one of the largest banks in the world and in vicinity of me there is a Clojure project. The guys are trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Original developers left the company or advanced to management roles and now nobody is able to figure out what this convoluted, obfuscated, undefined, unstructured mass of code does or how to modify it so that it doesn't blow up more that it already is. As m…

Re any large Clojure projects needing modernization or migration to new stack – I would be happy to take care of projects like this, tech debt is not a problem for us, email me dustin@hyperfiddle.net

Re: The Future of Clojure

#142

Post by maharajatever »

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…

> A common point is being made in the threads here: "The downside of Clojure is that you need good, wise developers..."

A common situation is that a mediocre Java programmers reads the first page of a clojure tutorial, finds out about list comprehensions and map and filter (probably not even fold) and decides he (yes almost always he) is a genius. A “good, wise” “engineer”.

Reality usually disagrees.

The reality of actually having to write a complete working system in a language in which your knowledge is limited to the first page of a tutorial is even harsher.

When your “wisdom” and “goodness” are up against a hard deadline, or even an interview, you get the confused messages in this thread that blame companies for not hiring you, people for it understanding you, everyone else for being stupid, and the world for your unemployment.

May be learn what you started with first, but well, and thence to expand your knowledge in various directions.

But of this fancy stuff is available in almost every language. If you think clojure is special you’re in a bad place. Hickey wrote clojure in java.

For the record, I don’t write java or clojure anymore, and if you think clojure gives you an advantage without knowing at least five other languages to a professional level, then you’re not getting hired anywhere near me...

Re: The Future of Clojure

#143

Post by bit_logic »

jakebasile wrote: post #130

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I will continue to write Clojure for a living as long as I am able to find a job willing to pay me to do so. I have never encountered a more pleasant environment to do my work. I think Clojure isn't going to "go away" any time soon as long as there are other people like me still around. I do think that Clojure shops (like all software shops) need to dial back the torture in…

I'm a bit surprised to hear this, I thought Clojure shops would be better than this. It was must hard to find any candidates and they're still doing the stupid leetcode interview style? Are these companies putting any thought into their hiring process?

That process was created by FANG because they can abuse their candidates and still get a lot of applicants (although I think this is less true than it used to be)

But to use that same hazing ritual at a smaller company with the hiring funnel further reduced by a niche language? Really stupid.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#144

Post by pbourke »

rienbdj wrote: post #21
ashtonkem wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really hard to argue that Java projects fail at unusual rates, given how much stuff runs on Java.

Maybe not at unusual rates, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rates are high.

When you measure the failure rates of Java projects against the failure rates of Clojure projects, you’re not measuring the failure rates of a language, but rather the general failure rate of software in industry vs the failure rate for a (likely) small, motivated team.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#145

Post by indymike »

throwaway92938 wrote: post #48
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…

There was a time when Java was a niche language for web applets. There was a time when Python was a niche language you tossed into your "real" program so users could extend it. There was a time when C was a niche language for Unix development. Likewise C++ was this niche object oriented thing that didn't even compile to object code... it compled to C.

And developers would look at the niche language devs and go, why write in C? I have my COBOL and most production code is written with it. Java? Why? I have Powerbuilder and Delphi. Most of the developers with any new language are creating CRUD apps, because well, that's what most computer programs do.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#146

Post by randompwd »

puredanger wrote: post #86
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 use Clojure because I am not a particularly wise programmer (I have been fortunate to work with many actually wise programmers). I like to write dumb, obvious code. Most Clojure code is about taking your data, representing it a sequence of maps, and transforming them into different sequences of maps. The maps are open (easy to change over time), immutable (impossible to encounter data races, weird equality semantic…

I'm still salty about Specter[0] not being ~officially recognised as a necessity when using Clojure.

[0] https://github.com/redplanetlabs/specter

Data driven languages need simple & powerful transformation libraries. `get-in` is repetitive and tiresome to use.

Specter and it's ilk make transformations clear and simple.

No amount of planning or foresight negates the need for data transformation libraries.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#148

Post by eeperson »

dzonga wrote: post #111

are there people who used both clojure and scala. And decided to use Scala ? if so why ? I'm new to Scala that's why

I've used both and end up writing much more Scala. There are a few reasons why this was the case for me:

  - Scala is much closer to Java making it an easier sell to other Java programmers.
  - I think static typing makes a lot more sense for larger projects
  - I found a rich static type system easier to use and more generally applicable than macros.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#149

Post by discreteevent »

fractionalhare wrote: post #134
didibus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why we see the highest paid practitioners programming exclusively in functional languages Well I don't know how accurate this is, but in 2019 Stackoverflow survey, Clojure practitioners averaged the highest pay of any languages. (in 2020 they removed Clojure from the options so the data is missing). > I challenge anyone to find a cutting edge CS paper* that is written in their favorite functional language I…

> Well I don't know how accurate this is, but in 2019 Stackoverflow survey, Clojure practitioners averaged the highest pay of any languages. Well I didn't believe it, but wow: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#top-paying-te... I'm not sure if I should conclude that I'm incredibly ignorant of the engineering market, or that Stack Overflow's survey is not representative. It makes me suspicious that Clojure…

>Basically any non-new grad developer in a high cost of living area earns more than that, regardless of the language.

SO is used by developers all over the world, not just in the US.

Re: The Future of Clojure

#150

Post by jimbokun »

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…

> Not all know differences between linked lists and arrays and if they know what a breakpoint is they are hired.

Found your problem.

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