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Clojure is not Software Conservative

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Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#21

Post by bcbrown »

chrishouser wrote: post #11
bcbrown wrote: post #8

I don't think pointing to surveys showing few Clojure users came from Haskell/ML, is sufficient to disprove Yegge's assertion. If a language's designers came from camp A, yet the majority of users came from camp B, that does not mean the language is not strongly influenced by camp A.

That's a fair point, but it was an attempt to inject actual facts into a conversation full of generalities. What the survey does suggest is a lot of people who used "non-conservative" languages in the past are now using Clojure. Maybe they all decided they wanted a "conservative" language, or maybe they think Clojure is "non-conservative". Or maybe these labels don't have much meaning after all.

A correlation between people who use a language and the previous languages they have used does not imply a correlation (or intellectual/philosophical inheritance) between the language under discussion and the previous languages used.

I've never used Haskell, so I can't speak the specifics of the observation. But I don't believe much can be inferred from the observation alone.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#22

Post by bcbrown »

lispm wrote: post #15
bcbrown wrote: post #8

I don't think pointing to surveys showing few Clojure users came from Haskell/ML, is sufficient to disprove Yegge's assertion. If a language's designers came from camp A, yet the majority of users came from camp B, that does not mean the language is not strongly influenced by camp A.

Rich Hickey, the designer of Clojure, isn't from Haskell/ML background. His background is C, C++ and Java.

That's a much better response.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#23

Post by DigitalJack »

aero142 wrote: post #3

Agreed. I consider myself most comfortable in Python and I find myself uncomfortable with Clojure's liberal side more often than it's conservative side. I think I still have a lot to learn from and about Clojure but I don't think it fits very well into Yegge's spectrum. The author is correct that the most important thing about Clojure is Rich Hickey's philosophies on simplicity in code. I don't find simplicity to be…

Have you seen the US Tax code?

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#24

Post by andrewflnr »

10098 wrote: post #9

Leaving aside the question about whether the suggested division between "liberal" and "conservative" is a valid one... It seems like people are not happy for their favorite language being labeled as "conservative". I don't understand why. Depending on the problem domain, "conservative" and "liberal" approaches can have their benefits and drawbacks. I used to work at a company developing software for electronic tradin…

But most of the people in the discussion are those people writing sexy new programming languages, so of course they don't want to be labeled as conservative. The real programming conservatives are probably not even listening for the most part.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#25

Post by adestefan »

rys wrote: post #4

What's the motivation for everyone to add noise to Yegge's obviously broken claim that you can reason about software engineering in such a one dimensional way?

It's easier to add to the noise than it is to write about one of your own ideas. It's even easier when you're replying to a well know voice so you can ride on their coat-tails and be on the front page of HN, proggit, etc.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#26

Post by pmbauer »

bcbrown wrote: post #21
chrishouser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, but it was an attempt to inject actual facts into a conversation full of generalities. What the survey does suggest is a lot of people who used "non-conservative" languages in the past are now using Clojure. Maybe they all decided they wanted a "conservative" language, or maybe they think Clojure is "non-conservative". Or maybe these labels don't have much meaning after all.

A correlation between people who use a language and the previous languages they have used does not imply a correlation (or intellectual/philosophical inheritance) between the language under discussion and the previous languages used. I've never used Haskell, so I can't speak the specifics of the observation. But I don't believe much can be inferred from the observation alone.

"A correlation between people who use a language and the previous languages they have used does not imply a correlation (or intellectual/philosophical inheritance) between the language under discussion and the previous languages used."

And yet, that is exactly the basis for Yegge's point: attributing a philosophical label based on a perceived (and incorrect) background for a group. Goose, gander. Kettle, pot.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#27

Post by chc »

yason wrote: post #18

These people try to debunk Yegge's idea by proving, point by point, how their language isn't conservative. But no matter how much counter-arguments and rational fodder they provide, it doesn't change a bit anywhere because what Yegge offers is a perception, viewpoint, an idea, a gut feeling of his with some semirandom examples for the sake of examples. And you can't attack someone else's idea or perception with ratio…

Why is "striking a chord" what matters? Shouldn't being right matter? Gut feelings may be what matters to some people, but that doesn't make those people right and it doesn't make rational people wrong. People are very capable of valuing things wrongly. This mindset you seem to be advocating here has a disturbing similarity to Stephen Colbert's famous idea of "truthiness."

And that brings us to tonight’s word: Truthiness. Now I’m sure some of the word police, the “Wordinistas,” over at Websters are going to say, “Hey, that’s not a word.” Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They’re elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn’t true or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I want to say it happened in 1941, that’s my right. […]

Do you know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody’s going to say, “I did look that up, and it’s wrong.” Well, mister, that’s ‘cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, try looking it up in your gut. I did, and my gut tells me that’s how our nervous system works.

Now, I know some of you may not trust your gut — yet. But with my help, you will. The truthiness is that anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#28

Post by gwillen »

10098 wrote: post #9

Leaving aside the question about whether the suggested division between "liberal" and "conservative" is a valid one... It seems like people are not happy for their favorite language being labeled as "conservative". I don't understand why. Depending on the problem domain, "conservative" and "liberal" approaches can have their benefits and drawbacks. I used to work at a company developing software for electronic tradin…

I don't think it's the labels that are the problem for the 'conservatives'. As I said on the other post, I fully expected that the 'liberals' like myself would say 'oh, what an interesting distinction', where the conservatives would say 'that distinction is bullshit, you're just covering for the people who are wrong by calling them liberal'.

I think the real issue is that the 'conservatives' do not see what Yegge describes as the 'liberal' position as being a legitimate alternative at all, labels or not.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#29

Post by sanderjd »

DigitalJack wrote: post #16
guelo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a political conservative would have been able to construct the argument in a way that would make developers proud to label themselves programing conservatives.

Let's ignore political extremists for the moment. I think the definitions of political conservative on Steve Yegge's post are pretty far wrong. If those are the commonly held beliefs among the liberal side, well, that seems like a stunning level of misunderstanding. I think the only thing colloquially conservative about "conservatives" is that they are colloquially conservative in the amount of power the wish to cede…

You are speaking exclusively of the fiscal side of the current use of the word "conservative", which currently makes no sense from the point of view of the non-political definition of the word "conservative", because it would take a fairly radical set of policy changes to achieve those goals. This is why "libertarian" is a much better word for that type of "conservatism" - it refers to the goals themselves, not to the amount of policy change necessary to achieve them. However, on the social side of modern "conservatism", it truly is about conserving status-quo in many cases, even when that approach is at odds with "freedom and choice", (gay marriage, drug laws, etc.)

tl;dr; Yegge's use of the word "conservative" is not wrong, but rather the use of the word "conservative" to describe the (usually exclusively-) fiscally libertarian portion of the modern "conservative" movement is wrong.

Re: Clojure is not Software Conservative

#30

Post by aero142 »

DigitalJack wrote: post #23
aero142 wrote: post #3

Agreed. I consider myself most comfortable in Python and I find myself uncomfortable with Clojure's liberal side more often than it's conservative side. I think I still have a lot to learn from and about Clojure but I don't think it fits very well into Yegge's spectrum. The author is correct that the most important thing about Clojure is Rich Hickey's philosophies on simplicity in code. I don't find simplicity to be…

Have you seen the US Tax code?

Yes, and if you told me it was complex because of either the conservatives or liberals, I would call you an ideologue.
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