Live data from Hacker News

Why I'm Productive in Clojure

yogthos.net

41–50 of 99 posts

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you tell us more about what you ended up missing from Python ? is it syntax ? concepts ? libraries ?

It's nothing I miss, it's just that I couldn't keep in my head all the standard way to do things in Clojure/CL. I kept wondering "oh, how do I check if an element is a member of a list in Clojure, again?", or "ok, so I need to put this Sexpr out of this parenthesis, so with paredit I need to do C-right or C-left?", etc. I plan to give Clojure and CL another shot in the future, but for now I am just lack of proficienc…

Ok so only a matter of habits then.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#42
post #4

I'm curious to see how Clojure fares against the current crop of folks becoming intrigued by statically-typed languages like Haskell, F#, etc.

I'm a strong static-typing advocate, and for years this has put me off learning Clojure. (In fact, my very first HN submission, back in 2010, was about Clojure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1453259 ). I've been coding exclusively in Clojure for the last month however, and I found it extremely enjoyable to use. Much easier to learn than Haskell, for example, because Clojure isn't purely functional. The key of…

>'s a language designed to solve real-world problems in production environments (hence the focus on concurrency, for example).

It would be nice to see example(s) of clojure solving real world concurrency problems.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#43
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people do use these tools, but honestly, do you really want a language with multiple build tools / package managers? The java world is a mess here. Leiningen is pretty great, no need to fragment the community. As far as editors go, I'm perplexed. You can use nearly any editor, why do you perceive the need to use one of these 2?

> Well, people do use these tools, but honestly, do you really want a language with multiple build tools / package managers? I want multiple workflows . A single build tool can accommodate that, but Leiningen can't/doesn't. For example, let's say I have a compiler called mycc. I can build something like this: mycc main.c -o main I might then combine it with an file watcher utility like entr find . -name '*.c' | entr…

I'm not sure how many serious devs use LightTable (although I'd be interested to know!). I keep it handy for writing little scripts (in Clojure, Python or Javascript) that benefit from the interactive style, but I do most of my actual development in Vim. I tried emacs, but I just couldn't stick with it, and the fireplace vim plugin is really great.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#45
post #3
post #2

> What matters to me in a language is whether I can use it without thinking about it. I love this statement. It reminds me of the what it feels to be good at mathematics (not my words): "Your intuitive thinking about a problem is productive and usefully structured, wasting little time on being aimlessly puzzled." from http://www.quora.com/Mathematics/What-is-it-like-to-understa... The author also says more about math…

> Any language that lets you spend your brainpower on the essence of the problem is a tremendous advantage and joy. This unlocks creativity and productivity. For some reason the only language that let me reach this level is Python. I tried Clojure and Common Lisp, but for some reason I could never be as efficient as I wanted with them, which I think is a shame because in some ways I think the Lisps are superior to Py…

"code is data and data is code" has a name: homoiconicity.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#46
post #7

My biggest problem with Clojure (specifically ClojureScript) is that it's too workflow opinionated. Nearly all Clojure devs use 1 of 2 text editors. Nearly everyone uses Leiningen. Nearly everyone uses some sort of auto-builder. Nearly everyone uses hot-swapping. Clojure wasn't even optimized for this workflow, it's just the only one that works. So as much as I love the language I keep going away from it because I pr…

Well, people do use these tools, but honestly, do you really want a language with multiple build tools / package managers? The java world is a mess here. Leiningen is pretty great, no need to fragment the community. As far as editors go, I'm perplexed. You can use nearly any editor, why do you perceive the need to use one of these 2?

Completely agree with leiningen, it's not an opinionated choice, just what I've seen with maven seems a huge hassle.

In terms of editors I've hit this a bit, attempting to follow tutorials or the like is frequently met with 'step n: install the clojure plugin for Emacs', then 'eval with ' forever after. The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table (which seems like a great editor). Having to separate learning about the language and how the editor does things just increases the barrier to entry.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people do use these tools, but honestly, do you really want a language with multiple build tools / package managers? The java world is a mess here. Leiningen is pretty great, no need to fragment the community. As far as editors go, I'm perplexed. You can use nearly any editor, why do you perceive the need to use one of these 2?

Completely agree with leiningen, it's not an opinionated choice, just what I've seen with maven seems a huge hassle. In terms of editors I've hit this a bit, attempting to follow tutorials or the like is frequently met with 'step n: install the clojure plugin for Emacs', then 'eval with ' forever after. The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table (which seems like a great editor). Having to sep…

> The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table

What is Om? I can't seem to google it.

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree with leiningen, it's not an opinionated choice, just what I've seen with maven seems a huge hassle. In terms of editors I've hit this a bit, attempting to follow tutorials or the like is frequently met with 'step n: install the clojure plugin for Emacs', then 'eval with ' forever after. The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table (which seems like a great editor). Having to sep…

> The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table What is Om? I can't seem to google it.

Searched 'clojure om' and came up with this: https://github.com/swannodette/om/wiki

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#49
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree with leiningen, it's not an opinionated choice, just what I've seen with maven seems a huge hassle. In terms of editors I've hit this a bit, attempting to follow tutorials or the like is frequently met with 'step n: install the clojure plugin for Emacs', then 'eval with ' forever after. The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table (which seems like a great editor). Having to sep…

> The Om tutorials iirc are written as tutorials through Light Table What is Om? I can't seem to google it.

It's a clojurescript library built on top of Facebook's React javascript library. https://github.com/swannodette/om

Re: Why I'm Productive in Clojure

#50
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any language that lets you spend your brainpower on the essence of the problem is a tremendous advantage and joy. This unlocks creativity and productivity. For some reason the only language that let me reach this level is Python. I tried Clojure and Common Lisp, but for some reason I could never be as efficient as I wanted with them, which I think is a shame because in some ways I think the Lisps are superior to Py…

"code is data and data is code" has a name: homoiconicity.

True, somehow I forgot the name of that concept.
Post reply on HN