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Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

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Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#121

Post by epgui »

tancop wrote: post #116
epgui wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not true, unless you have an unusual definition of “syntax”. Lisp basically has the most minimal syntax possible, by design. To use the right words: it’s not a syntax issue, it just looks unfamiliar to you.

minimal and simple is not the same thing as easy to use and natural/obvious. what looks easier to read: (if ( or if a to me the first one is way more noisy and confusing. and you really need a text editor with auto close and rainbow brackets to be productive, of course thats a non issue today with vscode and zed/neovim/helix but still something to think about. now rust might not be the best example for "easy to read…

> minimal and simple is not the same thing as easy to use and natural/obvious

You are right about that.

I value "minimal and simple" more than "familiar" because it makes my growth trajectory less arbitrary and more about intrinsic properties of the code. I don't care about learning how to do things the same way as everyone else nearly as much as I care about learning how code can be improved generally.

I know that code is written for humans, and that you can't remove the human from the equation. But I'm more interested in the future of code than in present-day code culture.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#122

Post by epgui »

jz391 wrote: post #112
epgui wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not true, unless you have an unusual definition of “syntax”. Lisp basically has the most minimal syntax possible, by design. To use the right words: it’s not a syntax issue, it just looks unfamiliar to you.

The key issue is that Lisp's minimal uniform syntax has less variation to help with visual pattern matching, which we humans are good at (compared to richer syntax). The meta-programming power of Lisp may be largely due to being homoiconic, although Dylan/Julia etc achieve similar without it. However Lisp's minimal syntax is not a prerequisite for homoiconicity: S-Plus/R has a more conventional syntax while retaining…

But S-Plus/R is not homoiconic in any way.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#123

Post by iLemming »

killme2008 wrote: post #9

I wrote Clojure for about five years. Left when I changed jobs, not because I wanted to. It's genuinely one of the most productive languages I've used, and I still miss the REPL-driven workflow. One thing I built: defun https://github.com/killme2008/defun -- a macro for defining Clojure functions with pattern matching, Elixir-style. Still probably my favorite thing I've open sourced.

I regret stumbling on Clojure around 2012-2013. I had every chance to learn and work on a big Clojure project with very knowledgeable people yet I looked dead in its eye, right between the parentheses and confidently said: "no, thank you!". It took me a few more years of enormous struggle with Javascript, and after exhausting my options, trying Typescript, Coffeescript, Livescript, Gorillascript, IcedCoffeeScript, Fay, Haste, GHCJS, Elm to finally arrive on Clojurescript. Even though I was dealing with frontend at that time, I already had good experience, and had gone through other stacks: .Net - C#, F#, VB; Python; Haskell; Objective-C; ActionScript; Delphi; some other lesser-known things.

I remember my initial confusion, but it didn't take long when I suddenly felt flabbergasted - shit just made sense. It was so down-to-earth, inexplicably pragmatic and reasonable that it made me want to learn more. I didn't even build anything with it, I was just browsing through related Google search results when I saw "Clojure/Remote Conf" announcement. It was a no-brainer - I took a day off and joined from my home computer. I immediately became a fan-boy. The amount of crazy awesome stuff I saw, the people I met in the chats, the articles and books I put in my notes - all that made me feel excited. After the conference I sat in my chair staring at the blank screen, for 40 minutes or so. Thinking, meditating, contemplating if that was a mid-career crisis or something. Knowing that on Monday I would have to go back to the same struggle, same shit, same mess that I had for the past two years, everything that until this very point made me feel depressed. On Monday I went back to work and said I'm leaving because: "I saw things I cannot unsee". I just knew I could never sneak-in some Clojure there. So I left. Even though it was well-paid job, fifteen minutes away from my home.

Getting into Clojure radically re-opened my eyes to the entire concept of computing. Not only had I found a different way of programming - I felt so enlightened, and largely thanks to the people I met in the community, which deserves special acknowledgment. Clojurians are just made different - they are the kindest, extremely knowledgeable, tolerant and most sincere professionals I have ever met. Not a single time when I asked them a question - no matter how dumb, provocative, or confusing it was; they always, every single time gave me much deeper and thought-provoking answers than I ever expected. None of my inquiries were ever dismissed, ignored or rejected. They'd gladly discuss just about anything - no matter the language, tool, technique, or ideas. Whatever helps you to find answers or get closer to the solution. I know, I have become a better programmer, thanks to Clojure. Yet more importantly, it helped me to become a better person.

Yes, I regret stumbling on Clojure. I wish I never saw it when I wasn't ready for it. It makes me feel sad for the time I have wasted. I wish I had someone persuasive to convince me to learn it sooner.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#124

Post by iLemming »

thunky wrote: post #120
iLemming wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, here we go again. Every single time Clojure gets mentioned on HN, some clueless egghead comes listing various "issues" without considering holistic, overall experience of using the language for real. Because they effing never did. Sure, it's so easy to "hypothesize" about deficiency of any given PL: - Python: slow; GIL; dynamic; package management is shit; fractured ecosystem for a decade due to version split. -…

> Ah, here we go again. Every single time Clojure gets mentioned on HN, some clueless egghead comes listing various "issues" without considering holistic, overall experience of using the language for real. Because they effing never did Stopped reading here because of your hostility so I'll just say: yes I tried to use it "for real" but I didn't like it.

There's a difference between "attempted" and "tried". And from the points you have nitpicked I can confidently say: no, you have not really tried using it in a real, production setting. That is just that obvious. No experienced Clojurista would ever blankly list some reasons without specific context. Every single point you're trying to make has a caveat, every single one of them is disputable. Your statements are not factually false, but it doesn't mean they carry any meaningful, practical insight to the functional relation between the parts that make overall experience and why they make it an excellent choice for many problem spaces.

> because of your hostility

Clojure, just like pretty much every single language, tool, technique or paradigm does have its pros and cons, there's no denying that, but you can't just blindly come and shit all over someone's backyard expecting people to happily explain to you how inaccurate path your thinking took there. And it's not just a reaction to the post about Clojure - I'd defend any other tool the same way if someone did what you have.

> Stopped reading

If you don't have mental capacity to visually scan through four paragraphs of a response to your own remarks, that's pretty indicative. I guess you're not here to learn something new, but rather to assert your own perceived rectitude. Well, your perception is misguided. I suggest you correct it by learning more about the topic you so confidently trying to argue about, or respectfully and humbly STFU. If you think you know better than Goetz, Odersky, Kay, Steele, Felleisen, Friedman - that perhaps is not a good reflection. Just something to think about.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#125

Post by iLemming »

packetlost wrote: post #70
IBCNU wrote: post #59

AI augmented Repl driven dev has got me back into Clojure and it's been changing my life (full on JVM nerd: Kotlin mostly on the backend). The syntax is the best in the world (how computer's really operate?) but it's always been a pain to setup the tooling for me. I'm dumb like that. Now with AI it's become super easy to get back into the REPL and I'm in heaven. Totally moving it back into workflow and proposing to b…

> how computer's really operate? I don't know exactly what you mean by this, but Clojure syntax is not really anywhere close to how computers actually process instructions. Clojure is very nice though.

That's not what they meant. Lisp/Clojure syntax (s-expressions, code-as-data, functions as first-class values) maps closely to the theoretical foundations of computation - lambda calculus, which is arguably the mathematical essence of what computation is.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#126

Post by iLemming »

thunky wrote: post #28
jimbokun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those seem very subjective with many people having the exact opposite opinion.

yes it's just my opinion. but Clojure's market share is tiny so there must be something to that. it's not even in the top 50 here: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ . Lisp is 26.

> Clojure's market share is tiny

If we've measured the value of jobs by their popularity, everyone would want to be a retail salesperson or a cashier - according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, these are most common occupations in the States. People still writing Clojure professionally after 15 years (of other languages) are disproportionately serious engineers. The language self-selects. Small community means concentrated competence, not weakness. The network effect assumption is wrong here - a programming language isn't a social network. A better hammer isn't worse because fewer people own one. Most job listings reflect what organizations already know how to hire for, not what produces the most value.

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#127

Post by iLemming »

nmil wrote: post #61
IBCNU wrote: post #59

AI augmented Repl driven dev has got me back into Clojure and it's been changing my life (full on JVM nerd: Kotlin mostly on the backend). The syntax is the best in the world (how computer's really operate?) but it's always been a pain to setup the tooling for me. I'm dumb like that. Now with AI it's become super easy to get back into the REPL and I'm in heaven. Totally moving it back into workflow and proposing to b…

May I ask what your workflow actually looks like? There's been a fair bit of clojureposting over the last few days, and I've decided to jump in and learn. I love the idea of an AI integrated repl (like what Jeremy Howard and team have done with solveit), it's far more in line with my preferred vision of the AI augmented future of coding. Less "swarm of agent" more, "learn with the agent".

> I've decided to jump in and learn.

https://clojure.org/news/2026/03/30/zero_to_repl

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#129

Post by embedding-shape »

thunky wrote: post #45
embedding-shape wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, I think that makes Clojure better. Almost no one in the community is doing stuff to serve "lowest common denominator", compared to how most of JS/TS development is being done, which is a breeze of fresh air for more senior programmers. Besides, the community and ecosystem is large enough that there are multiple online spaces for you to get help, and personally I've been a "professional" (employed + freel…

I'm glad it works for you and many others and gives you a good living. Nothing wrong with that. I wasn't trying to attack it or anyone that uses it, just stating why I never warmed up to it and projecting why I think it hasn't become popular.

> I wasn't trying to attack it or anyone that uses it

Don't worry, I don't think anyone took your comments as "attacking Clojure", I certainly didn't :)

Re: Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)

#130

Post by baranul »

midnight_eclair wrote: post #85
thunky wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The syntax argument is such a tired argument. It's repeated a lot because it's true. The collective developer world has decided that LISP syntax is not the preference. Good if you prefer it, but you're the in the overwhelming minority. Random example i just found via github explore: https://github.com/replikativ/datahike/blob/main/src/datahik... You probably love it but to me it looks like a wall of text. Sure I ca…

i can link you similarly undecipherable walls of text in rust and zig and c but i bet if you sat down a junior developer not yet entrenched in any style yet, they'd be able to grok lisp code MUCH faster than the intricacies of syntax of the other alternatives ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My opinion about this, is that it appears to depend on how a particular person's brain is wired, as to which language(s) they will understand faster and like. There can be a "winner" in terms of which language more people gravitate towards, but then that is very relative to many factors, including corporate influence.

People also put themselves into bubbles. Once in, they can filter out other languages (with all kinds of excuses), and be overly focused on certain families or only specific languages.

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