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Why I ever wrote Clojure

thesoftwarephilosopher.com

31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#31
post #6

> I suspect this is the real reason Clojure was created, I bet Rich was just really bored. Rich has written about the history and motivation behind Clojure here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3386321

History of Clojure is also available in video:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nD-QHbRWcoM

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#34
post #24

>I suspect this is the real reason Clojure was created, I bet Rich was just really bored. I notice too that a noticeable number of people pick up Clojure because it's new and shiny. As a longtime Clojurian I find that attitude can be disappointing to run into, like when you realize a growing friendship will die because they're not serious about living in your city. I don't claim to know the man but the reasons Rich w…

I distinctly remember in one of his talks he said words to the effect of “I wrote corporate C++ and Java for years and eventually realised I had to do something else, or else quit the industry”. So he took a year long sabbatical and created Clojure.

I guess that confirms my theory.

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#35
post #8

Such a low quality article. The whole comment thread is just going to be about the flamebait of "I bet Rich was just really bored". Instead, the author could have listed the reasons they actually "loved it, and by the end I hated it", which would have led to an interesting discussion.

I thought it was self explanatory. It had new idioms I had not yet learned and internalized, so I fully absorbed it. When that was finished, I needed something else to do the same thing with. It's like listening to a song on repeat 10-100 times (depending on the song) when you first hear it. You get everything you can out of it and move on when it's empty.

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#36
To clarify, I don't mean that Rich didn't also have extremely good reasons to make Clojure, given he was using Java (and maybe C++) in 2007. They're not the best languages now, but they were so broken back then that they practically caused the language revolution that caused Clojure and Go and Node etc to flourish.

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#37
post #34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I distinctly remember in one of his talks he said words to the effect of “I wrote corporate C++ and Java for years and eventually realised I had to do something else, or else quit the industry”. So he took a year long sabbatical and created Clojure.

I guess that confirms my theory.

Rick wrote jfli, a Java foreign language interface for Common Lisp, before working on Clojure. He was a seasoned lisper, and he wanted to do something both modern and practical.

It's very interesting to go through the bookshelf he read during his sabatical. He was inspired by many languages aside from CL, including Mozart/Oz, AspectJ, and Prolog.

The bookshelf list was originally on Amazon, committed by Rich, but now behind a login wall. However, a Goodreads clone is easy to access: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clo...

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#38

>I suspect this is the real reason Clojure was created, I bet Rich was just really bored. I notice too that a noticeable number of people pick up Clojure because it's new and shiny. As a longtime Clojurian I find that attitude can be disappointing to run into, like when you realize a growing friendship will die because they're not serious about living in your city. I don't claim to know the man but the reasons Rich w…

He did so much marketing that I believe he wanted to make a consulting business out of it from the day one.

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#39
post #24

>I suspect this is the real reason Clojure was created, I bet Rich was just really bored. I notice too that a noticeable number of people pick up Clojure because it's new and shiny. As a longtime Clojurian I find that attitude can be disappointing to run into, like when you realize a growing friendship will die because they're not serious about living in your city. I don't claim to know the man but the reasons Rich w…

I distinctly remember in one of his talks he said words to the effect of “I wrote corporate C++ and Java for years and eventually realised I had to do something else, or else quit the industry”. So he took a year long sabbatical and created Clojure.

Why not quite the niche though? Clojure doesn't make writing corporate CRUD apps enjoyable.

Re: Why I ever wrote Clojure

#40
I connect with this article very deeply. There was a time when I came to a similar conclusion about rust. That is, its requirements for your code become a puzzle in themselves and make the job a little less boring but when the novelty wares off it’s not so fun. Avoiding boredom at work is a lifelong struggle of mine.
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