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Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

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Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#31

Post by weavejester »

NeutralForest wrote: post #18
jwr wrote: post #10

I've been running my business for 10 years now, relying on Clojure and ClojureScript. It is amazing to be able to base one's livelihood on a foundation that is so stable and well designed. Clojure has been designed by a very smart and very experienced person, and it shows. It has then been maintained and extended by a team built around a culture of maturity and stability, and the result is something you can rely on.…

I would love to use Clojure but there are basically no jobs in my area with the language. Seems like the Nordics like Clojure but I'd need to move. The very good backwards compatibility is attractive but as the result of the small community, there's also a lot of abandoned packages and fewer QoL packages (formatters, linters, etc); I know there are some but for example I had setup `cljfmt` in Emacs and it wouldn't wo…

cljfmt is included with both Clojure-LSP and CIDER, so if you have either installed it should work out of the box.

With LSP mode the standard `lsp-format-region` and `lsp-format-buffer` commands should work, and on the CIDER side `cider-format-defun`, `cider-format-region` and `cider-format-buffer` should also invoke cljfmt.

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#32

Post by eduction »

embedding-shape wrote: post #24
waynesonfire wrote: post #7

Very cool. My first instinct was to buy a Clojure book.. so for those that had the same, Programming Clojure, Fourth Edition 4th Edition is on pre-order scheduled to be released May 2026. https://pragprog.com/titles/shcloj4/programming-clojure-four...

Same! I think I acquired 2-3 books that I tried to slog through in order to understand Clojure, but never really clicked until I bought and went through "Clojure for the Brave and True", which somehow made it click. Also available for free online, highly recommend: https://www.braveclojure.com/

Yea, this book worked like a charm for me too.

The author recently weighed in on what he’d cut and add to a future version - could be useful to anyone reading today, if they want to skip some things. https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/1rxknpj/quick_ques...

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#33

Post by lo_zamoyski »

midnight_eclair wrote: post #27
zerr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lisp philosophy is all about inventing languages (libraries), creating abstractions for each problem. Clojure is all about using primitive data types and maps everywhere explicitly.

virtually all abstractions are built on top of primitive data types and mappings

> virtually all abstractions are built on top of primitive data types

Obviously. The point being made is that the Clojure style discourages building DSLs and the like and prefers to remain close to Clojure types and constructs. It departs in various ways from traditionally Lisps.

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#34

Post by midnight_eclair »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #33
midnight_eclair wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

virtually all abstractions are built on top of primitive data types and mappings

> virtually all abstractions are built on top of primitive data types Obviously. The point being made is that the Clojure style discourages building DSLs and the like and prefers to remain close to Clojure types and constructs. It departs in various ways from traditionally Lisps.

> Clojure style discourages building DSLs

does it really? https://github.com/simongray/clojure-dsl-resources

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#35

Post by midnight_eclair »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #21

Is this lang for web dev?

clojure itself is a joy to use, on the web or outside of it

BUT

it doesn't have the equivalent of rails, mostly because lispers are an opinionated bunch and can't come together to agree on how web development should be done

the frameworks that do exist are more of a collections of libraries with some plumbing to connect the dots

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#37

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Clojure is IMO indisputably a good language within a certain scope, and especially relative to many other languages used in practice. However, I think it's greatest merit is not so much the language itself - and there is nothing especially innovative about any of its features per se - but that it introduced so many programmers to a more functional style and the selection of very practical features it includes (Java interop was a smart move, as the ecosystem is a major hurdle for adoption). Much of the fandom and enthusiasm IMO comes from the contrast between the other sorts of languages people use in industry - which traditionally are imperative - and this functional style. It is much easier to reason about functional programs than imperative programs where names can refer to one thing at one moment, and to another at another moment. Mutability really is bad and should generally only be used judiciously and in very confined and controlled contexts.

In my experience, while I have found Clojure enjoyable and practical, it is still a "dynamic" language. A good deal of run-of-the-mill programming can manage quite well with such a language, but as projects become larger, deeper, and more complex, the lack of static types really does become a cost and an impediment. To understand any function and what it expects, you often need to read a few layers in to find what exactly something consumes and returns. Types really are a boon in such code bases. Some may point to various schema libraries in Clojure. While these can be helpful, they are often comparably inscrutable in practice (both in terms of specification and the resulting errors) and really do not compare to bona fide types, especially with LSP integration. And when you model something using types, the code sort of just falls out of the type definition.

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#38

Post by NeutralForest »

weavejester wrote: post #31
NeutralForest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to use Clojure but there are basically no jobs in my area with the language. Seems like the Nordics like Clojure but I'd need to move. The very good backwards compatibility is attractive but as the result of the small community, there's also a lot of abandoned packages and fewer QoL packages (formatters, linters, etc); I know there are some but for example I had setup `cljfmt` in Emacs and it wouldn't wo…

cljfmt is included with both Clojure-LSP and CIDER, so if you have either installed it should work out of the box. With LSP mode the standard `lsp-format-region` and `lsp-format-buffer` commands should work, and on the CIDER side `cider-format-defun`, `cider-format-region` and `cider-format-buffer` should also invoke cljfmt.

Hey! Thanks for creating the package =) I'll need to try the integration again.

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#39

Post by thsbrown »

abyssin wrote: post #13
jwr wrote: post #10

I've been running my business for 10 years now, relying on Clojure and ClojureScript. It is amazing to be able to base one's livelihood on a foundation that is so stable and well designed. Clojure has been designed by a very smart and very experienced person, and it shows. It has then been maintained and extended by a team built around a culture of maturity and stability, and the result is something you can rely on.…

Rich's talks have been the apex of my programming career. I didn't like sitting in front of a computer to the extent needed to make a living from it, so I moved on to another industry. And maybe I wasn't smart enough to become competent in Clojure. But I'm thankful for the eureka moments that Rich offered me. He's such a beautiful mind.

Would love to know what industry you ended up in. Daydreaming about working with my hands out and about one day lol.

Re: Clojure: The Documentary, official trailer [video]

#40

Post by rbanffy »

thsbrown wrote: post #39
abyssin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich's talks have been the apex of my programming career. I didn't like sitting in front of a computer to the extent needed to make a living from it, so I moved on to another industry. And maybe I wasn't smart enough to become competent in Clojure. But I'm thankful for the eureka moments that Rich offered me. He's such a beautiful mind.

Would love to know what industry you ended up in. Daydreaming about working with my hands out and about one day lol.

A lot of people abandon tech for less stressful careers. Things like air traffic control and firefighting, or deep sea diving for the oil industry.
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