Live data from Hacker News

Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

codewithkira.com

1–10 of 87 posts

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#2
I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day.

But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement?

My impression is that Clojure failed to live up to the hype, but has found its niche - but it is a rather small niche. In the end, despite its attempts to differentiate itself from Lisp pitfalls, it has gone the way of all Lisps: it's this cool, intellectually stimulating language that in practice almost nobody uses.

Is that view wrong? Please feel free to correct me, and sorry if this post is about Clojure in general and not specifically about its machine learning ecosystem.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#3
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I think there is a lack of companies willing to hire for it, and also a lack of qualified people to hire.

I would like to learn it and probably would like to work with it. Only downsides I see is reliance on JVM (which is also a strength) and not as good ways of recursion as other Lisps or Schemes (simply call the function, duh, because it just works and doesn't need extra keywords or syntax).

But I liked the talks and that is seems to have the functional datastructured one needs, if one wants to avoid mutation.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#4
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I would not say it is such a small niche. There are job openings here and there. It is much easier to find a Clojure job than a F# or a Haskell job in my experience. This may be of course different depending on your location.

The problem is that an entire ecosystem is more than just a new language. Clojure has some really interesting libraries, but the rest relies on Java. It is a good ecosystem nonetheless. Julia is having the same issue. It has grown a very respectable ecosystem, but it is hard to grow further to catch up with Python in some fronts without massive corporate funding.

It is interesting to note that, at some point circa 2010, it looked like Clojure could revive Lisp-Stat with Incanter. But, eventually, the project declined in popularity and died. Reaching mainstream relies on getting a critical mass of developers at the right time and for the right domain.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#5
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I feel like Clojure did live up to the hype, but is different enough that there was little chance that it would dominate in the mainstream.

The language ecosystem reflects the smaller numbers of contributors.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#6
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I think the language has indeed reached a stable point and found its niche, which is small, but there are certainly domains where Clojure is the best fit.

The ideas behind Clojure (functional, immutable datastructures, homoiconic syntax, focus on simplicity, JVM interop) still stand strong IMO.

There are still some exciting projects done in Clojure: Electric Clojure and Rama come to mind.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#7
post #4
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I would not say it is such a small niche. There are job openings here and there. It is much easier to find a Clojure job than a F# or a Haskell job in my experience. This may be of course different depending on your location. The problem is that an entire ecosystem is more than just a new language. Clojure has some really interesting libraries, but the rest relies on Java. It is a good ecosystem nonetheless. Julia is…

And imagine if F# had an alternative native "runtime" (i.e. not married CLR and dotnet) grafted onto Fortran. Resistance is futile, indeed.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#8
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

Clojure focuses on quality over hype, at great success. Its hypesters never really understood Clojure, and have long moved on. So will the hypesters of Rust and other hyped languages, unless they get a chance to ruin them.

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#9
post #6
post #2

I remember there used to be so much excitement about Clojure - it certainly was the "tech du jour" for a long while, also on the HN front page. It was the "...in Rust" of its day. But is it just me or has it gotten awfully quiet around Clojure? I mean, it is of course expected that no novelty can stay in the lime light forever. But what has become of all of the excitement? My impression is that Clojure failed to live…

I think the language has indeed reached a stable point and found its niche, which is small, but there are certainly domains where Clojure is the best fit. The ideas behind Clojure (functional, immutable datastructures, homoiconic syntax, focus on simplicity, JVM interop) still stand strong IMO. There are still some exciting projects done in Clojure: Electric Clojure and Rama come to mind.

> but there are certainly domains where Clojure is the best fit

Honest question: what domains?

Re: Clojure's machine learning ecosystem

#10
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the language has indeed reached a stable point and found its niche, which is small, but there are certainly domains where Clojure is the best fit. The ideas behind Clojure (functional, immutable datastructures, homoiconic syntax, focus on simplicity, JVM interop) still stand strong IMO. There are still some exciting projects done in Clojure: Electric Clojure and Rama come to mind.

> but there are certainly domains where Clojure is the best fit Honest question: what domains?

Financial services for one. Might be the Nubank influence.
Post reply on HN