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> "I had high hopes for Clojure for a while, but they're fairly user-hostile, even if they think (and loudly assert) that they aren't." Is that a prevalent opi
by Frozenlock 11y ago
> "I had high hopes for Clojure for a while, but they're fairly user-hostile, even if they think (and loudly assert) that they aren't."
Is that a prevalent opinion? I'm often in #clojure/#clojurescript and found the community quite helpful.
- albemuth 11y agoI took that to mean the language and tooling were hostile, not the community.
- pbiggar 11y agoWould love to hear more about this. AFAICT (from using it every day for 4 years), it's all pretty awesome (except startup time, but that doesn't matter much because REPL).
- dantiberian 11y agoThe Clojure community is great, but Clojure/Core has historically not been interested in lowering the barrier to entry with Clojure. I think this is part of what Steve is referring to.
- calibraxis 11y agoYegge's previous critique: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2466731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2466731
- Frozenlock 11y agoThank you very much!
- tensor 11y agoFrankly, I'm quite happy clojure has not turned into a "yes" platform as he suggests. I also find Yegge's approach of insulting anyone who doesn't agree with him to be very off putting and not constructive. What I took away from it is that if you disagree with him, you are going to fail and be labelled hostile in his mind.
- jsmeaton 11y agoLook for the post on the mailing list beginning with "I think that one's called "Perl". " That's where the real meat of his argument seems to be. > Unfortunately I've conflated saying Yes to features vs. saying yes to users. Saying yes to features is clearly a way to get a kitchen sink a la C++ or Perl. I didn't see any instances of him insulting people, though he was hostile in the same way he accused the clojure community of being hostile. But the points he made seemed sound to me. Saying "no" to users can seem hostile to the person you're saying no to. You need users, or you die. So say yes and survive.
- tensor 11y agoSuggesting that clojure is dying or going to die is some serious hyperbole. The community is growing steadily every year and is being adopted by industry players. Maybe not quite as fast as languages like scala that cater more to what users are familiar with, but that's not a bad thing necessarily. Speaking of scala, you could also use it as an example of what happens when you say yes too much. In fact, to me, that's scala's major weakness. Sure, users can use it like a better java, but you aren't gaining as much from doing that as you would if you actually adopted a more functional style of programming. This is exactly what clojure encourages. I wouldn't count promoting this philosophy as any more hostile than any other opinionated language. It certainly sounds like Clojure is not for Yegge, but that's not a valid reason to call the community hostile and claim that it's a dying language. Especially so because it's the complete opposite of what is true. The community is very helpful and welcoming to newcomers and the usage is growing, not declining.