4 ms·

I'm not an expert in Clojure, I've played with it a little. I think it's one of the best designed languages I've ever seen - and I'm a static-type kind of guy

by dudul 8y ago

I'm not an expert in Clojure, I've played with it a little. I think it's one of the best designed languages I've ever seen - and I'm a static-type kind of guy :) However, I have the feeling that its popularity has been decreasing over the past few years. I very rarely see job descriptions mentioning it. Have people observed the same thing?

fnordsensei 8y ago
I have seen this mentioned once or twice before, and I'm scratching my head as to where this perception comes from. Maybe it's because of its position in the hype cycle? My personal impression is the opposite.
- dudul 8y ago
  Interesting. What do you think its position in "the hype cycle" currently is? No longer cutting-edge and therefor a little "boring"? I also think I saw that it ranked pretty low on various "popular languages" studies. I would be very happy to find out that I am mistaken TBH.
  - puredanger 8y ago
    It's achieved it's highest rankings ever on TIOBE this year. We have also seen record high numbers of Clojure language, ClojureScript language, and library artifact downloads this summer.
nudpiedo 8y ago
If I look in LinkedIn I find more job offers for Clojure than golang. For some reasons other metrics do not apply, and I guess golang is more open source related than clojure which is more about building private services.
- puredanger 8y ago
  I don't think that characterization of use is true for either Go or Clojure.
  - natbobc 8y ago
    I think the reference might be more in relation to OSS tooling such as docker, kubernetes, and a lot of the other stuff in the CNCF project catalogue which is often VC backed start-ups with OSS codebases.
kovrik 8y ago
This. I really love Clojure, but these days I'm still mostly a Java/Kotlin guy. Haven't seen any Clojure job or Clojure being used in production yet, unfortunately. Sadly, that is a common fate for Lisp(-like) languages nowadays. People are scared of unusual syntax.
- bbaumgar 8y ago
  I'm curious - how hard have you looked? There are lists with clojure success stories [0] [1] [2] and quite a few companies hiring clojure devs [0] [3] [4]. Anecdotally, there are 5 startups within a 1 mile radius of my office (in Charlottesville, VA) whose primary stack is clojure. [0] https://clojure.org/community/success_stories https://clojure.org/community/success_stories [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302762&__s=r8nvw64mp3jsgweqgmcs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302762&__s=r8nvw64mp3... [2] https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki/Companies-Using-ClojureScript https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki/Companies-Usin... [3] https://www.indeed.com/q-Clojure-jobs.html https://www.indeed.com/q-Clojure-jobs.html [4] http://hnhiring.me/ http://hnhiring.me/ (search "Clojure", top right)
  - kovrik 8y ago
    Sorry, should have mentioned that I'm not in US
    - coffeedoughnuts 8y ago
      We’re based in Bristol, UK and are exclusively Clojure on the backend and starting to use Datomic in production this year. There are a few other clojure focussed companies in Bristol too.
vemv 8y ago
There's a substantial amount of Clojure jobs every month on the "HN who's hiring" thread. Personally I would have loved Clojure to absolutely win, but being an elite language for senior devs isn't a bad situation either (I'm much enjoying my latest Clojure jobs and the peers I could find there).

by dudul 8y ago

fnordsensei 8y ago

I have seen this mentioned once or twice before, and I'm scratching my head as to where this perception comes from. Maybe it's because of its position in the hype cycle? My personal impression is the opposite.

dudul 8y ago
Interesting. What do you think its position in "the hype cycle" currently is? No longer cutting-edge and therefor a little "boring"? I also think I saw that it ranked pretty low on various "popular languages" studies. I would be very happy to find out that I am mistaken TBH.
- puredanger 8y ago
  It's achieved it's highest rankings ever on TIOBE this year. We have also seen record high numbers of Clojure language, ClojureScript language, and library artifact downloads this summer.

nudpiedo 8y ago

If I look in LinkedIn I find more job offers for Clojure than golang. For some reasons other metrics do not apply, and I guess golang is more open source related than clojure which is more about building private services.

puredanger 8y ago
I don't think that characterization of use is true for either Go or Clojure.
- natbobc 8y ago
  I think the reference might be more in relation to OSS tooling such as docker, kubernetes, and a lot of the other stuff in the CNCF project catalogue which is often VC backed start-ups with OSS codebases.

kovrik 8y ago

This. I really love Clojure, but these days I'm still mostly a Java/Kotlin guy. Haven't seen any Clojure job or Clojure being used in production yet, unfortunately. Sadly, that is a common fate for Lisp(-like) languages nowadays. People are scared of unusual syntax.

bbaumgar 8y ago
I'm curious - how hard have you looked? There are lists with clojure success stories [0] [1] [2] and quite a few companies hiring clojure devs [0] [3] [4]. Anecdotally, there are 5 startups within a 1 mile radius of my office (in Charlottesville, VA) whose primary stack is clojure. [0] https://clojure.org/community/success_stories https://clojure.org/community/success_stories [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302762&__s=r8nvw64mp3jsgweqgmcs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302762&__s=r8nvw64mp3... [2] https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki/Companies-Using-ClojureScript https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript/wiki/Companies-Usin... [3] https://www.indeed.com/q-Clojure-jobs.html https://www.indeed.com/q-Clojure-jobs.html [4] http://hnhiring.me/ http://hnhiring.me/ (search "Clojure", top right)
- kovrik 8y ago
  Sorry, should have mentioned that I'm not in US
  - coffeedoughnuts 8y ago
    We’re based in Bristol, UK and are exclusively Clojure on the backend and starting to use Datomic in production this year. There are a few other clojure focussed companies in Bristol too.

vemv 8y ago

There's a substantial amount of Clojure jobs every month on the "HN who's hiring" thread. Personally I would have loved Clojure to absolutely win, but being an elite language for senior devs isn't a bad situation either (I'm much enjoying my latest Clojure jobs and the peers I could find there).