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For someone familiar with HTML/XML, so any developer in the last 30 years, yes it is. Your point being? I like the ideas behind clojure, I really do. I even wr

by doteka 8y ago

For someone familiar with HTML/XML, so any developer in the last 30 years, yes it is. Your point being? I like the ideas behind clojure, I really do. I even wrote a non-trivial personal project with it. However, coming back to that code after two months was basically like the plot of Memento. I ended up rewriting it in JavaScript instead.

iLemming 8y ago
My point being is: people often complain about readability of Clojure and Lisps in general without even giving it a heartfelt attempt. They complain about parentheses (which becomes a non-issue within literally hours after learning structured editing idioms). It's a matter of familiarity. Some prefer semicolons and other "visual garbage" in their code, I like minimalism and structure. No other language can retain readability on different screens like Clojure can. Even reading it in a narrow screen of a mobile phone - it would wrap, but still retain its readability. Good luck trying that with literally any other (non-lispy) language.
profalseidol 8y ago
Almost anything (if not all) requires one to put in years of practice before one is adept. "a" non-trivial "personal" project probably won't cut it. Comparing that to your 30 years practice of XML is not at all useful.
- doteka 8y ago
  I didn't say anywhere I have 30 years of experience with XML. What I said is, EVERYONE is familiar with the syntax. JSX is especially suited for expressing HTML because it is, in fact, almost HTML. As to your other point - maybe. I'm not seeing anywhere near enough potential payoff to invest years into it, though. Also, I'd argue that makes it a terribly impractical language if you're interested in getting work done. To clarify, I don't agree one needs years to become competent in clojure. But if one did, that just makes it a worse value proposition.
  - profalseidol 8y ago
    I'd rather work with Clojure than the monstrosity we make with our 30 years of experience. Sure you can get things done and ignore the maintenance horror later. Anyways, in the 30 years we at least steadily transfer features from Lisp.
thachmai 8y ago
Why rewriting it in js help with maintenance? This is not a snarky question, I'm genuinely curious since I personally have no problem coming back to old clojure code.
- doteka 8y ago
  I can read the JavaScript I wrote months or years ago with very little effort. The language is fairly trivial, and the big gotchas have been mostly addressed by es6 and avoiding type coercion. I have limited time to dick around on personal projects and I mostly wrote Python and JS for a living, so having a familiar syntax means the difference between spending my time building cool stuff versus spending my time trying to remember how to read paren soup. The other factors are cultural - so much of the clojure ecosystem is badly documented, or not at all. Sure, I can go and read your code to figure out what it does. But that comes back to the limited time argument, unless I'm paid for it, I'd rather write stuff in a language with a culture of proper documentation. For a recent example that does an outstanding job, see Elixir. Finally, the ecosystem just feels... abandoned? Like walking through a ghost town. A lot of things on GitHub look incredible, but if there's no commits in the past 3 years I'm not inclined to invest time in it. I know the common argument about them being finished, and I don't buy it - non-trivial code rarely is.

by doteka 8y ago

iLemming 8y ago

My point being is: people often complain about readability of Clojure and Lisps in general without even giving it a heartfelt attempt. They complain about parentheses (which becomes a non-issue within literally hours after learning structured editing idioms). It's a matter of familiarity. Some prefer semicolons and other "visual garbage" in their code, I like minimalism and structure. No other language can retain readability on different screens like Clojure can. Even reading it in a narrow screen of a mobile phone - it would wrap, but still retain its readability. Good luck trying that with literally any other (non-lispy) language.

profalseidol 8y ago

Almost anything (if not all) requires one to put in years of practice before one is adept. "a" non-trivial "personal" project probably won't cut it. Comparing that to your 30 years practice of XML is not at all useful.

doteka 8y ago
I didn't say anywhere I have 30 years of experience with XML. What I said is, EVERYONE is familiar with the syntax. JSX is especially suited for expressing HTML because it is, in fact, almost HTML. As to your other point - maybe. I'm not seeing anywhere near enough potential payoff to invest years into it, though. Also, I'd argue that makes it a terribly impractical language if you're interested in getting work done. To clarify, I don't agree one needs years to become competent in clojure. But if one did, that just makes it a worse value proposition.
- profalseidol 8y ago
  I'd rather work with Clojure than the monstrosity we make with our 30 years of experience. Sure you can get things done and ignore the maintenance horror later. Anyways, in the 30 years we at least steadily transfer features from Lisp.

thachmai 8y ago

Why rewriting it in js help with maintenance? This is not a snarky question, I'm genuinely curious since I personally have no problem coming back to old clojure code.

doteka 8y ago
I can read the JavaScript I wrote months or years ago with very little effort. The language is fairly trivial, and the big gotchas have been mostly addressed by es6 and avoiding type coercion. I have limited time to dick around on personal projects and I mostly wrote Python and JS for a living, so having a familiar syntax means the difference between spending my time building cool stuff versus spending my time trying to remember how to read paren soup. The other factors are cultural - so much of the clojure ecosystem is badly documented, or not at all. Sure, I can go and read your code to figure out what it does. But that comes back to the limited time argument, unless I'm paid for it, I'd rather write stuff in a language with a culture of proper documentation. For a recent example that does an outstanding job, see Elixir. Finally, the ecosystem just feels... abandoned? Like walking through a ghost town. A lot of things on GitHub look incredible, but if there's no commits in the past 3 years I'm not inclined to invest time in it. I know the common argument about them being finished, and I don't buy it - non-trivial code rarely is.