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Clojure suffers from a lack of ambition, at least as far as adoption is concerned, and I think that's why many leave the community. Rich Hickey is more than hap

by cutler 8y ago

Clojure suffers from a lack of ambition, at least as far as adoption is concerned, and I think that's why many leave the community. Rich Hickey is more than happy with Clojure's current reach which says everything when you look at Clojure's abysmal level of adoption. It could be argued that Matz and Rich are both similarly idealistic language designers but Matz recognises the danger of Ruby being left behind without improvements to the language and Ruby's community is already much bigger than Clojure's. Although there's Luminus web frameworks are generally frowned upon in Clojure-land which concedes mindshare to other languages which recognise the importance of frameworks and killer apps. With so many languages competing for mindshare it is that much easier today for a language, however original and superior, to be sidelined by paying customers. For developers looking for a language which will also help pay the bills Clojure is unfortunately not an option.

didibus 8y ago
Well, its got a chicken and egg problem here. The chickens, experienced Clojure devs, don't need a framework, and are easily able to do whatever they want and use Clojure to pay their bills. Thus they're not motivated to build frameworks. On the other hand, the eggs, devs unfamiliar to Clojure, find it difficult to get anything done in Clojure, and are looking for frameworks that abstract away some of the expertise needed to manage a full Clojure web app. They're hoping they can start using it to pay their bills before they become an expert in it, through the use of a framework. I'm not sure how the future will unfold here.
- yogthos 8y ago
  The way we build web apps is changing away from back-end frameworks in general. Things like micro-services are a good example of that. Traditionally, web was all about serving static documents, and server side rendering model is a perfect fit for that. However, nowadays we also have web apps that are highly interactive. This requires moving away from the thin client model. Server-side rendering approach is inherently at odds with that because HTTP is a stateless protocol. So, the modern way to write web apps is to have a thick client that manages things like views, business logic, and state in one place. With this approach you no longer need a complex framework on the back-end because vast majority of the complexity moves to the client. The server is mostly responsible for things like data governance. The other driver here is horizontal scalability. It's much easier to scale small stateless services than a giant monolith. Clojure started getting a lot of use in the wild right around the time when SPA model started taking off, and I think that the ecosystem reflects that. We tend to have fairly light weight back-end architecture coupled with a thick client on the front-end.
  - danmaz74 8y ago
    Moving business logic to a js client looks like a crazy gift to any ill intentioned actor.
    - yogthos 8y ago
      Not sure how that's the case since authentication and data governance is done by the server. This is just the difference between thin and thick client models. Any app on a phone is a thick client as well, and uses exactly the same model as SPA.
iLemming 8y ago
> Clojure suffers from a lack of ambition it already has reached an unprecedented level of adoption for a Lisp used in commercial software. But I agree with you - it would be nice to see it grow faster and bigger. From technical evaluation - Clojure has an amazing ecosystem. But having technologically superior toolset does not guarantee success, nimlang is a good example. What Clojure needs today is better marketing. It is fashionable to blame Cognitect (basically for anything), but the truth is - they are not a big company. Even if they really wanted it - they don't have enough people to drive it to wider success. There are a few large companies using Clojure in production today, companies like Apple, Walmart and Cisco. It would be nice if they recognized the importance of Clojure and put some effort to evangelize for it, support initiatives like ClojuristsTogether, sponsor Clojure events. > For developers looking for a language which will also help pay the bills Clojure is unfortunately not an option From my own experience - the reality is the opposite. There are too many people interested in Clojure, but not enough developers with real Clojure experience. And companies using Clojure desperately want experienced Clojurists and often willing to pay more. It's disproportionate - we need more companies using Clojure, willing to hire juniors. We need to improve the funnel, making it easy to get into Clojure and become an expert fast.
- lispm 8y ago
  > unprecedented level of adoption for a Lisp used in commercial software if one ignores the 80s / early 90s of the AI boom

by cutler 8y ago

didibus 8y ago

Well, its got a chicken and egg problem here. The chickens, experienced Clojure devs, don't need a framework, and are easily able to do whatever they want and use Clojure to pay their bills. Thus they're not motivated to build frameworks. On the other hand, the eggs, devs unfamiliar to Clojure, find it difficult to get anything done in Clojure, and are looking for frameworks that abstract away some of the expertise needed to manage a full Clojure web app. They're hoping they can start using it to pay their bills before they become an expert in it, through the use of a framework. I'm not sure how the future will unfold here.

yogthos 8y ago
The way we build web apps is changing away from back-end frameworks in general. Things like micro-services are a good example of that. Traditionally, web was all about serving static documents, and server side rendering model is a perfect fit for that. However, nowadays we also have web apps that are highly interactive. This requires moving away from the thin client model. Server-side rendering approach is inherently at odds with that because HTTP is a stateless protocol. So, the modern way to write web apps is to have a thick client that manages things like views, business logic, and state in one place. With this approach you no longer need a complex framework on the back-end because vast majority of the complexity moves to the client. The server is mostly responsible for things like data governance. The other driver here is horizontal scalability. It's much easier to scale small stateless services than a giant monolith. Clojure started getting a lot of use in the wild right around the time when SPA model started taking off, and I think that the ecosystem reflects that. We tend to have fairly light weight back-end architecture coupled with a thick client on the front-end.
- danmaz74 8y ago
  Moving business logic to a js client looks like a crazy gift to any ill intentioned actor.
  - yogthos 8y ago
    Not sure how that's the case since authentication and data governance is done by the server. This is just the difference between thin and thick client models. Any app on a phone is a thick client as well, and uses exactly the same model as SPA.

iLemming 8y ago

> Clojure suffers from a lack of ambition it already has reached an unprecedented level of adoption for a Lisp used in commercial software. But I agree with you - it would be nice to see it grow faster and bigger. From technical evaluation - Clojure has an amazing ecosystem. But having technologically superior toolset does not guarantee success, nimlang is a good example. What Clojure needs today is better marketing. It is fashionable to blame Cognitect (basically for anything), but the truth is - they are not a big company. Even if they really wanted it - they don't have enough people to drive it to wider success. There are a few large companies using Clojure in production today, companies like Apple, Walmart and Cisco. It would be nice if they recognized the importance of Clojure and put some effort to evangelize for it, support initiatives like ClojuristsTogether, sponsor Clojure events. > For developers looking for a language which will also help pay the bills Clojure is unfortunately not an option From my own experience - the reality is the opposite. There are too many people interested in Clojure, but not enough developers with real Clojure experience. And companies using Clojure desperately want experienced Clojurists and often willing to pay more. It's disproportionate - we need more companies using Clojure, willing to hire juniors. We need to improve the funnel, making it easy to get into Clojure and become an expert fast.

lispm 8y ago
> unprecedented level of adoption for a Lisp used in commercial software if one ignores the 80s / early 90s of the AI boom