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This post pissed me off a bit. My comment here, for those that only read comments on HN: I can imagine that the people that are and have been working hard on

This post pissed me off a bit. My comment here, for those that only read comments on HN: I can imagine that the people that are and have been working hard on Clojure would be dismayed by this odd chunk of unfortunate FUD. As someone that does contribute a little bit of my time to Clojure and the community, I know I am. This, after: * three years of absolutely breakneck progress (dare I say innovations) on almost every possible front * the fabulous success of the first-ever Clojure conference just two months ago (http://first.clojure-conj.org http://first.clojure-conj.org) where a variety of very significant chunks of work by a number of core contributors were first announced * the "opening up" of the contrib library space (http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Better+infrastructure+for+contributed+libs http://dev.clojure.org/display/design/Better+infrastructure+...), with three new separately-managed contrib libraries implementing finger trees, unification, and a common REPL library (https://github.com/clojure https://github.com/clojure). * the modernization of the project's infrastructure: moving to self-hosted JIRA+confluence, a big push on utilizing hudson maximally, and support for getting all project artifacts (from Clojure itself down into all contributed libraries in the Clojure organization) flowing into Maven central ……and surely more that I'm not aware of. I can't speak to the cadence of patch application, as I'm not involved in that side of the house. Maybe volunteering to help vet patches would help, maybe not. In any case, it's an open effort; if you want to see movement on a particular front, step up and do something. Otherwise, idly speculating on things being "stalled" (especially "publicly" vs. just in IRC) is, frankly, bullshit, and could be detrimental to further uptake of the language and enthusiasm of volunteers that are actively contributing.

technomancy 16y ago
For the record I mostly agree with this; I think it's fully appropriate for Rich and co. to have time to let ideas brew, and there's nothing wrong with a lull in their coding output. My comments in TFA taken out of context seem to imply that his is some kind of crisis--it is not. On the other hand, if core people are going to slow down for a time, they would be wise to delegate responsibility to those who do want to continue coding on it in the mean time; having simple patches linger for six months (http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/315 http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/315) chills the enthusiasm of contributors. Having every single patch need approval of a single person is a policy Clojure has outgrown; somehow I don't think Rich is going to find something wrong with this substring patch that a lesser mind wouldn't have caught. (http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-688 http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-688) tl;dr: Clojure isn't dying; it's growing, and the patch submission process needs to be revised.
- richhickey 16y ago
  You are simply wrong about the patch process. It is no longer the case that I am the bottleneck. Many people have worked hard to put in place the organization and systems to make sure this is so. We have meetings on a regular basis, and many people dedicate their Fridays to Clojure tickets. There are several people who vet tickets, and a few who can screen them. Tickets are rarely waiting for my final approval, and rarely waiting long after that for application. And I frequently catch things while looking at them for final ok. None of us appreciate having our ongoing effort characterized as 'stalled'. Everything in the commit log, Jira and Confluence activity streams belies that. More people are actively involved in improving Clojure than ever. As for CLJ-688 - it's an enhancement request. Do you think every idea for an enhancement that anyone has should make it into Clojure? I don't - it would quickly become a huge mess. If not, then someone has to look at everything and decide. Yes, there is a backlog from when it was just me, and it will take a while to whittle down. We have finite resources and have to prioritize. I can assure you we have more important things to concentrate on than your negative index substring enhancement, and are doing so. You'll just have to be patient. Or, if you insist, I'll just reject it now because a) IMO it's goofy, b) you can make your own function that works that way c) we don't get a free ride from j.l.String, d) it begs the question of negative indices elsewhere... Want Clojure to be a free for all? - Sorry. Can't cope with the necessity for prioritization given finite resources? - Sorry. Want top priority? - Sorry. tl;dr: This blog post is the idle chatter of people who are not involved in the Clojure development process in any significant way. Lau has never submitted a single patch. Apparently his free lunch isn't arriving fast enough.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    > None of us appreciate having our ongoing effort characterized as 'stalled'. Well TBH I'm not to thrilled that a few lines from a private chat would get splattered over the HN front page without much context either. > Can't cope with the necessity for prioritization given finite resources? - Sorry. Said resources are a lot more finite than they could be. There are many capable folks in the community who would be willing to help. I brought this up last year and people seemed eager to help, but the official response was silence: http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/85a56203788e1283/f5f79245c41ba83c http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/... Anyway, keep up the good work; if you at any time decide you don't want to waste time with the boring stuff keep in mind that there are lots of people who can help ease the burden.
liebke 16y ago
I agree, under what conceivable metric could the development of Clojure appear to be stalled?
puredanger 16y ago
I think any project growing at the tremendous rate that Clojure has done is going to need significant process issues in managing all of the stuff people want to add/fix/doc/integrate. I can't even keep up on the libraries people are creating around Clojure, much less the pressure the core must be under. It's hard to do both new dev + maintenance on any big project, much less a language so many of us feel personally invested in. Looking back to this time last year, there is a lot more infrastructure in place and on the way that builds a base for managed growth. I'm hopeful that once process stuff gets smoother it will be easier to streamline and offload some of that work. If Linus can do it, Rich can do it too. The patches I've contributed to core have gone in (or been bounced) appropriately in reasonable time frames. One bug I submitted even got a patch from a first time contributor! That's good stuff. Chas and everyone else in the community, many thanks for the tremendous efforts this year - I can't wait to see where we go in 2011.

technomancy 16y ago

For the record I mostly agree with this; I think it's fully appropriate for Rich and co. to have time to let ideas brew, and there's nothing wrong with a lull in their coding output. My comments in TFA taken out of context seem to imply that his is some kind of crisis--it is not. On the other hand, if core people are going to slow down for a time, they would be wise to delegate responsibility to those who do want to continue coding on it in the mean time; having simple patches linger for six months (http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/315 http://www.assembla.com/spaces/clojure/tickets/315) chills the enthusiasm of contributors. Having every single patch need approval of a single person is a policy Clojure has outgrown; somehow I don't think Rich is going to find something wrong with this substring patch that a lesser mind wouldn't have caught. (http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-688 http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-688) tl;dr: Clojure isn't dying; it's growing, and the patch submission process needs to be revised.

richhickey 16y ago
You are simply wrong about the patch process. It is no longer the case that I am the bottleneck. Many people have worked hard to put in place the organization and systems to make sure this is so. We have meetings on a regular basis, and many people dedicate their Fridays to Clojure tickets. There are several people who vet tickets, and a few who can screen them. Tickets are rarely waiting for my final approval, and rarely waiting long after that for application. And I frequently catch things while looking at them for final ok. None of us appreciate having our ongoing effort characterized as 'stalled'. Everything in the commit log, Jira and Confluence activity streams belies that. More people are actively involved in improving Clojure than ever. As for CLJ-688 - it's an enhancement request. Do you think every idea for an enhancement that anyone has should make it into Clojure? I don't - it would quickly become a huge mess. If not, then someone has to look at everything and decide. Yes, there is a backlog from when it was just me, and it will take a while to whittle down. We have finite resources and have to prioritize. I can assure you we have more important things to concentrate on than your negative index substring enhancement, and are doing so. You'll just have to be patient. Or, if you insist, I'll just reject it now because a) IMO it's goofy, b) you can make your own function that works that way c) we don't get a free ride from j.l.String, d) it begs the question of negative indices elsewhere... Want Clojure to be a free for all? - Sorry. Can't cope with the necessity for prioritization given finite resources? - Sorry. Want top priority? - Sorry. tl;dr: This blog post is the idle chatter of people who are not involved in the Clojure development process in any significant way. Lau has never submitted a single patch. Apparently his free lunch isn't arriving fast enough.
- technomancy 16y ago
  > None of us appreciate having our ongoing effort characterized as 'stalled'. Well TBH I'm not to thrilled that a few lines from a private chat would get splattered over the HN front page without much context either. > Can't cope with the necessity for prioritization given finite resources? - Sorry. Said resources are a lot more finite than they could be. There are many capable folks in the community who would be willing to help. I brought this up last year and people seemed eager to help, but the official response was silence: http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/85a56203788e1283/f5f79245c41ba83c http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/browse_thread/thread/... Anyway, keep up the good work; if you at any time decide you don't want to waste time with the boring stuff keep in mind that there are lots of people who can help ease the burden.

liebke 16y ago

I agree, under what conceivable metric could the development of Clojure appear to be stalled?

puredanger 16y ago

I think any project growing at the tremendous rate that Clojure has done is going to need significant process issues in managing all of the stuff people want to add/fix/doc/integrate. I can't even keep up on the libraries people are creating around Clojure, much less the pressure the core must be under. It's hard to do both new dev + maintenance on any big project, much less a language so many of us feel personally invested in. Looking back to this time last year, there is a lot more infrastructure in place and on the way that builds a base for managed growth. I'm hopeful that once process stuff gets smoother it will be easier to streamline and offload some of that work. If Linus can do it, Rich can do it too. The patches I've contributed to core have gone in (or been bounced) appropriately in reasonable time frames. One bug I submitted even got a patch from a first time contributor! That's good stuff. Chas and everyone else in the community, many thanks for the tremendous efforts this year - I can't wait to see where we go in 2011.