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Is it growing? It is a difficult metric to quantify, but looking at thing like Github, or Reddit, it seems flat or declining. Clojure initially benefited as the

Is it growing? It is a difficult metric to quantify, but looking at thing like Github, or Reddit, it seems flat or declining. Clojure initially benefited as the preferred Java escape path, but it seems like that has been supplanted by Kotlin. https://github.com/oprogramador/github-languages#most-failing https://github.com/oprogramador/github-languages#most-failin... https://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/ https://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-language...

htfu 7y ago
At least the first link has a pretty crazy cutoff though, 2018. Once a lib is mature it can easily go years without updates, doesn't mean development has been abandoned, much less usage. But trying to compare across languages by package manager traffic or something would obviously be a lot harder. In any case apparent zero velocity, whatever it's actually tracking, definitely shows that general interest (which constantly seems high) isn't really translating to really wide adoption.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  I agree with your first point, and stability of Clojure the language, and libraries is a strength. But it does suggest fewer people are starting new projects with Clojure, which matches how it feels to me, and matches my experience in the Clojure community, where discussions are a little less active.
didibus 7y ago
I've noticed the reddit is less active, but I think that's just because everything needing saying was said already. At least it is for me, just busy coding. The Clojure annual survey gets more and more participants every year, so from that angle it seems to be growing.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  Clojure survey in 2015 had 2,445, 2016 had 2,420 responses, 2018 dropped to 2,325, and 2019 had 2,461. So pretty flat.
  - didibus 7y ago
    Oh you're right, I got mixed up with the announcement: > In the first Clojure survey in 2010, 27% of respondents reported using Clojure for work and 33% for serious hobby projects. This number has steadily grown over the years and we now see 66% using it at work and 54% using it for serious hobby projects. https://clojure.org/news/2019/02/04/state-of-clojure-2019 https://clojure.org/news/2019/02/04/state-of-clojure-2019 It's the number of Clojure devs using Clojure for work that has consistently grown. Interesting that this has happened without the community growing in numbers.
yogthos 7y ago
I really don't understand why people obsesses over popularity so much. The only question worth asking is whether the language has a big enough community to be sustainable, especially when dealing with a hosted language that leverages the underlying ecosystem. In case of Clojure the answer is unequivocally yes. It's got a large active community around it, and there are many companies of all kinds using it in production. Whether it's growing rapidly or slowly doesn't really affect its effectiveness compared to the other options available.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  It has a small active community with many abandoned libraries, no killer app, and painful tooling. I like the language in spite of that, but size of community matters. To your point, as a hosted language you can make up Clojure's deficiencies by using Java libraries, but if you aren't a Java developer (or are a disgruntled Java developer) that isn't a great answer. The only question worth asking is whether the language has a big enough community to be sustainable Exactly, and I'd argue Clojure was on a path to yes, but has lost momentum and is leaning toward no.
  - iLemming 7y ago
    > It has a small active community Wrong. Clojure community is only smaller in comparison to mainstream languages: Java, JS/TS, Python, Ruby, Go. Today it has more conferences than Haskell, F#, OCaml, Elm, Elixir, Erlang. More meetups and more podcasts. Just this year alone there were announcements for Clojure confs in India, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Belgium (and these are just for new ones) > many abandoned libraries Wrong. Clojure emphasizes modularity and composability, library that supposed to be doing one thing and well is usually just that. Besides, Clojure is also legendary for stability and backward-compatibility. I don't know any other language where you can pick a project of a few years old, update a few dependencies and still expect it to work. You don't have to re-write things every time TC39 gets browsers to support yet another Javascript feature. Read this passage from one of the Clojure libs https://github.com/candera/causatum#liveness-advisory https://github.com/candera/causatum#liveness-advisory to understand why Clojure libs don't get updated very often. There are hundreds of Emacs packages that people still download and use but they haven't seen any updates for decades. Does that make them "abandoned"? > no killer app Wrong. Clojure often offers multiple choices for any domain. Being hosted makes it even broader. Yes, some knowledge of the language you're trying to interop with is required, but you don't have to be an expert to successfully build and maintain things. If someone doesn't qualify Figwheel, Re-frame, Fulcro, Lacinia, etc. as "killer apps" I don't know, maybe they are just pathologically ever unhappy. > painful tooling Wrong. Again. It used to be difficult, because only Emacs used to have nice support for Clojure. Today you can write Clojure in Emacs, IntelliJ, Atom, VSCode, Vim, Eclipse. And tooling is a lot nicer in comparison with other tech stacks. So no, Clojure has never "lost the momentum". It is still growing, but less rapidly. The ecosystem has reached levels of hedonic adaptation, where people are just happily using it without too much excitement and/or frustration. Clojure has become a "boring" language. It just works. And arguably it is probably the best tool for what it is made for.
iLemming 7y ago
Yes, it is growing. Today Clojure hosts more conferences than Rust, Swift, Elm, Erlang, F#, Haskell, Elixir, OCaml, ReasonML and soon the number may exceed number of Scala specific conferences. It will probably never become as popular as Javascript/Typescript or Python and Ruby but it is slowly and steadily growing.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  I'd attribute Clojure conference success to the passionate fans, but look at the google trend line: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=clojure https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

htfu 7y ago

At least the first link has a pretty crazy cutoff though, 2018. Once a lib is mature it can easily go years without updates, doesn't mean development has been abandoned, much less usage. But trying to compare across languages by package manager traffic or something would obviously be a lot harder. In any case apparent zero velocity, whatever it's actually tracking, definitely shows that general interest (which constantly seems high) isn't really translating to really wide adoption.

WillPostForFood 7y ago
I agree with your first point, and stability of Clojure the language, and libraries is a strength. But it does suggest fewer people are starting new projects with Clojure, which matches how it feels to me, and matches my experience in the Clojure community, where discussions are a little less active.

didibus 7y ago

I've noticed the reddit is less active, but I think that's just because everything needing saying was said already. At least it is for me, just busy coding. The Clojure annual survey gets more and more participants every year, so from that angle it seems to be growing.

WillPostForFood 7y ago
Clojure survey in 2015 had 2,445, 2016 had 2,420 responses, 2018 dropped to 2,325, and 2019 had 2,461. So pretty flat.
- didibus 7y ago
  Oh you're right, I got mixed up with the announcement: > In the first Clojure survey in 2010, 27% of respondents reported using Clojure for work and 33% for serious hobby projects. This number has steadily grown over the years and we now see 66% using it at work and 54% using it for serious hobby projects. https://clojure.org/news/2019/02/04/state-of-clojure-2019 https://clojure.org/news/2019/02/04/state-of-clojure-2019 It's the number of Clojure devs using Clojure for work that has consistently grown. Interesting that this has happened without the community growing in numbers.

yogthos 7y ago

I really don't understand why people obsesses over popularity so much. The only question worth asking is whether the language has a big enough community to be sustainable, especially when dealing with a hosted language that leverages the underlying ecosystem. In case of Clojure the answer is unequivocally yes. It's got a large active community around it, and there are many companies of all kinds using it in production. Whether it's growing rapidly or slowly doesn't really affect its effectiveness compared to the other options available.

WillPostForFood 7y ago
It has a small active community with many abandoned libraries, no killer app, and painful tooling. I like the language in spite of that, but size of community matters. To your point, as a hosted language you can make up Clojure's deficiencies by using Java libraries, but if you aren't a Java developer (or are a disgruntled Java developer) that isn't a great answer. The only question worth asking is whether the language has a big enough community to be sustainable Exactly, and I'd argue Clojure was on a path to yes, but has lost momentum and is leaning toward no.
- iLemming 7y ago
  > It has a small active community Wrong. Clojure community is only smaller in comparison to mainstream languages: Java, JS/TS, Python, Ruby, Go. Today it has more conferences than Haskell, F#, OCaml, Elm, Elixir, Erlang. More meetups and more podcasts. Just this year alone there were announcements for Clojure confs in India, Brazil, Canada, Russia and Belgium (and these are just for new ones) > many abandoned libraries Wrong. Clojure emphasizes modularity and composability, library that supposed to be doing one thing and well is usually just that. Besides, Clojure is also legendary for stability and backward-compatibility. I don't know any other language where you can pick a project of a few years old, update a few dependencies and still expect it to work. You don't have to re-write things every time TC39 gets browsers to support yet another Javascript feature. Read this passage from one of the Clojure libs https://github.com/candera/causatum#liveness-advisory https://github.com/candera/causatum#liveness-advisory to understand why Clojure libs don't get updated very often. There are hundreds of Emacs packages that people still download and use but they haven't seen any updates for decades. Does that make them "abandoned"? > no killer app Wrong. Clojure often offers multiple choices for any domain. Being hosted makes it even broader. Yes, some knowledge of the language you're trying to interop with is required, but you don't have to be an expert to successfully build and maintain things. If someone doesn't qualify Figwheel, Re-frame, Fulcro, Lacinia, etc. as "killer apps" I don't know, maybe they are just pathologically ever unhappy. > painful tooling Wrong. Again. It used to be difficult, because only Emacs used to have nice support for Clojure. Today you can write Clojure in Emacs, IntelliJ, Atom, VSCode, Vim, Eclipse. And tooling is a lot nicer in comparison with other tech stacks. So no, Clojure has never "lost the momentum". It is still growing, but less rapidly. The ecosystem has reached levels of hedonic adaptation, where people are just happily using it without too much excitement and/or frustration. Clojure has become a "boring" language. It just works. And arguably it is probably the best tool for what it is made for.

iLemming 7y ago

Yes, it is growing. Today Clojure hosts more conferences than Rust, Swift, Elm, Erlang, F#, Haskell, Elixir, OCaml, ReasonML and soon the number may exceed number of Scala specific conferences. It will probably never become as popular as Javascript/Typescript or Python and Ruby but it is slowly and steadily growing.

WillPostForFood 7y ago
I'd attribute Clojure conference success to the passionate fans, but look at the google trend line: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=clojure https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...