3 ms·

> Clojure with the same exact constructs represented with more C-like syntax would, at the level the presentation speaks to, allow the same level of simplicity.

> Clojure with the same exact constructs represented with more C-like syntax would, at the level the presentation speaks to, allow the same level of simplicity. I don't think this is true. I think it would be easier for "most people," but definitely not simpler. Easy meaning close at hand, simple meaning one strand, one braid, independent, less context necessary. Clojure syntax is the AST of the program, right there in front of you, in literal notation. There are fewer special cases, fewer moving parts interacting. C syntax requires spinning up a virtual machine in your mind and executing multiple statements. C is easier because we've already spent the time and effort to familiarize ourselves with it, but it has more complexity. Compare a 954 line ANTLR grammar for C [1] with a 261 line Clojure grammar [2]. > Cognitive overhead is lower working with a language that at least "looks like", what you're used to, and more developers know C-like languages, thus a language like Kotlin is "easier to approach" but necessarily "easier" in the way the presentation talks about. I would agree, using Rich's definitions of simple and easy, that Kotlin is easier for the majority of developers than Clojure. This follows immediately from the definition of easy. > This is a misapplication of the presentation really. It speaks to a level above selecting a language and is really about the design of systems. I would recommend Rich Hickey's talk "The Language of the System" [3]. The programming language(s) used are part(s) of the system and have an effect on its design. I don't think this is a misapplication of the "Simple made Easy" presentation, I think it hits the nail on the head. [1] https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/c/C.g4 https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/c/C.g4 [2] https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/clojure/Clojure.g4 https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/clojure/Clo... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU

BoorishBears 7y ago
I feel like this comment is throwing semantics in a blender and pouring it out into the shape you want... but I guess that's the thing about arguing semantics, it usually devolves to that... So I guess I'll just keep my recommendation to Kotlin and you can keep your recommendation to Clojure
- iLemming 7y ago
  > I feel like this comment is throwing semantics in a blender and pouring it out into the shape you want I don't think it is, though. But it is clear that you are arguing with absolute confidence about a thing you have never given a heartfelt attempt to try first. You are debating like a medieval 13th-century mathematician that Roman numerals are elegant and more comfortable to understand, and people been using them for centuries and no need for this Indo-Arabian numeral non-sense that Leonardo, son of Bonacci so passionately keeps talking about. I don't want to sound patronizing (I guess I'm already are, although not intentionally), but let me give you an advice - never trust your inner skepticism, fight it, dig for the answer - why are you so skeptical about it. Progress pushed forward by individuals who continuously challenge their beliefs. And from what I can see - you are not a mere consumer of progress, you too, do want to be at the front line where it is being made.
  - BoorishBears 7y ago
    Hahaha Thank you for the laugh, I imagined you typing that last paragraph, reading it, and thinking you had said something pithy and being proud to share that hackneyed screed with the world. Up until this point I haven't even shared my opinions of Clojure (which I've used) in absolute terms, did you realize this is all in relation to OP's description of "dorky languages", so I was speaking to OP's PoV as someone who probably doesn't use non C-like languages, not myself. Erlang, my pet language is plenty dorky, you seem to have confused "dorky" with "bad" or lacking utility. But alas, let me just be straight forward, Clojure is bad. A masturbatory aid for bored developers burning perfectly good time and money for their own overinflated sense of accomplishment and their quirky resumes. Imagine being a language that literally lists it's half it's rationale as "our customers who won't let us run what we want, so we stuck what we actually wanted to make, on this JVM thing that they all know real well". Clojure code bases devolve into contrived spaghetti so blindingly fast, but by god will the people writing it get off to how dense the code they're writing is while the decent into madness marches on, and boy will they enjoy how they're really sticking it to those stupid Java guys with no types... while 90% the code they interop with was clearly designed to be used in a typed setting. And you can count down on a M-F calendar view how many days before the codebase will feature a different DSL for each programmer who's touched it which allows them to define complex business rules as a new sub-language instead of icky "normal" shudder code. Java did only a few things right, and no macros was one, imagine thinking undoing that is the right choice. Clojure devs love to hold up the few high-profile successes and a bunch of no name success stories that are small enough to probably have served just as well by anything from Clojure to writing out Java bytecode in pico. The funny thing is the most common successful cases actually went and tacked on a freaking type system! https://typedclojure.org/ https://typedclojure.org/ Have they heard of F#? And if they're so allergic to types, good god why are you on the JVM and trying to interop with JVM code. If you're not trying to interop with JVM code, why Clojure? Why not Elixir or Erlang, which kick Clojure's ass at the other half of the rationale it always gets, concurrency and immutability. Actually, don't answer that, we already know. Because JVM contains Java, and Java = business, and you're not going to get to jerk off at work with an unproductive language if it doesn't have something a business type can latch onto! You don't want to admit "we want to use this language with a much smaller hiring pool, much less mindshare, unnecessary barriers to interop with one of the largest ecosystems in tech, which is very prone to creating unmaintainable nightmares in the long term by it's very nature."! You want to express it as "we want to use Java but with parenthesis can we huh can we pls pls k thnx". Clojure is a garbage language that always gets defended with "you just don't get it". What a joke.

BoorishBears 7y ago

I feel like this comment is throwing semantics in a blender and pouring it out into the shape you want... but I guess that's the thing about arguing semantics, it usually devolves to that... So I guess I'll just keep my recommendation to Kotlin and you can keep your recommendation to Clojure

iLemming 7y ago
> I feel like this comment is throwing semantics in a blender and pouring it out into the shape you want I don't think it is, though. But it is clear that you are arguing with absolute confidence about a thing you have never given a heartfelt attempt to try first. You are debating like a medieval 13th-century mathematician that Roman numerals are elegant and more comfortable to understand, and people been using them for centuries and no need for this Indo-Arabian numeral non-sense that Leonardo, son of Bonacci so passionately keeps talking about. I don't want to sound patronizing (I guess I'm already are, although not intentionally), but let me give you an advice - never trust your inner skepticism, fight it, dig for the answer - why are you so skeptical about it. Progress pushed forward by individuals who continuously challenge their beliefs. And from what I can see - you are not a mere consumer of progress, you too, do want to be at the front line where it is being made.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  Hahaha Thank you for the laugh, I imagined you typing that last paragraph, reading it, and thinking you had said something pithy and being proud to share that hackneyed screed with the world. Up until this point I haven't even shared my opinions of Clojure (which I've used) in absolute terms, did you realize this is all in relation to OP's description of "dorky languages", so I was speaking to OP's PoV as someone who probably doesn't use non C-like languages, not myself. Erlang, my pet language is plenty dorky, you seem to have confused "dorky" with "bad" or lacking utility. But alas, let me just be straight forward, Clojure is bad. A masturbatory aid for bored developers burning perfectly good time and money for their own overinflated sense of accomplishment and their quirky resumes. Imagine being a language that literally lists it's half it's rationale as "our customers who won't let us run what we want, so we stuck what we actually wanted to make, on this JVM thing that they all know real well". Clojure code bases devolve into contrived spaghetti so blindingly fast, but by god will the people writing it get off to how dense the code they're writing is while the decent into madness marches on, and boy will they enjoy how they're really sticking it to those stupid Java guys with no types... while 90% the code they interop with was clearly designed to be used in a typed setting. And you can count down on a M-F calendar view how many days before the codebase will feature a different DSL for each programmer who's touched it which allows them to define complex business rules as a new sub-language instead of icky "normal" shudder code. Java did only a few things right, and no macros was one, imagine thinking undoing that is the right choice. Clojure devs love to hold up the few high-profile successes and a bunch of no name success stories that are small enough to probably have served just as well by anything from Clojure to writing out Java bytecode in pico. The funny thing is the most common successful cases actually went and tacked on a freaking type system! https://typedclojure.org/ https://typedclojure.org/ Have they heard of F#? And if they're so allergic to types, good god why are you on the JVM and trying to interop with JVM code. If you're not trying to interop with JVM code, why Clojure? Why not Elixir or Erlang, which kick Clojure's ass at the other half of the rationale it always gets, concurrency and immutability. Actually, don't answer that, we already know. Because JVM contains Java, and Java = business, and you're not going to get to jerk off at work with an unproductive language if it doesn't have something a business type can latch onto! You don't want to admit "we want to use this language with a much smaller hiring pool, much less mindshare, unnecessary barriers to interop with one of the largest ecosystems in tech, which is very prone to creating unmaintainable nightmares in the long term by it's very nature."! You want to express it as "we want to use Java but with parenthesis can we huh can we pls pls k thnx". Clojure is a garbage language that always gets defended with "you just don't get it". What a joke.