4 ms·

Seeing how Clojure is actively used at places like Apple, Amazon, Atlassian, and even Walmart where software development isn't even their primary business, I th

Seeing how Clojure is actively used at places like Apple, Amazon, Atlassian, and even Walmart where software development isn't even their primary business, I think it's pretty safe to call it mainstream.

lispm 7y ago
I would call languages like Java, Javascript, Python, C++, C# 'mainstream'. But not niche languages which have 1/100ths or less of open positions. Monster lists 68000 positions after a search for 'Java', and 180 for 'Clojure'.
- yogthos 7y ago
  I would call any language that's actively used in the industry with a large and active community mainstream. Restricting the term mainstream to a handful of most used languages is pretty silly in my opinion.
  - lispm 7y ago
    It's just that the community is not large. It's small. To think that 'a few thousand people' is large among millions of other programmers is 'silly' (to quote you).
    - yogthos 7y ago
      I'd love to know where your numbers come from
      - lispm 7y ago
        Do you have other numbers? The last Clojure survey has ~2500 people responding. Which is basically the same for several years now. I we assume that 10 times more people are actively using Clojure, then that would be 25000. Still a lot less than the probably 7 million Java programmers and 8 million Python developers. https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-python-developers-now-outnumber-java-ones/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-python-d...
        yogthos 7y ago
        I'm not arguing that Clojure is as widely used as Java or Python, which are two most popular languages in the world. I'm saying that it's a ridiculous bar to set for calling something mainstream. However, there are some other metrics we can look at. For example, if we look at downloads for popular libraries, we can see that Ring's been downloaded 9,058,741 times, and obviously there are repeat downloads for the same users, but even accounting for that it indicates a much bigger user base than you're suggesting. https://clojars.org/ring/ring-core https://clojars.org/ring/ring-core Other data points would be commercial tooling like Cursive and commercial funding for projects with organizations like Clojurists Together indicates that there is a critical mass of commercial users who are willing to fund projects https://lambdaisland.com/blog/2020-02-03-open-collective-lambda-island-open-source https://lambdaisland.com/blog/2020-02-03-open-collective-lam... https://www.clojuriststogether.org/ https://www.clojuriststogether.org/ Finally, Clojure usage is growing for new projects both in enterprise and government sectors in countries like Finalnd https://twitter.com/autiomaa/status/1235944730267193345 https://twitter.com/autiomaa/status/1235944730267193345 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nCZ-GmWLcH8Dcz3XJHY00xbm42V9-rBL9n2PGkKYp0k/edit?folder=0AM-3FGnMl8asUk9PVA https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nCZ-GmWLcH8Dcz3XJHY0... This is a very different picture from a tiny isolated community of a few thousand developers that you seem to be painting.
        lispm 7y ago
        > 9,058,741 times, This says nothing about the number of human users. > This is a very different picture from a tiny isolated community of a few thousand developers that you seem to be painting. https://opencollective.com/lambda-island#section-contributors https://opencollective.com/lambda-island#section-contributor... They have 13 contributors.
        yogthos 7y ago
        >This says nothing about the number of human users. It obviously does because people are using these libraries in their projects. As I noted, it's an indirect measure, but it still gives an idea of the usage. And Open Collective was just announced last month, so not sure what point you were trying to make there. Wonder why you didn't mention anything about Clojurists Together, doesn't fit your narrative? https://www.clojuriststogether.org/members/ https://www.clojuriststogether.org/members/
Scarbutt 7y ago
The only project at Amazon that uses Clojure is one legacy project in maintenance mode.
- yogthos 7y ago
  I'll take your word on that. However, that doesn't change my point that Clojure is used at lost of large companies, and the recent developer survey showed that it's becoming more widely used at large companies.

lispm 7y ago

I would call languages like Java, Javascript, Python, C++, C# 'mainstream'. But not niche languages which have 1/100ths or less of open positions. Monster lists 68000 positions after a search for 'Java', and 180 for 'Clojure'.

yogthos 7y ago
I would call any language that's actively used in the industry with a large and active community mainstream. Restricting the term mainstream to a handful of most used languages is pretty silly in my opinion.
- lispm 7y ago
  It's just that the community is not large. It's small. To think that 'a few thousand people' is large among millions of other programmers is 'silly' (to quote you).
  - yogthos 7y ago
    I'd love to know where your numbers come from
    - lispm 7y ago
      Do you have other numbers? The last Clojure survey has ~2500 people responding. Which is basically the same for several years now. I we assume that 10 times more people are actively using Clojure, then that would be 25000. Still a lot less than the probably 7 million Java programmers and 8 million Python developers. https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-python-developers-now-outnumber-java-ones/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-python-d...
      - yogthos 7y ago
        I'm not arguing that Clojure is as widely used as Java or Python, which are two most popular languages in the world. I'm saying that it's a ridiculous bar to set for calling something mainstream. However, there are some other metrics we can look at. For example, if we look at downloads for popular libraries, we can see that Ring's been downloaded 9,058,741 times, and obviously there are repeat downloads for the same users, but even accounting for that it indicates a much bigger user base than you're suggesting. https://clojars.org/ring/ring-core https://clojars.org/ring/ring-core Other data points would be commercial tooling like Cursive and commercial funding for projects with organizations like Clojurists Together indicates that there is a critical mass of commercial users who are willing to fund projects https://lambdaisland.com/blog/2020-02-03-open-collective-lambda-island-open-source https://lambdaisland.com/blog/2020-02-03-open-collective-lam... https://www.clojuriststogether.org/ https://www.clojuriststogether.org/ Finally, Clojure usage is growing for new projects both in enterprise and government sectors in countries like Finalnd https://twitter.com/autiomaa/status/1235944730267193345 https://twitter.com/autiomaa/status/1235944730267193345 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nCZ-GmWLcH8Dcz3XJHY00xbm42V9-rBL9n2PGkKYp0k/edit?folder=0AM-3FGnMl8asUk9PVA https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nCZ-GmWLcH8Dcz3XJHY0... This is a very different picture from a tiny isolated community of a few thousand developers that you seem to be painting.
        lispm 7y ago
        > 9,058,741 times, This says nothing about the number of human users. > This is a very different picture from a tiny isolated community of a few thousand developers that you seem to be painting. https://opencollective.com/lambda-island#section-contributors https://opencollective.com/lambda-island#section-contributor... They have 13 contributors.
        yogthos 7y ago
        >This says nothing about the number of human users. It obviously does because people are using these libraries in their projects. As I noted, it's an indirect measure, but it still gives an idea of the usage. And Open Collective was just announced last month, so not sure what point you were trying to make there. Wonder why you didn't mention anything about Clojurists Together, doesn't fit your narrative? https://www.clojuriststogether.org/members/ https://www.clojuriststogether.org/members/

Scarbutt 7y ago

The only project at Amazon that uses Clojure is one legacy project in maintenance mode.

yogthos 7y ago
I'll take your word on that. However, that doesn't change my point that Clojure is used at lost of large companies, and the recent developer survey showed that it's becoming more widely used at large companies.