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> and very seldom hit the REPL That was the problem right there. Not getting used to a REPL driven workflow in Clojure is like using TypeScript without an IDE.

> and very seldom hit the REPL That was the problem right there. Not getting used to a REPL driven workflow in Clojure is like using TypeScript without an IDE. It'll negate all benefits.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
I don't know. I quite liked working with Clojure at the time. My previous experience had been: 1. PHP 2. JavaScript (browser) 3. JavaScript (Node) The introduction to functional programming was eye opening to me, and made me a significantly better programmer. Working with ClojureScript, on the other hand, was painful. Numerous hours-long debugging sessions where I discovered I was passing a different type to core functions than I expected, causing wildly unexpected and baffling errors. Reporting issues and having them closed with "wontfix" because "don't do that". That's what led me to TypeScript. And then of course the IDE. But I carried what I learned from FP with me. And now, having learned a powerful type system, it's made me a much better programmer still.
- didibus 6y ago
  I don't mean the REPL is the only upside to Clojure, but it's the trade-off for the lack of static type checker with IDE. If you needed to run the TypeScript compiler as a CLI and it spiled errors on the command line, that also wouldn't be a very pleasant experience. I've known a few people coming from Java or C# to Clojure, never really getting into the REPL, would mostly program the same way they used too, and they went back. Which frankly doesn't surprise me, I'd go back as well if that was the case. The dynamism of Clojure isn't there out of lazyness to implement a static checker, but to be leveraged both at run-time and development time. Clojure is still a lovely language without it, but if you don't leverage the dynamism, then it'll seem like the language is lacking staticness, obviously, since you're using it statically except it has no features built around staticness. That said, I don't blame anyone for not leaning into the REPL, Clojure and especially ClojureScript doesn't make it easy, the tooling is rough around the edges. As an aside, I think everyone should explore multiple paradigms and languages, and having good experience in a statically typed language will make you a better programmer, even if you were to go back to Clojure one day. The act of thinking about the types behind your variables actually makes you a better programmer in dynamic languages, because you start to have a static checker inside your head, and over time make less and less type related mistakes or can catch them very quickly.

> and very seldom hit the REPL That was the problem right there. Not getting used to a REPL driven workflow in Clojure is like using TypeScript without an IDE. It'll negate all benefits.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

I don't know. I quite liked working with Clojure at the time. My previous experience had been: 1. PHP 2. JavaScript (browser) 3. JavaScript (Node) The introduction to functional programming was eye opening to me, and made me a significantly better programmer. Working with ClojureScript, on the other hand, was painful. Numerous hours-long debugging sessions where I discovered I was passing a different type to core functions than I expected, causing wildly unexpected and baffling errors. Reporting issues and having them closed with "wontfix" because "don't do that". That's what led me to TypeScript. And then of course the IDE. But I carried what I learned from FP with me. And now, having learned a powerful type system, it's made me a much better programmer still.

didibus 6y ago
I don't mean the REPL is the only upside to Clojure, but it's the trade-off for the lack of static type checker with IDE. If you needed to run the TypeScript compiler as a CLI and it spiled errors on the command line, that also wouldn't be a very pleasant experience. I've known a few people coming from Java or C# to Clojure, never really getting into the REPL, would mostly program the same way they used too, and they went back. Which frankly doesn't surprise me, I'd go back as well if that was the case. The dynamism of Clojure isn't there out of lazyness to implement a static checker, but to be leveraged both at run-time and development time. Clojure is still a lovely language without it, but if you don't leverage the dynamism, then it'll seem like the language is lacking staticness, obviously, since you're using it statically except it has no features built around staticness. That said, I don't blame anyone for not leaning into the REPL, Clojure and especially ClojureScript doesn't make it easy, the tooling is rough around the edges. As an aside, I think everyone should explore multiple paradigms and languages, and having good experience in a statically typed language will make you a better programmer, even if you were to go back to Clojure one day. The act of thinking about the types behind your variables actually makes you a better programmer in dynamic languages, because you start to have a static checker inside your head, and over time make less and less type related mistakes or can catch them very quickly.