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Many Clojure companies find it easy to hire smart non-Clojure developers and teach them Clojure. You can learn the basics in a week or two and be a pretty effec

Many Clojure companies find it easy to hire smart non-Clojure developers and teach them Clojure. You can learn the basics in a week or two and be a pretty effective Clojure developer (especially if supported in a team) pretty easily.

ertucetin 6y ago
No, you can't (in that timeframe).
- hangonhn 6y ago
  +1 on that. I've learned Clojure in the past and keep wanting to go back to it but Clojure has been the hardest language for me to become fairly comfortable with. I think it may have to do with its dynamic-ness. There's basically no problem Clojure experts can't find a solution for. Its basic constructs are very powerful but all those solutions are not codified in the language itself. So Clojure has this extra layer of "culture" around it and as a beginner that's very hard to learn without a lot of doing and running into a wall quite a few times. Just when I think I have a grasp on the language, I see a new construct or new way of doing something that's completely alien to me and wasn't in the Clojure book I just read. I've not saying one can't become good at it but it takes a bit and might help to have an expert or two guiding you.
  - huahaiy 6y ago
    As a programmer with decades of experience, it took me half a year to get Clojure, and I had to unlearn a lot. Reading books is not enough, one has to do programming exercises with the language. So I agree that it is harder for experienced people than for young kids fresh from school.
- jwatte 6y ago
  Depends on where they're coming from. If all they know is Java, then surely not! If they've done Python and C and Erlang before, the switch doesn't seem as hard.
- huahaiy 6y ago
  Yes, you can, if the new hire is fresh from school and is smart. In my startup, our onboarding time is two weeks. I would say nine out of ten fresh graduates we hired picked up Clojure and were able to do something useful after two weeks. But we did have one or two persons who were not able to and they ended up in one of FAAG (yes, we did do leetcode style interviews, but only asked medium level questions).
- fulafel 6y ago
  The GP didn't say 2 weeks to effective, it was for learning the basics. Or do you disagree with that as well?
puredanger 6y ago
Just as one example, Nubank did not hire 600 Clojure developers. They hired 600 developers who learned Clojure.
eigenhombre 6y ago
I have helped do this at two companies that used Clojure heavily, and agree it is definitely doable (and possibly easier the smarter and more junior they are). What can be more challenging is to find more senior people who are decent Clojurians (it is hard to take a junior developer and make them as, or more, senior than you, for example :-) ). Hiring experienced Clojure devs is also doable, but takes time, flexibility (e.g., open to remote... easier in 2020 than in 2019), and real effort.
didibus 6y ago
I can coroborate this in our case. But to be fair to OP, it requires having a very good onboarding process. We have weekly Clojure lessons where we teach the language, and good CR protocol so for a while all CRs go to people who know the language very well so they can give good advice about Clojure. And this works if you add new developers slowly, but can get challenging if you hire quickly. So I would say it still requires some extra effort and the motivation to do so.
- hotcrossbunny 6y ago
  This sounds like a good place to learn. Might I ask the company?
  - puredanger 6y ago
    This is a pretty good talk about this (don't think it's the same company): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E4gF3KEwZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E4gF3KEwZ0
dwwoelfel 6y ago
This is what we did at CircleCI. In fact, most of our best hires were people who did not know Clojure before joining the company. People who already knew Clojure had a tendency to overcomplicate things with solutions that used every bit of their Clojure knowledge.
fulafel 6y ago
Yep, this works.

ertucetin 6y ago

No, you can't (in that timeframe).

hangonhn 6y ago
+1 on that. I've learned Clojure in the past and keep wanting to go back to it but Clojure has been the hardest language for me to become fairly comfortable with. I think it may have to do with its dynamic-ness. There's basically no problem Clojure experts can't find a solution for. Its basic constructs are very powerful but all those solutions are not codified in the language itself. So Clojure has this extra layer of "culture" around it and as a beginner that's very hard to learn without a lot of doing and running into a wall quite a few times. Just when I think I have a grasp on the language, I see a new construct or new way of doing something that's completely alien to me and wasn't in the Clojure book I just read. I've not saying one can't become good at it but it takes a bit and might help to have an expert or two guiding you.
- huahaiy 6y ago
  As a programmer with decades of experience, it took me half a year to get Clojure, and I had to unlearn a lot. Reading books is not enough, one has to do programming exercises with the language. So I agree that it is harder for experienced people than for young kids fresh from school.
jwatte 6y ago
Depends on where they're coming from. If all they know is Java, then surely not! If they've done Python and C and Erlang before, the switch doesn't seem as hard.
huahaiy 6y ago
Yes, you can, if the new hire is fresh from school and is smart. In my startup, our onboarding time is two weeks. I would say nine out of ten fresh graduates we hired picked up Clojure and were able to do something useful after two weeks. But we did have one or two persons who were not able to and they ended up in one of FAAG (yes, we did do leetcode style interviews, but only asked medium level questions).
fulafel 6y ago
The GP didn't say 2 weeks to effective, it was for learning the basics. Or do you disagree with that as well?

puredanger 6y ago

Just as one example, Nubank did not hire 600 Clojure developers. They hired 600 developers who learned Clojure.

eigenhombre 6y ago

I have helped do this at two companies that used Clojure heavily, and agree it is definitely doable (and possibly easier the smarter and more junior they are). What can be more challenging is to find more senior people who are decent Clojurians (it is hard to take a junior developer and make them as, or more, senior than you, for example :-) ). Hiring experienced Clojure devs is also doable, but takes time, flexibility (e.g., open to remote... easier in 2020 than in 2019), and real effort.

didibus 6y ago

I can coroborate this in our case. But to be fair to OP, it requires having a very good onboarding process. We have weekly Clojure lessons where we teach the language, and good CR protocol so for a while all CRs go to people who know the language very well so they can give good advice about Clojure. And this works if you add new developers slowly, but can get challenging if you hire quickly. So I would say it still requires some extra effort and the motivation to do so.

hotcrossbunny 6y ago
This sounds like a good place to learn. Might I ask the company?
- puredanger 6y ago
  This is a pretty good talk about this (don't think it's the same company): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E4gF3KEwZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E4gF3KEwZ0

dwwoelfel 6y ago

This is what we did at CircleCI. In fact, most of our best hires were people who did not know Clojure before joining the company. People who already knew Clojure had a tendency to overcomplicate things with solutions that used every bit of their Clojure knowledge.

fulafel 6y ago

Yep, this works.