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Results of the 2011 State of Clojure survey

115 points by cemerick 15y ago

scorchin 15y ago
On discussing the 2% of respondents who found the Clojure community to be a problem: ...rather than simply bask in the awesomeness of the Clojure community, let’s ask: is it possible to make that number be 0% next year? What can we do to minimize those negative interactions? Are they caused by random misunderstandings, or are there just a few bad apples? This is how programming communities should be discussed. This statement gives me hope.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  #clojure on freenode is glorious. I've never seen such a round-the-clock cadre of participants in an IRC channel who will take the time to give such thoughtful explanations. It reminds me of a time before the explosion of documentation for about everything on the web, when going to an IRC channel was the authoritative way of getting hard questions answered.
  - lucian1900 15y ago
    Indeed. I find #python similarly useful, although people do tend to be less patient and more likely to tell you you're wrong (which I think is good, most of the time).
mattdeboard 15y ago
Why is the "State of Clojure" held more than once ever, let alone annually? Everyone knows Clojure's state never changes.
- weavejester 15y ago
  Au contraire! Clojure's state does change; it's just explicitly managed.
  - mattdeboard 15y ago
    Then a report seems like an unnecessary side effect!
    - mattdeboard 15y ago
      Not sure if the downvotes are for the terrible joke or from people who don't understand FP
- Scriptor 15y ago
  While a state itself never changes, Clojure can be in different states!
- alex_stoddard 15y ago
  Clojure is, in its own terms, an identity not a value(see http://clojure.org/state http://clojure.org/state). At the risk of torturing a joke beyond breaking point maybe it should be "State of @Clojure".
alex_c 15y ago
I haven't touched Clojure yet, although discussions on HN have made me interested, and getting a solid grasp on functional languages seems like the next logical step in my evolution as developer. If you had to point a newcomer to a single 15-30 minute resource - blog post, tutorial, code sample, whatever - that can give them a true "aha!" moment about Clojure, what would it be?
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  Frankly, I don't think such a thing exists that matches your constraints. Maybe if you're experienced with FP and with the JVM, I suppose? but the 15- to 30-minute aha! moment? If anything I'd recommend reading Joy of Clojure.
- mike_esspe 15y ago
  Two articles for a start (I'm currently reading the second one, after getting excited about Clojure with the first one :) http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2009/08/12/rifle-oriented-programming-with-clojure-2.html http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2009/08/12/rifle-oriented-pro... http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html#Intro http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html#Intro
- bitsai 15y ago
  I recommend Rich Hickey's presentations on Clojure: (Part 1): http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-989128 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-9... (Part 2): http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-2-of-2-989262 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-2-of-2-9...
- ataggart 15y ago
  Rich's talk at the JVM language summit, "Are We There Yet?", gives a really good look into some of the ideas that underlie clojure. It's worth viewing even if one never uses clojure. http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hic...
- oskarkv 15y ago
  I don't know about 15-30 minutes, but for anyone interested in learning Clojure, I have collected these links that I found interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoeav_T1ARU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoeav_T1ARU http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-989128 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-9... http://4clojure.com/ http://4clojure.com/ http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/ag/gloverseries-halloway.mp3 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/ag/gloverseries-ha... http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich... http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4824610/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4824610/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/ http://vimeo.com/11236603 http://vimeo.com/11236603 http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-in-the-Field http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-in-the-Field Visit them roughly in order. As for books, there are a few good ones, but I acutally recommend the documentation on clojure.org more than any book. It's clear and compact.
pavelludiq 15y ago
As was noted in the article, protocols and multimethods seem to be somewhat undervalued by the community. Maybe its because so many new users come from Java, Ruby and Python, where you only have standard OO(whatever that means). It would seem prudent to me to address this issue, and popularize them more, with more tutorials or blog posts. I don't use clojure much these days, but in Common Lisp I use generic functions(the original inspiration for protocols and multimethods) all the time, and find them the second most important feature of CL after macros.
- cema 15y ago
  standard OO(whatever that means) I think it means: - single dispatch, based on the type of the default ("this") object; - class-based inheritance. Anything else?

115 points by cemerick 15y ago

On discussing the 2% of respondents who found the Clojure community to be a problem: ...rather than simply bask in the awesomeness of the Clojure community, let’s ask: is it possible to make that number be 0% next year? What can we do to minimize those negative interactions? Are they caused by random misunderstandings, or are there just a few bad apples? This is how programming communities should be discussed. This statement gives me hope.

mattdeboard 15y ago
#clojure on freenode is glorious. I've never seen such a round-the-clock cadre of participants in an IRC channel who will take the time to give such thoughtful explanations. It reminds me of a time before the explosion of documentation for about everything on the web, when going to an IRC channel was the authoritative way of getting hard questions answered.
- lucian1900 15y ago
  Indeed. I find #python similarly useful, although people do tend to be less patient and more likely to tell you you're wrong (which I think is good, most of the time).

mattdeboard 15y ago

Why is the "State of Clojure" held more than once ever, let alone annually? Everyone knows Clojure's state never changes.

weavejester 15y ago
Au contraire! Clojure's state does change; it's just explicitly managed.
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  Then a report seems like an unnecessary side effect!
  - mattdeboard 15y ago
    Not sure if the downvotes are for the terrible joke or from people who don't understand FP
Scriptor 15y ago
While a state itself never changes, Clojure can be in different states!
alex_stoddard 15y ago
Clojure is, in its own terms, an identity not a value(see http://clojure.org/state http://clojure.org/state). At the risk of torturing a joke beyond breaking point maybe it should be "State of @Clojure".

alex_c 15y ago

I haven't touched Clojure yet, although discussions on HN have made me interested, and getting a solid grasp on functional languages seems like the next logical step in my evolution as developer. If you had to point a newcomer to a single 15-30 minute resource - blog post, tutorial, code sample, whatever - that can give them a true "aha!" moment about Clojure, what would it be?

mattdeboard 15y ago
Frankly, I don't think such a thing exists that matches your constraints. Maybe if you're experienced with FP and with the JVM, I suppose? but the 15- to 30-minute aha! moment? If anything I'd recommend reading Joy of Clojure.
mike_esspe 15y ago
Two articles for a start (I'm currently reading the second one, after getting excited about Clojure with the first one :) http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2009/08/12/rifle-oriented-programming-with-clojure-2.html http://thinkrelevance.com/blog/2009/08/12/rifle-oriented-pro... http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html#Intro http://java.ociweb.com/mark/clojure/article.html#Intro
bitsai 15y ago
I recommend Rich Hickey's presentations on Clojure: (Part 1): http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-989128 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-9... (Part 2): http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-2-of-2-989262 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-2-of-2-9...
ataggart 15y ago
Rich's talk at the JVM language summit, "Are We There Yet?", gives a really good look into some of the ideas that underlie clojure. It's worth viewing even if one never uses clojure. http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hic...
oskarkv 15y ago
I don't know about 15-30 minutes, but for anyone interested in learning Clojure, I have collected these links that I found interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoeav_T1ARU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoeav_T1ARU http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-989128 http://blip.tv/clojure/clojure-for-java-programmers-1-of-2-9... http://4clojure.com/ http://4clojure.com/ http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/ag/gloverseries-halloway.mp3 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/ag/gloverseries-ha... http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich... http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4824610/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4824610/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/ http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/ http://vimeo.com/11236603 http://vimeo.com/11236603 http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-in-the-Field http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-in-the-Field Visit them roughly in order. As for books, there are a few good ones, but I acutally recommend the documentation on clojure.org more than any book. It's clear and compact.

pavelludiq 15y ago

As was noted in the article, protocols and multimethods seem to be somewhat undervalued by the community. Maybe its because so many new users come from Java, Ruby and Python, where you only have standard OO(whatever that means). It would seem prudent to me to address this issue, and popularize them more, with more tutorials or blog posts. I don't use clojure much these days, but in Common Lisp I use generic functions(the original inspiration for protocols and multimethods) all the time, and find them the second most important feature of CL after macros.

cema 15y ago
standard OO(whatever that means) I think it means: - single dispatch, based on the type of the default ("this") object; - class-based inheritance. Anything else?