5 ms·

Clojure(Script) holds so much appeal for me, checks ~all the boxes... I just wish it were more popular. Curious why it's not.

lenkite 4y ago
There are some critical reasons for several people. Performance is one of them and lack of support for async/await is another. JS has also significantly become better in the last 5 years while Clojure has remained mostly static.
Deadron 4y ago
The tooling is far from simplistic to setup and the available options can be overwhelming. Its all the pain of the JS stack but with less easily available help and tooling that produces less helpful error messages.
- CraigJPerry 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s that $ npx nbb -e (println "Hello, world") Need to install the following packages: nbb Ok to proceed? (y) Hello, world Or more comprehensively: https://clojurescript.org/guides/quick-start https://clojurescript.org/guides/quick-start
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Deadron 4y ago
    Your example is missing anything actually related to rendering a webpage.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Unclear what "rendering a webpage" entails exactly. If you want to do frontend development, you can give shadow-cljs a try, the quickstart is pretty quick: https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs#quick-start https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs#quick-start If you want to just render server-side HTML, something like compojure (HTTP routing) and hiccup (Clojure data -> HTML) is pretty easy and quick to get started with (https://gist.github.com/zehnpaard/2071c3f55ed319aa8528d54d90f557e3 https://gist.github.com/zehnpaard/2071c3f55ed319aa8528d54d90...). If you want to generate HTML files to serve with nginx/whatever, you can just use hiccup and `(spit)` the resulting HTML to files on disk.
- didibus 4y ago
  I think the tooling nowadays is pretty simple to setup, but the information out there doesn't speak to that new simple way, so everyone starting is following something that pushes them to outdated tooling. Install Java: brew tap homebrew/cask-versions brew install --cask temurin17 Install Clojure: brew install clojure/tools/clojure Type `clj` at the command line and play with Clojure! Now install VSCode and get the Calva plugin for Clojure from the marketplace. That's it. You'll have autocompletion, jump to definition, code formatting and highlighting, linting, support for editor integrated REPL, debugger, etc. Then you can run: clojure -Ttools install io.github.seancorfield/deps-new '{:git/tag "v0.4.9"}' :as new And now you can create new projects from various templates using: clojure -Tnew app :name myusername/mynewapp This creates a new basic application project for example. Open it in VSCode and you can connect a REPL to it and start working.
- wry_discontent 4y ago
  The errors are bad, but understandable in 99% of cases with a little experience (like 2-3 weeks). And the stuff about the tooling is flat out wrong. The CLJS tooling is light years ahead of JS tooling in my experience. Maybe that was different back in the day, but shadow-cljs is seamless. Vastly superior to working with package.json/babelrc/postcssrc/webpack.config.js/etc/etc/etc
  - lenkite 4y ago
    If you are going to compare modern CLJS tooling against JS - you should also compare against modern JS tooling like esbuild/vitejs which operate at light-speed.
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
It seems really nice to work with but investing in a niche ecosystem that adds another layer of complexity on top of a tall stack is a hard sell for me personally
- didibus 4y ago
  That's a good reason. You are working above Java, JavaScript and others, and that's often something that you need to be aware of and the details of those layers leak in a little. It's still worth it for me personally, but I recon the additional challenge. If you try babashka and nbb it won't feel as much of an extra layer, but they're both interpreted, so expect only Ruby like performance out of them. That said, it's a good way to get started if you don't want an extra layer under Clojure.
  - BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
    I actually did learn Clojure on the JVM. I read two and a half Clojure books, built a number of side projects, and I worked as a Java developer for a few years so the JVM wasn’t an issue. But even with all that, building a web app is far easier for me using Python/Flask, even with minimal experience with the language or framework. And if I want to build a web service, I reach for go because it’s faster and the memory footprint is much smaller. I guess maybe if I was working on a super complex project that justified using Clojure to build elaborate abstractions, I would use it, but most of what I work on is pretty straightforward. ClojureScript I’ve avoided because I keep anything frontend-related that I work on as dead simple as humanly possible to avoid churn. And babashka seems neat too but I’m already comfortable with bash, and shellcheck works well. It sucks but I just can’t seem to find a good use case for Clojure, even though I love the tooling and the language.
    - didibus 4y ago
      I don't know that there are good use cases, you just use what you want. For example I use Clojure and its variants for writing command lines, scripts, websites, backend services, Cron jobs, programming exercises/practice, and desktop applications. Sometimes I use it for data analysis and visualization as well. I use it at work and for personal stuff. It's not that it has some awesome superior or full featured framework or feature for any one of those use cases, just that it's overall a language I like to use and which I have more fun with, and it's sufficient at everything you'd need to seriously use it for all those things. I prefer working interactively over a running program, I prefer the flexibility to extend language to my own needs with macros and higher order functions, I like the simplicity of working directly with data instead of ADTs or single use containers like Classes, I prefer structural editing for navigating and modifying source code, I prefer functional programming over OOP, I prefer immutable defaults and value semantics, and I prefer Clojure's well thought out core sequence manipulation functions. My point is that Clojure is well rounded, there's a few things it's not good enough for, but those are rare, stuff like embedded systems, AAA games, high performance audio or video processing, raw number crunching, etc. For everything else Clojure is adequate, so it's just up to what you want to use, if you enjoy Clojure and it brings you joy, you can just use it, you don't need to find a perfect use case that it's uniquely best at.
dgb23 4y ago
I’m torn about ClojureScript. It is a layer of protection against JS madness, and just a plainly better designed language. State management is much less verbose and easier to reason about. But it is hard to justify outside of SPA and for “in between” use cases that for example Next solves very well.
slotrans 4y ago
The Lisp Curse http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html
- simongray 4y ago
  I don't agree that Clojure suffers heavily from the Lisp curse. The prevailing paradigm in Clojure code is the almost exclusive use of the built-in data literals as function input/output (as opposed to using custom datatypes). For this reason, we don't really use frameworks as Clojure libraries are usually quite simple to glue together. The main reasons why it is still fairly niche I would say are - having to learn a new editor paradigm, e.g. paredit and/or parinfer - functional programming - people who think Java/JVM tech is icky - an overall lack of promotion by Cognitect Furthermore, you will need to both like the properties of Lisp as well as the the restrictions of functional programming on top of coexisting with Java on the JVM. This is a fantastic proposition to my ears, but it sounds horrible to some other people.

lenkite 4y ago

There are some critical reasons for several people. Performance is one of them and lack of support for async/await is another. JS has also significantly become better in the last 5 years while Clojure has remained mostly static.

Deadron 4y ago

The tooling is far from simplistic to setup and the available options can be overwhelming. Its all the pain of the JS stack but with less easily available help and tooling that produces less helpful error messages.

CraigJPerry 4y ago
I don’t think it’s that $ npx nbb -e (println "Hello, world") Need to install the following packages: nbb Ok to proceed? (y) Hello, world Or more comprehensively: https://clojurescript.org/guides/quick-start https://clojurescript.org/guides/quick-start
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Deadron 4y ago
  Your example is missing anything actually related to rendering a webpage.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Unclear what "rendering a webpage" entails exactly. If you want to do frontend development, you can give shadow-cljs a try, the quickstart is pretty quick: https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs#quick-start https://github.com/thheller/shadow-cljs#quick-start If you want to just render server-side HTML, something like compojure (HTTP routing) and hiccup (Clojure data -> HTML) is pretty easy and quick to get started with (https://gist.github.com/zehnpaard/2071c3f55ed319aa8528d54d90f557e3 https://gist.github.com/zehnpaard/2071c3f55ed319aa8528d54d90...). If you want to generate HTML files to serve with nginx/whatever, you can just use hiccup and `(spit)` the resulting HTML to files on disk.
didibus 4y ago
I think the tooling nowadays is pretty simple to setup, but the information out there doesn't speak to that new simple way, so everyone starting is following something that pushes them to outdated tooling. Install Java: brew tap homebrew/cask-versions brew install --cask temurin17 Install Clojure: brew install clojure/tools/clojure Type `clj` at the command line and play with Clojure! Now install VSCode and get the Calva plugin for Clojure from the marketplace. That's it. You'll have autocompletion, jump to definition, code formatting and highlighting, linting, support for editor integrated REPL, debugger, etc. Then you can run: clojure -Ttools install io.github.seancorfield/deps-new '{:git/tag "v0.4.9"}' :as new And now you can create new projects from various templates using: clojure -Tnew app :name myusername/mynewapp This creates a new basic application project for example. Open it in VSCode and you can connect a REPL to it and start working.
wry_discontent 4y ago
The errors are bad, but understandable in 99% of cases with a little experience (like 2-3 weeks). And the stuff about the tooling is flat out wrong. The CLJS tooling is light years ahead of JS tooling in my experience. Maybe that was different back in the day, but shadow-cljs is seamless. Vastly superior to working with package.json/babelrc/postcssrc/webpack.config.js/etc/etc/etc
- lenkite 4y ago
  If you are going to compare modern CLJS tooling against JS - you should also compare against modern JS tooling like esbuild/vitejs which operate at light-speed.

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago

It seems really nice to work with but investing in a niche ecosystem that adds another layer of complexity on top of a tall stack is a hard sell for me personally

didibus 4y ago
That's a good reason. You are working above Java, JavaScript and others, and that's often something that you need to be aware of and the details of those layers leak in a little. It's still worth it for me personally, but I recon the additional challenge. If you try babashka and nbb it won't feel as much of an extra layer, but they're both interpreted, so expect only Ruby like performance out of them. That said, it's a good way to get started if you don't want an extra layer under Clojure.
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  I actually did learn Clojure on the JVM. I read two and a half Clojure books, built a number of side projects, and I worked as a Java developer for a few years so the JVM wasn’t an issue. But even with all that, building a web app is far easier for me using Python/Flask, even with minimal experience with the language or framework. And if I want to build a web service, I reach for go because it’s faster and the memory footprint is much smaller. I guess maybe if I was working on a super complex project that justified using Clojure to build elaborate abstractions, I would use it, but most of what I work on is pretty straightforward. ClojureScript I’ve avoided because I keep anything frontend-related that I work on as dead simple as humanly possible to avoid churn. And babashka seems neat too but I’m already comfortable with bash, and shellcheck works well. It sucks but I just can’t seem to find a good use case for Clojure, even though I love the tooling and the language.
  - didibus 4y ago
    I don't know that there are good use cases, you just use what you want. For example I use Clojure and its variants for writing command lines, scripts, websites, backend services, Cron jobs, programming exercises/practice, and desktop applications. Sometimes I use it for data analysis and visualization as well. I use it at work and for personal stuff. It's not that it has some awesome superior or full featured framework or feature for any one of those use cases, just that it's overall a language I like to use and which I have more fun with, and it's sufficient at everything you'd need to seriously use it for all those things. I prefer working interactively over a running program, I prefer the flexibility to extend language to my own needs with macros and higher order functions, I like the simplicity of working directly with data instead of ADTs or single use containers like Classes, I prefer structural editing for navigating and modifying source code, I prefer functional programming over OOP, I prefer immutable defaults and value semantics, and I prefer Clojure's well thought out core sequence manipulation functions. My point is that Clojure is well rounded, there's a few things it's not good enough for, but those are rare, stuff like embedded systems, AAA games, high performance audio or video processing, raw number crunching, etc. For everything else Clojure is adequate, so it's just up to what you want to use, if you enjoy Clojure and it brings you joy, you can just use it, you don't need to find a perfect use case that it's uniquely best at.

dgb23 4y ago

I’m torn about ClojureScript. It is a layer of protection against JS madness, and just a plainly better designed language. State management is much less verbose and easier to reason about. But it is hard to justify outside of SPA and for “in between” use cases that for example Next solves very well.

slotrans 4y ago

The Lisp Curse http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html

simongray 4y ago
I don't agree that Clojure suffers heavily from the Lisp curse. The prevailing paradigm in Clojure code is the almost exclusive use of the built-in data literals as function input/output (as opposed to using custom datatypes). For this reason, we don't really use frameworks as Clojure libraries are usually quite simple to glue together. The main reasons why it is still fairly niche I would say are - having to learn a new editor paradigm, e.g. paredit and/or parinfer - functional programming - people who think Java/JVM tech is icky - an overall lack of promotion by Cognitect Furthermore, you will need to both like the properties of Lisp as well as the the restrictions of functional programming on top of coexisting with Java on the JVM. This is a fantastic proposition to my ears, but it sounds horrible to some other people.