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In my experience Clojure teams use high quality Java and JavaScript libraries all the time. It's more often than not a piece of cake. 'Clojure needs a rails' h

In my experience Clojure teams use high quality Java and JavaScript libraries all the time. It's more often than not a piece of cake. 'Clojure needs a rails' has come up perennially for that last 10 years. I don't disagree, as I think convergence on one web solution rather than a constant churn would have great benefits. The idea that you can't use sysdig, or whatever, because there is no Clojure library, is nonsense. Interop is good and Clojure is nicer than Java for writing Java :) Also, you can overload functions with further aritiss in protocols just fine. Nothing to do with variadics.

janetacarr 4y ago
I never said it can't be done. I did write this in a hurry, so I may have muddled my central thesis. I'm arguing two things: First, Clojure has missing or rotting libraries, requiring re-implementing logic we've all done at least once because people are fixated building the Rails for Clojure. Second, that the business case for using Clojure becomes weaker because the lack of open-source efforts on this front (due to the 'Rails Vacuum') causes either interal library building (extra time) or, more likely, interop. Interop, to _some_ management, sounds an awful lot like using Java, but with very expensive Clojure developers to do it.
- huahaiy 4y ago
  What are the "missing or rotting libraries"? Maybe a few examples might be helpful. In my over 10 years of using Clojure in production, I am not sure I have "re-implemented" a lot of logic that are not already covered by some Clojure libraries. Such examples are rare. Sure, I have used Java interop for working with Stripe, but that's because it is futile to maintain a 3rd party Clojure library if Stripe decided not to do it themselves. These proprietary APIs are constantly changing. It is perfectly OK to do Java interop in these cases. Any niche language will have the same problem, and Clojure interop with Java is quite pleasant to use, compared with using Java itself. As far as I can tell, using ring and related things are fairly standard on the server side, and re-frame and related things are fairly standard on the client side, so I am honestly not sure what is missing for Web development in Clojure, as Web development is the most common use case of Clojure. I am honestly confused.
- jacobobryant 4y ago
  It seems unlikely to me that efforts to build web frameworks are causing a decrease in time spent building wrapper libraries. Developer time (particularly, open-source developer time) isn't a homogeneous commodity; people tend to work on things that they personally need. Anecdotally I can say that if I were to cease development of my own Clojure web framework, I would not immediately start writing a Syslog library instead :).

janetacarr 4y ago

I never said it can't be done. I did write this in a hurry, so I may have muddled my central thesis. I'm arguing two things: First, Clojure has missing or rotting libraries, requiring re-implementing logic we've all done at least once because people are fixated building the Rails for Clojure. Second, that the business case for using Clojure becomes weaker because the lack of open-source efforts on this front (due to the 'Rails Vacuum') causes either interal library building (extra time) or, more likely, interop. Interop, to _some_ management, sounds an awful lot like using Java, but with very expensive Clojure developers to do it.

huahaiy 4y ago
What are the "missing or rotting libraries"? Maybe a few examples might be helpful. In my over 10 years of using Clojure in production, I am not sure I have "re-implemented" a lot of logic that are not already covered by some Clojure libraries. Such examples are rare. Sure, I have used Java interop for working with Stripe, but that's because it is futile to maintain a 3rd party Clojure library if Stripe decided not to do it themselves. These proprietary APIs are constantly changing. It is perfectly OK to do Java interop in these cases. Any niche language will have the same problem, and Clojure interop with Java is quite pleasant to use, compared with using Java itself. As far as I can tell, using ring and related things are fairly standard on the server side, and re-frame and related things are fairly standard on the client side, so I am honestly not sure what is missing for Web development in Clojure, as Web development is the most common use case of Clojure. I am honestly confused.
jacobobryant 4y ago
It seems unlikely to me that efforts to build web frameworks are causing a decrease in time spent building wrapper libraries. Developer time (particularly, open-source developer time) isn't a homogeneous commodity; people tend to work on things that they personally need. Anecdotally I can say that if I were to cease development of my own Clojure web framework, I would not immediately start writing a Syslog library instead :).