7 ms·

A History of Clojure (2020) [pdf]

134 points by ndr 3y ago

nextos 3y ago
Also relevant, Rich Hickey listed the books that inspired him to create Clojure in his own Amazon account: https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AFAABBRGIVOWVKTHP5NOJU5LMROQ/3BSKWCYM12RBZ https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AFAABBRGIVOWVKTHP... Easier to browse list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clojure_Bookshelf https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clo... I find it interesting he includes Mozart/Oz (CTM). It'd be great to see more ideas from that language coming to Clojure. Also Norvig's AIMA. Clojure could be well positioned for neuro-symbolic AI. That's somehow connected to Anglican, discussed in the History of Clojure article.
- looping8 3y ago
  The Goodreads list has "Programming Clojure by Stuart Halloway", I guess it's an error or included more as an introduction to Clojure?
  - casion 3y ago
    This book was written before Clojure was released as 1.0. (1.0 and Programming Clojure were released together!) Stu and Rich worked closely at that point. The process of writing the book and Stu were influential on Clojure.
- geokon 3y ago
  Has Anglican been used in any significant project? It looks interesting (though tbh I barely understand what it does.. it's borderline technobable to me) but I haven't been able to find it used anywhere on Github. It's also gotten zero updates since 2018 Doesn't mean it's not a hidden gem... I would have said something similar about Missionary as well
  - nextos 3y ago
    I think the main outcome from Anglican was a great theoretical textbook: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10756 https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10756 But it is probably too expressive, and therefore too slow, for most practical inference problems.
- zerr 3y ago
  Funny that it includes Instructor's Manual for SICP but not SICP itself. I wonder if anyone has read it (the manual), is it good? Seems it is not available online.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    I think it's suitable for people who are trying to work through SICP by themselves, it contains some discussions and extra exercises that could be helpful in that scenario. Otherwise I think it's just like a small addition and won't vastly shape your experience with SICP, the main content is in the main book :)
- parentheses 3y ago
  Funny that it includes the hammock :)
yayitswei 3y ago
Thought I'd seen everything from Rich but I somehow missed this. Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed the insight into his process rather than just the fully formed idea.
thih9 3y ago
I’m seeing a lot about clojure language, especially recently. I’m missing an insight into the clojure community, especially in the context of libraries and job market. E.g. I’m not aware of any large framework like Rails or Phoenix. Is this something that is missing and yet-to-come, or there is no need for that? How does this affect job search, are Clojure jobs less about SAAS/CRUD apps? Does each place build their own custom tooling?
- jwr 3y ago
  There is no dominant over-arching framework like in some other languages. There are many smaller ones, with different approaches, so there is more choice. As for SaaS apps, Clojure is a really good fit, because of ClojureScript. You can have a large part of your code as .cljc files, and compile both to JVM and to JavaScript in the browser. I found this is an incredible advantage, enabling a single founder like me to write and maintain a complex SaaS.
  - zerr 3y ago
    So like Blazor for C#?
    - kaba0 3y ago
      It runs as quite lean JS on the frontend. If I’m not mistaken, Blazor targets WASM with huge binaries that may prevent its use in certain cases.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Not really specially after .NET 8, Blazor will be unifying all ASP.NET programming models, whereas in Clojure it is more simple. Also ClojureScript doesn't do WebAssembly.
      - capableweb 3y ago
        > Also ClojureScript doesn't do WebAssembly. It's a bit ambiguous what you mean with "do", but you can definitely use WebAssembly modules in ClojureScript just like you can in JavaScript. I'm not familiar with Blazor or C# so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
sharas- 3y ago
There's a talk I uploaded on youtube where Rich Hickey explains some history of clojure. https://youtu.be/nD-QHbRWcoM https://youtu.be/nD-QHbRWcoM
deterministic 3y ago
I have never been a fan of Clojure or Lisp. But the YouTube talks by Rich are excellent. Worth watching even if you are not into Clojure or Lisp. And writing your own Lisp in your favourite programming language is super fun btw. Highly recommended.

134 points by ndr 3y ago

Also relevant, Rich Hickey listed the books that inspired him to create Clojure in his own Amazon account: https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AFAABBRGIVOWVKTHP5NOJU5LMROQ/3BSKWCYM12RBZ https://www.amazon.com/ideas/amzn1.account.AFAABBRGIVOWVKTHP... Easier to browse list: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clojure_Bookshelf https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/137472.Rich_Hickey_s_Clo... I find it interesting he includes Mozart/Oz (CTM). It'd be great to see more ideas from that language coming to Clojure. Also Norvig's AIMA. Clojure could be well positioned for neuro-symbolic AI. That's somehow connected to Anglican, discussed in the History of Clojure article.

looping8 3y ago
The Goodreads list has "Programming Clojure by Stuart Halloway", I guess it's an error or included more as an introduction to Clojure?
- casion 3y ago
  This book was written before Clojure was released as 1.0. (1.0 and Programming Clojure were released together!) Stu and Rich worked closely at that point. The process of writing the book and Stu were influential on Clojure.
geokon 3y ago
Has Anglican been used in any significant project? It looks interesting (though tbh I barely understand what it does.. it's borderline technobable to me) but I haven't been able to find it used anywhere on Github. It's also gotten zero updates since 2018 Doesn't mean it's not a hidden gem... I would have said something similar about Missionary as well
- nextos 3y ago
  I think the main outcome from Anglican was a great theoretical textbook: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10756 https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10756 But it is probably too expressive, and therefore too slow, for most practical inference problems.
zerr 3y ago
Funny that it includes Instructor's Manual for SICP but not SICP itself. I wonder if anyone has read it (the manual), is it good? Seems it is not available online.
- capableweb 3y ago
  I think it's suitable for people who are trying to work through SICP by themselves, it contains some discussions and extra exercises that could be helpful in that scenario. Otherwise I think it's just like a small addition and won't vastly shape your experience with SICP, the main content is in the main book :)
parentheses 3y ago
Funny that it includes the hammock :)

yayitswei 3y ago

Thought I'd seen everything from Rich but I somehow missed this. Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed the insight into his process rather than just the fully formed idea.

thih9 3y ago

I’m seeing a lot about clojure language, especially recently. I’m missing an insight into the clojure community, especially in the context of libraries and job market. E.g. I’m not aware of any large framework like Rails or Phoenix. Is this something that is missing and yet-to-come, or there is no need for that? How does this affect job search, are Clojure jobs less about SAAS/CRUD apps? Does each place build their own custom tooling?

jwr 3y ago
There is no dominant over-arching framework like in some other languages. There are many smaller ones, with different approaches, so there is more choice. As for SaaS apps, Clojure is a really good fit, because of ClojureScript. You can have a large part of your code as .cljc files, and compile both to JVM and to JavaScript in the browser. I found this is an incredible advantage, enabling a single founder like me to write and maintain a complex SaaS.
- zerr 3y ago
  So like Blazor for C#?
  - kaba0 3y ago
    It runs as quite lean JS on the frontend. If I’m not mistaken, Blazor targets WASM with huge binaries that may prevent its use in certain cases.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Not really specially after .NET 8, Blazor will be unifying all ASP.NET programming models, whereas in Clojure it is more simple. Also ClojureScript doesn't do WebAssembly.
    - capableweb 3y ago
      > Also ClojureScript doesn't do WebAssembly. It's a bit ambiguous what you mean with "do", but you can definitely use WebAssembly modules in ClojureScript just like you can in JavaScript. I'm not familiar with Blazor or C# so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.

sharas- 3y ago

There's a talk I uploaded on youtube where Rich Hickey explains some history of clojure. https://youtu.be/nD-QHbRWcoM https://youtu.be/nD-QHbRWcoM

deterministic 3y ago

I have never been a fan of Clojure or Lisp. But the YouTube talks by Rich are excellent. Worth watching even if you are not into Clojure or Lisp. And writing your own Lisp in your favourite programming language is super fun btw. Highly recommended.