On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Greg <g...@kinostudios.com> wrote: > Just because you found it easy to get started, does not mean others do, and > judging from the reaction to my post, I'm by no means the only person to feel > this way. > > You went to a bootcamp to learn clojure, you found some Clojure-MacOSX > package, and you're perfectly fine with using a Terminal and TextMate. Others > do not come from your point of view.
Right, and I wasn't trying to invalidate those other points of view. I was just saying that I don't think Clojure itself - language and environment - is *unusually* difficult to get up and running. I actually agree with all the comments in the thread about the base level of Java / JVM complexity that acts as a barrier to entry for those not coming from a Java / JVM background. It afflicts all the 'new' JVM-targeted languages pretty much equally: Groovy / Grails, Scala / Lift are both good examples of 'new'(-ish) technologies that have a lot of Java / JVM baggage which can be off-putting. With Lift, I didn't even get further than the first example that wanted me to use Maven... sorry, but I just don't need that much pain in my life! Now there's a movement to get Lift powered by sbt (Scala Build Tool) which is to Scala something like lein is to Clojure (sbt actually does a better job of hiding the underlying unpleasantness, IMO, but it has a head start and I expect lein will continue to improve too). I'll probably start using Lift once sbt becomes the preferred build tool for it. Back to Clojure: I think some of the folks coming here from non-JVM backgrounds would find the same obstacles with Scala or any other JVM-based language. I'm not sure realistically how much that can be simplified beyond lein. I think the IDE question is interesting. When looking at any new language (and I try to learn a new language every year), I don't want to be forced to learn a new IDE. I want to be able to use one of my existing IDEs or editors. I suspect that's true for a number of people and the only viable result is lots of plugins for lots of IDEs - which, with a very new language, means variable quality or even lack of support within some IDEs. Clojure is probably the youngest language I've ever tried to learn. Certainly its tool support seems to be the most immature of anything I've tried to work with (no criticism intended - it's just young). I don't think there are any easy solutions. I _do_ think it'll improve over time. Clojure may simply be at a point where, right now, it's just not able to be very n00b-friendly for some classes of n00bs. The feedback from those n00bs - and I still consider myself one of them - is still useful (of course) but I suspect we'll have to muddle through for quite a while yet before things get friendly enough to satisfy most people :) In response to Chas, you said "If there was a single-awesome catch-all setup that served the needs of 80% of Clojure users, that would not be the case, and Clojure's community would thrive." and when I first started asking about Clojure I was pointed at Emacs and I was like "Uh-oh! There has to be a simpler way to learn Clojure?". It does seem like Emacs is the default IDE choice that's offered to n00bs and I used Emacs a long, long time ago and never want to go back to it (and, yes, I know people who love Emacs and I'm not saying it's a bad IDE, it's just not one I want to use). I'd prefer to use an Eclipse-based solution because I already do all my Java / Groovy / Scala (and CFML) development in Eclipse. Sounds like there's a viable option for that now so I'll try it. As for the Java / JVM baggage. I don't know what to suggest there. I agree it's "yet another thing to learn" if you don't have that background but it's a one-time thing and it sets you up for using any of the other JVM-targeted languages since they all work the same way. I suspect I'd hit the same problem trying to learn Ruby with its gem system or any .NET language (although, of course, there I'd be pretty much forced to learn a new IDE - Visual Whatever - and, in my case, a new O/S since I'm a Mac/Linux guy primarily). -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/ An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ "If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
