Marcus, To answer your original question, the main reason we use Clojure is that we were originally using Ruby, and once our sites got to a certain level of traffic they fell over badly. Rewriting the system in Clojure meant literally two orders of magnitude performance increase, which at the level of clients we are dealing with now is not just a huge win, it is critical.
I've also used Python extensively (and we still have some projects in it), but there is a lot of complexity in just dealing with the environments and dependencies (virtualenv is a standard practice now?) Once people have lein installed, they can download one of our Clojure projects and we know everyone is using the same version of everything without any hassle. It just works. Also, the benefit of being able to spin off a new thread to do some background task is not to be overlooked. Python and Ruby are still fundamentally single threaded and each has its own flavors of what are basically hacks to get around that limitation. As our applications begin to demand more and more asynchronous handling Clojure really is starting to shine. Once you have core.async at your disposal, all of a sudden it is hard to imagine how you ever lived without it. Seriously. What a brilliant abstraction and solution for what was previously a complex architecture task. So can you still use Django and Rails to build webapps? Of course, these are mature and tested platforms for doing standard things. But Clojure is the future. There is always a choice to be made between going with the sanctioned solutions of today or blazing the trails of tomorrow. I remember when Django and Rails were the platforms of the future and people thought they were risky or strange and untested. People are always making a case for the safe established choice. But somehow progress gets made anyway. (I am biased of course. But I made that decision years ago and never looked back. I can't imagine going back to python or ruby now, but I can't speak for everyone.) On Wednesday, November 13, 2013 2:38:49 PM UTC-8, Marcus Blankenship wrote: > > Hi Folks, > > We’re a Python / Django shop, and some folks are getting excited about > using Clojure for building web apps. Certainly there are numerous > open-source options to assist us (Pedastal, Ring, Compojure, Caribou, etc), > but I think it begs a larger question: *as a rule, do web applications > need the power that Clojure brings to the table?* > > Other folks on my team are telling me that solutions built with Python / > Django (or even RubyOnRails) fully satisfy the needs of 99% of the web apps > we have built, and that Clojure offers nothing new to this problem space. > > So, here’s the question: *How are you are actually using Clojure, and why > did you choose to use it, particularly in the “web application” space? * > > Thanks, > Marcus > > > > marcus blankenship > \\\ Partner, Problem Solver, Linear Thinker > \\\ 541.805.2736 \ @justzeros \ skype:marcuscreo > > -- -- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
