Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Ravindra Jaju]

David,

While it is a very detailed and good document, my reaction is that it isn't
an appropriate one for business to make the switch. I suspect they will not
see any "value." I'm not sure what background your boss has, but if the
boss isn't into code and only cares about managing the team and the product
and the timelines, this document will not help sell.

I'm in a similar boat, but luckily in a position to drive some change. I'm
the only technical guy (out of 2), but the product was developed for a long
time before I joined (outsourced). It's PHP, and cost and finding people to
do it were the main reasons my partner went that route.

I'm a big fan of Clojure, with little to no Javascript experience. And we
are building (of course) a web application. PHP will not go away any time
soon from our app. So, I'm trying to find the best way to move away from
PHP, and into Clojure-land, but via familiar territory.

Right now, I am building some new features for our Chrome extension, and
need Javascript. Every time I tried doing JS, I would compare (mentally)
with how easy it would be in Clojure. I finally just threw away a big part
of it (a pre-existing version) and started coding it in Clojurescript. It's
just the beginning, but I've seen substantial progress in a single day,
given my JS experience - lack of it. So, this is the way I am going.

[I wrote the above a week ago, and it was in draft]

And just now, we released a chrome extension, with a big chunk written with
clojurescript (and reagent, sablono, storage-atom, and really great help
from weasel). Extremely happy about it, and excited because of the
new-found confidence in being able to do UI.

I feel the safest way to go (with nay-sayers, or hurdles along the way) is
the one-small-step-at-a-time. But I'm just repeating common knowledge,
which is always profound with the benefit of hindsight. :)

My 0.02 is a currency unit of your choice.

Ravindra




On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 5:00 PM,  wrote:

> I just spent the day writing this document for my boss, called "The case
> for Clojure."  I hope it helps.  We are in exactly the same boat, so it
> should be extremely relevant.
>
> P.S. If the company I work doesn't make the switch I plan on looking for a
> new position.  So hit me up if you're in need of another Clojure developer.
>
> David
>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[David Sargeant]

I wanted to give a little history and a follow-up to my own situation.  I 
originally crafted "The Case for Clojure" document for the developers in my 
company.  The idea was to make a compelling argument for migrating our decent 
size codebase from PHP to Clojure.  I would agree that showing your 
non-technical boss a bunch of code is not going to be the best approach.

The outcome for me personally, was that my employer decided not move forward 
with Clojure, and stick with PHP.  In addition, I have left the company and am 
currently pursuing full-time employment as Clojure developer.  Please hit me up 
if you are a Clojure company looking for a passionate Clojure developer.

David

On Mar 14, 2014, at 8:39 AM, Víctor R. Escobar  wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> about David's document, I think you need to realize that it is a perfect blog 
> post for programmers. In a business usually the focus is in the benefit 
> (increase benefit or reduce costs). If I would be your boss perhaps I would 
> understand that you want to switch to another technology (for some reasons 
> that maybe not everyone understands) that will make the maintainability more 
> expensive and the extension more complicated. At least as it is exposed in 
> the document and as it can be understood by a businessman.
> 
> Unless they trust your opinions more than their business reasons, try to 
> convince your bosses without show them a single line of code. It is just the 
> way some brains are cabled. Give them the economical reasons they want to 
> hear. I am inventing some of them:
> 
> Faster prototyping to explore new business ideas.
> Easily maintainable product and large easier to test (to avoid unexpected 
> surprises)
> Faster reaction to error recovery (recovery on critic situations)
> The code is scalable and parallelizable nearly without modify the setup 
> (remember how many startups died from success). 
> It is highly portable because it runs in the  archi-well-known JVM (insert 
> now all benefits from marketing java).
> A new hire can be ready to program in the time he learns how the company 
> works (say 30 days).
> If you require to move to another technology you can port it with lower costs 
> than other languages (available directly in java, and easy to translate to 
> other lisps...)
> And perhaps the most important: the best code for a company is the code that 
> doesn't have to be written. It is not what you have to do, it is how much it 
> brings to the company without waste company resources: show the technologies 
> that you can already use tomorrow for no cost at all because they are already 
> implemented and you only need to set them up (mention servers and hava open 
> source projects which make mostly all the work and just need to be adapted to 
> make everything).
> 
> If you really want to convince them to get a yes, show them a working 
> prototype that looks to work (I repeat, a prototype).
> 
> I hope this business approach helps. I had to learn it in the hard way.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> El martes, 11 de marzo de 2014 22:09:43 UTC+1, Jarrod Swart escribió:
> I'm about to be an early employee at a small startup.  
> 
> I will be the first technical hire and am a competent but not extraordinarily 
> experienced developer. The founders know this and hired me based on soft as 
> well as technical skills.  
> 
> I don't want to be the first technical employee and make a poor technology 
> choice that chains this startup from the beginning.
> 
> My goal is to convince the CEO and other early stage executives of the 
> benefits of using Clojure in place of PHP.  All the early founders have 
> worked in places that use PHP, and I have worked as a PHP developer with some 
> of them at other companies.  For the past year I have used Clojure in my 
> personal projects and am comfortable with the language.
> 
> I expect the following objections:
> 
> * What is the talent pool like (for Clojure) and can we outsource less 
> important tasks to other developers.
> * What advantages does this technology offer over something like PHP (from a 
> business perspective)?
> * How will you cope with technical challenges?
> 
> I have my own opinions but I would love to hear the feedback of others.  If 
> you have good counter arguments to these or other objections you have heard 
> in the past I would like to hear those.  If you have been in my position I 
> would love to hear about that experience as well.
> 
> Also consider that these people are technical but not programmers.  Any 
> benefits have to make sense from a business perspective as well.
> 
> Thank you for your help!
> 
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Víctor R . Escobar]

Hi everyone,

about David's document, I think you need to realize that it is a perfect 
blog post for programmers. In a business usually the focus is in the 
benefit (increase benefit or reduce costs). If I would be your boss perhaps 
I would understand that you want to switch to another technology (for some 
reasons that maybe not everyone understands) that will make the 
maintainability more expensive and the extension more complicated. At least 
as it is exposed in the document and as it can be understood by a 
businessman.

Unless they trust your opinions more than their business reasons, try to 
convince your bosses without show them a single line of code. It is just 
the way some brains are cabled. Give them the economical reasons they want 
to hear. I am inventing some of them:


   - Faster prototyping to explore new business ideas.
   - Easily maintainable product and large easier to test (to avoid 
   unexpected surprises)
   - Faster reaction to error recovery (recovery on critic situations)
   - The code is scalable and parallelizable nearly without modify the 
   setup (remember how many startups died from success). 
   - It is highly portable because it runs in the  archi-well-known JVM 
   (insert now all benefits from marketing java).
   - A new hire can be ready to program in the time he learns how the 
   company works (say 30 days).
   - If you require to move to another technology you can port it with 
   lower costs than other languages (available directly in java, and easy to 
   translate to other lisps...)

And perhaps the most important: the best code for a company is the code 
that doesn't have to be written. It is not what you have to do, it is how 
much it brings to the company without waste company resources: show the 
technologies that you can already use tomorrow for no cost at all because 
they are already implemented and you only need to set them up (mention 
servers and hava open source projects which make mostly all the work and 
just need to be adapted to make everything).

If you really want to convince them to get a yes, show them a working 
prototype that looks to work (I repeat, a prototype).

I hope this business approach helps. I had to learn it in the hard way.




El martes, 11 de marzo de 2014 22:09:43 UTC+1, Jarrod Swart escribió:
>
> I'm about to be an early employee at a small startup.  
>
> I will be the first technical hire and am a competent but not 
> extraordinarily experienced developer. The founders know this and hired me 
> based on soft as well as technical skills.  
>
> I don't want to be the first technical employee and make a poor technology 
> choice that chains this startup from the beginning.
>
> My goal is to convince the CEO and other early stage executives of the 
> benefits of using Clojure in place of PHP.  All the early founders have 
> worked in places that use PHP, and I have worked as a PHP developer with 
> some of them at other companies.  For the past year I have used Clojure in 
> my personal projects and am comfortable with the language.
>
> I expect the following objections:
>
> * What is the talent pool like (for Clojure) and can we outsource less 
> important tasks to other developers.
> * What advantages does this technology offer over something like PHP (from 
> a business perspective)?
> * How will you cope with technical challenges?
>
> I have my own opinions but I would love to hear the feedback of others. 
>  If you have good counter arguments to these or other objections you have 
> heard in the past I would like to hear those.  If you have been in my 
> position I would love to hear about that experience as well.
>
> Also consider that these people are technical but not programmers.  Any 
> benefits have to make sense from a business perspective as well.
>
> Thank you for your help!
>

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Oh wow, thanks for all the responses!

I'm certainly not making it a PHP vs. Clojure all or nothing debate. 
 Anything other than PHP would be helpful, not simply because I want to bad 
mouth PHP. After 2 years working with it I know firsthand its shortcomings 
for building actual applications.

While ClojureScript is interesting I think the overhead of learning 
ClojureScript + NodeJS + functional thinking in a callback oriented world a 
tall order.  I will already have enough to overcome that a new "stack" is 
likely not a good choice.  

The benefits to Clojure are known and my primary interest is in how to 
express that to business types.  With the resources in this post I think I 
have that.

Thanks again for all the feedback!

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Nando Breiter]

Ah, that's a pity cfmljure isn't as easy to use as I thought it was. In the
tradeoff between skilled Clojure developers being a rare and perhaps
expensive commodity and the need to rapidly develop an app
to fulfill business goals (and keep your job), cfmljure seems like it could
offer a means to slowly integrate and learn Clojure as skills and a real
need develop.



Aria Media Sagl
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Switzerland

+41 (0)91 600 9601
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skype: ariamedia


On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Sean Corfield  wrote:

> As the author of cfmljure, it's not something I'd recommend anyone to use
> in its current form and combining CFML and Clojure (as we do at World
> Singles) is a bit of a dark art that I wouldn't encourage others to
> attempt, unless they're already up to their eyeballs in CFML, and running
> on Railo (instead of Adobe's commercial product), and they are desperate to
> use Clojure _as well_ rather than _instead_.
>
> I'm working on a new version of cfmljure that will be MUCH easier to use
> but I'm wrestling with classloader issues (due to quirks in how both Railo
> and Clojure deal with classloaders).
>
> And good luck persuading anyone that a startup, with some PHP and some
> Clojure experience, should consider CFML / Railo instead :)
>
> Sean
>
> On Mar 13, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Nando Breiter  wrote:
>
> I'm developing applications in CFML, which runs on the JVM. If you use the
> open source Railo version, it is possible to run Clojure and CFML side by
> side, sharing data structures between them, which should allow you to
> refactor, or initially build, those parts of the application that would
> benefit from Clojure, while still leveraging the fast and easy development
> that CFML provides. My long term plan is to look at leveraging Clojure's
> strengths within the current codebase I'm developing. The short-term plan
> is to rapidly get the app to a stage where it is feature complete using
> CFML only.
>
> CFML has its legacy warts (as I'm sure PHP has as well), which can be
> simply avoided when writing code. But it will be very easy for a developer
> coming into CFML to get up to speed with the language. With the proper
> guidance, a developer new to the language can be productive in several days
> to a week's time.
>
> http://github.com/framework-one/cfmljure
>
>
>
>

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Sean Corfield]

As the author of cfmljure, it's not something I'd recommend anyone to use in 
its current form and combining CFML and Clojure (as we do at World Singles) is 
a bit of a dark art that I wouldn't encourage others to attempt, unless they're 
already up to their eyeballs in CFML, and running on Railo (instead of Adobe's 
commercial product), and they are desperate to use Clojure _as well_ rather 
than _instead_.

I'm working on a new version of cfmljure that will be MUCH easier to use but 
I'm wrestling with classloader issues (due to quirks in how both Railo and 
Clojure deal with classloaders).

And good luck persuading anyone that a startup, with some PHP and some Clojure 
experience, should consider CFML / Railo instead :)

Sean

On Mar 13, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Nando Breiter  wrote:

> I'm developing applications in CFML, which runs on the JVM. If you use the 
> open source Railo version, it is possible to run Clojure and CFML side by 
> side, sharing data structures between them, which should allow you to 
> refactor, or initially build, those parts of the application that would 
> benefit from Clojure, while still leveraging the fast and easy development 
> that CFML provides. My long term plan is to look at leveraging Clojure's 
> strengths within the current codebase I'm developing. The short-term plan is 
> to rapidly get the app to a stage where it is feature complete using CFML 
> only.
> 
> CFML has its legacy warts (as I'm sure PHP has as well), which can be simply 
> avoided when writing code. But it will be very easy for a developer coming 
> into CFML to get up to speed with the language. With the proper guidance, a 
> developer new to the language can be productive in several days to a week's 
> time.
> 
> http://github.com/framework-one/cfmljure




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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Alan Thompson]

Hey, I love your write-up! You should put that in a blog post so more
people can read it & share it.

Alan
 On Mar 12, 2014 2:00 PM,  wrote:

> I just spent the day writing this document for my boss, called "The case
> for Clojure."  I hope it helps.  We are in exactly the same boat, so it
> should be extremely relevant.
>
> P.S. If the company I work doesn't make the switch I plan on looking for a
> new position.  So hit me up if you're in need of another Clojure developer.
>
> David
>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Nando Breiter]

I'm developing applications in CFML, which runs on the JVM. If you use the
open source Railo version, it is possible to run Clojure and CFML side by
side, sharing data structures between them, which should allow you to
refactor, or initially build, those parts of the application that would
benefit from Clojure, while still leveraging the fast and easy development
that CFML provides. My long term plan is to look at leveraging Clojure's
strengths within the current codebase I'm developing. The short-term plan
is to rapidly get the app to a stage where it is feature complete using
CFML only.

CFML has its legacy warts (as I'm sure PHP has as well), which can be
simply avoided when writing code. But it will be very easy for a developer
coming into CFML to get up to speed with the language. With the proper
guidance, a developer new to the language can be productive in several days
to a week's time.

http://github.com/framework-one/cfmljure



Aria Media Sagl
Via Rompada 40
6987 Caslano
Switzerland

+41 (0)91 600 9601
+41 (0)76 303 4477 cell
skype: ariamedia


On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 8:13 AM, Savas Alparslan  wrote:

> Bad mouthing PHP only leads to more resistance.
>
> This video would help.
>
> Master Plan for Clojure Enterprise Mindshare Domination
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLgzCkhN2g
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 11:00 PM,  wrote:
>
>> I just spent the day writing this document for my boss, called "The case
>> for Clojure."  I hope it helps.  We are in exactly the same boat, so it
>> should be extremely relevant.
>>
>> P.S. If the company I work doesn't make the switch I plan on looking for
>> a new position.  So hit me up if you're in need of another Clojure
>> developer.
>>
>> David
>>
>>  --
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>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Savas Alparslan]

Bad mouthing PHP only leads to more resistance.

This video would help.

Master Plan for Clojure Enterprise Mindshare Domination
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WLgzCkhN2g


On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 11:00 PM,  wrote:

> I just spent the day writing this document for my boss, called "The case
> for Clojure."  I hope it helps.  We are in exactly the same boat, so it
> should be extremely relevant.
>
> P.S. If the company I work doesn't make the switch I plan on looking for a
> new position.  So hit me up if you're in need of another Clojure developer.
>
> David
>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Timothy Baldridge]

This case study from Roomkey.com is a awesome starting place for a
conversation:

http://www.colinsteele.org/post/23103789647/against-the-grain-aws-clojure-startup
http://www.colinsteele.org/post/27929539434/60-000-growth-in-7-months-using-clojure-and-aws

Timothy


On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 6:47 PM, Mike Haney  wrote:

> Have you considered node.js?  It's fantastic for building web services,
> very easy to deploy (Heroku), and should scale well enough that most
> startups won't outgrow it (and if you do, that's a very good problem to
> have).
>
> You can still build your app using Clojurescript, either for the entire
> thing, or just in areas where it makes the most sense, which would probably
> be more palatable for your investors and other business types.
>
> The thing is, most developers would probably rather use something like
> Clojurescript once they learn it, compared to writing raw JavaScript, so
> that would actually aid your adoption.
>
> Framing the choice as PHP vs Clojure makes it an all or nothing decision.
>  But shifting the discussion to the merits of node.js, you can easily
> justify why it makes sense for your application.  Then you can address the
> JS vs CLJS issue, and even if you lose initially, you still have the
> stealthy approach of using CLJS to solve a hairy problem in an isolated
> part of your app, then leveraging that to revisit the merits of using it on
> a larger scale.
>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Mike Haney]

Have you considered node.js?  It's fantastic for building web services, very 
easy to deploy (Heroku), and should scale well enough that most startups won't 
outgrow it (and if you do, that's a very good problem to have).

You can still build your app using Clojurescript, either for the entire thing, 
or just in areas where it makes the most sense, which would probably be more 
palatable for your investors and other business types.  

The thing is, most developers would probably rather use something like 
Clojurescript once they learn it, compared to writing raw JavaScript, so that 
would actually aid your adoption.  

Framing the choice as PHP vs Clojure makes it an all or nothing decision.  But 
shifting the discussion to the merits of node.js, you can easily justify why it 
makes sense for your application.  Then you can address the JS vs CLJS issue, 
and even if you lose initially, you still have the stealthy approach of using 
CLJS to solve a hairy problem in an isolated part of your app, then leveraging 
that to revisit the merits of using it on a larger scale.

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[t x]

I personally recommend ClojureScript + Erlang.

As for convincing your boss to use Erlang, ask him about WhatsApp. :-)

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Jarrod Swart  wrote:
> Alan,
>
> Thanks for your input!  ClojureScript is something I have wanted to try more
> but it seems even more cutting edge than Clojure.  It might be too much
> effort to try and tackle that now.
>
> I do agree though that Clojure+Ring is a great back-end setup for connecting
> to with JavaScript.
>
> Best,
> Jarrod
>
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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Alan,

Thanks for your input!  ClojureScript is something I have wanted to try 
more but it seems even more cutting edge than Clojure.  It might be too 
much effort to try and tackle that now. 

I do agree though that Clojure+Ring is a great back-end setup for 
connecting to with JavaScript.

Best,
Jarrod

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Alan Moore]

My 2 cents worth...


   1. PHP is a dying language IMHO. The alternatives are just too 
   compelling unless you have an existing code base in PHP.
   2. Javascript is the lingua franca (or assembly lang) of the internet 
   for the time being and probably the foreseeable future.
   3. Many webapps are moving to the client-side instead of the server 
   centric PHP/CGI oriented designs of yesteryear. Again, this means 
   Javascript (and/or ClojureScript) primarily.
   4. You can adopt Javascript as your primary language for both the server 
   (nodejs) and client (browser.) This way you can use ClojureScript to target 
   both on an as-needed basis. This also lets you leverage lots of existing 
   libraries on both sides.
   5. If you need to target mobile devices PHP might be somewhat limited. 
   There are tons of Java (Android) and/or Javascript/ObjC (iOS) options to 
   target mobile clients.
   6. My guess is that most API integrations will be via either Java (on 
   the server) or in Javascript on the client.
   7. On the server you can serve different endpoints using different 
   technologies. Maybe your support.xyz.com is a hosted PHP forum app but your 
   REST API is built using Clojure/Ring.
   8. Many externally exposed APIs are actually network protocols (REST or 
   ZMQ, etc.) and are thus largely language neutral (assuming there is a 
   language binding for your chosen protocol.) However, I suspect that using 
   PHP will be very difficult from a protocol/binding point of view.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Alan


On Tuesday, March 11, 2014 4:29:06 PM UTC-7, Jarrod Swart wrote:
>
> Sean,
>
> Oops I didn't realize you were asking these questions:
>
>
>- What are you building? 
>   - An application for businesses to help leverage the power of 
>   crowds in non-traditional "crowdsource" environments.  
>   - The main use-case for many will be that of integration with-in 
>   their own applications and I suspect the application will be more API 
> than 
>   App centric.  Sorry for being vague but I'm still learning too.  I will 
>   know more for sure when I actually have the meeting with the founders.
>- Why do _you_ think Clojure is a better choice than PHP? 
>- Due to the limited number of developers (just me initially) I think 
>   Clojure presents a tool chain that is familiar and fast.  Dynamic 
>   programming in a highly iterative development environment means that I 
> can 
>   solve challenges that the business will face rather than challenges 
>   presented by the programming language.
>  - Clojure is to programming what Lean\Agility are to business 
>  process
>  - Wanting to work with a set of tools also goes a long way 
>  toward dealing with the other hardships of an early stage company.  
> If I'm 
>  making less money and failure is a big part of the equation I want 
> to enjoy 
>  what I'm doing.  I think future hires would agree.
>   - The heavy amounts of text we will deal with is much easier to 
>   handle with the JVM than with PHP.  PHP support for UTF-* is fairly bad 
>   (compared to Golang or Clojure) and I have had enough personal trouble 
> with 
>   it.
>   - Again though we are not "Big Data" the first processing 
>   bottleneck will likely be dealing with large quantities of text.  This 
> is 
>   something that Clojure and the JVM have a lot more options for dealing 
> with.
>   - The JVM platform means that when it comes time to optimize for 
>   performance we have options rather than an app rewrite.
>
>
>
>

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

David,

Awesome thanks for sharing!

I hope it works out for you!

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Sean,

Thanks for the reply and insight.  I completely agree on your points.  

We will be in a 12 week accelerator program so it is quite possible that 
this code & business could fail.  Our work is likely going to be more 
back-end API centric as a point of integration for other businesses rather 
than our own "mega-app".

I feel competent in my skill-set and due to learning Clojure the past year 
I've improved overall.  I think speed of development would likely be the 
same or faster in Clojure.  Writing a form, evaling for correctness and 
then moving on is far superior to the PHP equivalent.

The only places I feel uneasy are in the deployment arena because with PHP 
it's usually just: scp files to server & write a cron.  Clojure gets a bit 
more involved and I sometimes feel that learning JVM idioms of Unix 
equivalents can be lackluster.  For example I'm still unsure of the best 
way to do scheduled jobs in a Clojure app.

I appreciate your input.

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Sean,

Oops I didn't realize you were asking these questions:


   - What are you building? 
  - An application for businesses to help leverage the power of crowds 
  in non-traditional "crowdsource" environments.  
  - The main use-case for many will be that of integration with-in 
  their own applications and I suspect the application will be more API 
than 
  App centric.  Sorry for being vague but I'm still learning too.  I will 
  know more for sure when I actually have the meeting with the founders.
   - Why do _you_ think Clojure is a better choice than PHP? 
   - Due to the limited number of developers (just me initially) I think 
  Clojure presents a tool chain that is familiar and fast.  Dynamic 
  programming in a highly iterative development environment means that I 
can 
  solve challenges that the business will face rather than challenges 
  presented by the programming language.
 - Clojure is to programming what Lean\Agility are to business 
 process
 - Wanting to work with a set of tools also goes a long way toward 
 dealing with the other hardships of an early stage company.  If I'm 
making 
 less money and failure is a big part of the equation I want to enjoy 
what 
 I'm doing.  I think future hires would agree.
  - The heavy amounts of text we will deal with is much easier to 
  handle with the JVM than with PHP.  PHP support for UTF-* is fairly bad 
  (compared to Golang or Clojure) and I have had enough personal trouble 
with 
  it.
  - Again though we are not "Big Data" the first processing bottleneck 
  will likely be dealing with large quantities of text.  This is something 
  that Clojure and the JVM have a lot more options for dealing with.
  - The JVM platform means that when it comes time to optimize for 
  performance we have options rather than an app rewrite.
   


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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Sean Corfield]

On Mar 11, 2014, at 2:09 PM, Jarrod Swart  wrote:
> My goal is to convince the CEO and other early stage executives of the 
> benefits of using Clojure in place of PHP.  All the early founders have 
> worked in places that use PHP, and I have worked as a PHP developer with some 
> of them at other companies.  For the past year I have used Clojure in my 
> personal projects and am comfortable with the language.

I'll play devil's advocate here (as someone who's gone up in front of those 
lovely VC folks when trying to get a startup off the ground)...

What are you building?

Why do _you_ think Clojure is a better choice than PHP?

> * What is the talent pool like (for Clojure) and can we outsource less 
> important tasks to other developers.

The talent pool for Clojure is much smaller than the talent pool for PHP. On 
the plus side, I'd expect competent Clojure developers to be, on average, much 
better developers than "competent" PHP developers. Outsourcing may be much 
harder and/or much more expensive for Clojure than PHP.

> * What advantages does this technology offer over something like PHP (from a 
> business perspective)?

The scalability of the JVM and the huge ecosystem of Java and JVM languages and 
libraries. But PHP developers will likely be much cheaper and just as plentiful 
(as Java/JVM developers - and far more plentiful than Clojure developers). And 
unless you happen to hit it enormously big, scalability may not be a real 
problem for you (and Facebook is a poster child for scalable PHP even tho' 
they've done a lot of weird stuff to get it there).

If you're building an extensive web site / web application, PHP has much more 
maturity in that area and has well-established frameworks and content 
management systems, and a huge pool of (average to cheap) talent available.

If I was your CEO or another early stage executive, I'd be pretty skeptical of 
using something as left field as Clojure for web development. If your core 
business is big data or AI or something else that relies on complex data / 
structure analysis, I'd be more sympathetic. Or if most of the core early team 
were already experienced with Clojure. But in the early stage, you'll need to 
move fast, pivot early and often, and be prepared to throw away a lot of demo / 
prototype code so picking something you're all comfortable with might well be a 
better business choice than some cool tech you might all like to use.

Sean Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

"Perfection is the enemy of the good."
-- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880)





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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Christopher,

Absolutely I agree.  I enjoyed that book very much.

I think I misstated my question a bit in that I don't need to be convinced 
of the value, but rather how best to relay Clojure's benefits to 
non-technical business types.

Thanks for your input.

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Christopher Poile]

Jarrod,
The book Clojure 
Programminghas
 a chapter (19) dedicated to your very question. I think the most 
important piece of advice is "Be Prudent" by choosing where Clojure fits 
and by starting slow. Try to find small self-contained problems and solve 
them. This will demonstrate the language's usefulness far better than any 
logical argument could.

On Tuesday, March 11, 2014 3:31:43 PM UTC-6, Jarrod Swart wrote:
>
> Gary, 
>
> Thanks for your observations.  I agree it doesn't necessarily have to be 
> all or nothing.  I'm hoping to get as much as possible insight before I 
> present to the founders.
>

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

Gary, 

Thanks for your observations.  I agree it doesn't necessarily have to be 
all or nothing.  I'm hoping to get as much as possible insight before I 
present to the founders.

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Re: Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Gary Trakhman]

Some Observations:
We took on a relatively inexperienced java developer, threw her into emacs,
gave her 'Joy of Clojure', and she was able to make contributions within a
month or two.

It doesn't have to be Clojure-everything, maybe PHP would be a great fit
for the front-end web/templating based on the experience pool, and Clojure
could be used for backend web services where it can give the most bang for
the buck.

Clojure also means 'the JVM', so you open yourself up to that talent pool
and large array of solutions: hadoop, storm, for example.  Depending on
your use-cases, you might need this flexibility eventually.  Having
deployment and dev experience on this platform from the get-go means you'll
be ready when you need it.


On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Jarrod Swart  wrote:

> I'm about to be an early employee at a small startup.
>
> I will be the first technical hire and am a competent but not
> extraordinarily experienced developer. The founders know this and hired me
> based on soft as well as technical skills.
>
> I don't want to be the first technical employee and make a poor technology
> choice that chains this startup from the beginning.
>
> My goal is to convince the CEO and other early stage executives of the
> benefits of using Clojure in place of PHP.  All the early founders have
> worked in places that use PHP, and I have worked as a PHP developer with
> some of them at other companies.  For the past year I have used Clojure in
> my personal projects and am comfortable with the language.
>
> I expect the following objections:
>
> * What is the talent pool like (for Clojure) and can we outsource less
> important tasks to other developers.
> * What advantages does this technology offer over something like PHP (from
> a business perspective)?
> * How will you cope with technical challenges?
>
> I have my own opinions but I would love to hear the feedback of others.
>  If you have good counter arguments to these or other objections you have
> heard in the past I would like to hear those.  If you have been in my
> position I would love to hear about that experience as well.
>
> Also consider that these people are technical but not programmers.  Any
> benefits have to make sense from a business perspective as well.
>
> Thank you for your help!
>
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Help a Startup use Clojure!

[Jarrod Swart]

I'm about to be an early employee at a small startup.  

I will be the first technical hire and am a competent but not 
extraordinarily experienced developer. The founders know this and hired me 
based on soft as well as technical skills.  

I don't want to be the first technical employee and make a poor technology 
choice that chains this startup from the beginning.

My goal is to convince the CEO and other early stage executives of the 
benefits of using Clojure in place of PHP.  All the early founders have 
worked in places that use PHP, and I have worked as a PHP developer with 
some of them at other companies.  For the past year I have used Clojure in 
my personal projects and am comfortable with the language.

I expect the following objections:

* What is the talent pool like (for Clojure) and can we outsource less 
important tasks to other developers.
* What advantages does this technology offer over something like PHP (from 
a business perspective)?
* How will you cope with technical challenges?

I have my own opinions but I would love to hear the feedback of others.  If 
you have good counter arguments to these or other objections you have heard 
in the past I would like to hear those.  If you have been in my position I 
would love to hear about that experience as well.

Also consider that these people are technical but not programmers.  Any 
benefits have to make sense from a business perspective as well.

Thank you for your help!

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