Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Steven Degutis]

Call me old-fashioned, but this seems like not the best way to
approach choosing a language. It should be chosen pragmatically, by
considering what works best for the task at hand, not because of
arbitrarily set rules, and never because a language is new and
exciting. Good programming techniques are timeless and
language-agnostic, and most of what you'll write can be done in almost
any language pretty cleanly, so it's best to use whatever language
makes the task the most practical. For example, I'll be writing some
code this evening that downloads several .tgz files, extracts a
docs.json file out of them, and uses these to build an HTML suite, all
without touching the disk. I was going to use Ruby, but Go has much
better support for in-memory I/O streams/buffers, so that's what I'll
use. Also, trying to stick to one language is only going to cause more
problems, in my experience. Different real-life problems need
different tools, even when the problems are related and inter-mingled.
In fact I wrote about this in a recent blog post for some reason, and
it seems relevant to the point I'm trying to make:
http://sdegutis.github.io/2014/08/18/age-of-the-polyglot/

On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 3:48 AM, Arthur Boyer  wrote:
> Thanks for all the great advice. I think it really reinforces another thing
> I like about Clojure, that it has a wonderful community.
>
> One idea that's come up several times is the notion that if we push Clojure
> then any problems we have will get blamed on Clojure, and unfortunately this
> rings true to me. At the same time, my boss is keen on choosing one language
> and sticking with it, something I disagree with, and if we do that it is
> unlikely that we'll get another chance to use Clojure in the foreseeable
> future.
>
> Beating the averages was a great essay, and one that encouraged me to learn
> Clojure. I'll pass it on to my boss.
>
> We're tending to focus on hiring smart people rather than people with a
> particular set of programming skills. Ironically one of our interview
> questions is around immutability, since we all agree that's crucial to
> building great systems. I'm optimistic that once we have some enertia it
> will be easy for smart devs to come on board and get up to speed with
> Clojure.
>
> I think the dev team is a good fit for Clojure, currently there are only
> three of us (we're in a hiring phase), and two of us have used, and really
> like, Clojure. Unfortunately the boss' experiences with C++ and to a lesser
> extent Ruby seem to have made Clojure not a good fit for him. He's had a
> play with Clojure, and completely turned against it after trying to write a
> Sieve of Eratosthenes and creating something really, really slow. The boss
> isn't going to be writing any code, but is very opinionated about what we
> should be using, at this point he strongly favours Groovy. At least it's not
> Java.
>
> The Cognitect proof of concept idea is a good one, and in a different
> situation, or different stage of the situation I'd go for it.
>
> I've read quite a bit about the kind of microservice architectures being
> used at places like Spotify, and I think it would be a good way for us to
> go, but unfortunately at this stage we're a small core in a company that's
> trying to grow quickly, so that kind of thing is further down the line.
>
>
> On 20 August 2014 22:37, aboy021  wrote:
>>
>> Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow quickly?
>>
>> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as
>> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work,
>> is Clojure a good choice?
>>
>> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how
>> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects,
>> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>>
>> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive,
>> flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain.
>> I'm biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use
>> it commercially.
>>
>> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that
>> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>>
>> Thanks for any suggestions.
>>
>> --
>> 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 a topic in the
>> Google Groups "Clojure" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/clojure/TfyA0qPIjmw/unsubscribe.
>> To unsubscribe from this

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Sean Corfield]

On Aug 21, 2014, at 1:48 AM, Arthur Boyer  wrote:
> One idea that's come up several times is the notion that if we push Clojure 
> then any problems we have will get blamed on Clojure, and unfortunately this 
> rings true to me. At the same time, my boss is keen on choosing one language 
> and sticking with it, something I disagree with, and if we do that it is 
> unlikely that we'll get another chance to use Clojure in the foreseeable 
> future.

It's a shame your boss - who won't be coding and clearly has fairly limited 
experience with modern programming tools - seems so intent on dictating 
technology to the rest of you.

> The boss isn't going to be writing any code, but is very opinionated about 
> what we should be using, at this point he strongly favours Groovy. At least 
> it's not Java.

At least he's bought into the JVM so you're on the right path. If he's 
concerned about performance you may find Groovy too slow for certain things 
(depending on what exactly your company does) and that may be a way to sneak in 
small libraries that you write in Clojure to replace slow pieces of Groovy.

Where I work - World Singles - they had historically been a Windows / 
ColdFusion shop. When I joined as a part-time contractor five years ago, they 
were just starting on a complete rewrite of the dating platform. They were 
still happy with ColdFusion but early on in the project, the new contractors 
they'd hired pressed for a move to Linux and to Railo (a JBoss community 
project that provides a FOSS implementation of CFML with a smaller footprint 
and better performance).

One aspect of the platform had always been problematic: the email generator. It 
really needed to run 24x7 as a background process and CFML is only a web 
language so they'd tried a few other technologies. Once I was onboard, I 
suggested a rewrite in Scala (to leverage actors) and got a reasonable version 
working (in about 1,000 lines of code). It was back in the 2.7/2.8 days so the 
Actor library had known memory leaks (and the tool chain was a PITA as new 
versions of Scala broke everything).

I was exposed to Clojure in early 2010 - I attended a local "bootcamp" run by 
Amit Rathore (Clojure in Action) - and thought that might be a promising 
alternative to Scala for the email generator with parallel map, agents, futures 
and so on. I wrote a proof of concept (in about 300 lines) and demonstrated it. 
It didn't suffer from the memory leaks of the Scala version so it was:

a) much more stable
b) much simpler code (being one third the size of the Scala version)
c) slower than the Scala version

That initial version was capable of about a quarter of a million HTML emails a 
day (running lots of database queries and lots of calls to a search engine we 
use - Discovery by Transparensee). It was enough to get it accepted as our 
production version.

A few, relatively small, tweaks to the code boosted performance to three 
quarters of a million HTML emails a day and subsequent tweaks boosted it to 
about one and a quarter million. We added two more instances of the process, 
configured for different searches, and the search engine became the bottleneck. 
We've just completed an upgrade and reorganization of the server infrastructure 
and now we're ticking along at three million HTML emails a day.

Once I'd shown Clojure was viable for us (back in 2011), we started rewriting a 
lot of low-level parts of our CFML code base in Clojure and gradually started 
adding other processes fully written in Clojure. Our real time chat service is 
all Clojure on the back end. Nearly all of our scheduled tasks are pure Clojure 
and all of our "24x7" processes are pure Clojure. We have 21,000 lines of 
Clojure at this point. We're slowing moving toward a time in which CFML will 
remain only for Views and Controllers and our entire dating platform Model will 
be Clojure. Eventually I hope we'll replace CFML with Clojure even for the 
Views and Controllers. We're also building an internal app entirely in 
Clojure(Script) using Om and Sente (core.async over Web Sockets).

Based on my experience at World Singles, here's my recommendation: go with his 
choice of Groovy to start with (and Grails, I assume?). Look for small pieces 
to write in Clojure and sneak them in where they improve performance or 
dramatically improve maintainability. Don't go overboard - do it only where you 
can show a clear improvement over the Groovy solution you've already created. 
Don't push to cross-train other developers. Don't push to write all new code in 
Clojure. Slowly, over time, you'll just find you're using more and more Clojure 
and having fewer bugs and being able to adapt to changing requirements faster. 
As long as you don't make a big deal of it - and you're careful to make sure 
each new piece of Clojure is a success - better than the Groovy equivalent - 
your team will slowly make the change.

I was the only Clojure developer at World Singles for quite a while, then 
a

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Kalina Todorova]

>> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as
>> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work,
>> is Clojure a good choice?
>>
>
> My friend works in a project which is being rewritten from Rails to
> Clojure (due to usual scaling problems with Rails). They don't have hiring
> problems. However, they are not looking for Clojure devs but devs who want
> to learn Clojure - and they don't have any problems with that. Usually,
> each new developer is able to code in Clojure after one month. Of course,
> every new team member has to read a book or two after hours and requires
> some mentoring from other members in a team.
>
>

Somewhat right but what about the people that are mentoring them, the
clojure community is not big therefore is hard to find really experienced
developers if some of the experience ones start to quit there is quite
lower possibility for the owner to find somebody to replace them and the
company becomes kinda more depended on the 'good-will' of the developers


>
We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects,
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>
>
Clojure is as hard to learn as any other language. People who complain
>> about strange grammar (those bloody brackets) or a few new concepts in the
>> language won't be a good buy for a fast-growing company.
>>
>
There is big difference between OOP and functional programming and if one
is coming straight from Java or other OOP without any background in
functional programming it is really hard to break some of this OOP mind-set
and it takes time to get used to. I would agree that a person understanding
the concept of functional programming can pickup quite quickly the lisp
syntax and it will probably take about a month for him to be production
ready but if he is totally new to the concepts I believe that it could take
maybe more like 3 months.


I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that
>> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>>
>
What we did last year were 2 things: participate in ClojureCup so you can
show that you can provide fast value in Clojure and make some small prove
of concept project



Kalina




On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Jan Ziniewicz 
wrote:

>
>> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as
>> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work,
>> is Clojure a good choice?
>>
>
> My friend works in a project which is being rewritten from Rails to
> Clojure (due to usual scaling problems with Rails). They don't have hiring
> problems. However, they are not looking for Clojure devs but devs who want
> to learn Clojure - and they don't have any problems with that. Usually,
> each new developer is able to code in Clojure after one month. Of course,
> every new team member has to read a book or two after hours and requires
> some mentoring from other members in a team.
>
>
>>
>> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how
>> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects,
>> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>>
>
> Clojure is as hard to learn as any other language. People who complain
> about strange grammar (those bloody brackets) or a few new concepts in the
> language won't be a good buy for a fast-growing company.
>
>
>
>> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that
>> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>>
>>
> I had the same problem with Scala a few years ago. Persuade you boss to
> start with very small project. Make it awesome, show it to your team and
> remember - you 'll have only one chance. If you fail - they won't allow you
> to use Clojure again :)
>
> --
> 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/d/optout.
>



-- 

 Best regards | Med venlig hilsen,

 Kalina Todorova
T: 0045 52 64 93 73
E: ad...@ki6i.com

Trongårdsvej 46, 1
2800 Lyngby
  
  

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to th

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Jan Ziniewicz]

>
>
> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as 
> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work, 
> is Clojure a good choice?
>

My friend works in a project which is being rewritten from Rails to Clojure 
(due to usual scaling problems with Rails). They don't have hiring 
problems. However, they are not looking for Clojure devs but devs who want 
to learn Clojure - and they don't have any problems with that. Usually, 
each new developer is able to code in Clojure after one month. Of course, 
every new team member has to read a book or two after hours and requires 
some mentoring from other members in a team. 
 

>
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how 
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects, 
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>

Clojure is as hard to learn as any other language. People who complain 
about strange grammar (those bloody brackets) or a few new concepts in the 
language won't be a good buy for a fast-growing company.

 

> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that 
> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>
>
I had the same problem with Scala a few years ago. Persuade you boss to 
start with very small project. Make it awesome, show it to your team and 
remember - you 'll have only one chance. If you fail - they won't allow you 
to use Clojure again :)

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Magnus Therning]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 03:37:40AM -0700, aboy021 wrote:
> Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow
> quickly?
> 
> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to
> speed, as well as have options for bringing in contractors and
> outsourcing some work, is Clojure a good choice?
> 
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained
> of how hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open
> source projects, especially for those with backgrounds in languages
> like C++.
> 
> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is
> expressive, flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of
> the problem domain.  I'm biased on this because I really enjoy
> Clojure at home, and want to use it commercially.
> 
> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss
> that the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth
> taking.
> 
> Thanks for any suggestions.

Personally I'd stop looking at a specific language for implementation,
and instead look at the architecture of the system.  Concentrate on
loose coupling and finding a good technology for the interop of the
various parts.  If the problem allows it you'll end up with a
situation where the implementation language of each part matters very
little, and then you simply choose the language best suited for each.

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning  OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4 
email: mag...@therning.org   jabber: mag...@therning.org
twitter: magthe   http://therning.org/magnus

Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then
being a real problem in the longer term.
 -- Alan Kay


pgpEFLXvKDffL.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Luc Prefontaine]

+1 same weakness + big fingers on
small iPhone keyboard :(
Urgent need for a second one...

We choose Clojure in 2008 strictly for efficiency.

In 2009 after being in prod, we were told that hiring would be a major problem.

We dealt with this noise by accepting the fact
that we will train people.

Why ?

Because we need 7 to 10 times less people.

Everything got simpler from design
to deployment.

We get people to learn by adding
tests. I can't stand TDD but I agree
that safeguards like automated tests
add value.

So let the newcomers do the boring
stuff while they learn :)

I think that there is a huge perception
problem. For some reason apparently in the industry complex systems = huge 
teams.

It looks to me more like a peeing contest more than anything else.
My team is bigger than yours, blablabla,

Like if bigger meant better

To me big teams are mostly a sign
of inefficiency except if you intend
to send men on the moon or
similar unusual goals.

Luc P.

> + Grammar. I should not write correspondence before having coffee.
> 
> On Thursday, August 21, 2014 9:31:42 AM UTC+2, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
> >
> > Sweden has some things going for it, and some not, as always. I think 
> > business overall is somewhat less cutthroat here than in the States, which 
> > is why it struck me that I might be making assumptions about what OP should 
> > or should not do out of ignorance of his situation. The scape goat 
> > reasoning really brought this home.
> >
> > At the two most recent places I've been (I'm a consultant, a UX designer), 
> > they've worked with autonomous teams. That is, the teams are themselves 
> > responsible for deciding how to solve a problem, sometimes including what 
> > programming language to use. One result of this seems to emerge (I only 
> > have a sample size of two) a microservice centered design and a general 
> > decoupling between the teams. 
> >
> > Also, it naturally seems to lead to a more heterogeneous environment, for 
> > good or for bad. This seems to be somewhat self-regulating however, as 
> > other most members of a team will protest if one member wants to write the 
> > new service in the Shakespearean Programming Language, for example. It also 
> > leads to the same kind of resistance to more sensible choices as well, like 
> > Clojure. But unlike SPL or Brainfuck, they actually have chance of being 
> > used if they show merit, probably by filling some niche role to begin with. 
> >
> > When I was with Spotify, I learned that they had snuck in some Clojure in 
> > one of the teams of the organization. No one has been fired yet, and 
> > everyone seems happy enough. Especially the people who now get to do at 
> > least *some* Clojure during their work day.
> >
> > Oh, and like Linus, I try to promote Clojure wherever I go. As a designer, 
> > I'd love to work with a team that uses Clojure. That is, a team that 
> > understands that incidental complexity eventually seeps out to for the user 
> > to deal with, and so on. Unfortunately, being framed as a designer means I 
> > have less natural authority when I say that Clojure is awesome. Although 
> > this is somewhat mitigated somewhat by the sheer shock of having a designer 
> > saying something comprehensible about a programming language.
> >
> > On Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:44:18 AM UTC+2, Quzanti wrote:
> >>
> >> "If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
> >> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
> >> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
> >> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well"
> >>
> >> Hence the need for a scapegoat. Generally if an investor can make 20% of 
> >> their startups work, people will blame the technologists for the failure 
> >> of 
> >> the other 80%, and the investor will have a PR machine to distort the 
> >> history if needed. But yes, startup hubs work best when there are angel 
> >> investors who want to build a personal reputation or where the 
> >> institutional investors have strong links with the universities producing 
> >> the start up talent and so don't want to jeopardise those (eg the Stanford 
> >> University system). Even the best VCs will shut down the majority of their 
> >> start ups though, so you'd think that would make people avoid them, but 
> >> there are always people out there who need money to try and realise their 
> >> dreams. 
> >>
> >> All a bit tangential to the the original thread question though, which 
> >> was assuming a high growth, high pressure, scale it up fast, need results 
> >> kind of culture, would Clojure be a good fit?
> >>
> >> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 11:46:48 PM UTC+1, Linus Ericsson wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Well, for better or worse we don't like conflicts that much. This has 
> >>> benefits when it comes to some kinds of problem solving (the way to 
> >>> consensus in Swedish companies is worth at least a chapter in 

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Arthur Boyer]

Thanks for all the great advice. I think it really reinforces another thing
I like about Clojure, that it has a wonderful community.

One idea that's come up several times is the notion that if we push Clojure
then any problems we have will get blamed on Clojure, and unfortunately
this rings true to me. At the same time, my boss is keen on choosing one
language and sticking with it, something I disagree with, and if we do that
it is unlikely that we'll get another chance to use Clojure in the
foreseeable future.

Beating the averages was a great essay, and one that encouraged me to learn
Clojure. I'll pass it on to my boss.

We're tending to focus on hiring smart people rather than people with a
particular set of programming skills. Ironically one of our interview
questions is around immutability, since we all agree that's crucial to
building great systems. I'm optimistic that once we have some enertia it
will be easy for smart devs to come on board and get up to speed with
Clojure.

I think the dev team is a good fit for Clojure, currently there are only
three of us (we're in a hiring phase), and two of us have used, and really
like, Clojure. Unfortunately the boss' experiences with C++ and to a lesser
extent Ruby seem to have made Clojure not a good fit for him. He's had a
play with Clojure, and completely turned against it after trying to write a
Sieve of Eratosthenes and creating something really, really slow. The boss
isn't going to be writing any code, but is very opinionated about what we
should be using, at this point he strongly favours Groovy. At least it's
not Java.

The Cognitect proof of concept idea is a good one, and in a different
situation, or different stage of the situation I'd go for it.

I've read quite a bit about the kind of microservice architectures being
used at places like Spotify, and I think it would be a good way for us to
go, but unfortunately at this stage we're a small core in a company that's
trying to grow quickly, so that kind of thing is further down the line.


On 20 August 2014 22:37, aboy021  wrote:

> Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow quickly?
>
> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as
> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work,
> is Clojure a good choice?
>
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects,
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>
> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive,
> flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain.
> I'm biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use
> it commercially.
>
> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that
> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions.
>
> --
> 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 a topic in the
> Google Groups "Clojure" group.
> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/clojure/TfyA0qPIjmw/unsubscribe.
> To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to
> clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Henrik Eneroth]

+ Grammar. I should not write correspondence before having coffee.

On Thursday, August 21, 2014 9:31:42 AM UTC+2, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>
> Sweden has some things going for it, and some not, as always. I think 
> business overall is somewhat less cutthroat here than in the States, which 
> is why it struck me that I might be making assumptions about what OP should 
> or should not do out of ignorance of his situation. The scape goat 
> reasoning really brought this home.
>
> At the two most recent places I've been (I'm a consultant, a UX designer), 
> they've worked with autonomous teams. That is, the teams are themselves 
> responsible for deciding how to solve a problem, sometimes including what 
> programming language to use. One result of this seems to emerge (I only 
> have a sample size of two) a microservice centered design and a general 
> decoupling between the teams. 
>
> Also, it naturally seems to lead to a more heterogeneous environment, for 
> good or for bad. This seems to be somewhat self-regulating however, as 
> other most members of a team will protest if one member wants to write the 
> new service in the Shakespearean Programming Language, for example. It also 
> leads to the same kind of resistance to more sensible choices as well, like 
> Clojure. But unlike SPL or Brainfuck, they actually have chance of being 
> used if they show merit, probably by filling some niche role to begin with. 
>
> When I was with Spotify, I learned that they had snuck in some Clojure in 
> one of the teams of the organization. No one has been fired yet, and 
> everyone seems happy enough. Especially the people who now get to do at 
> least *some* Clojure during their work day.
>
> Oh, and like Linus, I try to promote Clojure wherever I go. As a designer, 
> I'd love to work with a team that uses Clojure. That is, a team that 
> understands that incidental complexity eventually seeps out to for the user 
> to deal with, and so on. Unfortunately, being framed as a designer means I 
> have less natural authority when I say that Clojure is awesome. Although 
> this is somewhat mitigated somewhat by the sheer shock of having a designer 
> saying something comprehensible about a programming language.
>
> On Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:44:18 AM UTC+2, Quzanti wrote:
>>
>> "If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
>> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
>> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
>> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well."
>>
>> Hence the need for a scapegoat. Generally if an investor can make 20% of 
>> their startups work, people will blame the technologists for the failure of 
>> the other 80%, and the investor will have a PR machine to distort the 
>> history if needed. But yes, startup hubs work best when there are angel 
>> investors who want to build a personal reputation or where the 
>> institutional investors have strong links with the universities producing 
>> the start up talent and so don't want to jeopardise those (eg the Stanford 
>> University system). Even the best VCs will shut down the majority of their 
>> start ups though, so you'd think that would make people avoid them, but 
>> there are always people out there who need money to try and realise their 
>> dreams. 
>>
>> All a bit tangential to the the original thread question though, which 
>> was assuming a high growth, high pressure, scale it up fast, need results 
>> kind of culture, would Clojure be a good fit?
>>
>> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 11:46:48 PM UTC+1, Linus Ericsson wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, for better or worse we don't like conflicts that much. This has 
>>> benefits when it comes to some kinds of problem solving (the way to 
>>> consensus in Swedish companies is worth at least a chapter in a big book 
>>> about antrophology). This shyness for open conflicts can lead to stagnation.
>>>
>>> This means that status quo is not turned over that easily, but when it 
>>> does, it happens like an avalanche (cow oscillator comes to mind). 
>>> Stockholm University has Clojure and Erlang in its second year curriculum 
>>> for computer science. Just saying.
>>>
>>> Apart from that, its 3kloc database queries and Java classes galore and 
>>> Wordpress shops all over, like everywhere else. The single larges group 
>>> of workers in Stockholm is of course computer programmer. 33000 people out 
>>> of a million of so.
>>>
>>> If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
>>> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
>>> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
>>> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well.
>>>
>>> "In Sweden we have a system..." the ironic saying goes, but the truth is 
>>> that even though the housing situation is outright catastrophic, you would 
>>> not ever be put on the stree

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Henrik Eneroth]

Sweden has some things going for it, and some not, as always. I think 
business overall is somewhat less cutthroat here than in the States, which 
is why it struck me that I might be making assumptions about what OP should 
or should not do out of ignorance of his situation. The scape goat 
reasoning really brought this home.

At the two most recent places I've been (I'm a consultant, a UX designer), 
they've worked with autonomous teams. That is, the teams are themselves 
responsible for deciding how to solve a problem, sometimes including what 
programming language to use. One result of this seems to emerge (I only 
have a sample size of two) a microservice centered design and a general 
decoupling between the teams. 

Also, it naturally seems to lead to a more heterogeneous environment, for 
good or for bad. This seems to be somewhat self-regulating however, as 
other most members of a team will protest if one member wants to write the 
new service in the Shakespearean Programming Language, for example. It also 
leads to the same kind of resistance to more sensible choices as well, like 
Clojure. But unlike SPL or Brainfuck, they actually have chance of being 
used if they show merit, probably by filling some niche role to begin with. 

When I was with Spotify, I learned that they had snuck in some Clojure in 
one of the teams of the organization. No one has been fired yet, and 
everyone seems happy enough. Especially the people who now get to do at 
least *some* Clojure during their work day.

Oh, and like Linus, I try to promote Clojure wherever I go. As a designer, 
I'd love to work with a team that uses Clojure. That is, a team that 
understands that incidental complexity eventually seeps out to for the user 
to deal with, and so on. Unfortunately, being framed as a designer means I 
have less natural authority when I say that Clojure is awesome. Although 
this is somewhat mitigated somewhat by the sheer shock of having a designer 
saying something comprehensible about a programming language.

On Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:44:18 AM UTC+2, Quzanti wrote:
>
> "If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well."
>
> Hence the need for a scapegoat. Generally if an investor can make 20% of 
> their startups work, people will blame the technologists for the failure of 
> the other 80%, and the investor will have a PR machine to distort the 
> history if needed. But yes, startup hubs work best when there are angel 
> investors who want to build a personal reputation or where the 
> institutional investors have strong links with the universities producing 
> the start up talent and so don't want to jeopardise those (eg the Stanford 
> University system). Even the best VCs will shut down the majority of their 
> start ups though, so you'd think that would make people avoid them, but 
> there are always people out there who need money to try and realise their 
> dreams. 
>
> All a bit tangential to the the original thread question though, which was 
> assuming a high growth, high pressure, scale it up fast, need results kind 
> of culture, would Clojure be a good fit?
>
> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 11:46:48 PM UTC+1, Linus Ericsson wrote:
>>
>> Well, for better or worse we don't like conflicts that much. This has 
>> benefits when it comes to some kinds of problem solving (the way to 
>> consensus in Swedish companies is worth at least a chapter in a big book 
>> about antrophology). This shyness for open conflicts can lead to stagnation.
>>
>> This means that status quo is not turned over that easily, but when it 
>> does, it happens like an avalanche (cow oscillator comes to mind). 
>> Stockholm University has Clojure and Erlang in its second year curriculum 
>> for computer science. Just saying.
>>
>> Apart from that, its 3kloc database queries and Java classes galore and 
>> Wordpress shops all over, like everywhere else. The single larges group 
>> of workers in Stockholm is of course computer programmer. 33000 people out 
>> of a million of so.
>>
>> If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
>> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
>> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
>> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well.
>>
>> "In Sweden we have a system..." the ironic saying goes, but the truth is 
>> that even though the housing situation is outright catastrophic, you would 
>> not ever be put on the street if you wasn't psychotic enough not to accept 
>> the help offered (worst case you would end up in a sad, sleepy, far far out 
>> suburb with long commuting distances, but hey). The social security system 
>> is simply generous enough to make sure pe

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Quzanti]

"If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well."

Hence the need for a scapegoat. Generally if an investor can make 20% of 
their startups work, people will blame the technologists for the failure of 
the other 80%, and the investor will have a PR machine to distort the 
history if needed. But yes, startup hubs work best when there are angel 
investors who want to build a personal reputation or where the 
institutional investors have strong links with the universities producing 
the start up talent and so don't want to jeopardise those (eg the Stanford 
University system). Even the best VCs will shut down the majority of their 
start ups though, so you'd think that would make people avoid them, but 
there are always people out there who need money to try and realise their 
dreams. 

All a bit tangential to the the original thread question though, which was 
assuming a high growth, high pressure, scale it up fast, need results kind 
of culture, would Clojure be a good fit?

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 11:46:48 PM UTC+1, Linus Ericsson wrote:
>
> Well, for better or worse we don't like conflicts that much. This has 
> benefits when it comes to some kinds of problem solving (the way to 
> consensus in Swedish companies is worth at least a chapter in a big book 
> about antrophology). This shyness for open conflicts can lead to stagnation.
>
> This means that status quo is not turned over that easily, but when it 
> does, it happens like an avalanche (cow oscillator comes to mind). 
> Stockholm University has Clojure and Erlang in its second year curriculum 
> for computer science. Just saying.
>
> Apart from that, its 3kloc database queries and Java classes galore and 
> Wordpress shops all over, like everywhere else. The single larges group 
> of workers in Stockholm is of course computer programmer. 33000 people out 
> of a million of so.
>
> If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is 
> running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss 
> somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose 
> respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well.
>
> "In Sweden we have a system..." the ironic saying goes, but the truth is 
> that even though the housing situation is outright catastrophic, you would 
> not ever be put on the street if you wasn't psychotic enough not to accept 
> the help offered (worst case you would end up in a sad, sleepy, far far out 
> suburb with long commuting distances, but hey). The social security system 
> is simply generous enough to make sure people gets back on track, should it 
> be long time unemployment or whatever (this, and elderly care jobs, are 
> powering much of the popular music industry here). 
>
> Ah, everybody generalizes all the time. Henrik can nuance the picture.
>
> I have been programming and promoting Clojure quite aggressively for some 
> years (it's hard not to), and the last months people have been starting to 
> say "yeah, my java friends really likes it" or "yes, my bf likes it too".
>
> Wind of change.
>
> /Linus
> working at Agical AB, a consultancy in love with technology and sometimes 
> hosting Clojure Meet ups with Stockholm Clojure User Group and wov, so much 
> thing I really can help companies with everywhere, epic win
>
> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014, Quzanti  > wrote:
>
>> Just looked at your profile. Sweden? A very enlightened place. I am a big 
>> fan of the Paradox Interactive games. What happens in Sweden when investors 
>> lose their money?
>>
>> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:16:55 PM UTC+1, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the 
 technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so 
 that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times. 

>>>
>>> Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP 
>>> lives in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work. 
>>>
>>  -- 
>> 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/d/optout.
>>
>

-- 
Y

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Linus Ericsson]

Well, for better or worse we don't like conflicts that much. This has
benefits when it comes to some kinds of problem solving (the way to
consensus in Swedish companies is worth at least a chapter in a big book
about antrophology). This shyness for open conflicts can lead to stagnation.

This means that status quo is not turned over that easily, but when it
does, it happens like an avalanche (cow oscillator comes to mind).
Stockholm University has Clojure and Erlang in its second year curriculum
for computer science. Just saying.

Apart from that, its 3kloc database queries and Java classes galore and
Wordpress shops all over, like everywhere else. The single larges group
of workers in Stockholm is of course computer programmer. 33000 people out
of a million of so.

If an investor were kicking people out, its usually because money is
running low or for other more diffuse reasons. If an investor or boss
somewhere where kicking out people at random, he would quickly loose
respect from his other employeers. The rest would soon leave as well.

"In Sweden we have a system..." the ironic saying goes, but the truth is
that even though the housing situation is outright catastrophic, you would
not ever be put on the street if you wasn't psychotic enough not to accept
the help offered (worst case you would end up in a sad, sleepy, far far out
suburb with long commuting distances, but hey). The social security system
is simply generous enough to make sure people gets back on track, should it
be long time unemployment or whatever (this, and elderly care jobs, are
powering much of the popular music industry here).

Ah, everybody generalizes all the time. Henrik can nuance the picture.

I have been programming and promoting Clojure quite aggressively for some
years (it's hard not to), and the last months people have been starting to
say "yeah, my java friends really likes it" or "yes, my bf likes it too".

Wind of change.

/Linus
working at Agical AB, a consultancy in love with technology and sometimes
hosting Clojure Meet ups with Stockholm Clojure User Group and wov, so much
thing I really can help companies with everywhere, epic win

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014, Quzanti  wrote:

> Just looked at your profile. Sweden? A very enlightened place. I am a big
> fan of the Paradox Interactive games. What happens in Sweden when investors
> lose their money?
>
> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:16:55 PM UTC+1, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>>
>>
>>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the
>>> technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so
>>> that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times.
>>>
>>
>> Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP
>> lives in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work.
>>
>  --
> 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/d/optout.
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Ashton Kemerling]

I personally snuck it into my company in a limited fashion by selling its 
libraries, test.check in particular. This has gone quite well.

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Quzanti  wrote:

> Whenever there is an external institutional stakeholder it is almost 
> guaranteed to happen. Someone in that external institution has a bonus or 
> promotion depending on the outcome, and will demand results. They will also 
> have penalty clauses in the contract which can be anything from 
> non-payment, to seizing control of a start up, or even shutting it down.
> I have seen it happen myself in England and Germany, and there are plenty 
> of well documented cases from the States so I don't think it is culturally 
> dependent in the sense of national culture.
> If you live in a blame free society let us know where as it would be an 
> excellent place for a start up!
> On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:16:55 PM UTC+1, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>>
>>
>>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the 
>>> technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so 
>>> that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times. 
>>>
>>
>> Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP lives 
>> in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work. 
>>
> -- 
> 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/d/optout.

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Quzanti]

Just looked at your profile. Sweden? A very enlightened place. I am a big 
fan of the Paradox Interactive games. What happens in Sweden when investors 
lose their money?

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:16:55 PM UTC+1, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>
>
>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the 
>> technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so 
>> that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times. 
>>
>
> Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP lives 
> in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work. 
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Quzanti]

Whenever there is an external institutional stakeholder it is almost 
guaranteed to happen. Someone in that external institution has a bonus or 
promotion depending on the outcome, and will demand results. They will also 
have penalty clauses in the contract which can be anything from 
non-payment, to seizing control of a start up, or even shutting it down.

I have seen it happen myself in England and Germany, and there are plenty 
of well documented cases from the States so I don't think it is culturally 
dependent in the sense of national culture.

If you live in a blame free society let us know where as it would be an 
excellent place for a start up!

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:16:55 PM UTC+1, Henrik Eneroth wrote:
>
>
>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the 
>> technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so 
>> that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times. 
>>
>
> Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP lives 
> in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work. 
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Henrik Eneroth]

>  … as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has anything to do with the 
> technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to be blamed and fired so 
> that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it happen so many times. 
>

Good lord, truly? Perhaps this is a good time to ask what culture OP lives 
in. This wouldn't happen where I live/work. 

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Quzanti]

I'd agree with this.

A closely held (financially) company with a small team of very bright 
programmers (preferably with a decent stake in the outcome so they stay 
around) will be able to exploit the power and productivity of clojure to do 
with a small team fast what would need far more people in Java

The type of company that wants to throw money and people at a project to 
scale it up would be a disaster with Clojure. Even the people that manage 
to master functional programming won't be able to understand each other's 
code because it tends to be more abstract and there are more ways of 
expressing things.

Java is a brilliant lowest common denominator language where your options 
are deliberately restricted and you really have to spell everything out 
explicitly so any idiot with a debugger can work out what is going on.

As a general point about doing anything 'new' if the guy "where the buck 
stops" is driving it, it can be made to work/covered up if it goes wrong. 
If you are NOT the guy where the buck stops but are the guy with his name 
against a decision then as soon as anything goes wrong whether it has 
anything to do with the technology choice or not you become mr fall guy, to 
be blamed and fired so that other people can keep their jobs. Seen it 
happen so many times. 

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 4:51:44 PM UTC+1, jonah wrote:
>
>
> To add a data point to this, while the technology is great, it is not 
> necessarily right for all companies at all lifecycle stages.
>
> My experience has been that C++ skills and interests don't necessarily 
> translate directly to Clojure. The kinds of microdecisions one makes in 
> modeling, algorithm design and so forth are quite different, and the costs 
> one optimizes for in C++ land don't make sense in Clojure. What I have seen 
> more often is motivated C++ers transition to Scala- getting up to speed on 
> the JVM and the APIs, get a little bit of a REPL, while retaining types and 
> compilation and a lot of the mental model- and then go from Scala to 
> Clojure. But since Clojure is a different toolchain and level of 
> abstraction, changing both at the same time even for the motivated can be a 
> bridge too far.
>
> I would also not look at Clojure as a commodity tool, in the enterprise IT 
> staffing model where one wants to just be able to throw bodies at problems, 
> shift them around between teams, scale them up and down quickly with 
> fluidity between staff and consultant roles. It's currently significantly 
> more specialized and elite than that.
>
> On the flip side, because it is a different level of abstraction, the 
> right team + Clojure can be incredibly productive in a wide variety of 
> domains. 
>
> If you have a budget and can afford to frame a Proof-of-Concept in your 
> domain for a consulting team to demonstrate this, I would highly recommend 
> getting in touch with Cognitect themselves. I don't think it is widely 
> known that aside from being the creators of Clojure and Datomic, they have 
> an extremely proficient consulting practice. Watching them work can be 
> mind-blowing, from both technical and management perspectives.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Nando Breiter  > wrote:
>
>> Perhaps the question is more "Is your boss (or company) suitable for 
>> Clojure?" 
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Joshua Ballanco > > wrote:
>>
>>> My advice on convincing your boss to use Clojure for a new project: 
>>> don’t.
>>>
>>> Projects succeed or fail for any number of different reasons, but I can 
>>> guarantee you that if you *start* a new project with Clojure, and it does 
>>> happen to fail, then the choice of Clojure will bear the brunt of the blame 
>>> whether it deserves it or not.
>>
>>
>>  -- 
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Clojure" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to clo...@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+u...@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+u...@googlegroups.com .
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>
>

-- 
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 
"Clojur

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Phillip Lord]

gvim  writes:

> On 20/08/2014 14:09, Phillip Lord wrote:
>> When I got my first Java job, I had no experience at it; day one was
>> popping into town to buy a "how to program Java" book.
>>
>> Actually, I had very little experience and no qualifications in
>> programming at all; perhaps the world was a different place then.
>>
>
> How long ago was that?


Long enough ago that buying a book was my first port of call, rather
than googling for tutorials. More specifically, 1998. I was writing
applets in Java 1.0, server in 1.1.

Somehow I don't miss those days at all.

Phil

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Jonah Benton]

To add a data point to this, while the technology is great, it is not
necessarily right for all companies at all lifecycle stages.

My experience has been that C++ skills and interests don't necessarily
translate directly to Clojure. The kinds of microdecisions one makes in
modeling, algorithm design and so forth are quite different, and the costs
one optimizes for in C++ land don't make sense in Clojure. What I have seen
more often is motivated C++ers transition to Scala- getting up to speed on
the JVM and the APIs, get a little bit of a REPL, while retaining types and
compilation and a lot of the mental model- and then go from Scala to
Clojure. But since Clojure is a different toolchain and level of
abstraction, changing both at the same time even for the motivated can be a
bridge too far.

I would also not look at Clojure as a commodity tool, in the enterprise IT
staffing model where one wants to just be able to throw bodies at problems,
shift them around between teams, scale them up and down quickly with
fluidity between staff and consultant roles. It's currently significantly
more specialized and elite than that.

On the flip side, because it is a different level of abstraction, the right
team + Clojure can be incredibly productive in a wide variety of domains.

If you have a budget and can afford to frame a Proof-of-Concept in your
domain for a consulting team to demonstrate this, I would highly recommend
getting in touch with Cognitect themselves. I don't think it is widely
known that aside from being the creators of Clojure and Datomic, they have
an extremely proficient consulting practice. Watching them work can be
mind-blowing, from both technical and management perspectives.




On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Nando Breiter 
wrote:

> Perhaps the question is more "Is your boss (or company) suitable for
> Clojure?"
>
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Joshua Ballanco 
> wrote:
>
>> My advice on convincing your boss to use Clojure for a new project: don’t.
>>
>> Projects succeed or fail for any number of different reasons, but I can
>> guarantee you that if you *start* a new project with Clojure, and it does
>> happen to fail, then the choice of Clojure will bear the brunt of the blame
>> whether it deserves it or not.
>
>
>  --
> 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/d/optout.
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Marcus Blankenship]

+1 to Joshua's answer.  If you want to make sure that Clojure never gets used, 
convince your boss to try it and then fail to meet expectations for ANY reason. 
 One thing I know, poor Clojure will take all the blame and be booted from the 
company.


When my company was young, I convinced my partner to try Rails, a new comer in 
the web space.  (He was a PHP guy.)  While the language was fine, he found the 
tooling at the time to be difficult and confusing, and so we pitched it out in 
favor of something else (python / django, as I recall).  For the next 6 years, 
every time I brought up using Rails (which grew in popularity like CRAZY) he 
would say "We tried that and Rails sucks.  Not doing that again."  I'd hate to 
see the same thing happen to you.


When I introduced Clojure to my company, I took a senior dev aside and said 
"For the next project, I'd like you to try this new thing.  Here's a book and a 
Heroku account, give it a whirl."  If the project had gone sideways, so be it, 
but I wasn't going to hang it all on the language's fault.  I'd be willing, as 
always, to take the blame.

Just my $0.02,
Marcus


On Aug 20, 2014, at 8:06 AM, Nando Breiter  wrote:

> Perhaps the question is more "Is your boss (or company) suitable for 
> Clojure?" 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Joshua Ballanco  wrote:
> My advice on convincing your boss to use Clojure for a new project: don't.
> 
> Projects succeed or fail for any number of different reasons, but I can 
> guarantee you that if you *start* a new project with Clojure, and it does 
> happen to fail, then the choice of Clojure will bear the brunt of the blame 
> whether it deserves it or not.
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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/d/optout.

Best,
Marcus

Marcus Blankenship
\\\ 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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Nando Breiter]

Perhaps the question is more "Is your boss (or company) suitable for
Clojure?"

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 2:56 PM, Joshua Ballanco  wrote:

> My advice on convincing your boss to use Clojure for a new project: don’t.
>
> Projects succeed or fail for any number of different reasons, but I can
> guarantee you that if you *start* a new project with Clojure, and it does
> happen to fail, then the choice of Clojure will bear the brunt of the blame
> whether it deserves it or not.

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Rangel Spasov]

Good reasons 
here http://www.quora.com/Clojure/Why-would-someone-learn-Clojure 

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 3:37:41 AM UTC-7, aboy021 wrote:
>
> Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow quickly?
>
> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as 
> well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work, 
> is Clojure a good choice?
>
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how 
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects, 
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>
> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive, 
> flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain. 
> I'm biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use 
> it commercially.
>
> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that 
> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions.
>

-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[gvim]

On 20/08/2014 14:09, Phillip Lord wrote:

When I got my first Java job, I had no experience at it; day one was
popping into town to buy a "how to program Java" book.

Actually, I had very little experience and no qualifications in
programming at all; perhaps the world was a different place then.



How long ago was that?

gvim

--
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Phillip Lord]

aboy021  writes:
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how 
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects, 
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>
> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive, 
> flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain. 
> I'm biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use 
> it commercially.
>
> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that 
> the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.



You will have problems finding developers with lots of experience of
Clojure. It's relatively new. There again, finding good developers is
hard in any language. You might find more luck looking for good
developers and then ask them to learn the language. If there are other
developers around, if they are good, they should be productive after a
couple of weeks, especially if there are other developers around to ask
questions of.

When I got my first Java job, I had no experience at it; day one was
popping into town to buy a "how to program Java" book.

Actually, I had very little experience and no qualifications in
programming at all; perhaps the world was a different place then.

Phil


-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Joshua Ballanco]

My advice on convincing your boss to use Clojure for a new project: don’t.  

Projects succeed or fail for any number of different reasons, but I can 
guarantee you that if you *start* a new project with Clojure, and it does 
happen to fail, then the choice of Clojure will bear the brunt of the blame 
whether it deserves it or not.

Luckily, you don’t *have* to convince your boss to use Clojure. You only have 
to convince your boss to use the JVM. Whether that means Java, Scala, Groovy…or 
whatever. These languages and their respective libraries have come a long way, 
so it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have to, for example, start 
with Java and Spring. But! Once you’ve got a JVM up and running then it’s 
trivial to sneak Clojure in the back door, as it were.

It’s much easier to convince someone with code than arguments, and if you’re 
already getting push-back from management on Clojure, then even if you do 
convince them to use Clojure, I bet you will not have so much fun. Trust 
me…I’ve been there. If you do, be prepared for every bug, every delay, every 
tiny hiccup to be blamed on Clojure.


On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 13:37, aboy021 wrote:

> Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow quickly?
>  
> If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as well 
> as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work, is 
> Clojure a good choice?
>  
> We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how 
> hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects, 
> especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.
>  
> I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive, 
> flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain. I'm 
> biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use it 
> commercially.
>  
> I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that the 
> risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.
>  
> Thanks for any suggestions.  
>  
> --  
> 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 
> (mailto: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 
> (mailto: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 
> (mailto:clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com).
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.



-- 
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/d/optout.

Re: Is Clojure a language for growth?

[Henrik Eneroth]

Have you read Paul Graham's *beating the averages 
*? I find it absolutely amazing, but 
one of the reasons that Clojure is such a phenomenal choice, if you can 
deal with the incidental complexity around it, is that it still is a 
somewhat non-obvious choice. Make your boss read the article as well, if 
s/he hasn't.

As for recruiting, I'm not sure what input to give, as I haven't had to 
deal with that particular issue myself. I have a hunch that if you tried to 
engage people who have a background in functional languages rather than 
C++, you may find that they have an easier time to adapt and to learn how 
to read code. I'm guessing that the trouble that C++ devs find themselves 
with when trying to read the language has much more to do with patterns 
than grammar. I had a fun time showing core.async to someone who'd only 
worked with callbacks and futures/promises previously, and it took quite 
some time for them wrap their head around it. 

I think that it's possibly a feature rather than a bug that the patterns 
are non-obvious to someone completely new to the game. If not, they would 
be incremental, and the performance benefit for your organization would be 
similarly incremental. If you want a new level of something, rather than an 
increment of something, then logically, the stuff you need to learn is 
going to be somewhat alien.

Clojure, provided that it is done in a "Clojure" kind of way, has all 
manner of benefits, if you discount the availability of people and how 
approachable it is to a person who has never seen it before. You and your 
organization has to decide if it's worth the effort to get the people who 
can do this, or if it makes more sense to settle on something that is 
widely available. Just bear in mind that if you go for what is common, your 
performance is most likely going to be on an average level as well. 

-- 
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/d/optout.

Is Clojure a language for growth?

[aboy021]

Is Clojure a suitable language for a company that needs to grow quickly?

If a company wants to be able to hire staff and get them up to speed, as 
well as have options for bringing in contractors and outsourcing some work, 
is Clojure a good choice?

We've had trouble finding Clojure devs, and others have complained of how 
hard it is to learn Clojure and read the code from open source projects, 
especially for those with backgrounds in languages like C++.

I think Clojure should be a good fit for us because it is expressive, 
flexible, and we are still discovering new aspects of the problem domain. 
I'm biased on this because I really enjoy Clojure at home, and want to use 
it commercially.

I'm really looking for arguments that will help me persuade my boss that 
the risk of starting our next project in Clojure is one worth taking.

Thanks for any suggestions.

-- 
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/d/optout.