[iLemming]

> Python has a huge amount of introductory learning material that assumes it is your first language, while most FP languages (Ex: Clojure, Haskell, F#, Scala, OCaml) really struggle in this area

I don't know how long ago have you tried Clojure, but it is a lot easier to start with than Haskell or Scala. There are now more than a dozen of books available (for the beginner and for the advanced levels). Clojure is much better than Python - it has extremely nice, consistent standard library; It has "true" REPL - with it you can evaluate almost any chunk of your code with no preliminary ritual, even much praised Jupyter doesn't feel as nice; Clojure not statically typed but it has Spec, which is totally awesome - the way how you can derive property based tests is almost mind-blowing; Clojure's stability is almost legendary; It makes concurrency simple; It makes dealing with dependencies less painful; It can seamlessly run on both: front-end and back-end, having live-updates in your browser and REPL connected to it feels like magic. Honestly, transforming data using Clojure is a pure joy.

[new4thaccount]

I have a few Clojure books, but not knowing Java and the JVM very well and then having to learn Emacs/Cider and all the other tools really kind of killed it for me. In short, some of the Clojure REPL advantages are better than Python, but not by enough to justify learning the ecosystem.

I might try again later. I have "Clojure for the Brave and True", Carin Meiyer's book, and one of Fogus' books.

I really want to learn Clojure, but just need to sit down and put the time in. It's also discouraging to see people comment about some of these languages (Clojure and F#) as being on life support.

[iLemming]

> (Clojure and F#) as being on life support

I can't say anything about F#, but Clojure is doing quite alright. It gathers more conferences and meetups around the world (more than Haskell, OCaml, F#, Elm or Elixir). Has more podcasts (defn, the REPl, Clojurescript podcast, Apropos, Cognicast), there are other podcasts created and run by people actively using Clojure, where they talk not only about Clojure. Clojurians Slack and clojureverse.org are very active. New libraries and books coming out regularly. My company recently was hiring and I shout out on Twitter and I got DM request from all over the world: Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Jordan, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, UK, Germany, US and other countries, people want to write Clojure full-time. So, yeah. I don't know where you read that Clojure is dying or whatever. It is not as big as Python or Javascript, but it's slowly, steadily growing.