[taberiand]

My feeling is these paradigms, SOLID and SIMPLE, boil down to basically: small objects, connected minimally, though interfaces.

SIMPLE appears to be leaning even more towards the functional programming side of things; I think we should probably just get it over with and accept that composition of functions operating on immutable data structures is just the right way to go.

[tobr]

Is there a language that leans heavily towards immutable data, but steers clear of the, shall we say, dorkier side of functional programming?

[ISO-morphism]

This is Clojure. It's functional, but more as a side effect of focusing intently on simple, immutable, persistent data structures and their compositions. I'd strongly recommend looking into it, along with many of the presentations by its initial author Rich Hickey.

[BoorishBears]

Imo no Lisp variant can claim to not be in the "dorkier" side of things ("dorkier" being read as "hard to approach" in my eyes).

I'd say Kotlin over Clojure.

[adamkl]

I’d suggest you watch Rich’s talk “Simple made easy”. [1]

It’s one of his main points that something like a language being “hard to approach” can be overcome by spending a little effort to learn it (as opposed to sticking with something like Kotlin just because its easy to pick up because it’s familiar). The benefits of learning the unfamiliar (in his case, he’s speaking specifically about Clojure) being that it allows you to write code that is much simpler to reason about.

I have no particular beef with Kotlin (or most any languages... right tool for the job and all), but I have lately become infatuated with Clojure and many of Rich’s viewpoints.

[1] https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/

[BoorishBears]

Eh, I've used languages that were "hard to approach", one of my favorites (Erlang) is one of those (I use quotations especially because learning all of Erlang's syntax takes about a day).

This is a misapplication of the presentation really. It speaks to a level above selecting a language and is really about the design of systems.

Picking up Kotlin or Clojure is not "harder to approach" by virtue of what's provided in this context, it's harder because Clojure syntax uses parenthesis.

Like that's literally it.

Clojure with the same exact constructs represented with more C-like syntax would, at the level the presentation speaks to, allow the same level of simplicity.

I think a lot of developers feel "It looks funny" is not a fair critique of a useful tool, but just look at Erlang vs Elixr. I love Erlang, much more than I like Elixr, but Elixr gained mind share in large part because it's Ruby-like.

Cognitive overhead is lower working with a language that at least "looks like", what you're used to, and more developers know C-like languages, thus a language like Kotlin is "easier to approach" but necessarily "easier" in the way the presentation talks about

[ISO-morphism]

> Clojure with the same exact constructs represented with more C-like syntax would, at the level the presentation speaks to, allow the same level of simplicity.

I don't think this is true. I think it would be easier for "most people," but definitely not simpler. Easy meaning close at hand, simple meaning one strand, one braid, independent, less context necessary. Clojure syntax is the AST of the program, right there in front of you, in literal notation. There are fewer special cases, fewer moving parts interacting. C syntax requires spinning up a virtual machine in your mind and executing multiple statements. C is easier because we've already spent the time and effort to familiarize ourselves with it, but it has more complexity. Compare a 954 line ANTLR grammar for C [1] with a 261 line Clojure grammar [2].

> Cognitive overhead is lower working with a language that at least "looks like", what you're used to, and more developers know C-like languages, thus a language like Kotlin is "easier to approach" but necessarily "easier" in the way the presentation talks about.

I would agree, using Rich's definitions of simple and easy, that Kotlin is easier for the majority of developers than Clojure. This follows immediately from the definition of easy.

> This is a misapplication of the presentation really. It speaks to a level above selecting a language and is really about the design of systems.

I would recommend Rich Hickey's talk "The Language of the System" [3]. The programming language(s) used are part(s) of the system and have an effect on its design. I don't think this is a misapplication of the "Simple made Easy" presentation, I think it hits the nail on the head.

[1] https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/c/C.g4 [2] https://github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/clojure/Clo... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU

[iLemming]

That is very, very far from the truth. You obviously haven't probably tried Clojure.

I think, among all the languages being actively used in the industry (in business, not academy), Clojure perhaps can be crowned as the simplest of them all. The ingenious of Rich Hickey was to design it the way that the essentials were made simple and complicated stuff either unnecessary or pushed onto the edges of the ecosystem.

Clojure can be learned à la carte - from the basics to more advanced things. Or if you want to dive straight into more difficult topics, you still can do it, and preliminaries would be minimal.

I can argue that Clojure is easier to learn than Kotlin, Python, Javascript, or Ruby. That is not a mere opinion - I know many people for whom Clojure was the very first language. And they tried to apprehend other PLs later, and it was a confusing and frustrating experience for them.

It is easy to start with Clojure. One simply needs to be less skeptical about things that people (mostly those who are unfamiliar with the language) criticize it for:

- They say, "It is hosted on JVM. JVM means Java, and I hate Java", and therefore ignore the fact that JVM is a very robust piece of tech, and you don't need to write any Java at all to use Clojure, you don't even really need to know Java.

- They say, "JVM has a slow startup time." But once you try Clojure's REPL (which is a real REPL, unlike in other, non-lispy languages), it becomes a non-issue.

- They say, "It is a Lisp, and parentheses look scary." But once you learn structural editing idioms, it becomes so frustrating to deal with all the punctuation in other languages.

- They say, "It is dynamically typed." But once you learn Clojure.Spec you may discover that you can do things with it, that most type-systems simply can't.

I encourage everyone to try to learn some Clojure, because it is fun.

[BoorishBears]

Ha, I've used Clojure, see my thoughts above in the other thread.

By the way, I love Java, love Kotlin even more. Don't bring the JVM and other languages down to Clojure's level just because Clojure is clutching onto the JVM's coattails.

[iLemming]

I couldn't answer in the other thread because your reply got downvoted (and rightfully so) and went "dead." I get it. You personally hate Clojure. The reasons though objectively, are your own personal and nothing to do with the design of the language.

You felt that Clojure doesn't bring any value. Well, there are thousands of people who think differently, not just me. I have grown to distrust fanboys, and even more so, haters. If you hate a programming language that consistently being ranked among others at the top of "the most loved" category, there's something wrong with your assumptions about that language.

Please don't waste your energy trying to write another lengthy comment. Your argumentation is flawed, but I won't spend my time trying to prove you wrong because you wouldn't see the truth even if it hit you right between your eyes.

Clojure notoriously known for attracting older, experienced, "grumpy" developers. Programmers with years of experience and seasoned in many other languages, because it simplifies many things. "Out of the Tar Pit" - as the phrase and as the widely known paper, accurately characterizes principles that Clojure has built on. And If your only take on the language (I quote your own words), is: "Clojure is a garbage language," then I guess I misjudged your programming experience level. Maybe you haven't struggled enough with other PLs to the point that it gets so tiresome you start thinking about retirement.

[vereis]

In my opinion Erlang (and by extension Elixir) are functional-ish languages that are at their core very pragmatic about not being too _dorky_.

[soulnothing]

Kotlin for me. Val is immutable and they differentiate collections, i.e. list vs mutableList. This is still hampered by the JVM but it works.

Combine that with multi platform productivity. If you do want to get dorkier there are fully functional libraries.

[tempguy9999]

What is 'dorky' WRT functional programming?

[c256]

Offhand, I’d say “too much theoretical math in the starting and middle stages of mastering the language.” Syntax that is based around/descended from APL. Lambda calculus prominently featured in the learning process. Things like that.

It’s definitely a feel argument, and thus highly subjective.

[Multicomp]

I'm not a FP expert, but I do try to use FP as much as possible and yes, I agree that there is some serious dorkiness possible with certain PLs.

Anecdote, not data, but I've found that Rust, Erlang, and F# (if MS stack) tend to be in the sweet spot of expressive enough without drowning in symbols, without being as mushy as, say, Python/Ruby/pick something.

[7thaccount]

Julia is pretty good at this. Immutability is the default with functional composition. It is primarily intended for numerics though.

[ummonk]

JS with React is great if you use an immutable data structures library and compose functions.

[deckard1]

ES6 and newer JS is a great functional language.

That said, I do not recommend immutable libraries. Here are the reasons:

1. They provide false comfort. Nothing in JS is truly immutable. People are just going to end up breaking the rules (purposely or inadvertently).

2. Boxing and unboxing regular JS objects becomes a pain in the ass and a maintenance horror show. You'll never know what an object is and you'll have to jump through countless hoops to get plain old JS objects to do anything with anyway.

Much better is to educate developers, and make sure code is properly reviewed before merging. Immutability doesn't need to be built into the language. Code customs and practices can go a long way.

[pkolaczk]

Scala / Dotty, or its smaller brothers like Kotlin or Swift

[xenihn]

Swift.

[whiletruu]

Elm.

[swamp-agr]

Haskell.

[tempguy9999]

> ... composition of functions operating on immutable data structures is just the right way to go

Yeah. No. Maybe. The cost of immutability can be high. Immutability can be very elegant when it's right, but mutability can be clearer other times. As another respondent said, there's no silver bullet. There's no 'right way to go'; as ever it depends.

[iLemming]

> The cost of immutability can be high

If you analyze expenses for software projects of 1960-80ies and compare them with recent years, you probably see that the most expensive item now is at the bottom. The most costly thing used to be hardware. The not so expensive - developer's time. Now it's the opposite - the equipment is cheap, and the software developer's salary is the most expensive thing. Of course, that does not apply to every single case, but for the majority of projects, that is true.

Immutability by default (baked into the language), offers enormous benefits, and increases programmer's productivity, it simplifies many things, especially concurrency and parallelism. Languages like Erlang and Clojure are good examples. The price you are talking about does matter. But very often, the benefits outweigh the small cost.

[tempguy9999]

Nice reply, thanks. I fully understand the benefits and we agree then, except possibly for the issue of the cost.

I haven't checked the value of eg. for{} in scala vs a mutable/procedural loop, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was an order of magnitude or two different. Figures are needed, and I don't have them (nor the time to benchmark them now, simple though it is).

[kevingoslar]

Please note that the article merely encourages the application of some of the best practices introduced by functional programming - strong typing and more mindfulness around mutability and side effects - into all forms of programming.

Functional programming as it exists today takes these ideas to a somewhat extreme form. That has its place and value, but as experience in the real world shows, as long as it feels so mathematical, it isn't everybody's cup of tea. Hopefully, over time we find more intuitively accessible abstractions for the really useful principles that functional programming is based on.

[iLemming]

> as long as it feels so mathematical, it isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Languages like Elm, Elixir and Clojure don't feel "so mathematical".

[pytester]

>I think we should probably just get it over with and accept that composition of functions operating on immutable data structures is just the right way to go.

It can provide an incremental improvement but it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet