[girishso]

Agreed. These days I'm really fascinated by clojure and trying to learn clojure. Other than the project setup and repl and the editor (which I had considered), these weird characters are throwing me off.

What clojure really needs is some kind of opinionated framework or starter template, something like create-react-app. That has all these things figured out so a beginner like me can start playing with actual clojure, which documents all the steps to setup the repl and editor and what not. The last time I asked for this I was told about lein templates, they help but there's no documentation to go with those.

There needs to be some push from the top level. create-react-app was produced by facebook. Elm reactor (which lets you just create a .elm file and play with elm) was created by Evan the language creator himself.

tldr: There's a huge barrier to start playing with clojure that needs to come down and the push needs happen from the top level.

[uDontKnowMe]

There is the widely used Luminus framework https://luminusweb.com/

[girishso]

Yes, of course and I've got the book as well. The problem with the book is I got stuck on the very first code example in the book. I know there's a forum for the book where (hopefully) I can get my query answered.

My point is: these are all individual attempts (the book i mean) and there will always be something on page xyz broken and it can't be solved by individuals. To solve these problems, there needs to be constant time and money investment from someone serious (like facebook in case of create-elm-app).

[uDontKnowMe]

Yes I agree there is a problem of a lack of institutional funding in the Clojure world. Luminus is a great tool but it is a bit sad that it is arguably the most production-ready web toolkit in the ecosystem and it is mostly the work of a single person.

There is some community effort to better fund the core infrastructure in Clojure through https://www.clojuriststogether.org/, hopefully they can continue to attract more funding developers and companies.

In general a lot of these issues could be alleviated if the community was just in general larger with more contributors. I think the Clojure community is quite welcoming to newbies in the sense that people are quite responsive, kind and helpful around the internet, in Clojurians Slack (try asking there btw, if you haven't yet and are still stuck at the start of the book), etc. But in other ways people seem averse to criticism or suggestions from outsiders. I think the Clojure world needs to do a bit of self reflection to understand why adoption is so low right now and honestly consider what needs to change to attract more developers and contributors.