[t-crayford]

I think clojure is close in some regards, but running on the JVM really hurts me these days (startup time really hurts TDD as I do it). I also think clojure has too much syntax (for a lisp), and am not convinced modern programs should be written in lisp any more (though that's hazy).

At the moment I use Ruby, which is much less frustrating than clojure ever was. (I seriously love the shit out of rspec).

Last but not least: stacktraces.

This isn't to say I think Ruby is better for all tasks etc, just that it fits where I am right now. Clojure is probably better for people with differing tastes to me.

[asmala]

Did you do Ruby prior to Clojure? It's interesting to see you making the jump to Ruby right as I'm heading down the opposite direction on the Polyglot Interstate.

I jumped on the Ruby ride in mid-2007 and the libraries lacked polish; Rails had performance issues, RSpec its hiccups, and Cucumber was quite a frustrating experience, yet there seemed to be so much potential there that I staid on.

Now Clojure seems to be going through similar evolution. Libraries and frameworks like Enlive, Pinot, and core.logic display immense promise but the full stack feels still a bit wobbly.

But it is as you say; different situations and people need different tools. I still do most of my web dev client work with Ruby but I'm itching to try out Clojure for more complex data processing and, when the libraries mature, full-stack web development.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm with you on the stack traces... Good thing there's an update due in Clojure 1.4.

[t-crayford]

I picked up Ruby just after I picked up Clojure (and well after I picked up lisp in general). I still dislike the ruby community's lack of maturity, but seem to be coping better with it these days. #lolbundler & rvm are still terrible compared to lein though, which often frustrates me a lot.

[_m4]

I use Ruby a lot and love it! But one should be fair and take into account that it has had much more time maturing. From what I can tell, it is plateauing right now. On a high level admittedly.

Instead of concluding that Clojure is not the right language, I'd rather say it is a niche language right now. With great potential to become an awesome mainstream, general purpose technology long-term. After all, it has some features and applications that Ruby will never get.

But is it fair at all to compare two languages with a different paradigm?

[pdelgallego]

>> and am not convinced modern programs should be written in lisp any more (though that's hazy).

Can you elaborate or recommend me some reading that support this point?

[t-crayford]

Like I said, I'm hazy on that point, and don't want to say anything further in public right now.