You can make a mess in any language, yes. But some languages tend to produce more messes than others. If your tool is mis-used more than other tools, at some point, it's not the fault of the users.
> If your tool is mis-used more than other tools, at some point, it's not the fault of the users
And Clojure isn't misused more than anything else. In fact, I've got a feeling it's less so.
The difference is just that you can scapegoat it, and people will believe you.
You can't blame Java for the failure of your project, cause everybody knows Java has worked fine for so many other teams, but nobody knows Clojure, so you can blame it for all your failures and people gives you the benefit of the doubt.
When you have a bad code base, and it's Java, people blame the people who wrote the code. When you have a bad code base and it's Clojure, people blame Clojure. Go figure!
I’ve personally had to deal with far more and worse messes in Python, Java and Javascript than I ever did in Clojure. (Started using Clojure ~13 years ago, but have been in jobs that use the other languages I’ve mentioned in that time too, not always exclusively using Clojure, although there were periods where I was).
I have mentioned a few times in the past, on HN and Reddit and elsewhere, that my biggest personal dream language wishlist item is “Clojure but with static types”, however, while that’s something I dream of having, it hasn’t held me or the language back in any meaningful way. The thing that makes Clojure less mess-inducing in my opinion is largely the fact that it’s data is immutable by default. An immutable-Python would be something I’d be interested in trying.
> I have mentioned a few times in the past, on HN and Reddit and elsewhere, that my biggest personal dream language wishlist item is “Clojure but with static types”, however, while that’s something I dream of having, it hasn’t held me or the language back in any meaningful way.
Sadly, Rich Hickey has always been pretty opposed to typing in Clojure. Enforcing values to be not null is basically table stakes for typed systems, and yet he doesn’t seem to think it’s valuable or feasible,
Yeah. By dream of I mean “if I had a on of free time, it’s something I’d love to make because I want it” while knowing it will never happen. I know that Clojure itself will never support it, outside of external projects like Typed Clojure
YMMV, but "messes" are for me things that manifest in projects spanning both multiple contributors and non-trivial periods of time. And in that framing, in my experience, the most effective individual proxy for "is this project a mess" is whether or not it's implemented in a dynamically typed language. Python, Javascript, Clojure, Ruby, my experience is that they all break down at scale, far more than equivalent projects in statically typed languages.
I’ve seen what I would consider messes in C++ and Java too, so it’s not exclusive to dynamically typed languages, but I’ve certainly seen enough in Python and Javascript to understand what you’re saying. It’s also a reason why I dream of a Clojure-like language with first class static typing, but, alas…
And Clojure isn't misused more than anything else. In fact, I've got a feeling it's less so.
The difference is just that you can scapegoat it, and people will believe you.
You can't blame Java for the failure of your project, cause everybody knows Java has worked fine for so many other teams, but nobody knows Clojure, so you can blame it for all your failures and people gives you the benefit of the doubt.
When you have a bad code base, and it's Java, people blame the people who wrote the code. When you have a bad code base and it's Clojure, people blame Clojure. Go figure!