[iLemming]

Ah, here we go again. Every single time Clojure gets mentioned on HN, some clueless egghead comes listing various "issues" without considering holistic, overall experience of using the language for real. Because they effing never did. Sure, it's so easy to "hypothesize" about deficiency of any given PL:

- Python: slow; GIL; dynamic; package management is shit; fractured ecosystem for a decade due to version split.

- Rust: borrow checker learning curve; compile times; half-baked async; too many string types; unreadable macros; constantly changing.

- Go: no generics for a decade, now bolted on awkwardly; noisy error handling; no sum types; no enums; hard to get right concurrency.

- Java: absurdly verbose; NPEs all around; JVM startup; enterprise culture;

- C+: Undefined behavior everywhere; header files; template err messages; huge lang spec;

I can keep yapping about every single programming language like that. You can construct a scary-sounding wall of bullet points for literally anything, without ever capturing the cohesive experience of actually building something in the language. For all these reasons, programming in general could sound like a hard sell.

Stop treating Clojure like a "hypothetical" option. It doesn't need your approval to be successful - it already is. It's not going away whether you like it or not - despite your humble or otherwise IMOs and uneducated opinions. It's endorsed by the largest digital bank in the world, it scales to serious, regulated, high-stakes production systems. Not theoretically, not conceptually, not presumably - it has proven its worth and value over and over, in a diverse set of domains, in all sorts of situations, on different teams, dissimilar platforms. There are emerging use-cases for which there's simply no better alternative. While you've been debating whether to try it or not, people have been building tons of interesting and valuable things in it. Clojure is in no rush to be "sold" to you or anyone else. It's already selling like ice cream in July (on selected markets) and you just don't know it.

[thunky]

> Ah, here we go again. Every single time Clojure gets mentioned on HN, some clueless egghead comes listing various "issues" without considering holistic, overall experience of using the language for real. Because they effing never did

Stopped reading here because of your hostility so I'll just say: yes I tried to use it "for real" but I didn't like it.

[iLemming]

There's a difference between "attempted" and "tried". And from the points you have nitpicked I can confidently say: no, you have not really tried using it in a real, production setting. That is just that obvious. No experienced Clojurista would ever blankly list some reasons without specific context. Every single point you're trying to make has a caveat, every single one of them is disputable. Your statements are not factually false, but it doesn't mean they carry any meaningful, practical insight to the functional relation between the parts that make overall experience and why they make it an excellent choice for many problem spaces.

> because of your hostility

Clojure, just like pretty much every single language, tool, technique or paradigm does have its pros and cons, there's no denying that, but you can't just blindly come and shit all over someone's backyard expecting people to happily explain to you how inaccurate path your thinking took there. And it's not just a reaction to the post about Clojure - I'd defend any other tool the same way if someone did what you have.

> Stopped reading

If you don't have mental capacity to visually scan through four paragraphs of a response to your own remarks, that's pretty indicative. I guess you're not here to learn something new, but rather to assert your own perceived rectitude. Well, your perception is misguided. I suggest you correct it by learning more about the topic you so confidently trying to argue about, or respectfully and humbly STFU. If you think you know better than Goetz, Odersky, Kay, Steele, Felleisen, Friedman - that perhaps is not a good reflection. Just something to think about.