[afandian]

It's Clojure not Closure. Why don't you like it?

[vorg]

> I am a plain Java dev with learning skills (worked with Groovy/Python/JS a while ago)

Perhaps he's promoting some other JVM language -- he did mention Java and Groovy. If you type "Groovy" into HN search, you'll notice more than the usual amount of Groovy stories being submitted over the past week, and the recent comments mentioning "Groovy" are scattered around different submissions rather than clustered as usual. Groovy has more than doubled its percentage on Tiobe between January and February (if you get what I mean), and its project manager has just finished running a campaign among his Twitter followers to double its Github stars from under 600 a month ago. Because the Groovy and Grails project managers are now competing for their funding, expect to see more comments of that nature.

[afandian]

I think that's cynical (if I read it correctly), but maybe true? When money gets involved all kinds of weird things happen.

Rich Hickey is on the record as saying that he doesn't want to promote Clojure, and if people like it they like it. He'd rather have people who came to it voluntarily than who were marketed to.

I would like to know real answers to why people don't like it. I've used a (normal) number of languages over the years but I think Clojure is by far the best for all kinds of reasons.

It's interesting to talk to people who have gone as far as trying it but found they preferred something else. I can understand you might be put off from a distance by the parens, or the immutability or whatever, but opinions change (or don't) once you actually try something.

[vorg]

I used Clojure a lot as a hobbyist language for 2 years, then changed to another one. I found I missed the immutability the most, even though I hardly wrote multi-threaded code. Once I was thinking "concurrently", going back to having to think about whether a list or map was in the right state took some getting used to.

As for what I couldn't get used to in Clojure, even after 2 years the circumfix parentheses still seemed unnatural, even though I know they're necessary for macros. I guess using f(x,y) notation in school and one's first programming language is a bond too hard to break.

[cfontes]

Oh shit what a conspiracy theory...

I played with Scala too... Maybe I am receiving a paycheck from all other langs besides Clojure to kill the damn thing.

Come on...

I just don't like the LISP like syntax and the general idea of it and I think that other languages like can provide the same nice pieces it does... Simple... Simple... No aliens, JFK Zombie killers, Umbrela corps or anything.

[cfontes]

Thanks I've corrected it.

Lisp like syntax all those (((())))))(()() drive me crazy and I think Scala has the features of Clojure that I like without the LISPness.

But I have nothing against people using I just don't like it.

[afandian]

I thought you'd say something like that. Have you counted how many brackets though? It's often very close.

    (defn blub-extra [a b]
        (blub (inc a) (inc b))) 

8 parens + 2 brackets

    def blubExtra(a: Int, b: Int): Int {
       blub(inc(a), inc(b))
    }

8 parens + 2 braces

    Integer blubExtra(Integer a, Integer b) {
        return blub(inc(a), inc(b));
    }

8 parens + 2 braces

It's roughly the same numbers of brackets (or equivalent) in Clojure, Scala and Java. They're just in slightly different places.

(excuse syntax I've not written the last two for years)

[cfontes]

Thanks for the answer...

I guess my LISP Teacher ruined the syntax for me. Terrible terrible class.

Maybe you are right. I might give it a try again and see if my position still stand :D

[afandian]

Argument lists are in brackets rather than parens, which helps slightly with the visuals.