That is very, very far from the truth. You obviously haven't probably tried Clojure.
I think, among all the languages being actively used in the industry (in business, not academy), Clojure perhaps can be crowned as the simplest of them all.
The ingenious of Rich Hickey was to design it the way that the essentials were made simple and complicated stuff either unnecessary or pushed onto the edges of the ecosystem.
Clojure can be learned à la carte - from the basics to more advanced things. Or if you want to dive straight into more difficult topics, you still can do it, and preliminaries would be minimal.
I can argue that Clojure is easier to learn than Kotlin, Python, Javascript, or Ruby. That is not a mere opinion - I know many people for whom Clojure was the very first language. And they tried to apprehend other PLs later, and it was a confusing and frustrating experience for them.
It is easy to start with Clojure. One simply needs to be less skeptical about things that people (mostly those who are unfamiliar with the language) criticize it for:
- They say, "It is hosted on JVM. JVM means Java, and I hate Java", and therefore ignore the fact that JVM is a very robust piece of tech, and you don't need to write any Java at all to use Clojure, you don't even really need to know Java.
- They say, "JVM has a slow startup time." But once you try Clojure's REPL (which is a real REPL, unlike in other, non-lispy languages), it becomes a non-issue.
- They say, "It is a Lisp, and parentheses look scary." But once you learn structural editing idioms, it becomes so frustrating to deal with all the punctuation in other languages.
- They say, "It is dynamically typed." But once you learn Clojure.Spec you may discover that you can do things with it, that most type-systems simply can't.
I encourage everyone to try to learn some Clojure, because it is fun.
Ha, I've used Clojure, see my thoughts above in the other thread.
By the way, I love Java, love Kotlin even more. Don't bring the JVM and other languages down to Clojure's level just because Clojure is clutching onto the JVM's coattails.
I couldn't answer in the other thread because your reply got downvoted (and rightfully so) and went "dead." I get it. You personally hate Clojure. The reasons though objectively, are your own personal and nothing to do with the design of the language.
You felt that Clojure doesn't bring any value. Well, there are thousands of people who think differently, not just me. I have grown to distrust fanboys, and even more so, haters. If you hate a programming language that consistently being ranked among others at the top of "the most loved" category, there's something wrong with your assumptions about that language.
Please don't waste your energy trying to write another lengthy comment. Your argumentation is flawed, but I won't spend my time trying to prove you wrong because you wouldn't see the truth even if it hit you right between your eyes.
Clojure notoriously known for attracting older, experienced, "grumpy" developers. Programmers with years of experience and seasoned in many other languages, because it simplifies many things. "Out of the Tar Pit" - as the phrase and as the widely known paper, accurately characterizes principles that Clojure has built on. And If your only take on the language (I quote your own words), is: "Clojure is a garbage language," then I guess I misjudged your programming experience level. Maybe you haven't struggled enough with other PLs to the point that it gets so tiresome you start thinking about retirement.
Please, how long of a response is there to a comment that boils down to:
"I have no concrete rebuttal so I'm going to refute your objective points about it's shortcomings with nonsense about retirement age programmers and whining you weren't nice while systematically listing all the things wrong with it and all the alternatives beat it at it's own game"
Java and Kotlin and Erlang (again, literally my "pet favorite language" since, predictably you're going "lalalalala you just dont get simple languages lalalalal") are all languages known to be used by programmers to make useful stuff, at a success rate much much higher than Clojure.
I think, among all the languages being actively used in the industry (in business, not academy), Clojure perhaps can be crowned as the simplest of them all. The ingenious of Rich Hickey was to design it the way that the essentials were made simple and complicated stuff either unnecessary or pushed onto the edges of the ecosystem.
Clojure can be learned à la carte - from the basics to more advanced things. Or if you want to dive straight into more difficult topics, you still can do it, and preliminaries would be minimal.
I can argue that Clojure is easier to learn than Kotlin, Python, Javascript, or Ruby. That is not a mere opinion - I know many people for whom Clojure was the very first language. And they tried to apprehend other PLs later, and it was a confusing and frustrating experience for them.
It is easy to start with Clojure. One simply needs to be less skeptical about things that people (mostly those who are unfamiliar with the language) criticize it for:
- They say, "It is hosted on JVM. JVM means Java, and I hate Java", and therefore ignore the fact that JVM is a very robust piece of tech, and you don't need to write any Java at all to use Clojure, you don't even really need to know Java.
- They say, "JVM has a slow startup time." But once you try Clojure's REPL (which is a real REPL, unlike in other, non-lispy languages), it becomes a non-issue.
- They say, "It is a Lisp, and parentheses look scary." But once you learn structural editing idioms, it becomes so frustrating to deal with all the punctuation in other languages.
- They say, "It is dynamically typed." But once you learn Clojure.Spec you may discover that you can do things with it, that most type-systems simply can't.
I encourage everyone to try to learn some Clojure, because it is fun.