State of Clojure 2016 – Results and Analysis
I really want to love Clojure. I've been playing with it recently and I still have some hopes for it. I am comparing it to Elixir for my next language of love. I have a lot of experience with Javascript/Node and secondly Ruby.I want to embrace a functional paradigm. I want to lean on Clojure because of the versatility of also being able to leverage ClojureScript.So far I have hit some bumps that are a bit frustrating.1. I changed too many files at once and the stack trace error I got gave me literally 0 clue on what was wrong. It was such a feeling of doom that it scared me on how to debug Clojure apps. The stack trace was full of Java errors and nothing pointing me in the direction of where the app was failing from Clojure's perspective.2. Momentum of Web-Development and embracing new technology. I really believe in GraphQL and there isn't much support or conversations with using GraphQL with Clojure and ClojureScript.3. I want to code Lisp better, but I'm not sure how to learn all the tricks on using Paredit. I use Spacemacs in Vim mode and a lot of the tutorials I see are of course in Emacs bindings so getting the know-how of navigating s-expressions in Spacemacs evil mode is quite the challenge but I'm going for it.4. Boot up time is lame but it is what it is. `lein run` then `lein cljsbuild auto` can take ~20-30 seconds on a relatively fresh project on my MBA. After the initial boot time it's fine though.Overall I have my head up high but those are some of the things I'm struggling with. I really want to love Clojure/lisp. I worry most about the community not being large enough to share examples of how to do new things. Which of course can be argued for the better (not a trendy community) but it instills worry nonetheless, especially when one really wants to adopt a tech all around (like GraphQL). I have an argument in my head that shouts "Well, if there's so much momentum in Javascript/Node for that ecosystem then might as well use that. Or even Elixir with Absinthe" – in the end it's about productivity right? :) Anyway rambling at this point.