

Interview with Rich Hickey, creator of Clojure - alex_stoddard
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/rich-hickey-geek-of-the-week/

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alex_stoddard
One really provocative and insightful comment that is independent of clojure
itself:

" _I think programmers have become inured to incidental complexity... when
they encounter complexity, they consider it a challenge to overcome, rather
than an obstacle to remove.

Overcoming complexity isn't work, it's waste._"

This is a useful maxim for me. I have definitely been attracted to complexity
that was really incidental in programming.

~~~
extension
This is the secret of Java's success. Overcoming incidental complexity is
predictable, measurable and rewarding to the average naive programmer. Solving
real problems is challenging and risky. Java dilutes the latter with the
former, and to those who can't tell the difference, this looks like
productivity.

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alrex021
_RH: Productivity comes from being able to focus. Interactive development
environments (REPLs etc) help you focus, by letting you try things
immediately._

This couldn't be more true and becomes clearly apparent when moving from
languages that require compile-deploy-run cycles.

~~~
dons
Well, there's no reason not to have both optimizing, heavy-analysis compilers,
and light, interactive REPLs. For the same language. Best of both worlds.

~~~
alrex021
_"being able to focus"_

I like the fact that he chose the word "focus" here, the main reason for my
comment. People usually use the general term "productivity". Focus is a really
important and usually overlooked advantage of the interactive style of
development.

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zaphar
Clojure is fast becoming one of my top favourite languages.

Lisp and the ability to use Java to "get things done" is not to be
underestimated I think. Not to mention it's hugely useful as a java repl. Just
being able to play with java classes from the repl helps me in my day to day
java development.

~~~
xtho
How is clojure useful as a java repl in comparison to groovy, which is much
closer to the java mindset?

~~~
zaphar
not having used groovy I'm not really qualified to give an opinion.

But part of clojures value is that it isn't the java mindset. Boilerplate just
melts away in clojure. That might not be relevant to its use as a java repl
but it greatly enhances your productivity as a jvm programmer.

~~~
xtho
With Groovy the boilerplate code "melts away" too. Most java code is valid
groovy code, but not the other way around.

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kanwisher
Met the guy at the Clojure user group here in NYC, apparently there are a
couple of financial firms in the city already using it. Stuff is pretty cool.
Rich looked like a total hacker dude ;o) Actually all the clojure developers
were all bearded long haired hacker dudes. Definitely my kind of place

~~~
gtani
it's really worthwhile to read the IRC logs on the day he's active: cells are
"single thread guaranteed , multi-thread capable mutable datatypes " (quote fr
feb 17

