> "I had high hopes for Clojure for a while, but they're fairly user-hostile, even if they think (and loudly assert) that they aren't."
Is that a prevalent opinion? I'm often in #clojure/#clojurescript and found the community quite helpful.
Is that a prevalent opinion? I'm often in #clojure/#clojurescript and found the community quite helpful.
> Unfortunately I've conflated saying Yes to features vs. saying yes to users. Saying yes to features is clearly a way to get a kitchen sink a la C++ or Perl.
I didn't see any instances of him insulting people, though he was hostile in the same way he accused the clojure community of being hostile. But the points he made seemed sound to me. Saying "no" to users can seem hostile to the person you're saying no to. You need users, or you die. So say yes and survive.
Speaking of scala, you could also use it as an example of what happens when you say yes too much. In fact, to me, that's scala's major weakness. Sure, users can use it like a better java, but you aren't gaining as much from doing that as you would if you actually adopted a more functional style of programming. This is exactly what clojure encourages. I wouldn't count promoting this philosophy as any more hostile than any other opinionated language.
It certainly sounds like Clojure is not for Yegge, but that's not a valid reason to call the community hostile and claim that it's a dying language. Especially so because it's the complete opposite of what is true. The community is very helpful and welcoming to newcomers and the usage is growing, not declining.
He said that being hostile to users is the quickest way to kill a language. Now I don't know much about the Clojure language or community, but that post from Yegge was over 4 years old. You say that it's growing and I'll take you at your word, but had it reached critical mass at 2011?
Yegge is a languages guy. He knows some of what it takes to make a language successful, and one of the main things is advertising. Being hostile to users is the worst possible form of advertisement. That was his critique 4 years ago.
Maybe things have changed. Maybe the hostility wasn't as bad as what he thought, I don't know. But the comments in that thread aren't hyperbolic if you're associating them with the state of things today.