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Comment by suby | Hacker News Reader

I think Jank will find its people, but I don't know how many of those people will be indie game developers. I'm sure some will be, but on the whole I don't think most indie game devs are clamoring for using clojure, if only if it wasn't for the JVM or the performance. I doubt many indie game developers are even aware of what clojure or jank are, or even much about functional programming to be frank.

For indie game devs you're competing against engine ecosystems like Unity, Unreal, Godot. If someone is inclined for more of a DIY route, you're competing against Lua (love2D), C# (monogame), Javascript (...), or for the people who care about performance, C++, Rust, Odin, Zig, and soon even Jai. It's a very crowded competition space and again, I think overwhelmingly the people in this space aren't dreaming of programming in a functional style.

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> you're competing against Lua

There's not exactly tiny community (but it's not huge either) that programs against Lua-based engines using Fennel - a Clojure-like Lisp. Jank, aimed to have one-to-one Clojure-parity, I think would be great news.

> the people in this space aren't dreaming of programming in a functional style.

IMO because they are extremely pragmatic and there still, doesn't exist a good, practical way to program games in a functional style. Jank may open that possibility.

Then there are folks like Notch, that by not following such advices got gold, as they managed a great additive game, regardless of the technology stack being used.

There is also 80% of the mobile phone market available, in the context of JVM like ecosystem to target, and avoiding NDK tooling is gold if one really doesn't need it, as its experience still sucks after all these years.

I was not meaning to say that anyone was wrong for their technology choices. Personally I think Java is great and some of my favorite games are made in it. I'm just saying that I don't see jank or clojure for that matter catching on because it isn't where the head space of the indie gamedev scene is at, and I don't see this changing, especially given the number of competing stacks.

Ah, that is a good point.

Come to think of it, where is the headspace of the Indie gaming community at?

I imagine the point being the same as game development in general, hence my agreement on a sibling comment.

Many people, especially those coming from FOSS background, don't understand the game development culture is all about IP.

The culture is to create great experiences, with interesting gameplay, the actual programming languages tend to be whatever everyone uses in the industry, and in general proprietary APIs aren't the drama like in sites as this.

So if an indie is going beyond desktop, trying to maximise sales, they will pick an engine and language that covers them.

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