TechCast #90 – Clojure Conj 2015

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ClojureConj is the yearly get-together for the Clojure community, and Chariot was a sponsor this year as it happened in our backyard. What follows is a quick conversation with Chariot consultants Dan Boykis, Anatoly Polinsky, and Ron Lusk about their week attending the Conj.

We apologize for the noise on the recording – people were packing up boxes while we were talking and pulling tape out of spools. But we hope the resources we mention are helpful!

Some of our consultants’ favorite talks:

Ken asks, “Why would you steer someone towards Clojure?”

  • Anatoly: “I think it depends on the person. For some people, it’s just… fun. The more you do of it, you become like a little kid. Of course there’s a flip side to that…. sometimes it’s not exciting, sometimes it’s not fun, but you should not deviate. Fun is important.

    To people who actually pay for things (CEOs, CTOs, etc.) my message to them would be that Clojure projects are delivered faster and with higher quality.

    Last, ClojureScript allows you to use the same set of tools for the back end and the front end. You can write the same code, and compile in different places. So you can focus once and deliver everywhere.”

  • Dan: “Anatoly’s right, it does depend on the person. If I was talking to a Java person, I’d probably tell them about immutability, and building simpler systems. I would argue that simplicity is probably the biggest draw. Not necessarily that it’s simple under the hood, but simplicity in thinking about your code, simplicity in your reasoning.”
  • Ron: “Another plus is its interoperability with Java. That, and the visibility of data – you are making your data visible as you work with it.”

Ken asks, “What frameworks are people using for ClojureScript?”

  • DataScript, it’s sort of like Datomic in your web app.
  • React, Reagent, RUM.
  • Core.async, because it saves us all from callback hell AND makes code more testable
  • Figwheel: Takes ClojureScript code as you write, and pushes it to your browser (and all connected browsers.)

Resources

All videos from Clojure Conj are available on ClojureTV.