Battle-tested libraries are nice, and Java has a lot of them. Clojure programmers can use all of them with relative ease. I recently tried Erlang/Elixir and was disappointed in the library ecosystem.
Another answer to why Clojure is powerful is the company it keeps. The people who work on Clojure and its ecosystem (libraries, build tools, blog posts, screencasts, podcasts, conferences, etc.) are a wonderful group of people who have never ceased to amaze me. The creativity, engineering, and generosity. In my life I've seldom been a part of such a vibrant and inspiring community. I struggle to tap this into my phone without more evidence to support it, but it seems to me that Lisps just seem to attract the right kind of people. Take that on faith or not at all, but I struggle to find a better explanation. The technical explanations are all well and good, but "It's the people, stupid." seems like the best answer I can come up with. On Sep 4, 2013, at 4:32 PM, Tomislav Tomšić <toms...@gmail.com> wrote: > I suspect, there are numerous possible ways to answer that question. One can > ignore it, others would care to offer superficial, "no it isn't", but I > guess, few would answer, it is because clojure is the member of the Lisp > family of programming languages. Which immediately invites predictable > question. > > Why is Lisp so powerful? > I guesstimate, there are three possible responses on that question. One is to > ignore it, second one is to take it as encouragement for further inquiry, and > the third one is to say something along the following lines: “It is because > of the lists, dummy. Lisp is built on lists.” > > Very well then, why are lists so powerful? > > Yes, there is answer(s), but as I hope we all know, every answer opens the > door for new questions and problems. In other words, we have an, hopefully > clear and self-understandable, answer to why is Lisp so powerful, but we are > now facing numerous, previously unimaginable choices and opportunities to > improve Lisp further, which is the reason why I am putting this message here, > in the group dedicated to the new and continually improving member of Lisp > programming family. > > I hope to solve and clarify as many as I can, but it demands time and other > resources, which is why I decided to put answer(s) and reasons for them in a > book. It is called “Arrogance of Abstraction”, and it is available through > Amazon. Amazon allows, even encourages authors, to put an effort to contact > audience. In other words, it will be available for free download from Amazon > at following days this month: 2013-09-08 and 2013-09-13. I haven't decided > yet at what other days will be available for download. If you have an advice, > feel free to put it here. > > Thank you for your patience > Tomislav Tomsic > -- > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Clojure" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
