This can be read in a manner opposite to what you intended: > There's one factor missing from this discussion which is framework > community. I think there's immense value in the community factor which > emerges when a web framework gains a lot of mindshare. From what I've > read in this thread there will probably never be anything like RailsConf > for a Clojure web framework simply because shared knowledge can only go > so far with the library composition approach.
A personal story: this week I was at a web agency that was discussing how to proceed with a new client. The web agency has several engineers who mostly work with PHP, and they love the Symfony framework. They had one engineer who wanted to start using Rails for their web projects. I was not part of their team, but I was invited to speak, so I said that Rails would offer them some benefits. One of the PHP engineers then asked me "Can you name any advantage that Rails has over PHP?" I said, "Ruby is more composable than PHP. Since 2005 PHP has been influenced by Java and it has developed a somewhat literal style. That makes it harder to integrate 3rd party code. Ruby allows a level of runtime reflextion and meta-programming that makes it easy to integrate 3rd party code. There is a great wealth of gems that allow you to implement all of the standard features that you might need. And it takes very little effort to integrate those 3rd party gems." And the PHP engineer replied: "Are you aware how huge the Symfony community is? Are you aware how many plugins there are? There is vast wealth of plugins for Symfony." And then I said something which he had apparently never realized, and it clearly had a big impact on him: "In Ruby, the gems exist at the level of the language. In PHP, the plugins exist at the level of the framework. You can not use a Symfony plugin with WordPress, nor can you use a WordPress plugin with CakePHP. In PHP, ever CMS has its own plugin system. In Ruby, there are few gems that are specific to Rails. Most gems can be used in a great variety of contexts, because composing code in Ruby is much easier than composing code in PHP." And that seemed to settle the debate: they would try Ruby. But I'll point out, if they had been open to hearing something a bit more radical, I could have continued and pointed out that Ruby has it limits, and the very fact that something like RailsConf exists suggests that Ruby has a limit. In a truly composable language, where all code can be used with any code, the community will exist at the level of the language, not at the level of any system written in that language. On Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 5:38:14 AM UTC-4, g vim wrote: > > On 03/05/2015 05:24, Sean Corfield wrote: > > On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 8:18 PM, Mark Engelberg <mark.en...@gmail.com > <javascript:> > > <mailto:mark.en...@gmail.com <javascript:>>> wrote: > > > > Clojure is great for creating new, disruptive web models, but what's > > the easiest path to creating something that can be done trivially > > with, say, Drupal or Django? > > > > > > The question tho' is why you'd want to use Clojure for something that is > > already trivially solved with free packaged software for widely used > > scripting languages where cheap, plentiful developers are falling over > > themselves to help... :) > > > > Clojure doesn't have to be the solution for every problem. It certainly > > doesn't need to be the solution for low-value problems... > > Forgive me if that sounds a little elitist. What if I want to do what > Django can do but in Clojure? If Clojure is a better option there should > be something which can do more than Django. If my only choice is library > composition by definition it doesn't do what Django does well, ie. a > fully-structured setup out of the box with a predictable, best of breed > set of technologies. > > There are many businesses, large and small, who will only go with a > well-established web framework with a vibrant community. Sadly, > Clojure's preference for protecting its niche means it will never be an > option for these opportunities, hence its poor showing in job listings. > Do we, as a community, want to be paid for what we do? > > There's one factor missing from this discussion which is framework > community. I think there's immense value in the community factor which > emerges when a web framework gains a lot of mindshare. From what I've > read in this thread there will probably never be anything like RailsConf > for a Clojure web framework simply because shared knowledge can only go > so far with the library composition approach. > > > Perfection is the enemy of the good (Gustave Flaubert). > > "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." (Aristotle) > > gvim > -- 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/d/optout.
