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ths Aug 11, 2012 | on: Clojure is not Software Conservative | context
Exactly. When he says he's probably talking about macros and the focus on immutability/FP. With respect to macros, I really don't get why he interpreted Christophe Grand's presentation like that unless he walked away after the first two slides or so (and even then it's a stretch). Rich Hickey debunked his statement on macros very well here on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366661) - the view Christophe expresses is precisely the opposite of conservative: it's about increasing composability and flexibility, very liberal attributes by Yegge's own definition. Although "protecting programmers from mistakes" is definitely one side of FP/immutability, I seem to recall Rich and others arguing for it more in terms of reducing the cognitive overhead of programming by reducing incidental complexity - not having to hold as many things in your head while thinking about your system allows your brain to handle bigger systems and move faster. Removing mental obstacles for the programmer who is impatient to create furiously seems pretty damn liberal to me. I had fun reading Yegge's post, as with most of his posts. But the part about Clojure really missed the mark. Which is a shame, given Yegge's arguing for lisp in the past and Clojure being a really cool, viable lisp for getting stuff done in the 21st century. |
I think Christophe's is the talk, and Yegge seriously misunderstood it, if he even bothered to watch it. Christophe's point was that basing the underpinnings of a DSL on macros was frequently a mistake, vs a data + functions approach that "leads to greater dynamicity". It is inarguable that macros are less flexible than functions (e.g. they can't be applied) and less composable. Christophe's argument wasn't against macros, but that they should be the last layer of sugar, not the core mechanism of a DSL. This approach has been advocated and practiced by Lispers forever. Ditto the advice to not use a macro when a function will do.
And for Yegge to imply that more serious Clojure devs like Christophe are macro averse because they are afraid they might not understand someone else's macro code shows his complete lack of familiarity with Christophe's macro skills and other work of the community.
Taking potshots at things you don't understand and people you don't know (while leaving out the link so others could verify) smells like a FOX-news rhetorical approach to me. Ditto political labeling (though in the programming community the negative tag is "conservative", whilst in politics it is "liberal"). Tag the thing you don't like with the negative label, then rationalize, and spew misinformation. "Clojure's community came pre-populated with highly conservative programmers from the pure-functional world: basically Haskell/ML types": surveys[0][1] say... nope.
He even ignores the bulk of his own criteria in his labeling exercise. Clojure has almost none of the things on his "Conservative Stuff" list except STM (huh, is GC conservative too?) and almost all of the things on his "Liberal Stuff" list. None of his 1-8 conservative points apply to Clojure (and I see nothing wrong with conservative about speed - Common Lisp has always pursued it, and its pursuit always involves risk), and all of his 9 liberal points apply to Clojure.
Clojure devs are liberals that want their programs to work.
If Yegge doesn't like Clojure, fine. But to rationalize like this is weak.
Yawn.
[0] http://cemerick.com/2010/06/07/results-from-the-state-of-clo...
[1] http://cemerick.com/2012/08/06/results-of-the-2012-state-of-...