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0 pointsseancorfield3y ago0 comments

Indeed, yes.

For development, if you're finding "slow startup" to be a problem, you're just doing it wrong: start a REPL and leave it running -- mine run for days (or even weeks).

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synthc3y ago· 2 in thread

I also worked this way, I've had REPL sessions that ran for months, but IMO this is a workaround rather than a real solution. It's a good workaround, but fast startup would be a game changer.

If Clojure would start fast enough, projects like Babashka would not be needed.

seancorfieldOP3y ago

It's not a workaround. It's how Clojure is designed, around its REPL, intended for interactive development at its core.

Start a REPL, connect your editor, develop. You can start your apps in the REPL (from RCFs in your code -- Rich Comment Forms) and never type into the REPL. You can grow the application while it is running, you can run tests via the REPL from your editor.

That interactive approach -- working on your application "live" essentially -- is what sets Clojure's REPL apart from other languages' "interactive consoles" (sometimes misleading also called REPLs :)

And, yes, Babashbka is great for running CLI scripts. But that's a completely different use case to a long-running development process.

synthc3y ago

I'm very familiar with the live editing aspect of Clojure, and I like it a lot actually.

What I am saying is that Clojure's long startup time is still annoying if you want to restart, for example if you trashed your repl session or want to start with a clean slate.

If Clojure would start fast enough it could also be used for CLI scripts and we would not need Babashka at all.

All in all, I think Clojure is a great language, but the slow startup time is still a disadvantage.

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