Real world Clojure - video

[chris webster]

Yes, I've been visiting InfoQ again (it's like daytime television for nerds), and this time I found an interesting informal talk (1 hour) about how Clojure was introduced to replace key components of a complex Java-based system at an investment bank:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-Java-Story

There's a lot of discussion about the cultural/political aspects of doing this in a relatively conservative organisation, as well as the technical challenges.

[Palak Mathur]

chris webster wrote:Yes, I've been visiting InfoQ again (it's like daytime television for nerds), and this time I found an interesting informal talk (1 hour) about how Clojure was introduced to replace key components of a complex Java-based system at an investment bank:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-Java-Story

There's a lot of discussion about the cultural/political aspects of doing this in a relatively conservative organisation, as well as the technical challenges.

Nice talk. Few things went over my head. Will listen again.

[Sean Corfield]

I watched that the other day and, to be honest, I was a bit disappointed in it because it really didn't go into any depth, and was a lot more cultural / political than I had expected. Still, it's good to hear a success story from the real world - especially a very conservative real world, in this case - where Clojure displaced Java.

[Gary Deer]

chris webster wrote:Yes, I've been visiting InfoQ again (it's like daytime television for nerds), and this time I found an interesting informal talk (1 hour) about how Clojure was introduced to replace key components of a complex Java-based system at an investment bank:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Clojure-Java-Story

There's a lot of discussion about the cultural/political aspects of doing this in a relatively conservative organisation, as well as the technical challenges.

Hakan talked a bit fast at times which when coupled with his accent and sentence structure made it a bit difficult to understand on first listen. I wonder if what really happened is that Hakan suggested using Clojure and people just nodded and agreed without understanding what he was saying until finally Jon had a meeting with the team to show them what they all agreed to. By that time it was too late and everyone was too embarrassed to admit they were just being polite. That's using people's political correctness against them. Okay, I'm done with my infoQ fanfiction.

You could tell the people asking questions during Q & A were a bit disappointed that there was no simple answer to the biggest hurdles they had. Their story seemed to have a lot of elements of luck as well. I like how everyone went and learned Clojure over the Xmas break when there is a freeze in production because that's kind of how I finally got a chance to delve into the language.

I can't believe they got people using emacs as well. That would be a deal breaker at most shops (by most I mean most of the shops I've worked in, not all shops in the world.)

It did give me food for thought as to what kinds of problems to use Clojure for. Yes, it is a general purpose language but you do have to take into consideration a lot of context. Clojure is good for a wide range of problems if your team is using it and everyone is comfortable with it. But if you're trying to get your first professional Clojure project going it has to be one that is worth the extra effort and demonstrates the power of Clojure. I'm still searching for that golden opportunity in my own organization. Once I find it and I can get the productivity fiends and the tech fashionistas interested, that will be the turning point.

I hope to see more videos like this in the future.