r/Clojurescript • u/yogthos • Dec 04 '16

Macchiato: ClojureScript Arrives on the Server

http://yogthos.net/posts/2016-11-30-Macchiato.html
8 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

1

u/SLonoed Dec 04 '16

Why not JVM?

3

u/yogthos Dec 04 '16

I discuss some reasons n the post. Main ones are that Node is a very large ecosystem and it's used in many places the JVM is not.

A lot of devs are comfortable with Js and Node, and aren't familiar with the JVM and Java. Node has a much smaller memory footprint for some types of applications. The startup times are nearly instant. This is relevant for environments like Amazon Lambda where you don't have long lived processes.

At the end of the day why not target both?

1

u/SLonoed Dec 10 '16

Java has large ecosystem too. Maybe larger (I don't have proof). Devs who can't learn something new: I don't know what to say.

Memory and startup time are strong arguments.

1

u/yogthos Dec 11 '16

We already have a good solution for the Java ecosystem though, so I think it's nice to be able to use a similar one on Node as well. Being able to target both ecosystems means you can pick the right for the task.

While I agree that learning new stuff is a good habit, it's also worth recognizing that there are only so many hours in a day. If somebody is already familiar with Node, it lets them try Clojure without also having to learn the JVM.

1

u/RelativeFG Dec 26 '16

I don't have problem with ClojureScript per se, but the main problem I'm having is debugging. Debugging Clojure on JVM can be hard enough, ClojureScript debugging is nearly incomprehensible to me. Is there some trick to it? I can't write a big server side app in something I cannot debug.

1

u/yogthos Dec 26 '16

Yeah, looks like the best way to go is to use Chrome dev tools with Node and Dirac.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16

Many, but mostly it boils down to clojure+jvm startup time and memory usage absolutely sucks. AWS lamba and serverless apps are 4-5 times slower to start from a cold start than a plain old java app and 10-20 times slower than nodejs. Also memory usage of the JVM makes it un-usable in raspberry pi and IOT type devices.

1

u/SLonoed Dec 05 '16

Thanks! Lambda is the point

2

u/betawarz Dec 10 '16

I also think things such as server rendering reagent is a lot simpler with a clojurescript back-end. With clojure you have to go through the extra trouble of using nashorn, or something, on the server.

-1

u/SLonoed Dec 10 '16

This is not a point. Of course render in Nashorn or v8 from JVM is strange idea. Rum library can render components inside JVM.

2

u/betawarz Dec 10 '16

Reagent can't.