#clojure logs

2008-06-09

07:16lisppaste8cgrand pasted "VerifyError" at http://paste.lisp.org/display/61971
07:34rsynnottfinally got around to taking a look at clojure last night; actually very very impressed
09:44cgrandrhickey: did you see this bug: http://paste.lisp.org/display/61971?
09:45rhickeycgrand: no, I'll look
09:48cgrandthanks
10:44rhickeycgrand: fixed (rev 899) - thanks for the report
10:54cgrandrhickey: you're welcome -- thanls to you for the fix and for Clojure
14:27nsinghale
15:31meredyddHey...rhickey appears to be gone right now, but does anyone have an idea when the next "proper" release is likely to be? I'm happily using SVN, but it would be good to know.
15:37Chouser_nope, haven't heard anything.
15:38Chouser_I think the fast math stuff was the last new feature he was going to do before the next release, but of course a release needs documentation, packaging, etc.
15:38Chouser_Dunno if he's working on any of that or not.
15:48meredyddYeah...it's mostly the docs I'm missing. I'd quite like gen-and-save-class in particular to live in properly-documented-land.
15:50Chouser_trying to describe gen-and-*-class clearly is pretty hard. he took a crack at it in (doc gen-class)
15:50Chouser_Anything I can help you with?
15:50meredyddOoh. (doc) would be another one I'd love to have read about.
15:57Chouser_Sorry about that, did I miss anything?
16:28la_merInteresting thread about Scala in the google group...
16:28bpattisondo you have a link to it?
16:28la_merhttp://groups.google.com/group/clojure/t/7677d76db79ef6a1
16:29bpattisonthanks
16:29la_merWe use scala pretty extensively right now, but I've been watching clojure since last fall with great interest.
16:30rhickeyla_mer: how would you compare their complexity?
16:31la_merTaken in whole, I think they're actually pretty comparable, but in oddly unbalanced ways.....
16:32la_merThe overall model in clojure is *very* simple....
16:32la_merBut deploying it and managing it is much more complex (or, simply more difficult) than Scala. Part of that has to do with tooling, and part of that has to do with having a rich, dynamic runtime, etc.
16:33la_merBeing able to code in Scala, and *boom* have a jar of classfiles is about as simple as it gets. Bootstrapping a real clojure app currently requires connecting a *lot* of dots, and rolling a lot of stuff that you get for free in a static environment.
16:35la_merOf course, that's balanced out by Scala's staggering syntactic complexity, implicits, and all of the arcane stuff that goes along with Type Systems (tm) in general.
16:35la_merThat being said, I am very fond of Scala's syntax, implicits, and a lot of the declarative power you get with a rich type system.
16:36bpattisonyeah, compared to Clojure, Scala seems syntactically heavy but there are a lot of nice constructs in it
16:39la_merIn the end, I'd rather be using Clojure. The open issues at this point include (a) integrating/porting our existing Scala codebase, (b) getting over/addressing the "shipping source code" concern, and (c) evaluating how using clojure will impact our recruiting, future integration efforts/ambitions, etc.
16:41Chouser_shipping source is always an interesting issue.
16:42rhickeythanks. I think the packaging/deploy issues are tractable
16:43rhickeysource hiding another issue - maybe some encryption could be used
16:43rhickeynot that bytecode is very secure either
16:43la_merrhickey: to be clear, I'm not entirely sure what the issues *are*. Saying that things are harder than they are with Java/Scala is only one aspect -- ideally, we'd want to get to a point where clojure offers a *better* story than Java/Scala (hot code replace, remote debugging, etc), as we can expect from other lisps.
16:43Chouser_rhickey: are you sympathetic with the desire to dump compiled code into a .class file with the idea it's then not meant to be developed, sorta "frozen"?
16:44la_merrhickey: regarding shipping source, we're going down that exact line of thought, too.
16:44rhickeyla_mer: understood, for now I think the issue is a pull a lever and get a jar
16:44la_merA good piece on the folly of obfuscation from just a few days ago: http://www.matasano.com/log/1055/de-obfuscation-for-the-impatient/
16:45rhickeyChouser: no, it would be more like Lisp fasl files, just precompiled but still a dynamic runtime
16:45la_merrhickey: That sounds glorious -- just enough to bootstrap the thing, and then we can still do whatever majick we want to a runtime.
16:47la_merIn the meantime, I'm thinking that just scrambling the source so that casual grave-robbers aren't encouraged will be enough.
16:47rhickeyI have thought about aot-compiling quite a bit, it may rise to the top of the todo list soon
16:47rhickeyla_mer: :)
16:48la_merThings are helped a lot by the fact that our next project will primarily be hosted by (a) us, or (b) our customers under significant agreements.
17:08Lau_of_DKWhat cooking? Anyone done anything interesting in Clojure lately ?