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> Something else that's interesting about the most powerful networked tools like Roam and Athens is that you can't really make these apps with JavaScript

How come? There's no single feature that you can implement in any other programming language that you can't also implement with JavaScript, right?




> you can't also implement with JavaScript, right?

I don't want to sound like a condescending snob, but I honestly wish someone tried to convince me years ago. I myself have spent over a decade dealing with JavaScript (and many other languages as well). Multiple times I had a chance to learn Clojure, but I dismissed every opportunity. I didn't like it. It seemed to me there was nothing "sexy" about it. And one day, I just decided to give it a try (it appeared that I tried many things, and finally I had to try this). The basics I learned pretty quickly. But the more profound philosophy of the language and its ecosystem took me quite some time.

It is incredibly challenging to attempt to explain in a single comment what makes Clojure so much nicer than everything else I have tried before. And I promise you, I did try using lots of different things before that. But please, I urge you to explore it wholeheartedly, and I promise, you will be rewarded. Accept it with all its intrinsic beauty and unavoidable flaws. I guarantee it - you will never regret that.


Have you read PG's essay on Lisp? (Clojure is a dialog of Lisp) http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

Main reason is access to datascript, one of the only client-side graph databases, which doesn't work the same with JavaScript.


I've read it now. I still think it's obviously wrong to say that JavaScript can't be used for this. It's not like we are comparing Closure with Cobol here.

I highly doubt using datascript will give you a significant advantage over competitors in the long term, and I say this as somebody building pretty much a competitor app with Electron, but that's more a matter of personal opinion so I can only wish you good luck about that.




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