The author talks about how friendly the Clojure community is in the first paragraph but then goes on to take some silly potshots at other languages in the very next paragraph:
I asked around and learned that he wrote a book called "Clean code" and that he likes Ruby, which just makes no sense to me at all - How do you unify a tool as unstable, unpredictable, untamed as Ruby (second only to Perl) with Clean Code?
Your statement is a non-sequitur. The Clojure community on the whole is extremely friendly -- that he takes a stab at Ruby does not invalidate this fact. One person blogging one statement does not a community make.
No but if this author thought this appropriate for the community's consumption, then it would make someone outside the community think that the community may be less than friendly.
After having his various silly mistakes exposed and laughed at on the comments sections of his various outrageous and more importantly ignorant posts (like the couple referenced above), he seems to have deleted all comments from those posts - and there were some stinging rebuttals - and now doesn't even have a comments section on his blog.
The best thing to do is ignore the troll,not vote this trash up on HN (16 upvotes at the time of writing wtf?).
Forgive my ignorance; I know nothing of the history of the author. But I must say I'm confused - I didn't think the tone was so bad, and I thought there was quite a bit of decent content in there for folks new to Clojure. What exactly was so offensive?
What I found offensive was the tone of the opening sentence where he talks about Ruby.
"I asked around and learned that he wrote a book called "Clean code" and that he likes Ruby, which just makes no sense to me at all - How do you unify a tool as unstable, unpredictable, untamed as Ruby (second only to Perl) with Clean Code"
Ruby is an "untamed" "tool" that can't be associated with clean code? Yeah Right! Troll alert (in my world, YMMV).
Again This isn't a one off. He called Python a "collection of dull knives" in another article, while demonstrating conclusively he knew jack all of what he was talking about - as pointed out here on HN(see links), which is the real problem. Making an outrageous claim and supporting it with real data and arguments would be awesome.
Ignorance and offensiveness is what defines a troll. One without the other is at worst educational. Technical advice, no matter how good, mixed with ignorance of and snideness towards other languages is still trolling(imo, YMMV).
(And yeah The "Norwegian sense of humour" explanation doesn't hold. I have Norwegian and Swiss and Swedish friends and in my experience there is nothing inherently nasty about any of these nationalities or English speaking/writing styles.)
Just thought I should point out his history of "whoring for traffic" as another commenter said here on this thread.
If you think he is some kind of model of civilized discourse and a fount of Clojure programming wisdom, feel free to treat him that way. (No sarcasm intended. Different folks different strokes).
Let us look at some ultra sharp Clojurians like Rich Hickey. Rich has very strong opinions about technology and coding style, but has never denigrated other languages that I know of (I am willing to be corrected). As a matter of fact he pulled up someone on the Clojure mailing list recently for making snide (and uninformed, strange how those qualities go together) remarks on Haskell.
I quote Rich's message "Everyone, please refrain from language wars. Haskell is a tremendously ambitious and inspiring language, for which I have the highest respect. There is zero point in bashing it (or its users) in this forum. "
I don't even use Ruby and Ruby certainly has its flaws (like any other language) but considering it some kind of antithesis of clean code, while simultaneously proposing minor stylistic changes in another man's code to "take him to school" is ignorant (imo).
"Take to school" has connotations of beating someone badly with superior technique and completely outclassing them while showing them "how it is really done" if my understanding of English is correct (not a native speaker, glad to be corrected). What I see here is a series of minor refactorings of an admitted beginner's code. (I am no Clojure expert but if there were some absolutely mind bending insights on "the Clojure way" in this post, I missed it. Minor improvements are suggested but (imo) such things are best sent to the original programmer as email rather than as a loud flashy blog post claiming to "take him to school" and so on if he really wanted to help out with coding style.
In short, I consider Lau Jensen a troll, given his history. I pointed it out with links to previous articles and resulting discussion on HN (do read the linked articles and resulting comments on HN, even if you end up disagreeing with my conclusions). YMMV. I flipped the (troll) bit on for this guy a long time ago.
Again ,YMMV. And that is as it should be. Differing opinions make the world richer.
PS. If you think my ideas unsupported and the given links unconvincing evidence of this chap's continuing nastiness and ignorance, then downvote away! That's what the downvote button is for I guess
I don't intend to argue this any further (so no more followups, don't worry about this turning into an interminable argument). Thanks for listening.
I see that many HN readers are claiming that the author is a troll. I believe the author is genuinely trying to help, although I do see that it's easy to interpret his quirky sense of humor and writing style, and label it as a tad arrogant. Having danish friends, I can tell you that danish people are often like this. Sarcasm and jokes belong in their world and it's perfectly normal for outsiders to miss the subtle humor. In all fairness, Lau Jensen should really consider this next time he writes an article targeted at an international audience.
On the other hand and technically speaking, I think it's great that he offers constructive criticism. If I was Uncle Bob I'd certainly appreciate it.
His whole blog post is about showing up the deficiency of Python (which is fine), and repeatedly telling us how Guido is controlling his programming by telling him to use white spaces to arrange code.
The author comes off as a muck raker and a troll, which is sad because he is obviously talented enough to produce a lot of interesting code and experiments.
The article has some interesting critiques. But really, anybody's code can be improved, particular if you're willing to spend more than half your time nitpicking about style and formatting details. Writing an article taking a famous programmer to the woodshed just makes it seem like you're whoring for traffic.
> Usually what people struggle with initially is adapting to the functional paradigmes, which Uncle Bob seems to have gotten right in the first try!
Having heard the man speak, I really don't think this is Uncle Bob's first trip around the block with Lisp - even if he is relatively new to Clojure.
As a member of the Clojure community I don't approve of all of Lau's articles, they do tend to be a over the top. However, like someone else that's "So Fucking Awesome", take a chance to look past the tone and hear the message.
This article has a lot of great Clojure style in it, and I would strongly recommend learning from it.
Gah, this whole article is really nit-picky. The author sounds like some sort of perfectionistic, elitist prick. Definitely a Type A and way too focused on the minutia.
I asked around and learned that he wrote a book called "Clean code" and that he likes Ruby, which just makes no sense to me at all - How do you unify a tool as unstable, unpredictable, untamed as Ruby (second only to Perl) with Clean Code?