Oh, yeah, it replaces that cumbersome

.then(() => doSome(thing)) with bare doSome(thing)

and

.catch(err => doOtherThing(err)) with catch (err) {doOtherThing(err)}

A breakthrough indeed!

I just don't see how's that fundamentally different and why one should have synchronous-like semantics for async operations.

Moreover I do a lot of RxJS and like stuff and it's perfectly normal for me to have async computations steps wrapped in functions. Luckily no one tried to "improve" JS syntax specifically for RxJS.

So I totally get async/await syntax and semantics but it forces me to switch mental context for no good reason and thus is useless and disconcerting.

And it's ridiculous to see this minor "feature" as a reason to switch from CLJS to ES6/ES7

You seem oblivious to the advantage of organizing your async code in the same manner you organize your sync code. But the bigger reason I gave up on CLJS (besides core.async and its CSP model being a ridiculous over kill for simple async management yet being the primary choice the language gives you out of the box) was that ES6/7 are advancing at a much rapid pace than all of those Compile-to-JS languages and no one I know in the JS world would want to program a web app in a Lisp-like language (it's like using an RPN calculator rather than a normal one to do your taxes) for advantages that are disappearing fast relative to JS.

The Extensible Web Manifesto embraces the Babel inspired iterate-before-you-approve spec development model and that just makes JS evolution go so much faster.

So there is no hope for any niche language to unseat JS, and staying with a healthy and growing mainstream standard is far more appealing to me than writing web apps in Lisp-like language that once was a great choice (compared to ES5) but is no longer in that position.

I hope ClojureScript continues to be a niche strong language but I'm really hapoy with the progress being made with JS as a language and ecosystem. Fatigue (what the article is about) is self inflicted IMO.

@yogthos

Nothing is hard to do in CLJS but finding the right way to do things can be hard. For example, why doesn't core.async include promises and even better some async/await equivalent? Why does core.async push CSP as the built in async model to the exclusion of all other async patterns? Why are those only found in some 3rd party libraries?

>Nothing is hard to do in CLJS but finding the right way to do things can be hard.

So you're saying that you have to learn the language and its ecosystem. Please explain how that's different from any other language.

>For example, why doesn't core.async include promises and even better some async/await equivalent?

Because it has different design goals.

>Why are those only found in some 3rd party libraries?

Because most people find the core.async approach to work well. However, since such libraries exist and have great documentation, I fail to see the problem.

In fact, not baking things into the language itself is one of the greatest benefits of Clojure. The language itself is minimal and makes very few assumptions. This means that it can be extended through libraries to many kinds of domains. The more assumptions the core language makes the more rigid it becomes.

The thing is many people try ClojureScript and end up leaving while many others do stay. I am in the former group and my reasons are exactly what i stated but you are right to point out that my reasons may not be everyone's reasons, which I never assumed. Hence the Rant tag. Fair enough, some people find use of CSP for simple scenario of concurrent wait-for-all async management a natural fit but i find it an overkill. Promises are fine but I find async/await syntax much more easy to understand.

I do hope CLJS stays a strong niche language but any hope of it taking over the world is unlikely, IMO.

I'm not saying that ClojureScript is for everybody. Obviously, different people like different things and that's why we have so many different languages available.

However, the reason that async/await is difficult to do in ClojureScript as the main reason for leaving it is a strange one. It's clearly still very easy to do, even if ES7 version might be slightly cleaner at the cost of being baked into the core language semantics.

When you compare all the things that are much uglier in JavaScript compared to ClojureScript, it's a bit of a silly argument to cherry pick async semantics in my opinion.

I wouldn't expect ClojureScript to take over the world either. It's obviously never going to displace JavaScript, but it's reasonable to expect that it will continue to grow in popularity and that anybody who wants to work with it will be able to do so professionally.

I didn't leave because of core.async being exclusively CSP. That was a big annoyance (and couldnt find the promise library) I left because ES7 and next year ES8 and year after ES9 are bound to give us what we need from a modern language without resorting to coding in a Lisp-like labguage, ClojureScript is extremely expressive but something about the Lisp form makes me spend too much time thinking about the code rather than the problem domain (product features) It does produce tight code so it is a better medium for expressing algorithms but I found that it moves my focus from thinking about features to thinking about algorithms (a strange attractor?) and in the end very few people (Lisp users mostly) will be able to maintain the code... So what am I doing writing a web app in a Lisp like language unless i really enjoy thinking about algorithms more than UX... What matters to me is having a good modern language with large enough eco system and that I could use to build kick ass UX. Modern JS and React-Flux-Immutable suffice. When i want to do heavy data processing I would probably miss ClojureScript and Clojure but the UI is not where I would want to do heavy data processing... I really thought about it based on all these factors and decided to jump back to JS. That was my choice. I don't expect it to be everyone else' choice...

>I left because ES7 and next year ES8 and year after ES9 are bound to give us what we need from a modern language without resorting to coding in a Lisp-like labguage

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean exactly. I don't really understand what the "resorting" part refers to here. Clojure is a modern language with that has excellent syntax with tangible advantages over syntax found in most languages.

The syntax is very uniform and follows the principle of least astonishment well. The s-exps provide additional visual information about relationships in code making it more scannable. Finally, the syntax facilitates structural editing making it much easier to manipulate in the editor.

>ClojureScript is extremely expressive but something about the Lisp form makes me spend too much time thinking about the code rather than the problem domain

Perhaps that might have something to do with the fact that you've only used Lisp for 6 months, while you probably have years of experience working with Algol style syntax you're familiar with.

There's absolutely nothing inherent in Lisp syntax that distracts from the business logic. If anything, my experience is that it puts you closer to the business logic as there's a lot less syntactic noise.

>and in the end very few people (Lisp users mostly) will be able to maintain the code

That's completely false. My team has been using Clojure for the past 5 years and we've never had trouble hiring people to work with it. None of the people we've hired over the years had any experience with Clojure or even FP for the most part. The average learning curve to becoming productive tends to be a couple of weeks. We also hire co-op students every 4 months and all of them have learned the language quickly and enjoyed working with it.

A new hire doesn't have to become an expert to start doing useful things. Learning the basics takes very little time, and they can pick up new concepts as they need to. Personally, I wouldn't hire somebody who was unwilling to work with a new language as it implies the sort of rigidity that antithetical to the developer mindset.

> So what am I doing writing a web app in a Lisp like language unless i really enjoy thinking about algorithms more than UX

That's funny since ClojureScript provided the first environment for developing web apps where you could get instant feedback on the UI making it much easier to focus on UX.

Having a live environment with a REPL makes it much easier to experiment as it cuts down the time between making a change and seeing the effect. This is one of the greatest tools for being able to experiment with the UI and provide the a good UX.

>What matters to me is having a good modern language with large enough eco system and that I could use to build kick ass UX

This is precisely why I, and many others, use ClojureScript. If Js is your idea of a modern language I simply don't know what else to say here to be honest.

Again, if you prefer working with Js that's perfectly fine. However, your rationalization of that decision is flimsy at best, and really boils down to the fact that you'd rather use something you're more familiar with.

You are vested in Clojure/Script and biased toward it. Obviously you are biased due to the heavy investment you hve made. I see so many disadvantages in ClojureScript: Lisp is super small in terms of adoption. Lisp is like using an RPN calculator, for uber nerds not for everyone. Who will maintain my code? The few people I know who know ClojureScript? How hard is it to find a ClojureScript dev or anyone interested in working on it? Can my company hire hundreds of engineers who love it and are easy to replace if they leave. If you say yes then you are contradicting actual experience i have had and dismissing it due to shear bias, not based on objective facts and data-supported evidence. Clojurescript's biggest problem, however, is that it has people like yourself who want to shove Lisp Is The Truth down everyone else' throat which people like myself have no tolerance for :)

>Lisp is super small in terms of adoption

Sure, but that's not very interesting in and of itself. The question is whether there's enough of a community to make the language viable and whether you can get a job using it.

Thousands of people are happily working with ClojureScript today, and lots of companies make accommodations such as remote work.

>Who will maintain my code? The few people I know who know ClojureScript?

I've always found this argument very strange myself. My experience is that the language is usually a small aspect of what's involved in maintaining a project. You have to learn tools, libraries, and the architecture around the project. This tends to vary greatly place to place. Learning the language is just a small aspect of that and anybody who's not capable of learning a new language probably won't do a good job with the rest either.

So to answer the question, the person you work with and train to use the language usually. As I've already pointed out, I've trained lots of people to work with Clojure and it doesn't take long for people to become productive.

>How hard is it to find a ClojureScript dev or anyone interested in working on it?

Not very, lots of people apply specifically because they want to try a new language. Last guy we hired had prior experience working with PHP and C#, and never touched a functional language in his life. His reason for applying was precisely that he wanted to try working with Clojure. He finished his first project and put it in production in his first 6 months on the job with minimal supervision.

>Can my company hire hundreds of engineers who love it and are easy to replace if they leave.

The fact of the matter is that good engineers aren't easy to replace when they leave. This has nothing to do with their choice of language.

> Clojurescript's biggest problem, however, is that it has people like yourself who want to shove Lisp Is The Truth down everyone else' throat which people like myself have no tolerance for :)

I'm not shoving any truth down your throat, at no point did I suggest that you should switch back to ClojureScript from Js. In fact, I've repeatedly stated that you should use Js if you like it.

I'm just pointing out the fallacies that you're stating when you're fumbling to justify the reason you switched back. Something nobody asked you to do by the way.

You started out complaining that core.async is hard to use. When I pointed out that there's a promises library you pivoted to complaining that libraries are hard to find, even though it's the first result for "promises clojurescript" on Google. When I asked you what specifically was hard to do, you said that it's just "an argument plot", and now you've moved on to some vague notions regarding difficulty of hiring developers to work with ClojureScript.

Why don't you just say that the actual reason that you like Js better is that you're more comfortable using it. That's a perfectly fine answer.

Perhaps you could instead provide an example of a concrete problem that you believe to be difficult to tackle with CLJS.