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2 points by akkartik 3679 days ago | link | parent

"I used trends to substantiate the trajectory, i.e. the last half of my reply, what people are saying and what they are doing are trends."

If you think arc is whatever pg says it is, then what we are saying and doing here is irrelevant :)

If you think arc is whatever we're saying and doing here, the things we take from clojure seem a tiny minority compared to the sum total of conversations. I'd say arc starts out kinda like clojure, but is looking to steal ideas from all sorts of languages including erlang.

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I tried to phrase my question very carefully to avoid seeming defensive about something I don't care about. So let me just come out and say it: I have no problem with you talking about clojure all you want here. If you did, maybe I'd get to talk to you more! :) Arc is indeed absolutely unfinished, no disagreement there either.

Maybe what I'm actually defensive about is the prospect of any two languages becoming more and more similar. That just seems bad, nothing good can come of it. I'd rather see arc and clojure evolve in different directions and give me more ideas and more data about how good those ideas are.

Copying ideas and creating hybrids is totally fine, that's what we are good at. But then the hybrid starts at the intersection of its influences and sets off on a whole different trajectory.

So let me rephrase my question: is there something you miss from arc in clojure that has you wishing for a superset?

(The answer may take time to emerge from the subconscious. At least it has for me in similar questions.)



2 points by thaddeus 3679 days ago | link

My comments are a targeted response to statements made in a specific comment (http://arclanguage.org/item?id=18421). I think you're treating the conversation in this thread as you treat this forum; as some place to mingle languages and abstract all ideas. That's fine if you want to do that, but I'll suggest you'll be more effective if you follow the thread and consider context when responding.

And I'm suggesting more care be taken in this regard, because it leads to you being offended (i.e. "If you think arc is whatever pg says it is, then what we are saying and doing here is irrelevant...") on statements that should be considered only in relation to the thread. It also leads to unintentional attacks such as "In any case, it feels quite delusional to compare arc to clojure ...". I don't think you realize you suggested I'm being delusional by adding that comment... Arc and Clojure are both modern lisps that have eliminated the overuse of brackets, so really is it delusional to suggest these two languages are more similar than not? Am I creating some injustice by telling someone, that's already leaning towards Clojure, that these languages are very similar anyway?

I'm going to end this thread here as I think it has already gone off the rails.

Cheers.

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2 points by akkartik 3679 days ago | link

Sorry I'm causing offense. It was indeed utterly unintentional, and fwiw, I actually was never in the slightest conscious of feeling offended by anything in this thread. I'm entirely the offender and not an offended party.

I didn't mean to trigger associations like "injustice". When I said "delusional to compare arc to clojure" I was trying to be self-deprecating. Arc is just a toy, clojure is real. You're absolutely right in your defense of clojure.

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2 points by thaddeus 3679 days ago | link

Not to worry, I've known you long enough now to know you're not mean spirited or intending offence. Hopefully I didn't get too grumpy, but I needed to put and end the thread because I could see we had different ideas on what the thread was even about.

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