This function you're complaining about looks like 2 virtual threads doing program input reading and output writing for the LSP client given some ArrayBlockingQueues in about 25-30 lines
If I wanted the complete story I could use Clojure's inbuilt test runner to slip some ArrayBlockingQueues in there and run it under record with Flowstorm
Then leisurely seek through the entire state of the program, to get the play-by-play of how this works
There are so many good design choices in this language and a good 30% of colleagues I run into are not even doing the basics of like running a REPL, I think some people just need to clock in with a decade of C# or PHP or TS or JS or Python or whatever to get a taste of a language with next to no inbuilt immutability, statements instead of expressions, no reload-ability in the language semantics and just crapshot debuggers that run in lockstep with the program execution
whalesalad•2mo ago
Just want to emphasize this because clojure is indeed a small, lesser known language that has a hard enough time attracting users. This is not what anyone would consider an idiomatic example of using clojure.
roenxi•2mo ago
And there isn't anything especially wrong with sticking to Java primitives if someone is comfortable with them. They work fine for Java programmers. The dude doesn't need to learn a new async library to write an LSP client if he doesn't feel like it. Code works, its easy to read, easy to understand and modify.
koito17•2mo ago
Then there's other things to consider, like the fact that this LSP client, while succinct, pays not only the cost of loading Jackson, but also the cost of loading clojure.core, which is quite non-trivial[3]. Startup time for LSP servers and clients definitely matters to some, considering that e.g. even clojure-lsp recommends running native executables over JAR files[4]. Can't find documentation proving it's for quick startup, but it's a plausible rationale for their recommendation of a binary over a JAR.
Note: I have used Clojure professionally and in hobby projects. I think it's nice that one can interactively develop a minimal LSP client and the resulting amount of work is roughly 200 lines of code. I say "minimal" because it's unclear how this client deals with offsets reported by LSP servers, which are all given as offsets in a UTF-16 encoded string. In any case, I still think advertising "LSP client in 200 lines of code" hides valuable information regarding functionality, implementation, "actual" code size, and trade-offs made in the choice of technology stack.
[1] https://github.com/vlaaad/lsp-clj-client/blob/a567e66/deps.e...
[2] https://github.com/metosin/jsonista/blob/c8f2b62/project.clj...
[3] https://clojure-goes-fast.com/blog/clojures-slow-start/#cloj...
[4] https://clojure-lsp.io/installation/#embedded-jar-legacy-exe...
pron•2mo ago
[1]: https://openjdk.org/jeps/512
newlisp•2mo ago
0x1ceb00da•2mo ago
For very good reasons.
dig1•2mo ago
> It’s so verbose and complex for what it is doing. ... and using core.async
I think this code is actually quite straightforward and easy for a clojure developer to understand. In fact, using core.async in this case would be overkill and could complicate things further.
daveliepmann•2mo ago
I'm curious to see your core.async-based version :)