Have Clojure UIs Taken the Wrong Path? Part 1

The Clojure community has focused on React-based solutions for complex front-end clients such as Reagent, Rum, Om, Re-frame, and Fulcro.

For all their differences, they follow a very similar architecture, making heavy use of client-side state and using RPC for client-server communication. We will call this the “React+” approach.

But is this the right choice?

I will suggest the answer may be negative. My suspicion is that as web UI libraries advance, the problems they solve are not essential. Rather, the problems are accidental; they are generated by the React+ architecture.

2023-11-24 Architecture Clojure engineering hypermedia rest Word Count: 1780 words Read Time: 9 minutes

The Wrong Kind of Readability

Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas tell us: 'it’s critical that you write code that is readable and easy to reason about.' This seems uncontroversial; it is the rare point on which software engineers typically agree. Or do they?

2023-11-05 Clojure abstraction clojure Word Count: 2038 words Read Time: 10 minutes

The Library Locker - An Antipattern

The library locker antipattern occurs when we try to add functionality to a library function, but do so without separating concerns.

2023-08-20 design design clojure Word Count: 1941 words Read Time: 10 minutes

Brittle Clojure: Creating Legacy Clojure Systems

Avoid writing brittle Clojure with tactics for flexibility and robustness.

2023-07-23 clojure clojure architecture microservices brittle-clojure robust-clojure Word Count: 2187 words Read Time: 11 minutes

Distributed Merges and Continuous Integration

Feature branching with large monoliths causes merge hell. Microservices promise independent deployability. But sometimes you get distributed merge hell

2023-07-14 architecture DORA empiricism evidence-based-software microservices continuous-integration Word Count: 885 words Read Time: 5 minutes

Don't Be a Cremonini

Are debates about software just differences of opinion? Or do we have the evidence necessary to identify what works and what doesn't? How the Annual Devops Report can resolve questions about the best practices in software development

2023-07-09 Evidence-Based-Software DORA empiricism evidence-based-software Word Count: 1317 words Read Time: 7 minutes

Haskell's Triangle

The polymath Blaise Pascal envisaged a triangle built of numbers. Pascal’s triangle — as it is usually called, despite the fact that its discovery predated Pascal by centuries — has the interesting property that each number is the sum of the two numbers directly above it.

2017-07-17 CS recursion haskell Word Count: 947 words Read Time: 5 minutes

Thomas Cothran

Software Developer