I've mentionned it on the Clojure thread, but I think the major distraction of CL isn't age itself but rather all the dead websites, the libraries documented by a bunch of 1998 Usenet posts, etc.
I can't even find a fairly complete and maintained GUI library. I know a lot of people do web programming, but desktop software is still alive and well. Even wxCL, which is pretty much the most complete available, has been updated on May 20, 2006, and its documentation page says "Coming soon". And the mailing list is nothing but spam. You mean this is what I'm supposed to use to build a GUI in CL?
Personally, that's why I don't use CL. It's not because of Emacs (which I use for most programming), it's not the cruft... it's the fact that I feel like I'm stepping in a graveyard and won't find anyone to help me if I try to use one of its libraries.
On the other side, I really enjoy Clojure. I know I'll always have access to the libs I need, there's help easily available, and I can really see it going somewhere better.
I can't even find a fairly complete and maintained GUI library. I know a lot of people do web programming, but desktop software is still alive and well. Even wxCL, which is pretty much the most complete available, has been updated on May 20, 2006, and its documentation page says "Coming soon". And the mailing list is nothing but spam. You mean this is what I'm supposed to use to build a GUI in CL?
Personally, that's why I don't use CL. It's not because of Emacs (which I use for most programming), it's not the cruft... it's the fact that I feel like I'm stepping in a graveyard and won't find anyone to help me if I try to use one of its libraries.
On the other side, I really enjoy Clojure. I know I'll always have access to the libs I need, there's help easily available, and I can really see it going somewhere better.