Fork me on GitHub
#clojure-europe
<
2022-04-17
>
mpenet18:04:44

Good evening ;)

❤️ 4
😍 2
practicalli-johnny21:04:42

If a Clojure developer from the UK wanted to relocate to the EU, what places (counties, cities, towns, rural) would be nice to live and work? A nice place could have some of the following • a willingness to have people migrate from the UK (no excessive restrictions especially on age, although visa and local registration is expected) • cycle friendly and efficient public transportation (bike friendly preferably), ideally with cycling clubs or cycling as a common activity • public health service usable by immigrants • reasonably priced housing / renting options • green areas to live in where you can still get okay broadband • companies providing energy from 100% renewable sources (wind, hydro, tidal, solar, green gas) • support for learning the local language (e.g. a helpful expat community or night schools) • companies in the region using Clojure at least in part of what they do (or companies happy with remote working) • a Clojure community (or interest in having one) Any other interesting characters of the location or social dynamics are of interest. Please reply as a thread so suggestions are not missed. Thank you

orestis05:04:14

I can't say it ticks all the boxes but Copenhagen ticks a lot of them. No idea about immigration issues though :(

Ben Sless06:04:15

The energy angle might be a bit hard in the near future... 😞

mpenet08:04:07

Not really Europe but Schengen area: Switzerland

mpenet08:04:37

No clue about UK immigration tho

borkdude08:04:55

Personally I like Berlin

borkdude08:04:19

but I don't have any experience with migrating.

borkdude08:04:54

Netherlands is pretty bike friendly :)

ordnungswidrig09:04:19

A whole bunch of Clojure developers I'm Berlin and companies with Clojure jobs ans remote options. Lot of my colleagues migrated from non-EU to Berlin, seems doable 😉 All if you like living in a huge city. (Caveat: I don't live there).

ordnungswidrig09:04:01

Copenhagen also has bunch Clojure devs, been there for a project a couple of times over some years. Cycling is great there, bet no mountains 😱 😛 (maybe ask @reefersleep if considering that town)

1
msolli08:04:05

Oslo, where I live, ticks many of the boxes (but certainly not the one about reasonably priced housing). Small, but welcoming and active Clojure community here. I don’t know about immigration from UK after Brexit, you could check with your embassy here, maybe. I’d be willing to hop on a call to give you a realistic sales pitch for Norway if you’re interested.

reefersleep08:04:40

Copenhagen is built for cycling, lots of wide cycling lanes and biking is generally faster than public transportation (which is also pretty good, though!), but it also has a lot of people who don’t know how to behave on the road - perhaps because it’s built for cycling? So people don’t get a driver’s license and are not forced to learn any rules or conventions of traffic. Also, lots of expats/foreigners, and I guess cultural differences also account for clashing behaviour in traffic sometimes 😛 I’ve never looked, but it would be weird if there weren’t cycling clubs. But, as for biking as transportation, that’s the norm. I don’t live in CPH anymore, btw. You should be able to find Danish tutoring/night schools easily, I personally know people who’ve learnt Danish after moving. • reasonably priced housing / renting options Heh. It’s really tough to find a place to live in CPH, and things are getting more expensive all the time. Don’t know if it gets easier as you move farther away from the city. There’s a small Clojure community. The slack channel is pretty dead, #copenhagen-clojurians , and I don’t know the IRL status, as its been years since I met up with them. • green areas to live in where you can still get okay broadband Ah, so we’re talking out of the city. idk 😕 I think broadband is generally fine in Denmark, but I’ve always been envious of Sweden and their fiber (and low pings when I played Q3 😄 ) Dno about immigration currently. All in all, CPH is nice, I think. I just want to go live in the country, far away from people and noise, so it’s not for me anymore.

👍 1
reefersleep08:04:00

Sorry if that was a bit rambly. It’ll be interesting to follow your adventure, wherever it takes you!

msolli08:04:06

I love Copenhagen! Lived there a few years ago. It’s among the best places in the world for cyclists. But living is expensive there, as well.

eval202011:04:00

I migrated from Amsterdam to Aarhus :flag-dk: last year. So far it’s been great: Aarhus hits the sweet spot for me in terms of ‘city-ness’: lively but not crowded and the nearby lakes/forests/beaches form an easy escape. I cycle a lot (~170k/week) and was pleasantly surprised by the hills here (ie 800hm in 85k). The scenary is simply stunning; level ‘WinXP wallpaper’. I believe there are quite some options wrt training-groups, haven’t checked them though. Government seems to not shun vision (as the Dutch these days), and apply that to the energy transition (among other things) see e.g. ^1 (not that they haven’t done anything yet ^2). Immigration process was painless (coming from EU that is), as was starting a business: all done online. Lot of official resources online ^3, ^4. Free healthcare is included once you get your citizen-card. Language classes are free within 3 years of arrival (Danish is my new fav language, no pesky parentheses 😜). Though getting around without Danish is absolutely fine as everyone speaks English. Had a chat recently with some Clojure developers from gomore - they used to organize the local meetup. Maybe we can bootstrap it again. Housing is expensive but not as crazy as CPH I heard (coming from an already very expensive city helped in this sense), but looking at the amount of cranes visible they’re working on this :) Happy to chat if you have questions @U05254DQM [1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&amp;q=danmark+kan+mere&amp;ia=web [2]: https://nitter.42l.fr/AlexanderNL/status/1510541804483100672#m [3]: https://www.nyidanmark.dk/ [4]: https://international.aarhus.dk/coming-to-aarhus/citizens-from-outside-the-eueea-taking-up-residence-in-aarhus/

👍 1
borkdude11:04:44

@U04V6FEES nice move! I didn't know that

mpenet11:04:18

if you like the region around cph, southern sweden is an option as well.

mpenet11:04:37

much cheaper, but if you work around here the salaries are also way lower than in dk

mpenet11:04:24

housing is affordable, it's great for kids, it's not all unicorns but generally it's not bad

Mno13:04:17

I was considering a move to Gothenburg because a friend of mine told me about housing there being much more reasonable

practicalli-johnny14:04:17

Thanks everyone, really interesting suggestions. I may have to stay in Germany initially but Denmark sounds very appealing. I enjoyed living in Amsterdam at the end of the 1990s, for about 3 years. A part of that involved worked in Nijmegen (actually Boxmeer) which was very peaceful and a few trips to Rotterdam. I may have eaten too many broodjes kass whilst I was there, but I could never get enough bitter bollen, delicious. Just don't tell me what is in them 🙂 It will be a while before I move, so plenty of time to scout around for nice locations.

mpenet14:04:15

Gothenburg has the reputation to be very rainy

mpenet14:04:40

it's quite nice otherwise

Mno14:04:18

Oh, that's good to know! Amsterdam is also kinda rainy