"those clojure guys reply like members of a sect, better stay away from them"

honestly even for a CTO's eyes (i.e. offer side, not demand side), recruiters are "dime a dozen", why would I let their feedback affect anything I do?

Unfortunately, the types of recruiter emails I tend to get do not inspire confidence in their ability to relay technical information in a persuasive way back to the org that has retained them.

though it might be useful to mention "I'm only interested in Clojure roles" if only to filter out the noise of Spark/Hadoop/Snowflake/ETL/etc data plumbing jobs I tend to get blasted with

> "those clojure guys reply like members of a sect, better stay away from them" It's not impossible to communicate clearly yet stay polite and respectful. Our community is famous for proactively being nice to everyone and we always promote empathy and respect. Remember, negative emotions tend to imprint stronger memories. It's just the way how many species evolved. Biologically, we tend to prioritize protecting our vulnerabilities, rather on seeking comfort. Sometimes, it takes a single jerk to ruin the years of many, building trust and credibility. I don't think it matters if the outsiders think that we are in a cult, as long as they note that it's a cult with the nicest people they've ever met. > why would I let their feedback affect anything I do? The goal is to increase our presence, not to seek their opinion. Outside of marginal groups of tech professionals, recruiters are probably our best option. I think it's a cheap and effective way to help the community grow.

I pretty much always reply and tell them I'm very happy working with Clojure for the past decade (and very happy working 100% remote for the past 15 years).

@U0G75ARHC I have no interest in growing the "Clojure community", whatever that means. I don't consider myself to be any better or worse than any other developer just because I choose to use a certain language; I use it because it suits my needs. I suggest that, if you want to increase Clojure's presence, you use it for your next project and make that project useful/profitable.

Allow me to use a silly analogy. Let's say one day a chef in a little-known restaurant creates a recipe ehm... let's say for a salad. It quickly becomes a favorite salad for everyone coming to the restaurant. The chef publishes the recipe and it starts gaining popularity. Soon, every restaurant in the town offers the salad. Tourists start flowing into the town, just to taste the salad and the original restaurant gains a Michelin star. The recipe for the salad is simple, but it's not so easy to get it right. Soon, the entire industry reshapes and there's a new kind of culinary job, in addition to a soup chef, chef de partie, garde-manger chef, etc., there's a new kind - the salad maker. A lot of young folks learning to cook, start learning the way how to properly make the salad. Some of them truly master the recipe. It takes years of practice, but it teaches them a lot about the food industry in general. The problem is - there are still many people who never heard about the salad. And those young chefs' talents remain unseen and their potential unrealized. Restaurant owners simply don't see how offering the salad to the customers would increase their profits. Now, it seems to me what you're saying is: "if you're so enthusiastic about the salad", just keep making it, don't worry about the popularity..." But what I'm asking for: "whenever someone offers you a job in a restaurant, just tell them about the salad. Let them know that it exists, and a lot of people really love it... Maybe that would help to drive the popularity and it helps young, emerging chefs to reach their full potential..."

I see a lot of Is in your responses. Undoubtedly, you've reached the point where it's not extremely difficult for you to land a satisfactory job. But there are a lot of folks who learned Clojure in their free time and can only dream about writing Clojure every day. Yes, perhaps there's nothing to gain from replying to a recruiter's message. Yet please consider doing it, maybe someday it helps someone else.

I can only speak for myself, but I can refer to myself as "we" from now on if that helps. We always reply to recruiters as a courtesy, and those recruiters we work with repeatedly know perfectly well that we favour Clojure. Unfortunately, they don't get to decide what tech stack their clients use, and neither do we. If you want Clojure to be in the client's tech stack, we suggest you become the client.

@UVDD67FFX no need to be sarcastic. I wasn't referring specifically to you when I said "I see a lot of 'I's in your responses". And my initial message wasn't targeted specifically at you. It's not indoctrination, fact or predicament, just a friendly suggestion, please do with it whatever your heart desires. There's no need for further argumentation about the matter. I apologize if my manner of messaging somehow made you upset.

There's never a need to be sarcastic, but it can sometimes be quite fun. But there are no hard feelings @U0G75ARHC