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Throwaway account, for obvious reasons. This is great for nubank, but how is this supposed to work for other users of Clojure and Datomic? Who is really going

Throwaway account, for obvious reasons. This is great for nubank, but how is this supposed to work for other users of Clojure and Datomic? Who is really going to be interested in building on top of tech owned by a (new, unknown, regional) bank? Someone said that this is just like Amazon (who would build on top of tech from a bookstore??), but I hope it's obvious the two situations are very different. I expect that I'll have to be looking for a new job in a year's time :-(

mr_custard 6y ago
A lot of people don't seem to mind building on top of tech owned and developed by a telecommunications company - Erlang.
- clj_throwaway 6y ago
  Yep, telecomms and banks, very similar dynamics and incentives /s
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    In what relevant way are they different? (I find that your comment has more sense without the /s tag)
  - monsieurbanana 6y ago
    Yes? What incentive exactly are you implying banks have that make them less suitable than other mega-corporations for the purposes of developing a programming language?
    - clj_throwaway 6y ago
      Banks and fintech often view their in-house tech as competitive advantages, and they usually don't care a whit about building cred in dev communities (a common reason why projects are OSS in the first place, to drive recruitment or promote a complimentary platform). A good outcome isn't impossible, but it might be unprecedented
      - lvh 6y ago
        Rich Hickey literally bet his retirement savings on making Clojure, and owns all the IP. It seems unlikely he's just going to let them smother it.
      - ilikehurdles 6y ago
        Nubank has presented their tech several times at a number of conferences and I believe they often sponsor those conferences. It's not a traditional bank, like Airbnb is not a traditional travel agency, and Amazon is not a traditional bookstore. This is not your local neighborhood credit union or ancient behemoth running COBOL mainframes.
      - kgwgk 6y ago
        And telecommunications companies don't see their technology as a competitive advantage?
myth_drannon 6y ago
Is it better to be owned by an adtech company (React, Angular, Go)?
- clj_throwaway 6y ago
  If you asked me that 15 years ago, I'd say "no". In hindsight, it sort of makes sense given their objective of increasing time spent online and the quality of the experience. The proposition here is that nubank will be the first bank to successfully turn into a software vendor. Maybe my worries will be nothing in 10 years, but no one can say its an obvious outcome.
  - myth_drannon 6y ago
    Bloomberg and Jane street (not banks but still finance). They don't own OCaml but are heavily involved in its development.
    - LeonidasXIV 6y ago
      Bloomberg has sponsored BuckleScript in the beginning, but now it is sponsored by Facebook. Other than that their influence on OCaml development is minimal (and technically BuckleScript is a fork of the OCaml compiler).
  - lvh 6y ago
    Nubank already ships software, Cognitect is already a healthy consultancy, no particular reason to kill either one. Surely we can agree that banks also care about good UX? Nubank in particular is known for it. (I appreciate that you may not have heard of Nubank but I don't think calling them "unknown" is fair. They have attracted a literal billion in funding in a little over a year. They have over 10 million users.)
puredanger 6y ago
Per https://building.nubank.com.br/welcoming-cognitect-nubank/ https://building.nubank.com.br/welcoming-cognitect-nubank/, "Nubank does not own Clojure, just as Cognitect never owned Clojure. Nubank will take over Cognitect’s role as a corporate sponsor for Clojure, funding the core development effort".
- clj_throwaway 6y ago
  Outside of the license, OF COURSE Relevance, then Cognitect, now nubank owns clojure, in every other way that matters. Now do datomic :-)
  - dragandj 6y ago
    I am pretty sure that whoever owns Cognitect is in no position to boss Rich around regarding Clojure. Besides, Clojure is rather simple and stable. No need to change it dramatically...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xmlblog 6y ago
> Who is really going to be interested in building on top of tech owned by a (new, unknown, regional) bank? As opposed to building on top of tech "owned" by a small software consultancy? Perhaps I simply lack imagination, but how is this worse?
- clj_throwaway 6y ago
  We all know the history of acquihires. Key tech and products inevitably are swallowed, never seen outside again. Besides that, datomic really is a great solution for banks and fintech....are other firms like that going to buy from another bank, maybe a competitor?
ilikehurdles 6y ago
Nubank is a company valued at over $10 billion, with investing from major Silicon Valley firms. It is not unknown to millions of people, and is expanding internationally so I don't think they'll be regional much longer. Clojure and datomic being such a good fit for their tech stack of hundreds of microservices and thousands of databases should really encourage people to use clojure like Erlang's history in telecommunications encouraged people to adopt Elixir.

mr_custard 6y ago

A lot of people don't seem to mind building on top of tech owned and developed by a telecommunications company - Erlang.

clj_throwaway 6y ago
Yep, telecomms and banks, very similar dynamics and incentives /s
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kgwgk 6y ago
  In what relevant way are they different? (I find that your comment has more sense without the /s tag)
- monsieurbanana 6y ago
  Yes? What incentive exactly are you implying banks have that make them less suitable than other mega-corporations for the purposes of developing a programming language?
  - clj_throwaway 6y ago
    Banks and fintech often view their in-house tech as competitive advantages, and they usually don't care a whit about building cred in dev communities (a common reason why projects are OSS in the first place, to drive recruitment or promote a complimentary platform). A good outcome isn't impossible, but it might be unprecedented
    - lvh 6y ago
      Rich Hickey literally bet his retirement savings on making Clojure, and owns all the IP. It seems unlikely he's just going to let them smother it.
    - ilikehurdles 6y ago
      Nubank has presented their tech several times at a number of conferences and I believe they often sponsor those conferences. It's not a traditional bank, like Airbnb is not a traditional travel agency, and Amazon is not a traditional bookstore. This is not your local neighborhood credit union or ancient behemoth running COBOL mainframes.
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      And telecommunications companies don't see their technology as a competitive advantage?

myth_drannon 6y ago

Is it better to be owned by an adtech company (React, Angular, Go)?

clj_throwaway 6y ago
If you asked me that 15 years ago, I'd say "no". In hindsight, it sort of makes sense given their objective of increasing time spent online and the quality of the experience. The proposition here is that nubank will be the first bank to successfully turn into a software vendor. Maybe my worries will be nothing in 10 years, but no one can say its an obvious outcome.
- myth_drannon 6y ago
  Bloomberg and Jane street (not banks but still finance). They don't own OCaml but are heavily involved in its development.
  - LeonidasXIV 6y ago
    Bloomberg has sponsored BuckleScript in the beginning, but now it is sponsored by Facebook. Other than that their influence on OCaml development is minimal (and technically BuckleScript is a fork of the OCaml compiler).
- lvh 6y ago
  Nubank already ships software, Cognitect is already a healthy consultancy, no particular reason to kill either one. Surely we can agree that banks also care about good UX? Nubank in particular is known for it. (I appreciate that you may not have heard of Nubank but I don't think calling them "unknown" is fair. They have attracted a literal billion in funding in a little over a year. They have over 10 million users.)

puredanger 6y ago

Per https://building.nubank.com.br/welcoming-cognitect-nubank/ https://building.nubank.com.br/welcoming-cognitect-nubank/, "Nubank does not own Clojure, just as Cognitect never owned Clojure. Nubank will take over Cognitect’s role as a corporate sponsor for Clojure, funding the core development effort".

clj_throwaway 6y ago
Outside of the license, OF COURSE Relevance, then Cognitect, now nubank owns clojure, in every other way that matters. Now do datomic :-)
- dragandj 6y ago
  I am pretty sure that whoever owns Cognitect is in no position to boss Rich around regarding Clojure. Besides, Clojure is rather simple and stable. No need to change it dramatically...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

xmlblog 6y ago

> Who is really going to be interested in building on top of tech owned by a (new, unknown, regional) bank? As opposed to building on top of tech "owned" by a small software consultancy? Perhaps I simply lack imagination, but how is this worse?

clj_throwaway 6y ago
We all know the history of acquihires. Key tech and products inevitably are swallowed, never seen outside again. Besides that, datomic really is a great solution for banks and fintech....are other firms like that going to buy from another bank, maybe a competitor?

ilikehurdles 6y ago

Nubank is a company valued at over $10 billion, with investing from major Silicon Valley firms. It is not unknown to millions of people, and is expanding internationally so I don't think they'll be regional much longer. Clojure and datomic being such a good fit for their tech stack of hundreds of microservices and thousands of databases should really encourage people to use clojure like Erlang's history in telecommunications encouraged people to adopt Elixir.