The examples you raised are all - I believe not by coincidence - related to how Clojure interact with the host platform (both Java and Javascript). It simply doesn't shield you from it. As a consequence tracebacks bubble up, and you're expected to know how to debug it, and hopefully use the debugger of the host platform. This is aggravated on JS since JS exceptions mean nothing most of the time.
clojure.spec (launching on 1.9) will allow better error reporting on some cases, but the philosophy of the language has always being about giving you a lot of power vs. shielding you from complexity.
Also, a lot of people being introduced to Clojure from a Ruby background (and others, ofc) are having to learn simultaneously about: functional programming, Lisp, immutable data structures, the internals of JS/JVM, advanced concepts like STM, CSP, and a whole host of new libraries. That is a steep learning hill, specially if one bought the argument that programmers are snowflakes who can't take frustration. Once you're on the other side though, the complex, messy real-world projects become more amenable, because Clojure was created thinking about those. That's what Rich meant by "Simple ain't easy".
IMHO, working at a company w/ a codebase of ~150 projects written in Clojure, the productivity has paid off w/ interest though.
clojure.spec (launching on 1.9) will allow better error reporting on some cases, but the philosophy of the language has always being about giving you a lot of power vs. shielding you from complexity.
Also, a lot of people being introduced to Clojure from a Ruby background (and others, ofc) are having to learn simultaneously about: functional programming, Lisp, immutable data structures, the internals of JS/JVM, advanced concepts like STM, CSP, and a whole host of new libraries. That is a steep learning hill, specially if one bought the argument that programmers are snowflakes who can't take frustration. Once you're on the other side though, the complex, messy real-world projects become more amenable, because Clojure was created thinking about those. That's what Rich meant by "Simple ain't easy".
IMHO, working at a company w/ a codebase of ~150 projects written in Clojure, the productivity has paid off w/ interest though.