Making Tools Developers Actually Use - Michiel Borkent

Michiel Borkent shares the story and design principles behind popular Clojure developer tools like clj-kondo and babashka.

In 2019, I started two projects: clj-kondo and babashka. What began as experiments, a linter and a quirky "Clojure interpreter nobody asked for", are now mature tools used daily by thousands of Clojure developers. How does a tool go from “nobody asked for this” to “I can’t work without it”? In this talk, I’ll share the story behind these projects and what I discovered along the way: what makes a developer tool indispensable, how community feedback shaped the design, and the principles that turned scrappy fiddles into trusted productivity tools. Biography Michiel Borkent, known online as @borkdude, is a passionate open source Clojure developer. He’s helping developers to write cleaner, faster, and more enjoyable code with popular tools like clj-kondo, babashka, SCI, nbb, and squint. When he’s not deep in parentheses, you’ll find him at the piano or enjoying a walk outdoors. Recorded Nov 14, 2025 in Charlotte, NC at Clojure/Conj 2025.