Scheming About Clojure

Clojure is a LISP for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). As a schemer, I wondered if I should give Clojure a go professionally. After all, I enjoy Rich Hickey's talks and even Uncle Bob is a Clojure fan. So I considered strength and weaknesses from my point of view:

Pros

• S-Expressions
• Makes functional programming easy
• Schemy naming with ? and ! suffixes
• Integrated testing framework
• Platform independence due to JVM
• Simple Java interoperability
• Clojure map type corresponds to JSON
• Web-server abstraction with extensions (Ring)
• Dedicated Ubuntu-based Docker image

Cons

• Too many core functions
• Too many concurrency concepts
• Having collection functions and the sequence API is confusing
• Keywords feels unnecessary, given symbols
• Unwieldy default project structure
• Leiningen feels forced upon you
• Clojure is not just a single jar (anymore)
• No integrated JSON parser

Insight

Clojure seems good enough. It is not flawless and somewhat overloaded, but far, far ahead of Javascript, Python, Go, or Rust. Of course, I would always prefer CHICKEN Scheme for any passion project. But in an environment that already runs databases written in Java, the JVM has street cred, and a large community hints at sustainability, Clojure presents itself as well balanced in novelty and stability. All in all, Clojure seems to be the enterprise Lisp.

References

• https://clojure.org/reference/lisps
• https://www.more-magic.net/posts/thoughts-on-clojure.html
• The Clojure Workshop (Book)

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