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Simple Made Easy (2011)

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Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#31

Post by pjmlp »

branchly2 wrote: post #28
pjmlp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few abandoned attempts. Writing from scratch those Java libraries, including a good quality AOT compiler and GC is not something to do as hobby on the weekends.

Don't need all those Java libraries if you've got good FFI with C libraries. Don't need AOT compilation; if you want performance, just stick with regular Clojure on the JVM. I'd love to just see a small general-purpose interpreted Clojure (quick start up, small memory footprint, easy access to C libs), even if it lacked concurrency features.

For that I fail to see the point of why not use a Scheme or Common Lisp compiler instead.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#32

Post by KingMob »

branchly2 wrote: post #28
pjmlp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few abandoned attempts. Writing from scratch those Java libraries, including a good quality AOT compiler and GC is not something to do as hobby on the weekends.

Don't need all those Java libraries if you've got good FFI with C libraries. Don't need AOT compilation; if you want performance, just stick with regular Clojure on the JVM. I'd love to just see a small general-purpose interpreted Clojure (quick start up, small memory footprint, easy access to C libs), even if it lacked concurrency features.

Lumo (https://github.com/anmonteiro/lumo) or Planck may fit your requirements, though they lack a C FFI. They're based off ClojureScript/Javascript, and startup way faster than the JVM Clojure. Could probably try the node-ffi library with Lumo.

There's the abandoned ClojureC project (https://github.com/schani/clojurec). There's also JVM-to-native compilers like gcj or ExcelsiorJet.

But at the moment, it doesn't seem like there's an established way to do all that.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#33

Post by KingMob »

pjmlp wrote: post #31
branchly2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't need all those Java libraries if you've got good FFI with C libraries. Don't need AOT compilation; if you want performance, just stick with regular Clojure on the JVM. I'd love to just see a small general-purpose interpreted Clojure (quick start up, small memory footprint, easy access to C libs), even if it lacked concurrency features.

For that I fail to see the point of why not use a Scheme or Common Lisp compiler instead.

Yeah, for native executables, CL and Racket are much further ahead.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#34

Post by kazagistar »

nailer wrote: post #11

One thing I've found super helpful on my current project (which happens to be node) is using OSS concepts and npm as a unit of modularity. Eg, everything is just a grab bag of functions in an npm module (sometimes with a closure holding some state - I either reject or don't understand FP people when they claim FP doesn't have state). Each module has tests, dependencies, a README, and if it is reusable by other projec…

I think you might be confusing state and values. Pure functional programming has plenty of values. If you need a new value, you just return the new value, instead of reaching into an existing data structure and messing with it.

If a function closes over immutable values, then the resulting closure is an immutable value. If a function closes over mutable state, then its mutable state, often even uglier then mutable objects or structs which actually make the exact contents easier to identify at least.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#35

Post by nailer »

chowells wrote: post #21
nailer wrote: post #11

One thing I've found super helpful on my current project (which happens to be node) is using OSS concepts and npm as a unit of modularity. Eg, everything is just a grab bag of functions in an npm module (sometimes with a closure holding some state - I either reject or don't understand FP people when they claim FP doesn't have state). Each module has tests, dependencies, a README, and if it is reusable by other projec…

FP people have never claimed they don't have state. That's a straw man used to argue against something no one is saying. The claim is that there is no hidden state - everything is made explicit.

I have no argument against FP, not am I making one here. But plenty of FP advocates claim FP "avoids state". It's not a straw man, it's just experience from asking people to explain FP.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#36

Post by branchly2 »

pjmlp wrote: post #31
branchly2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't need all those Java libraries if you've got good FFI with C libraries. Don't need AOT compilation; if you want performance, just stick with regular Clojure on the JVM. I'd love to just see a small general-purpose interpreted Clojure (quick start up, small memory footprint, easy access to C libs), even if it lacked concurrency features.

For that I fail to see the point of why not use a Scheme or Common Lisp compiler instead.

Thank you. Though I really like having Clojure's:

* literal syntax for maps, vectors, sets, and regexes

* keywords

* clear separation of functional constructs (`for`, `map`, etc.) vs side-effecting ones (`do`, `doall`, `when`).

* large standard library of built-in functions, with overall fairly nice naming of things.

I've looked at Scheme, but it appears to be missing those things. I think some of them may be provided by srfi's, but upon a quick reading I couldn't make much sense of how to include and use them.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#37

Post by nickik »

pjmlp wrote: post #17
rlander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt like that, like Clojure was the future, around 2009/2010. But then Java libraries and their impossible stack traces got in the way. I've been waiting for a native Clojure implementation (or on top of Python or the Erlang VM) ever since.

There are few abandoned attempts. Writing from scratch those Java libraries, including a good quality AOT compiler and GC is not something to do as hobby on the weekends.

Hey. My attempted is not abandoned just sleeping :).

The best chance to get it is to extend something that is ClojureScript based. I think you can get pretty close to it.

My implementation was never really targeting production use, but rather exploring some ideas in the VM.

I would love to continue working on it, but I simply do not have time for such a project.

See github.com/clojit if you are interested.

Re: Simple Made Easy (2011)

#38

Post by nickik »

branchly2 wrote: post #36
pjmlp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that I fail to see the point of why not use a Scheme or Common Lisp compiler instead.

Thank you. Though I really like having Clojure's: * literal syntax for maps, vectors, sets, and regexes * keywords * clear separation of functional constructs (`for`, `map`, etc.) vs side-effecting ones (`do`, `doall`, `when`). * large standard library of built-in functions, with overall fairly nice naming of things. I've looked at Scheme, but it appears to be missing those things. I think some of them may be provide…

Racket is probably something you should look at. Im not sure it has all these things, but it is also a modern updated Lisp language based on Scheme.
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