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Why I like Clojure

sulami.github.io

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Re: Why I like Clojure

#151

Post by swyx »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #134
swyx wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok so... why is writing an AST more ergonomic than having some syntax?

It’s really not. That’s part of the problem with lisp. But you can treat your code as a data structure which offers a lot of benefits. For instance, it’s basically impossible to offer control flow as a library in normal languages. That is, if you wanted to implement an unless statement like in Ruby, you’d have to use thunks or some other form of lazy evaluation. Macros allow you to just transform the unless statement…

i think so. thanks for the explainer!

Re: Why I like Clojure

#152

Post by tetraca »

vlaaad wrote: post #100
tetraca wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you spliced that sentence wrong. It's bad templating, /along with/ bad session management, auth, sql, and encryption tools.

Do you have any evidence to support these claims? I've never had such problems, please see my other comment about similar concerns: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848195

I don't because I'm only speaking about how one should parse the sentence, not the facts of the sentence.

Re: Why I like Clojure

#153

Post by lispm »

iLemming wrote: post #147
swyx wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whats the key piece missing for you then? because my friend was definitely very keen on the "no syntax" bit

REPL. homoiconicity makes "real" REPL possible. Anyone who hasn't tried Lisp would say: "a lot of other [non-lispy] languages have REPLs". But only after trying Lisp REPL you can truly experience why is it so special. It is extremely liberating to be able to evaluate any part of your [running] program, anytime, [almost] without any preceding ceremony. Even famous Jupyter Notebooks fall short in comparison.

> It is extremely liberating to be able to evaluate any part of your [running] program, anytime, [almost] without any preceding ceremony.

Sounds like Smalltalk.

Re: Why I like Clojure

#154

Post by the2bears »

justinhj wrote: post #137
serpix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clojure: live repl into running code Scala: Clojure: Explore the problem you are facing with quick prototyping in the repl and see the blind spots, the unknowns, the shape of data received from flaky integrations. Mold and shape your functions as the problem becomes clearer. Scala: Best it can do is write unit tests and the debugger to look at what exactly is happening, devise a bunch of classes to handle them, rinse…

I'm sure you're happy with Clojure and I'm not going to try and convince you Scala is better but you have some misconceptions. Firstly Scala does have a couple of REPL's, the best being Ammonite which is mentioned below. It can be embedded in code to provide a live repl just as your Clojure program. I often work in Scala in a similar way to I work in Clojure; creating and testing new types and functions in the repl b…

> Scala is more commonly written in a functional and/or streaming/reactive stle.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. All the Scala I've seen "in the wild" is basically Java with a slightly different syntax. All OO, with the odd high-level function thrown in to prove something I guess.

Re: Why I like Clojure

#155

Post by serpix »

bobbyi_settv wrote: post #108
serpix wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide link as I need one. Ammonite is not it though.

I use jupyter notebook for Scala. I like having the same repl software for multiple languages. The kernel I use (almond) is based on Ammonite, but I believe there are others out there.

Thank you for the jupyter notebook tip though. As I do have a biggish Scala app to maintain any help with it is good. :) Thanks again.
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