So I recently decided that I would teach myself Clojure.
The Clojure website has the following description of Clojure:
Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language, yet remains completely dynamic – every feature supported by Clojure is supported at runtime. Clojure provides easy access to the Java frameworks, with optional type hints and type inference, to ensure that calls to Java can avoid reflection.
Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system. Clojure is predominantly a functional programming language, and features a rich set of immutable, persistent data structures. When mutable state is needed, Clojure offers a software transactional memory system and reactive Agent system that ensure clean, correct, multithreaded designs.
From the limited experience I currently have with the language, I have this to say:
- The Clojure logo looks like it was designed in the middle of the dot-com bubble for a company dealing with organic windmills and electric tractors.
- Clojure is difficult to read.
- Clojure is difficult to write.
- Clojure features A LOT of parentheses.
- Clojure makes it difficult to find friends.
So why did I decide to learn Clojure?
Well, the cool guys at work use it, and it's been a while since I learnt a new language. Also, I've started to write more functional JavaScript lately, so now might be the time that I'm most inclined to adopting a functionally oriented language.
I hope to get some actual programming done tomorrow, so stay tuned.