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Clojure isn't a minor variation on earlier Lisps, it's something that uses s-expressions with a significantly different set of default data structures, core lib
by prospero 11y ago
Clojure isn't a minor variation on earlier Lisps, it's something that uses s-expressions with a significantly different set of default data structures, core library functions, and platforms.
This is like asking why we needed C when we already had ALGOL.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoFirst point is true. Second point isn't: BCPL was created solely because they couldn't build an improved ALGOL (CDL) on a 1950's computer. Took out every good feature the hunk of junk couldn't compile. C was modified BCPL/B to do that on a PDP-11 w/ UNIX a watered-down MULTICS for same reason. A comparison would be LISP 1.x vs modern Scheme or Common LISP. And only using LISP 1.x because you had to work with a microcontroller instead of a PC. ;)
- prospero 11y agoMy point was that treating a language as just a few implementation details atop its syntactic heritage is overly reductive (as you demonstrated).