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He's not bashing on Clojure, he just states that it does not introduce many new concepts. And I would agree. Clojure does not really introduce anything new -- i

by tumult 17y ago

He's not bashing on Clojure, he just states that it does not introduce many new concepts. And I would agree. Clojure does not really introduce anything new -- it bundles a bunch of existing stuff together into a more readily usable, cohesive platform. Clojure is interesting to look at for how it practically implements things, not how it introduces entirely new concepts. (to be clear, I'm not saying this out of defense of Ruby, which I don't have much experience with personally)

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
Well i'm sorry if that wasn't clear in the first place , but i actually agree with matz. I don't intend to bash on ruby either, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077664 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077664 for a more clear (i think) expression of what i meant
dkersten 17y ago
Agreed. Nothing in Clojure is new - its all been done before. Its the combination of features that make it interesting. Having said that, I don't think Ruby has anything new either and I find Ruby interesting for the exact same reasons that I find Clojure interesting: its combination of features.
JulianMorrison 17y ago
I think Clojure "agents" might be new.
- jerf 17y ago
  What specifically about them do you think is new? I don't know Clojure so I can't judge it, but the idea of "agents" goes back decades, and languages such as Erlang that have been around for a long time have implemented various versions fairly well. Perhaps there is something new, but the space is fairly well covered by lesser-known-but-usable languages, if unheard of in the mainstream. (I use that phrase to draw a distinction against purely academic languages; implementing things there hardly counts.)
  - JulianMorrison 17y ago
    Well, message passing actors have their own theory and calculus (based on particle physics, actually), and there have been "agents" in the form of interprocess mobile code, but the idea of pure functions as messages and the recipient (the so called "agent") being just a dynamically typed blob of data with an associated thread and possible associated watchers - that's new. I don't think it has a theory, yet.

by tumult 17y ago

Raphael_Amiard 17y ago

Well i'm sorry if that wasn't clear in the first place , but i actually agree with matz. I don't intend to bash on ruby either, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077664 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1077664 for a more clear (i think) expression of what i meant

dkersten 17y ago

Agreed. Nothing in Clojure is new - its all been done before. Its the combination of features that make it interesting. Having said that, I don't think Ruby has anything new either and I find Ruby interesting for the exact same reasons that I find Clojure interesting: its combination of features.

JulianMorrison 17y ago

I think Clojure "agents" might be new.

jerf 17y ago
What specifically about them do you think is new? I don't know Clojure so I can't judge it, but the idea of "agents" goes back decades, and languages such as Erlang that have been around for a long time have implemented various versions fairly well. Perhaps there is something new, but the space is fairly well covered by lesser-known-but-usable languages, if unheard of in the mainstream. (I use that phrase to draw a distinction against purely academic languages; implementing things there hardly counts.)
- JulianMorrison 17y ago
  Well, message passing actors have their own theory and calculus (based on particle physics, actually), and there have been "agents" in the form of interprocess mobile code, but the idea of pure functions as messages and the recipient (the so called "agent") being just a dynamically typed blob of data with an associated thread and possible associated watchers - that's new. I don't think it has a theory, yet.