unless things have changed dramatically since earlier this year you can have a mutable cell called an 'atom' if you want. it will almost inevitably be a referen

unless things have changed dramatically since earlier this year you can have a mutable cell called an 'atom' if you want. it will almost inevitably be a reference to an immutable data structure but it behaves just like any other mutable cell, and does not have to be wrapped in a transaction. besides, i think even truly single-assignment languages seem to have a place, just ask those crazy erlang guys ;) the way i read clojure's philosophy around state is: "you can fuck up the concurrency if you want but we're going to make it really hard to do it by mistake".