6 ms·
Lets you target the JVM without writing Java, among other things.
by tdfx 15y ago
Lets you target the JVM without writing Java, among other things.
- rglullis 15y agocough http://www.jython.org/ http://www.jython.org/ cough
- tdfx 15y agoThis occurred to me after I finished writing that post.
- skylan_q 15y agoYea... I'm still confused as to the whole point of pure/near-pure functional programming if we're not getting better code density/more productivity against other languages which I (and some others) find easier to work with. I guess all I'm saying is "convince me!" :) I'm all ears.
- rayiner 15y agoI mean the answer is that the Python example is nearly purely functional to begin with. It uses list comprehensions heavily and I couldn't find any mutating assignments in a quick glance of the code. Which is not surprising, since it was written by Peter Norvig, who wrote a very popular Lisp book. I think what Clojure can offer on top of that is macros, the advantages of which are really only evident on bigger or harder problems.
- jkkramer 15y agoIn short: FP makes programs easier to reason about and understand by using trustworthy abstractions. Here are some resources to check out, which explain better than I could: Why Functional Programming Matters: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/courses/cs345/whyfp.pdf http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/courses/cs345/whyfp.pdf Out of the Tar Pit: http://web.mac.com/ben_moseley/frp/paper-v1_01.pdf http://web.mac.com/ben_moseley/frp/paper-v1_01.pdf Simple Made Easy: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
- icandoitbetter 15y agoYou actually get better code density with Clojure, for large enough programs. And a WAY better code density when you try to do multithreading.
- omlette 15y agowhat converted me was having to do highly stateful, real time statistical models. you have data coming in from multiple sources and you have to do lots of computation on them. if you don't have persistent data structures then it becomes so easy for the program to use data from the future or excised noise and your results will just be completely wrong and it's very hard to find the source of error. if youve never done FP, then it does feel really weird. but once you are used to it, so many things become much easier.
- spacemanaki 15y agoThe big differences between Clojure and Python are probably twofold: it's a Lisp, and it focuses on getting concurrency right. We've had Lisps for a while, and Python only really lacks Lisp macros, so let's think about the concurrency stuff... Clojure's design goals combine some deep ideas about identity, state and time together and includes data structures and a concurrency API that supports these goals. It's going to be hard for anyone to just convince you in a comment like this, and even if they could, I'm not the one to do it as I'm a Clojure noob. You should read this essay http://clojure.org/state http://clojure.org/state and watch this talk http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hickey http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Are-We-There-Yet-Rich-Hic.... I think you will find that Clojure is pretty interesting, even if you don't start using it right away. I apologize for just throwing you links, but I can't do it justice, and Rich Hickey is a great lecturer, so you'll get more from his stuff.
- dkersten 15y agogetting better code density/more productivity Its not so much about brevity or productivity as it is about correctness. Functional programming and immutable data makes it easier to reason about code and to prevent bugs/errors, especially in the context of concurrent/multicore code.
- moonboots 15y agoUnfortunately, Jython is at 2.5.2, 3.5 years behind cpython.
- rglullis 15y agoThat is certainly a problem. But there are very few language constructs in Python >= 2.6 that are missing in Python 2.5, and the really missing features (e.g, multiprocessing module) have better alternatives in the JVM, or are redundant. You lose some portability, but Jython 2.5 doesn't seem to be that limited in capabilities. Anyways, YMMV. All I got to do once was set my Django application to run on Jython, and that was relatively painless.
- bretthoerner 15y agoWhile I'd agree Python 2.5 to 2.7 doesn't bring a swath of language features with it... it's a good sign of Jython's slowing/sluggish growth/development. Personally, I want to use a language implementation that will be around and (well!) supported for many years.
- vorg 15y agoNone of you three mentioned Python 3.0 to 3.2.
- bretthoerner 15y agoThat's because they don't matter to anyone.
- vorg 15y agoIt seems common that people don't upgrade to a breaking version of a programming language based on name or distro channel alone. Hence the slow uptake of Python 3 and Perl 6.
- Luyt 15y agoHow does Clojure's Java interop compare to Jython's?
- omlette 15y agoclojure's interop is perfect and i have never had any problems. if the library is bad then you can just wrap it in clojure and put a custom api on top of theirs but ive only had to do that once and it was a groovy library.
- lucian1900 15y agoIn some ways it's nicer (clojure fns are java Callables), in some ways it's less nice (harder to extend a class).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]