4 ms·

Typed Clojure is still a thing and I think Ambrose is still working on it, but I don't think anyone actually uses it in practice. A few companies tried it and t

• klibertp 3y ago
  Hmm, that's sad. I guess the difference with Typed Racket is that the Racket devs and researchers behind it were all completely sold on the idea from day one, which resulted in a quick progress in annotating the whole of the stdlib. Without that, you'd need to annotate everything you require (import) yourself, which would be a massive pain. Another difference might be the module system of Racket, which is pretty unique. IIRC Clojure modules are just namespaces, similar to CL, right? In Racket, the module system along with the extensive support for contracts, allowed TR to be much more strict with types, while still interfacing well with untyped code. In effect, Racket as a whole is gradually typed, but within the bounds of TR modules there's a sound, fully static type system. It's a shame. I thought Clojure, as the only Lisp currently used in the industry, would benefit from the great work of Racket folks the most. After all, static typing in your pet project is much less important (or even desirable) than in a production-quality software made by a team of devs under time constraints. It's strange to see JavaScript and Python getting (widely used) gradual type systems before Clojure when the foundational work on gradual type systems was done in Lisps (Scheme and Racket).