It depends. You implement a protocol while defining a record or type, so called inlined implementation, then it's the same as a Java class with a implemented in

It depends. You implement a protocol while defining a record or type, so called inlined implementation, then it's the same as a Java class with a implemented interface. Clojure allows extending protocolls outside a record/type definition though. This allows you to extend protocolls to classes/types you haven't declared, like Clojure map. I'm uncertain how that is implemented though.