Clojure is a versatile, user-friendly and dependable programming language that can be used for a variety of applications. Its coding style enables developers to build code in a natural way, improving their productivity.
Clojure is a widely-used dynamic programming language that has seen increasing adoption by developers and businesses in recent years. Major companies such as Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Netflix have incorporated Clojure into their infrastructures. The 2023 Stack Overflow Developer Survey revealed it as the second most favored language among developers.
When might your organisation consider using Clojure? What has been driving its recent popularity? To assist you in deciding whether it is the best programming language for your business, I will outline its primary advantages.
Using Clojure and Its Benefits
Experimenting and Expanding on It Is Simple
Clojure is a Lisp language, so it is intuitive to use and makes heavy use of brackets. As an example, the following code demonstrates how to add two integers in Clojure.
Clojure is a wonderful language to learn and grow in since much of the code written in it is an extension of this basic building block.
Clojure’s Read-Eval-Print Loop (REPL) is an interactive environment which allows for the evaluation and printing of basic expressions. By enabling the reuse and extension of prior declarations, REPL provides a command line or shell that allows Clojure programmers to construct their code organically.
Macros are a powerful tool in Clojure, allowing programmers to extend the language’s capabilities by creating new structures that would otherwise not be available. Macros are widely utilised in the development of Clojure’s core capabilities.
When providing Clojure with an if statement, a macro may omit the else clause and instead provide a single block of code to be executed should the condition be satisfied. This is known as the definition of it.
So, we’re basically using Clojure to extend Clojure. This facilitates regular updates and maintenance of the language.
Furthermore, developers are afforded the flexibility to modify Clojure’s core functionality to better align with their requirements. As with other Lisp-based languages, Clojure is commonly employed for the development of Domain Specific Languages (DSLs).
Designed for Multitasking
It takes more time and effort to design and test multi-threaded programs because of their complexity.
Clojure was designed with concurrency as a fundamental consideration, making it possible to leverage a range of resources for accelerating and enhancing the development of concurrent applications.
Clojure’s immutable data structures enable practical usage of immutability. This means that Clojure objects are unchangeable; instead of altering an existing object, a new one needs to be created with the updated data.
Clojure offers Software Transactional Memory (STM), which makes use of transactional references to ensure thread-level reliability of variables. STM will identify all transactions related to the objects in question, and generally resolves conflicts based on priority. Compared to lock-based programming, this approach is much simpler to work with.
Implementing a lock system can increase the likelihood of errors being made by the development team. In addition, lock systems operate on a first-come, first-serve basis, making it difficult to recreate and debug any issues that may arise.
Asynchronous application development libraries, such as core.async, are also developed and made available by the Clojure team.
It’s Compatible with Java
Clojure has been designed to be compatible with the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), enabling it to utilize Java libraries and frameworks. This broadens the scope of what can be achieved with both Java and Clojure, offering more potential than ever before.
Java is a widely-used language, especially in larger organizations. By selecting a language that is compatible with Java, organizations have the opportunity to integrate their products with the existing platforms of other companies.
Clojure and Java both support the string “Hello World!”. This provides the opportunity to send this string to Java methods. To give an example of what our Clojure code may look like when written in Java, consider the following.
Java classes may be manipulated by code written in Clojure and vice versa. Let’s put all of our users and IDs into a HashMap
To reduce code verbosity, you may also import the required classes if you anticipate using that class often.
Interoperability offers increased flexibility when designing applications, allowing developers to benefit from the combination of a dynamic language and an object-oriented language, with a wealth of libraries and frameworks available.
The Fourth Law of Computing: “Write Once, Run Anywhere”
Given that Clojure is a JVM language, it is compatible with the wide variety of systems and platforms it was designed to work with.
Clojure offers greater flexibility than other languages, making it suitable for a wide range of tasks. It additionally features a JavaScript compiler and native implementation for .NET, further increasing its utility.
Developers looking for a language to construct both the front-end and back-end of web applications may find ClojureScript of particular interest. It is possible to write the backend of an app in pure Clojure and then convert some of that code into JavaScript to be used in the front-end, allowing for the same algorithms and logic to be utilised.
At the time of this writing, statistics on GitHub suggest that Clojure and JavaScript are used together more often than Clojure and Java themselves.
Conclusion
Clojure may be the language for you if you’re seeking for a simple-to-learn option that has many uses in the creation of solutions and apps.
Works can provide assistance in sourcing the most suitable Clojure developers to meet your company’s culture and development needs.
