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A history of Clojure

Author:

Rich HickeyAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, Volume 4, Issue HOPL

Article No.: 71, Pages 1 - 46

https://doi.org/10.1145/3386321

Published: 12 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Clojure was designed to be a general-purpose, practical functional language, suitable for use by professionals wherever its host language, e.g., Java, would be. Initially designed in 2005 and released in 2007, Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, but is not a direct descendant of any prior Lisp. It complements programming with pure functions of immutable data with concurrency-safe state management constructs that support writing correct multithreaded programs without the complexity of mutex locks.

Clojure is intentionally hosted, in that it compiles to and runs on the runtime of another language, such as the JVM. This is more than an implementation strategy; numerous features ensure that programs written in Clojure can leverage and interoperate with the libraries of the host language directly and efficiently.

In spite of combining two (at the time) rather unpopular ideas, functional programming and Lisp, Clojure has since seen adoption in industries as diverse as finance, climate science, retail, databases, analytics, publishing, healthcare, advertising and genomics, and by consultancies and startups worldwide, much to the career-altering surprise of its author.

Most of the ideas in Clojure were not novel, but their combination puts Clojure in a unique spot in language design (functional, hosted, Lisp). This paper recounts the motivation behind the initial development of Clojure and the rationale for various design decisions and language constructs. It then covers its evolution subsequent to release and adoption.

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Cited By

Dudson BKryjak MMuhammed HHill POmotani J(2024)Hermes-3: Multi-component plasma simulations with BOUT++Computer Physics Communications10.1016/j.cpc.2023.108991296(108991)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2023.108991
Karlsson SHughes JJongeling RČaušević ASundmark D(2024)Exploring API behaviours through generated examplesSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-024-09668-232:2(729-763)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-024-09668-2
Egri-Nagy ATörmänen A(2023)The cost of passing - using deep learning AIs to expand our understanding of the ancient game of GoInternational Journal of Networking and Computing10.15803/ijnc.13.2_25813:2(258-272)Online publication date: 2023
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Index Terms

A history of Clojure
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. History of computing
      1. History of programming languages
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages Volume 4, Issue HOPL

June 2020

1524 pages

EISSN:2475-1421

DOI:10.1145/3406494

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2020 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Publication History

Published: 12 June 2020

Published in PACMPL Volume 4, Issue HOPL

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Cited By

Dudson BKryjak MMuhammed HHill POmotani J(2024)Hermes-3: Multi-component plasma simulations with BOUT++Computer Physics Communications10.1016/j.cpc.2023.108991296(108991)Online publication date: Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2023.108991
Karlsson SHughes JJongeling RČaušević ASundmark D(2024)Exploring API behaviours through generated examplesSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-024-09668-232:2(729-763)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-024-09668-2
Egri-Nagy ATörmänen A(2023)The cost of passing - using deep learning AIs to expand our understanding of the ancient game of GoInternational Journal of Networking and Computing10.15803/ijnc.13.2_25813:2(258-272)Online publication date: 2023
https://doi.org/10.15803/ijnc.13.2_258
Kavalar MMarkovics PRusher J(2023)Clerk: Moldable Live Programming for ClojureCompanion Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on the Art, Science, and Engineering of Programming10.1145/3594671.3594682(22-31)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
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Modrzyk N(2023)ClojureEncyclopedia of Big Data Technologies10.1007/978-3-319-63962-8_302-2(1-12)Online publication date: 5-May-2023
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Patterson DMushtak NWagner AAhmed AJhala RDillig I(2022)Semantic soundness for language interoperabilityProceedings of the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3519939.3523703(609-624)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
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Ciccozzi FAddazi LAsadollah SLisper BMasud AMubeen S(2022)A Comprehensive Exploration of Languages for Parallel ComputingACM Computing Surveys10.1145/348500855:2(1-39)Online publication date: 18-Jan-2022
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Egri-Nagy ATormanen A(2022)The cost of passing – using deep learning AIs to expand our understanding of the ancient game of Go2022 Tenth International Symposium on Computing and Networking (CANDAR)10.1109/CANDAR57322.2022.00019(90-96)Online publication date: Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/CANDAR57322.2022.00019
Hamers RHorlings EJongmans S(2022)The Discourje project: run-time verification of communication protocols in ClojureInternational Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT)10.1007/s10009-022-00674-y24:5(757-782)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2022
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Torosyan SZeppieri JFlatt MGuha A(2021)Runtime and compiler support for HAMTsProceedings of the 17th ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Dynamic Languages10.1145/3486602.3486931(48-59)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2021
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