Tour of our 250k line Clojure codebase

Re:Tour of our 250k line Clojure codebase by weavejester on Friday June 04, 2021 @12:24AM (#27390530)

"The sequence of statements in the (let) block is imperative."

The println in the example is imperative, as it has side-effects, but a let block having an ordering of bindings is not inherently imperative. You can replace any let block with a set of nested functions:

   (let [foo 12
         bar (+ foo 100)]
     [foo bar])

   ((fn [foo]
      ((fn [bar]
         [foo bar])
       (+ foo 100)))
    12)

Sequential ordering of 'statements' is not automatically imperative. On the other hand, atoms are imperative, as they are mutable and therefore side-effectful.

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Re:Tour of our 250k line Clojure codebase by davidrupp on Friday June 04, 2021 @10:33AM (#27394007)

Hmm. I usually think of "imperative" as "as opposed to declarative", and sequential ordering is one of its hallmarks in that context. And for Clojure atoms specifically I think of "functional" as in Okasaki's "purely functional data structures".

Language is hard.

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