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0 pointsmahmud16y ago0 comments

This was posted here yesterday:

http://www.brool.com/index.php/snippet-automatic-proxy-creat...

A neat hack to get something working quickly, but very unlispy. I can't even make sense of the AUTO-PROXY macro. A syntax barf mixed with a gratuitous breaking of LET. Also note that Rich Hickey decided to use the proxy design pattern to interop with Java, instead of doing all business with Java through FFIs; in a sense, Clojure's type system is embedded in Java.

http://clojure.org/java_interop#toc25

This is a minor aesthetic nitpick from a concerned Lisper, mostly for selfish reasons. My thinking goes: "Today I have Common Lisp for my projects and I am happy with it. But tomorrow if I need Clojure, I hope to find it in a sane, Lispy world. I don't want to learn Java so please don't make me" ;-)

For a far more alarmist polemic, albeit a satirical one, see this:

http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2009-08-19-011225_clojure_...

0 comments

prospero16y ago

I don't think you understand Clojure as well as you think you do. Java libraries often expect interfaces to be passed in as a parameter, and Clojure proxies are just a way of generating anonymous interfaces. This is not the de facto method for Java interop, it's just a simple means of creating the IFactoryFactory behemoths that Java tends to expect. It's practical, clean, and useful. I honestly don't understand what the nature of your objection is.

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