Clojure (the first talk) - Rich Hickey at LispNYC (2007)

Discover the fundamentals of Clojure, a Lisp-inspired language that prioritizes functional programming, immutable data structures, and developer productivity, and explore its innovative approaches to concurrency, macro definition, and polymorphism.

Key takeaways

Class is not a fundamental concept in Clojure, but rather a concept from Java.
The language is designed on top of data structures, and the reader creates them.
Clojure is a Lisp, but with a reader that extends the standard Lisp reader.
The language has a strong focus on functional programming, with immutable data structures and lazy evaluation.
Object orientation is not a core concept in Clojure, and in fact, closures and immutable state are preferred over mutable stateful objects.
Concurrency is a key aspect of Clojure, with support for transactional systems and efficient inter-thread communication.
The language has a strong focus on developer productivity, with tools like the REPL and an extensible reader that allows for macro definition.
Clojure can seamlessly interact with Java, and has extensive support for the Java Util collection interface.
Macro definition allows for the creation of domain-specific languages within Clojure.
Functional programming concepts, such as map, filter, and reduce, are fundamental to the language.
Clojure has a unique approach to polymorphism, using runtime polymorphism rather than static dispatch.
Immutable data structures and lazy evaluation make it difficult to write programs that modify state, but rather promote a focus on immutable data.
The language has a strong focus on simplicity and ease of use, with a minimalistic approach to syntax and a focus on minimizing vendor lock-in.

Clojure (the first talk) - Rich Hickey at LispNYC (2007)

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