Hi Sam, In my experience, protocols are a great mechanism for extensibility. Let's say you build an abstraction with a default implementation. If your abstraction is based on protocols, somebody can extend the abstraction to build a different implementation (that possibly integrates with another system). I think the sweet spot of protocols lies in (1) protocols being an implementation detail rather than public API, (2) protocols being used for extensibility.
Shantanu On Tuesday, 22 May 2018 11:19:35 UTC+5:30, Sam Bartolucci wrote: > > Hi, > > I've been an enthusiastic Clojure tinkerer for a few years now--it's a > great language!--but only recently began using it professionally, where > I've stumbled into a strong disagreement over the use of protocols vs. > multimethods for single dispatch polymorphism. I had always assumed that > protocols were a normal part of Clojure when polymorphism was called for, > but a few of my coworkers (often, it seems, those who have experience with > Lisp prior to Clojure) swear up and down that protocols are only to be used > as a last resort because they "break the REPL". Apparently they're frowned > upon because, due to the JVM interop, they don't reload as well as other > constructs. It has even been suggested a few times that all uses of > protocols should be refactored to use a multimethod with a "type" as the > dispatch function. Protocols, in other words, should be considered harmful. > This seems strange to me considering how many successful and mainstream > Clojure projects use protocols, but maybe I am missing something, so I > thought I would ask the list. So what is it? Is there any consensus around > the assertion that "good, idiomatic Clojure will use multimethods rather > than protocols for single-dispatch polymorphism"? > > Thanks, > Sam > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
