I've been thinking lately how to seamlessly merge clojure-py and
clojure-jvm code in the same packages. This is something I know has
been discussed in the past, but I'm just looking for
ideas/brainstorming on how we can solve this problem.
Let's begin by explaining the problem. Let's assume that my project
needs a platform specific way to convert a int to a string:
On clojure-jvm:
(defn to-string [i] (.toString Integer i))
On clojure-py:
(defn to-string [i] (py/str i))
On Clojurescript:
(defn to-string [i] (.toString i))
We could do this inline (inside a common .clj file):
(for-platform "jvm"
(defn to-string [i] (.toString Integer i))
"python"
(defn to-string [i] (py/str i))
"js"
(defn to-string [i] (.toString i)))
But this gets ugly real fast.
My idea, would be to provide some sort of hook to the compiler, that
would be cross-platform. The compiler, when looking for a namespace,
would find all files in a given folder that match the required
namespace:
/test/to_string.clj
/test/to_string.cljpy
/test/to_string.cljs
/test/to_string.cljclr
These function hooks would then pick the best entry based on the
extension, defaulting to .clj if no better option exists. Since these
functions could be composable it would be possible to also dispatch on
platform versions:
/test/to_string.cljpy26 ; Python 2.6 code
/test/to_string.clj7 ; JVM 7 code
It seems to me that this would be a very clean way to allow clojure
programs to be cross-platform. The side-effect is that it would force
non-standard code out into separate namespaces where they can be
easily maintained. If someone wanted to port the project to a new
platform, he would need only to find existing platform overrides, and
create new entries.
Thoughts?
Timothy Baldridge
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