> > I don't know who is the outlier. The point is that Scala, for instance, > has explicit support to hide the distinction between accessing a value > and computing a value. The point is to support the uniform access > principle. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_access_principle >
In one sense, accessing data and calling functions uniform: keyword lookups are just function calls themselves. In another sense, lookup by keyword requires implementing ILookup etc rather than changing a simple function. If you take the stance that the data is your API (and you should), then it makes sense that switching from a keyword lookup to a function call is a breaking change! It shouldn't be easy to rip the data-rug out from under your callers. At least it *is* possible, depending on how far you're willing to go down the Clojure interfaces rabbit hole. Of course, this equation changes even more in favor of Clojure's keywords approach if your client lives across the network. That said, if you're not sure if you want to make the data your API, you can reserve the right to change your mind later quite easily. Let's say you have (ns user) and want to create a username function: (def username :username) ; tada! Yes, this requires some foresight. Back in my C# days, the guidance was "always make everything a property". That was especially important if you cared about binary compatibility, since changing from a readonly field to a getter was a breaking ABI change. But you know what, over quite a few major and minor releases of our widely used APIs, I don't recall ever once changing from a trivial `return foo` getter to more complex getter logic. The expectation that a getter is a simple data read was always a core part of the public interface. -- 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.
