In particular, I've been playing with Clojure and enjoying that. It's still a Lisp, so it has a lot of the advantages that Arc has. In addition, it has some cool unique features and almost certainly has more comprehensive libraries thanks to being able to use Java libraries. What advantages does Arc have over Clojure?
I'm not trying to be mean to Arc lovers and call it a useless language. I genuinely want an excuse to give Arc a try.
It has nothing to do with Oracle's Java and vice versa.
If that doesn't seem like much of an advantage to you, you're probably right, and it isn't, and godspeed. There is no pressing need to learn Arc today. (I haven't yet, myself, though not for lack of ambition.) Arc will still be there, still unconnected to anything Java, in five years; we'll see how it feels then.
Almost unrelatedly, any idea if there's a strong push for a more current, well-maintained .NET/mono version of Clojure, now that the JVM is going down in flames?
clojure is trying to bootstrap it self to be able to be on many platforms but for that we need
1. the proper primitives to make it possible (done in 1.2)
2. match java speed (working on it primitive types ...)
3. rewrite the data structures and compiler in clojure
Thats the plan to let clojure fly.
As for CLR the implementation is pretty good and there is a binary but there wont be a strong push.
Btw. i do not belive that the jvm is going down in flames. Thats typical trollhyping.
Comments
Why would I use Arc?
In particular, I've been playing with Clojure and enjoying that. It's still a Lisp, so it has a lot of the advantages that Arc has. In addition, it has some cool unique features and almost certainly has more comprehensive libraries thanks to being able to use Java libraries. What advantages does Arc have over Clojure?
I'm not trying to be mean to Arc lovers and call it a useless language. I genuinely want an excuse to give Arc a try.
What advantages does Arc have over Clojure?
It has nothing to do with Oracle's Java and vice versa.
If that doesn't seem like much of an advantage to you, you're probably right, and it isn't, and godspeed. There is no pressing need to learn Arc today. (I haven't yet, myself, though not for lack of ambition.) Arc will still be there, still unconnected to anything Java, in five years; we'll see how it feels then.
Almost unrelatedly, any idea if there's a strong push for a more current, well-maintained .NET/mono version of Clojure, now that the JVM is going down in flames?
Yes, ClojureCLR. It is supposed to work on Mono as well.
clojure is trying to bootstrap it self to be able to be on many platforms but for that we need 1. the proper primitives to make it possible (done in 1.2) 2. match java speed (working on it primitive types ...) 3. rewrite the data structures and compiler in clojure
Thats the plan to let clojure fly.
As for CLR the implementation is pretty good and there is a binary but there wont be a strong push.
Btw. i do not belive that the jvm is going down in flames. Thats typical trollhyping.
I know that they aren't even close in terms of source code compatibility but if you're looking for a functional language on the CLR, give F# a try.