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The way I usually read Clojure, (1 2 3)
isn't the printed representation of a list. It's just the printed representation of a sequence, which could be a list, a lazy seq, or others.I'm not a Clojure expert, but when I use it, it looks like everything that responds to seq? prints in brackets. And so I tend to think of a seq as the fundamental, most important data structure in the language, and think of a list of just one kind of seq. And following from that, the seq? predicate is fundamental and returns true for everything that prints like a seq - which includes lists. So maybe this seq primacy means it would be more accurate to call Clojure "Lisp like" or "a Lisp descendant" rather than "a Lisp"? I'm not sure. I like Clojure, I like CL, and I tend to use and enjoy them both without worrying too much about taxonomy. Having said that, it's totally fair and important to ask the questions you asked! For me, though, the answers to those questions don't make me like or dislike Clojure or CL more or less relative to each other. They're both fun and useful, and I'm glad they both exist. :) |
That isn't a complaint about Clojure at all, Clojure is a really cool language and does some things better than Lisp, but it's just not a Lisp, it's a Clojure. It borrows some syntax from Lisp in the same way that Java borrows some syntax from C, and it makes about as much sense to refer to Clojure as Lisp as it does to call Java C.
If you want to say that Clojure uses sexprs for source representation, say that; if you want to say that Clojure has dynamic typing and lexical closures (the latter of which most Lisps have not had), say that. Calling it "Lisp" to mean whatever handful of features that you personally think are the defining elements of Lisp doesn't aid clear discussion.