[seancorfield]

Clojure 1.9: Spec.

Clojure 1.10: datafy/nav + tap> which has spawned a whole new set of tooling for exploring data.

Clojure 1.11: portable math (clojure.math, which also works on ClojureScript).

Clojure 1.12: huge improvements in Java interop.

And, yes, the new CLI and deps.edn, and tools.build to support "builds as programs".

[vaylian]

And we can look forward to Jank https://jank-lang.org/

[pjmlp]

Yes, although if one cares about Jank, they can also use a traditional Common Lisp or Scheme compiler, if compatibility with existing Clojure code isn't a requirement.

[whalesalad]

Things have surely happened and the language has improved, but would you consider any of this to be innovative?

[iLemming]

> would you consider any of this to be innovative?

JS got optional chaining, nullish coalescing, async/await, decorators, pattern matching proposals - all borrowed from other languages. Python got type hints (borrowed), structural pattern matching (borrowed from ML/Haskell), walrus operator. Rust got async/await (borrowed). Go got generics (very late, borrowed from everywhere).

Almost every "feature addition" in any mainstream language since roughly 2010 is a synthesis or import from prior art - usually from ML, Haskell, Lisp, or Smalltalk lineages. Comparatively, there's been quite some good amount of innovation in Clojure-sphere. Anyone who ever tried Hyperfiddle/electric, generated tests based on Specs or Malli, or even used nbb for scripting - knows that.

So let's either apply pressure everywhere equally, or nowhere. What's your point of singling out Clojure? Are you asking for a higher standard being applied because of Clojure's stated philosophy (simplicity and careful design, etc.), or this is a proxy complaint about something else?

[jwr]

Hmm. I'm not sure what you are looking for — myself, I write software that supports my living, and I'm not looking for thrills. What I get with Clojure is new concepts every couple of years or so, thought through and carefully implemented by people much smarter than me, in a way that doesn't break anything. This lets me concentrate on my work and deliver said software that supports my living. And pay the bills.

[waffletower]

Babashka is definitely innovative and useful

[whalesalad]

Agreed, that is huge for the ecosystem. I have a side project actually that has a unified codebase: central library and api server in clj, and the cli client is babashka.