Ep 041: Why Do Clojurians Make Such a Big Deal About Immutability?

Functional Design in Clojure

Content provided by Christoph Neumann and Nate Jones, Christoph Neumann, and Nate Jones. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Christoph Neumann and Nate Jones, Christoph Neumann, and Nate Jones or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.

6y ago 27:11

MP3•Episode home

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to [email protected], or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "Why do Clojurians make such a big deal about immutability?" We cover several practical side effects of immutability and why we've become such big fans of data that doesn't let us down.

Selected quotes:

"Well, we don't have Monads to talk about."
"What good is a program, if you can't change stuff!?"
"The memory cost of data structures is in proportion to the changes, not the users."
"I can hang on to a reference to the old state and a reference to the new state very cheaply."
"You can reduce comparison to referential equality."
"Once you can efficiently save every version of the state, going back to a previous version is no big deal."
"I love determinism. Determinism is trustable."
"I can trust immutable data. And if I can trust it, then it can occupy a smaller part of my brain."

Related episodes:

118 episodes

#Prog Languages #Software #Design #Functional #Clojure #Immutable #Geek #Development #Nate #Jones #Neumann #Christoph Neumann and Nate Jones #Christoph Neumann #Nate Jones #Tech #Nerds #Christopher