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And Hy does the same thing but with Python.

I think, though, that the things that Clojure gets right go way beyond just the JVM, though. Clojure's approach to nil punning, for example, is really well thought out.



"nil punning" has been a feature in Lisp since the earliest days, but as far as I know it's only called "nil punning" in the Clojure community.

I don't have anything against Clojure (well, I'm a little negative on the JVM), but I personally don't see any reason to move to it from Common Lisp.

On the other hand, I'd miss CLOS, and I feel like CL has a better/more consistent design. Something about Clojure always feels like they're "winging it".


nil punning?


Eric Normand explains it better than I could: https://lispcast.com/nil-punning/

In a nutshell, nil punning is a thing in lisps (and some other languages) where the null value can have different meanings in different contexts. It's comparable to Python's concept of "truthiness" and "falsiness", but more so.


Oh that, yeah that's what I'm used to from Common Lisp as well.




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