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  5. Clojure vs Haskell vs Scala

Clojure vs Haskell vs Scala

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Clojure
Clojure
Stacks1.9K
Followers1.4K
Votes1.1K
GitHub Stars10.7K
Forks1.5K
Scala
Scala
Stacks11.9K
Followers7.8K
Votes1.5K
GitHub Stars14.4K
Forks3.1K
Haskell
Haskell
Stacks1.4K
Followers1.2K
Votes527

Clojure vs Haskell vs Scala: What are the differences?

Introduction

Clojure, Haskell, and Scala are three popular programming languages that are widely used in the field of functional programming. While all three languages share some common features and concepts, they also have key differences that set them apart from each other. In this Markdown code, we will explore and provide the key differences between Clojure, Haskell, and Scala.

  1. Syntax and Paradigm: Clojure is a dialect of Lisp and follows a Lisp-like syntax. It is primarily a functional programming language but also supports imperative programming. Haskell, on the other hand, is a purely functional programming language that is based on lambda calculus. It has a distinct and strong type system, and its syntax is different from mainstream programming languages. Scala, unlike Clojure and Haskell, is a multi-paradigm language that combines both object-oriented and functional programming. Its syntax is similar to Java and has support for imperative, object-oriented, and functional programming.

  2. Type System: Clojure is a dynamically-typed language which means its type checking is done at runtime. It has a flexible type system that allows programmers to work with a mix of data types. Haskell, in contrast, has a static type system with strong type inference. It ensures type safety at compile-time, which helps in catching errors early. Scala, being a statically-typed language, provides a rich type system with type inference. It supports both static typing and type inference, allowing developers to choose their preferred level of type safety.

  3. Concurrency and Parallelism: Clojure provides built-in support for concurrent programming with its Software Transactional Memory (STM) system. It allows easy and safe coordination of multiple threads and provides constructs like atoms, agents, and refs for managing shared state. Haskell, being a purely functional language, encourages the use of immutable data and supports concurrent programming through lightweight threads and software transactional memory. Scala, being a multi-paradigm language, offers a range of concurrency abstractions including threads, futures, actors, and the Akka toolkit.

  4. Integration with JVM: Clojure is designed to run on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and seamlessly integrates with existing Java libraries and frameworks. It allows interoperability with Java code and makes use of the extensive Java ecosystem. Haskell, on the other hand, has its own compiler and runtime, and can also be compiled to native code. While it can interface with C libraries, it does not have the same level of interoperability with Java as Clojure. Scala, similar to Clojure, is designed to run on the JVM and provides seamless interoperability with Java. It can also make use of existing Java libraries and frameworks.

  5. Tooling and Community Support: Clojure has a vibrant and growing community with a wide range of libraries and tools. It has a well-established build tool called Leiningen and a package manager called Clojars. Haskell, being a mature language, also has a strong community support with a rich ecosystem of libraries and tools. It has a build tool called Cabal and a package manager called Hackage. Scala, being widely adopted in the industry, has a large and active community. It has a build tool called sbt and a package manager called Scala's package index (or sbt's organization).

  6. Learning Curve and Adoption: Clojure has a simpler syntax compared to Haskell and Scala, making it relatively easier to learn for those familiar with Lisp. It is widely used in the industry for its simplicity and ease of integration with existing Java codebases. Haskell, with its unique syntax and strong type system, has a steeper learning curve. It is mainly used in academia and for projects that require strong type safety. Scala, being a multi-paradigm language, has a wider adoption compared to Clojure and Haskell. Its syntax is more familiar to programmers coming from object-oriented languages like Java, which contributes to its popularity in industry.

In Summary, Clojure is a dynamically-typed Lisp dialect with support for both functional and imperative programming. Haskell is a purely functional language with a strong type system and a steep learning curve. Scala is a multi-paradigm language that combines object-oriented and functional programming and has wide industry adoption.

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Advice on Clojure, Scala, Haskell

Timm
Timm

VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH

Nov 10, 2020

Decided

We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.

As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:

Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.

PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.

We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.

Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.

Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.

682k views682k
Comments
Nicholas
Nicholas

Jan 29, 2021

Decided

I am working in the domain of big data and machine learning. I am helping companies with bringing their machine learning models to the production. In many projects there is a tendency to port Python, PySpark code to Scala and Scala Spark.

This yields to longer time to market and a lot of mistakes due to necessity to understand and re-write the code. Also many libraries/apis that data scientists/machine learning practitioners use are not available in jvm ecosystem.

Simply, refactoring (if necessary) and organising the code of the data scientists by following best practices of software development is less error prone and faster comparing to re-write in Scala.

Pipeline orchestration tools such as Luigi/Airflow is python native and fits well to this picture.

I have heard some arguments against Python such as, it is slow, or it is hard to maintain due to its dynamically typed language. However cost/benefit of time consumed porting python code to java/scala alone would be enough as a counter-argument. ML pipelines rarerly contains a lot of code (if that is not the case, such as complex domain and significant amount of code, then scala would be a better fit).

In terms of performance, I did not see any issues with Python. It is not the fastest runtime around but ML applications are rarely time-critical (majority of them is batch based).

I still prefer Scala for developing APIs and for applications where the domain contains complex logic.

198k views198k
Comments
Fronted
Fronted

Nov 23, 2020

Decided

We’re a new startup so we need to be able to deliver quick changes as we find our product market fit. We’ve also got to ensure that we’re moving money safely, and keeping perfect records. The technologies we’ve chosen mix mature but well maintained frameworks like Django, with modern web-first and api-first front ends like GraphQL, NextJS, and Chakra. We use a little Golang sparingly in our backend to ensure that when we interact with financial services, we do so with statically compiled, strongly typed, and strictly limited and reviewed code.

You can read all about it in our linked blog post.

720k views720k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Clojure
Clojure
Scala
Scala
Haskell
Haskell

Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

It is a general purpose language that can be used in any domain and use case, it is ideally suited for proprietary business logic and data analysis, fast prototyping and enhancing existing software environments with correct code, performance and scalability.

--
Statically typed; Purely functional; Type inference; Concurrent
Statistics
GitHub Stars
10.7K
GitHub Stars
14.4K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
1.5K
GitHub Forks
3.1K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
1.9K
Stacks
11.9K
Stacks
1.4K
Followers
1.4K
Followers
7.8K
Followers
1.2K
Votes
1.1K
Votes
1.5K
Votes
527
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 118
    It is a lisp
  • 101
    Concise syntax
  • 100
    Persistent data structures
  • 90
    jvm-based language
  • 89
    Concurrency
Cons
  • 11
    Cryptic stacktraces
  • 5
    Need to wrap basically every java lib
  • 4
    Toxic community
  • 3
    Slow application startup
  • 3
    Good code heavily relies on local conventions
Pros
  • 188
    Static typing
  • 178
    Pattern-matching
  • 175
    Jvm
  • 172
    Scala is fun
  • 138
    Types
Cons
  • 11
    Slow compilation time
  • 7
    Multiple ropes and styles to hang your self
  • 6
    Too few developers available
  • 4
    Complicated subtyping
  • 2
    My coworkers using scala are racist against other stuff
Pros
  • 90
    Purely-functional programming
  • 66
    Statically typed
  • 59
    Type-safe
  • 39
    Open source
  • 38
    Great community
Cons
  • 9
    Too much distraction in language extensions
  • 8
    Error messages can be very confusing
  • 5
    Libraries have poor documentation
  • 3
    No best practices
  • 3
    No good ABI
Integrations
Java
Java
Java
Java
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Clojure, Scala, Haskell?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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