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COBOL vs Clojure: What are the differences?
## Introduction
This comparison will analyze the key differences between COBOL and Clojure, two distinct programming languages used in software development.
1. **Syntax**: COBOL is a procedural language with verbose syntax, relying heavily on English-like words and structure. In contrast, Clojure is a functional language with a concise and expressive syntax, emphasizing immutability and first-class functions.
2. **Paradigm**: COBOL follows a procedural programming paradigm, focusing on sequential code execution and modularity. On the other hand, Clojure follows a functional programming paradigm, emphasizing pure functions, immutability, and data transformation through higher-order functions.
3. **Platform**: COBOL is primarily used in legacy systems, especially in industries like banking and finance, where it has a long history. Meanwhile, Clojure is a modern language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the Common Language Runtime (CLR), attracting developers interested in concurrency and scalability.
4. **Community and Ecosystem**: COBOL has a smaller community and limited resources for modern development practices, which can make it challenging to find support and tools. Clojure, on the other hand, has a vibrant community that actively contributes libraries, frameworks, and documentation, supporting developers in building robust and innovative solutions.
5. **Type System**: COBOL has a static type system with less flexibility in data manipulation and validation, often requiring explicit declarations and conversions. In contrast, Clojure has a dynamic type system that promotes duck typing and polymorphism, allowing for more flexible and concise code.
6. **Concurrency**: Clojure provides built-in support for immutable data structures and software transactional memory, making it well-suited for concurrent programming. COBOL lacks native concurrency features, requiring developers to implement custom solutions for managing parallel tasks effectively.
In Summary, the key differences between COBOL and Clojure lie in their syntax, programming paradigms, platform compatibility, community support, type systems, and concurrency features.
Basically, I am looking for a good language that compiles to Java and JavaScript(and can use their libraries/frameworks). These JVM languages seem good to me, but I have no interest in Android. Which programming language is the best of these? I am looking for one with high money and something functional.
Edit: Kotlin was originally on this list but I removed it since I had no interest in Android
Clojure is a Lisp dialect, so if you like Lisp that's probably the way to go. Scala is more popular and broadly used, and has a larger job market especially for data engineering. Both are functional but Scala is more interoperable with Java libraries, probably a big factor in its popularity. I prefer Scala for a number of reasons, but in terms of jobs Scala is the clear leader.
Scala has more momentum. It is good for back-end programming. The popular big data framework Spark is written in Scala. Spark is a marketable skill.
If you need to program something very dynamic like old school A.I., Clojure is attractive. You would chose Scala if prefer a statically typed language, and Clojure if you prefer a dynamically typed language.
It's not clear exactly what you mean by "high money", you mean financial support to the language, money paid for a job, economic health of the market the language is positioned on?
In any case, it's very hard to give any advice here, since you'd need to provide details on the intended usage, what sector, kind of product/service, team size, potential customer type... Both languages are very general purpose and decently supported, each have its own pros and cons, both are functional as approach, and neither is really mainstream.
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.
Pros of Clojure
- It is a lisp117
- Persistent data structures100
- Concise syntax100
- jvm-based language90
- Concurrency89
- Interactive repl81
- Code is data76
- Open source61
- Lazy data structures61
- Macros57
- Functional49
- Simplistic23
- Immutable by default22
- Excellent collections20
- Fast-growing community19
- Multiple host languages15
- Simple (not easy!)15
- Practical Lisp15
- Because it's really fun to use10
- Addictive10
- Community9
- Web friendly9
- Rapid development9
- It creates Reusable code9
- Minimalist8
- Programmable programming language6
- Java interop6
- Regained interest in programming5
- Compiles to JavaScript4
- Share a lot of code with clojurescript/use on frontend3
- EDN3
- Clojurescript1
Pros of COBOL
- Business Oriented Language2
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Cons of Clojure
- Cryptic stacktraces11
- Need to wrap basically every java lib5
- Toxic community4
- Good code heavily relies on local conventions3
- Tonns of abandonware3
- Slow application startup3
- Usable only with REPL1
- Hiring issues1
- It's a lisp1
- Bad documented libs1
- Macros are overused by devs1
- Tricky profiling1
- IDE with high learning curve1
- Configuration bolierplate1
- Conservative community1
- Have no good and fast fmt0
Cons of COBOL
- Extremely long code for simple functions2
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What is Clojure?
What is COBOL?
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