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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Languages
  4. Languages
  5. Clojure vs CoffeeScript

Clojure vs CoffeeScript

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Clojure
Clojure
Stacks1.9K
Followers1.4K
Votes1.1K
GitHub Stars10.7K
Forks1.5K
CoffeeScript
CoffeeScript
Stacks3.7K
Followers1.2K
Votes1.0K
GitHub Stars16.6K
Forks2.0K

Clojure vs CoffeeScript: What are the differences?

Clojure: A dynamic programming language that targets the Java Virtual Machine. 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; CoffeeScript: Unfancy JavaScript. CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Underneath that awkward Java-esque patina, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous heart. CoffeeScript is an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way.

Clojure and CoffeeScript belong to "Languages" category of the tech stack.

"It is a lisp", "Concise syntax" and "Persistent data structures" are the key factors why developers consider Clojure; whereas "Easy to read", "Faster to write" and "Syntactic sugar" are the primary reasons why CoffeeScript is favored.

Clojure and CoffeeScript are both open source tools. CoffeeScript with 15.2K GitHub stars and 1.99K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than Clojure with 7.85K GitHub stars and 1.25K GitHub forks.

Code School, Zaarly, and thoughtbot are some of the popular companies that use CoffeeScript, whereas Clojure is used by CircleCI, Groupon, and Soundcloud. CoffeeScript has a broader approval, being mentioned in 364 company stacks & 170 developers stacks; compared to Clojure, which is listed in 95 company stacks and 80 developer stacks.

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Advice on Clojure, CoffeeScript

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
Prakhar
Prakhar

Feb 7, 2022

Needs adviceonJavaJavaJavaScriptJavaScriptKotlinKotlin

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

47.9k views47.9k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Clojure
Clojure
CoffeeScript
CoffeeScript

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.

It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehension and de-structuring assignment.

-
String Interpolation; Statement Modifiers; Callback Handling; Comprehensions; The Fat Arrow; Scoping; Clean JavaScript Output.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
10.7K
GitHub Stars
16.6K
GitHub Forks
1.5K
GitHub Forks
2.0K
Stacks
1.9K
Stacks
3.7K
Followers
1.4K
Followers
1.2K
Votes
1.1K
Votes
1.0K
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
    Tonns of abandonware
  • 3
    Slow application startup
Pros
  • 199
    Easy to read
  • 179
    Faster to write
  • 126
    Syntactic sugar
  • 104
    Elegant
  • 104
    Readable
Cons
  • 3
    No ES6
  • 1
    Corner cases in syntax
  • 1
    Parentheses required in 0-ary function calls
  • 1
    Unclear what will be grouped to {…}
Integrations
Java
Java
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Clojure, CoffeeScript?

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.

Scala

Scala

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.

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.

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