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Clojure VS CoffeeScript

Compare Clojure VS CoffeeScript and see what are their differences

Clojure logo Clojure

Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming.

CoffeeScript logo CoffeeScript

Unfancy JavaScript
  • Clojure Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19

We recommend LibHunt Clojure for discovery and comparisons of trending Clojure projects.

  • CoffeeScript Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-31

We recommend LibHunt CoffeeScript for discovery and comparisons of trending CoffeeScript projects.

Clojure features and specs

  • Functional Programming Paradigm
    Clojure emphasizes immutability and first-class functions, which can lead to more predictable and maintainable code.
  • Interoperability with Java
    Clojure runs on the JVM, allowing seamless integration with the vast ecosystem of Java libraries and tools.
  • REPL Driven Development
    Clojure's Read-Eval-Print Loop (REPL) allows for interactive programming, making it easier to test and debug code in real time.
  • Concise Syntax
    Clojure's syntax is minimalistic and expressive, which can lead to more concise and readable code.
  • Concurrency Support
    Clojure provides strong support for concurrent programming with features like Software Transactional Memory (STM) and immutable data structures.

Possible disadvantages of Clojure

  • Steep Learning Curve
    The functional programming paradigm and Lisp-like syntax can be challenging for newcomers, particularly those from imperative programming backgrounds.
  • Performance Overhead
    Clojure's emphasis on immutability can introduce performance overhead compared to languages that use mutable data structures.
  • Limited Tooling
    While improving, the ecosystem for Clojure is not as mature as for some other mainstream languages, which can pose challenges in finding robust development and debugging tools.
  • Less Mainstream
    Clojure is not as commonly used as languages like Python or Java, which can make it harder to find experienced developers or community support.
  • Verbose Error Messages
    Error messages in Clojure can sometimes be verbose and difficult to understand, which can complicate the debugging process.

CoffeeScript features and specs

  • Concise Syntax
    CoffeeScript offers a more concise and readable syntax compared to vanilla JavaScript, making it easier to write and understand code quickly.
  • Less Boilerplate
    Eliminates much of the boilerplate code that is common in JavaScript, such as curly braces and semicolons, leading to cleaner code.
  • Class Syntax
    Provides a simplified syntax for defining classes and inheritance, which can make object-oriented programming more straightforward.
  • Function Binding
    Automatically binds the value of `this` to the current context in functions, reducing the need for workarounds or additional code to manage scope.
  • List Comprehensions
    Offers powerful list comprehension features, allowing developers to create complex arrays and objects more easily.
  • Syntactic Sugar
    Adds syntactic sugar to improve code aesthetics and readability, such as the `fat arrow` for functions and destructuring assignments.
  • Interoperability
    Generates clean and readable JavaScript, which makes it easy to integrate with existing JavaScript codebases and libraries.

Possible disadvantages of CoffeeScript

  • Learning Curve
    Although inspired by JavaScript, CoffeeScript has its own unique syntax and features, requiring developers to learn and adapt to a new way of writing code.
  • Debugging
    Debugging can be challenging because error messages and stack traces often refer to the compiled JavaScript rather than the original CoffeeScript code.
  • Tooling
    Although many modern tools and editors support CoffeeScript, it doesn't have as wide an ecosystem or as many support resources compared to JavaScript.
  • Performance Overhead
    The compilation step introduces a performance overhead in the development workflow, potentially slowing down the build process.
  • Declining Popularity
    With the advent of ES6 and TypeScript, CoffeeScript's popularity has waned, leading to fewer community contributions and less frequent updates.
  • Compatibility
    Certain newer JavaScript features may not be directly supported in CoffeeScript, requiring developers to wait for updates or use workarounds.
  • Maintenance
    Maintaining a CoffeeScript codebase may become increasingly difficult as the language becomes less commonly used, making it harder to find developers proficient in it.

Clojure videos

What is the business value of Clojure?

More videos:

  • Review - Blog in Clojure Code Review
  • Review - Clojure Web App Code Review

CoffeeScript videos

CoffeeScript Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Clojure and CoffeeScript)
Programming Language
83 83%
17% 17
OOP
84 84%
16% 16
Web Scraping
0 0%
100% 100
Generic Programming Language

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Clojure should be more popular than CoffeeScript. It has been mentiond 39 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Clojure mentions (39)

  • Create a Server Driven CLI from your REST API
    Another project of mine Bob can be seen as an example of spec-first design. All its tooling follow that idea and its CLI inspired Climate. A lot of Bob uses Clojure a language that I cherish and who's ideas make me think better in every other place too. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Scheming About Clojure
    Clojure is a LISP for the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). As a schemer, I wondered if I should give Clojure a go professionally. After all, I enjoy Rich Hickey's talks and even Uncle Bob is a Clojure fan. So I considered strength and weaknesses from my point of view:. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Moving your bugs forward in time
    ‍For the rest of this post I’ll list off some more tactical examples of things that you can do towards this goal. Savvy readers will note that these are not novel ideas of my own, and in fact a lot of the things on this list are popular core features in modern languages such as Kotlin, Rust, and Clojure. Kotlin, in particular, has done an amazing job of emphasizing these best practices while still being an... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Let's write a simple microservice in Clojure
    This article will explain how to write a simple service in Clojure. The sweet spot of making applications in Clojure is that you can expressively use an entire rich Java ecosystem. Less code, less boilerplate: it is possible to achieve more with less. In this example, I use most of the libraries from the Java world; everything else is a thin Clojure wrapper around Java libraries. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • A new F# compiler feature: graph-based type-checking
    I have a tangential question that is related to this cool new feature. Warning: the question I ask comes from a part of my brain that is currently melted due to heavy thinking. Context: I write a fair amount of Clojure, and in Lisps the code itself is a tree. Just like this F# parallel graph type-checker. In Lisps, one would use Macros to perform compile-time computation to accomplish something like this, I think.... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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CoffeeScript mentions (25)

  • Ask HN: Why don't browsers just build a non-JS interpreter?
    JS isn't perfect, but it's good enough. And there is ongoing effort to make it even better. Also, many other languages compile to JS (without WASM). Notably: - https://www.typescriptlang.org/ - https://coffeescript.org/ - https://clojurescript.org/ - https://www.transcrypt.org/ I wrote https://multi-launch.leftium.com, which is only 6% JS. The majority is Svelte (65%) + TypeScript (27%). ( - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Vanilla+PostCSS as an Alternative to SCSS
    As a front-end web developer, do you still use CoffeeScript or jQuery? Unlikely, as TypeScript, ES/TC39 and Babel (and the retirement of Internet Explorer thanks to @codepo8 and his EDGE team) have helped to transform JavaScript into some kind of a modern programming language. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Why React isn't dying
    On the other hand, companies choose React because that's where all the developers are. If you want to build something that can be maintained years from now, you better not choose the next hype train that goes straight to nowhere (remember CoffeeScript ?). You want something battle tested that has stood the test of time, where you won't have trouble finding developers to scale once you need to. And nobody ever got... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Civet: The CoffeeScript of TypeScript
    Http://coffeescript.org/#expressions this comes from Lisp and makes a lot of things easier. Obviously this was not implemented in ES6 because it would break compatibility and there is also some problems with implicit returns that made the feature a bit weird I wonder if a syntax like this for JS would work: const eldest = if (24>41) { escape "Liz" } else { escape "Ike" } with "escape" working like a mix of "break"... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Civet: The CoffeeScript of TypeScript
    Coffeescript[1] was a flavour of JS syntax meant to look similar to Ruby syntax. You just compiled it back to JS. It was nice for working on Rails projects since it made everything feel more “cohesive”. I assume this project is here for older Coffeescript[1] projects who want to start using typescript, and need access to interfaces/types that were present in old CS files. [1] https://coffeescript.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Clojure and CoffeeScript, you can also consider the following products

Elixir - Dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications

Octoparse - Octoparse provides easy web scraping for anyone. Our advanced web crawler, allows users to turn web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks.

Python - Python is a clear and powerful object-oriented programming language, comparable to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java.

Diggernaut - Web scraping is just became easy. Extract any website content and turn it into datasets. No programming skills required.

Rust - A safe, concurrent, practical language

JavaScript - Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions