> We're not going to add def-. There is regret over even adding defn-, but we don't take things away...
Well, that's not really necessary. Why not just mark it deprecated and keep it around forever. That's the Java approach and I think it's pretty reasonable and close to what you aim for. Nothing really gets broken, but you get to nudge people away from using certain problematic APIs. That would also wrap once and for all recurring discussions like this one. I think Clojure's principle of ensuring backwards compatibility is awesome, but I also think there's little harm in deprecating things from time to time. This sends a very strong message to users about the preferred ways of writing in Clojure. On 28 February 2018 at 05:33, Alex Miller <a...@puredanger.com> wrote: > > On Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 1:13:52 PM UTC-6, Leon Grapenthin wrote: >> >> I'm sure you'd all use def- if it existed. Even if you could just type >> the much simplified ^:private, use an editor snippet, refer your own macro, >> or create a whole new namespace for it. You'd do none of that. You'd >> totally fall for the trap and type def-, the syntactic aid that should not >> be there. >> > > I'm sure I would. But I don't need it. If it was there, we'd be having the > same discussion about defmacro- or defmulti- or whatever. There has to be a > line somewhere, we drew before def-. > > >> There is "regret over even adding defn-"? You used defn- just recently in >> the tools.deps.alpha core namespace 9 times. Rich used it in clojure.spec >> core namespace 46 times. :))) >> > > Sure, it's there. But if it wasn't, I'd use ^:private and never worry > about it. > > >> Jokes aside, if Rich simply doesn't want it that's fine of course - it's >> his language. However if people ask me again I will just say that instead. >> Believe it or not, I got this question three times last year and the "copy >> N things" argument failed 3/3. >> > > Why even make the argument? If you want def- in your code, then add it. > It's a Lisp - we can all have the language we want. > > The impl ns pattern recommended by Timothy is truly a very good one that I >> apply a lot myself, especially in larger projects and when "private" macro >> helpers are involved (and probably the only solid workaround recommended >> here because it has value in itself). >> > > I use this one as well (I haven't doc'ed it all yet because I'm still > fighting with autodoc) but I consider parts of tools.deps.alpha public and > parts to be "impl". > > >> How much do I def things? - I haven't done the computation but I'm pretty >> sure that I def more things ^:private than I def things public. Little >> lookup tables etc.. Also I'd argue that def is the second most used top >> level form after defn. If not, the ones that come before don't have >> ^:private semantics. Well, if there was any chance for def- left I'd do a >> statistic over available codebases - let me know. >> > > Here's a quick and dirty stat based on the set of ~375 projects I have at > hand: > > [~/code]$ ack -c -h --clojure "\(defn- " */src > 5106 > [~/code]$ ack -c -h --clojure "\(defn " */src > 14344 > [~/code]$ ack -c -h --clojure "\(def " */src > 3924 > [~/code]$ ack -c -h --clojure "\(def \^:private" */src > 559 # note this is a subset of prior, first pair are > disjoint > > defn is 5x more common than def. About 14% of def's are private and 26% of > defns are private. On average I have <2 private defs per project. That > doesn't do much to convince me it's a priority. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with > your first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Clojure" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
