There has been some debate about this over time in the clojure mailing list. I too regret from time to time the ability to organize my code "top-down" without having to resort to "tricks" (declare).
I had suggested that unknown vars encountered during compilation could just be "automatically declared" by default. The debate has shown that there are at least 2 drawbacks to this approach: * you loose the ability to "catch up" problems at compile time: if you misspelled a var, instead of explicitly reference a yet-to-be-defined var, you're not helped by the compiler anymore. * in some areas, performant clojure code needs type hints to avoid compiling bytecode which uses reflection. "auto-declaration" of yet-to-be-defined vars associated with "seamless compilation" of code using these "auto-declared" vars would automatically lead to suboptimal code where the compiler cannot imply anything for the output ype of the auto-declared var. The generated code would in average use more reflective calls. 2011/2/23 Mikhail Kryshen <mikh...@kryshen.net> > On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:12:50 -0800 (PST) > Jonathan Mitchem <jmitc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hm, I see now. Does Java work like that too? (C# doesn't.) > > No. > > > Are there any plans for this to change in the future? I can work with > > it now, but it makes me uncomfortable. It feels like a step > > backwards. > > > > I fully understand if it was just a feature put on hold, just to get > > the reader/compiler out there. If it was a design decision, then > > that's kind of different. > > This is probably by design. Loading or compiling clojure file implies > evaluating all the forms it contains in order. You can do anything at > compile/load time, not only define things. > > -- > Mikhail > > -- > 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 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
