I'm glad this issue caught my eye. I disagree with this change as well, and I hope it will be reconsidered (see alternative solution below).
I strongly agree with what is already said on the JIRA page by Joseph Smith. What syntaxes will we support? Do we add the latest and greatest from a few years from now as well? *Joseph Smith<http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-899?focusedCommentId=27879&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-27879> : Clojure already has reader syntax for a map. If we support JSON, do we also support ruby map literals? Seems like this addition would only add confusion, imo, given colons are used in keywords and keywords are frequently used in maps - e.g., when de-serializing from XML, or even JSON.* Also, about the point David Nolen makes: *David Nolen<http://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/CLJ-899?focusedCommentId=27880&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-27880>: Clojure is no longer a language hosted only on the JVM. Clojure is also hosted on the CLR, and JavaScript. In particular ClojureScript can't currently easily deal with JSON literals - an extremely common (though problematic) data format. By allowing colon whitespace in map literals - Clojure data structures can effectively become an extensible JSON superset - giving the succinctness of JSON and the expressiveness of XML.* Judging from the 'State of Clojure' survey[1], not a whole lot are using the CLR or JavaScript as Clojure's host. Of course I encourage these "forks", as I would like to qualify them, and I like the balance between Clojure's pureness and practicality (as this is a practicality issue). But, I would not like to see (the original/basic/core?) Clojure to be "polluted" with syntax extensions for the sake of new hosts or currently popular data formats. Again, what do we add and what do we leave out? What (legacy) mess would this create for Clojure say 10-20 years from now? Why should I, as a developer, take syntaxes for formats/hosts I don't work with into account while using basic Clojure? My proposal: keep Clojure clean, and use reader literals for these kind of things. [1] http://cemerick.com/2012/08/06/results-of-the-2012-state-of-clojure-survey/ -- 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
