Chapter 13. Datatypes and Protocols
Clojure is built on abstractions: sequences, references, macros, and so forth. However, most of those abstractions are implemented in Java, as classes and interfaces. It is difficult to add new abstractions to the language (for example, a queue data structure) without implementing them in Java.
Clojure 1.2 introduces several new features to make it easier to implement new abstractions directly in Clojure, while still taking full advantage of the performance optimizations in the Java platform. Datatypes and protocols are roughly analogous to Java's classes and interfaces, but they are more flexible.
Note
As of this writing, Clojure 1.2 has not yet been released. Although the concepts will remain the same, there ...
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