E87 ClojureDart with Christophe Grand and Baptiste Dupuch
Jan 18, 2023
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Christophe Grand, a prominent figure in the Clojure community, and Baptiste Dupuch, a mobile development expert, discuss the innovative ClojureDart project. They dive into building interoperability for mobile applications and the challenges of integrating Clojure with Dart for UI development using Flutter. The duo shares insights from a successful workshop in Paris, emphasizing community engagement and the exciting user-friendly advantages of Flutter over traditional methods. They also outline goals for enhancing ClojureDart documentation and user adoption through future workshops.
The development of ClojureDart focuses on creating an interoperability layer that integrates Dart's features while maintaining Clojure's core principles.
ClojureDart enhances UI development with Dart's hot reload feature and encourages community involvement through workshops and documentation efforts.
Deep dives
Development and Interoperability
The initial focus of Closure Dart development was on creating a seamless interoperability layer, which is crucial for leveraging existing platform features. This was achieved by ensuring that Closure Dart could effectively integrate with Dart’s strong typing and runtime behavior. The development team first prioritized getting interop functionality operational, leading to successful execution of interop-based programs. This foundational work enables Closure Dart to reach into the Dart ecosystem while maintaining the core principles that define Clojure.
UI Development Enhancements
Closure Dart facilitates an efficient UI development process by utilizing Dart's hot reload feature, which significantly enhances developer experience. It allows developers to see real-time changes when writing code, thus improving productivity and workflow. The project includes libraries that reduce verbosity, allowing for cleaner, more concise code compared to standard Dart implementations. Furthermore, developers can leverage macros and utility functions to streamline their UI code, making it easier to write Flutter applications using Clojure syntactical paradigms.
Future Directions and Community Engagement
Looking ahead, the development team aims to expand Closure Dart's user base and app deployment in the market. They emphasize the importance of robust documentation and community workshops to educate developers about the potential of using Closure Dart for mobile app development. There are also plans to address features currently absent, such as multi-method support and REPL capabilities, which would enhance usability. The team encourages community involvement, whether through documentation, code contributions, or simply by utilizing the platform and sharing experiences.