In a recent revelation, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson shared that he nearly built the Cardano blockchain platform using the Clojure programming language. This decision-making process was a pivotal moment in Cardano’s creation, with the choice ultimately favoring Haskell over Clojure.
Key Decision in Programming Language
During an X discussion with Ktorz, Cardano Foundation’s technical director, Hoskinson detailed his early interest in Clojure, a dynamic and functional Lisp dialect. However, he chose Haskell, a statically typed functional programming language, due to its potential for Cloud Haskell and the capabilities of Liquid Haskell and Agda.
Cloud Haskell’s distributed computing framework aligns well with the needs of a blockchain platform. Additionally, Liquid Haskell and Agda provide advanced capabilities for formal verification and ensuring code correctness.
Hoskinso imagines a Cardano built entirely on Clojure, utilizing ClojureScript for client-side development and ClojureSpec for specifications and testing. This route, he muses, could have been an “amazing journey.” He remarked, “Looking back, it would have been an amazing journey to write everything in Cardano using ClojureScript and ClojureSpec.”
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