Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks

The Best of Both Worlds

While functional programming works incredibly well for some problems, some have modifying state as a fundamental element of the solution. Although it may be possible to create a functional solution to such problems, they are easier to think of in a more traditional manner. In this chapter we’ll stray beyond the pure functional subset of Clojure we looked at previously and see how it helps us create concurrent solutions to such problems.

In day 1 we’ll discuss atoms, the simplest of Clojure’s concurrency-aware mutable datatypes, and show how, in concert with persistent data structures, they allow us to separate identity from state. In day 2 we’ll explore Clojure’s other mutable data structures: agents and software transactional ...