Clojure is designed to make your data accessible generically without
getters/setters or other custom APIs so I would encourage direct access via
keywords over accessor fns.
One consequence of this is that fns using a data structure have a direct
coupling to the structure of the data. I prefer to see this as (usually) a
feature. Accessor functions allow you to create a point of indirection and
I have used that occasionally in very narrow circumstances where I did not
want to commit to a data structure. However, I think this is the exception
rather than the rule. defrecord (or add-ons like Prismatic's schema
library) can formalize the contents of your entities and provide
documentation and validation where and how you need it.
On Tuesday, April 22, 2014 4:43:53 AM UTC-5, Colin Yates wrote:
>
> (This has been discussed before but as this is fairly subjective I am
> interested in whether people's opinion has changed)
>
> What are people's experiences around using keywords or defined accessors
> for navigating data structures in Clojure (assuming the use of maps)? Do
> people prefer using "raw" keywords or do people define accessors.
>
> For example, given {:my-property 10} would people inline "my-property" or
> define a (defn my-property [m] (:my-property m))? If you use keywords then
> do you alias them (i.e. (def my-property :my-property)?
>
> My experience is that accessors become painful and restrictive really
> quickly (navigating nested maps for example) so keywords are the way to go.
> I tend to have a domain.clj which documents my domain and defines all the
> important abstractions (i.e. (def my-property :my-property). I find this
> very useful, combined with marginalia for documentation purposes. It also
> offers some aid in refactoring as multiple abstractions might resolve to
> the same keyword (i.e. value-group and bracket-group might resolve to
> :group).
>
> But, to be blunt, it can be a little cumbersome. I also refer :as the
> namespace, so instead of (get-in m [:a :b]) it is (get-in m [dom/a dom/b]).
>
> What are your thoughts (and any other hints/tips for maintaining large
> Clojure code bases?)
>
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