According to U.Today, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, recently disclosed that he had considered using the Clojure programming language to build the Cardano blockchain platform. In a discussion, Hoskinson offered an intriguing insight into the early decision-making process that led to the establishment of Cardano. He highlighted a crucial point: the decision between using Clojure, a dynamic and functional Lisp dialect, and Haskell, a statically typed functional programming language. Ultimately, the choice fell on Haskell, driven by the potential of Cloud Haskell and the aspiration to utilize Liquid Haskell and Agda.
Hoskinson shared this information during a conversation with Ktorz, the technical director of the Cardano Foundation. Both demonstrated a deep understanding of various programming languages, with a particular interest in Lisp, a dialect of which is Clojure. Despite his initial interest in Clojure, Hoskinson revealed that he chose Haskell over Clojure due to Cloud Haskell and the potential use of Liquid Haskell/Agda. Cloud Haskell provides a distributed computing framework that aligns well with the requirements of a blockchain platform, while Liquid Haskell and Agda offer advanced capabilities for formal verification and ensuring code correctness.
Reflecting on the past, Hoskinson pondered on the path that might have been if Cardano had been built with Clojure. He envisioned a Cardano built entirely on Clojure, employing ClojureScript for client-side development and ClojureSpec for specifications and testing. However, Hoskinson's reflections are not filled with regret but with thoughtful consideration of what could have been. He mused that it could have been an 'amazing journey' to write everything in Cardano using ClojureScript and ClojureSpec.
