ClojureScript and the deprecation of Google Closure Library

Question

Google announced recently that they will be sunsetting the Closure Library (not Closure itself).

Does this impact ClojureScript in any meaningful way?

Thanks!

Answer 1

ClojureScript itself is not affected. It uses very little of the library itself, which could easily be replaced if needed.

However, what might be affected is Projects/Libraries that use other things the Closure Library provides. While these things aren't going anywhere, they'll also receive no further updates. Given how mature and stable most of the things are that is fine, but may warrant starting to look for alternatives.

Given that there are very few things making actual use of goog.* stuff I'd say there is no meaningful impact to worry about.

Comments

It is somewhat sad, as a LOT of stuff is readily available, like keyboard shortcut handling: https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/7818ff7dc0b53555a7fb3c3427e6761e88bde3a2/closure/goog/ui/keyboardshortcuthandler.js#L48.

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To be clear: I don't see CLJS ever removing whats currently available from the Closure Library, even if it did you'd just declare an extra dependency to get it back. So, if the thing is working there is no reason to ever stop using it. There are however very many things in the Closure Library that are a bit outdated and working around Browser issues that no longer exist, so there might be more modern things available that do the equivalent with less code.

Answer 2

See David Nolen's update here in the latest ClojureScript release: https://clojurescript.org/news/2024-01-24-release