dot-dash vs dot-prefix in Clojure

Question

Why is the dot-dash preferred over dot-prefix when accessing the field of a defrecord in Clojure?

Ex:-

(defrecord Person [name age])

(def person1 (Person. "Ak" 28))

(.-name person1)
"Ak"

(.name person1)
"Ak"

Answer 1

.- is used to signify field access in Clojure interop, just . is calling a method.

Either way, as mentioned in a comment on the question, using the keyword as in :name is the idiomatic way to access the name field.

The other methods work because records are built partially to support interop with the host language.

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Keep in mind that for data modeling in general with Clojure, maps are preferred. Here's a handy flowchart for choosing the right datatype for your situation.