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Guide to Programming Clojure For Beginners

183 points by swannodette 15y ago

sramsay 15y ago
So, I wanted to start a blog. But then I discovered that all blogging platforms suck, so I decided to write my own. Then I decided that all programming languages suck, so I had to learn a new one to write my blog. I would say Lisp's world domination plan is coming along swimmingly.
- rfrey 15y ago
  C'mon, be gentle - he said a big reason to write a new blogging platform was to learn the new language. That's legit - dunno how many file system browsers I have lurking around my archives for the same reason.
  - sramsay 15y ago
    Yeah, just kidding. It struck me as funny, because it's exactly the kind of thing hackers do (including me -- and I'm also a big Lisp/Clojure nut). As far as I can tell, this is more-or-less exactly how TAOCP was written.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
jcromartie 15y ago
There's a need for good Clojure tutorials for beginners. I have a whole lot of technical nitpicks with the content, but this is a good start and a good thing for the Clojure community. Great work.
- mark_l_watson 15y ago
  I hope that you give the author a list of things to fix, etc. I write a lot and I can tell you that authors really appreciate feedback and corrections.
  - blackstag 15y ago
    Agreed. ;) I am no expert by any means, so feedback is always welcome and I am always looking to improve.
    - hoprocker 15y ago
      Do I get an hexidecimal dollar? ;)
- invisiblefunnel 15y ago
  I'm sure your feedback would be much appreciated, if you've got the time.
jrheard 15y ago
In Chrome, zooming in on this website makes the layout wider, but the text stays the same size. This is slightly inconvenient. Thanks for the guide, though! Bookmarked.
- blackstag 15y ago
  I hadn't noticed this. Thank you - I'll need to take a look.
  - roryokane 15y ago
    The culprit seems to be “-webkit-text-size-adjust:none” set for all elements at the top of blog.css.
    - blackstag 15y ago
      Fixed & Thanks. I put that in for viewing on the iPad, but forgot to target the iPad only. ^_^
dusklight 15y ago
I don't know if this is the right time to be introducing clojure to beginners yet. The language is still undergoing some basic fundamental changes. If you look at 1.3 there is so much that is different and breaks stuff from 1.2 and before. Right now the main strength of clojure is that the only people using it are the people who are good enough at shipping real software to understand why it's worth the trouble. I would hate for it to become the next fashionable "me too" language like Ruby and get punished by being stuck with supporting too many newbies. Ruby got stuck at 1.8.6 for so long because it was really difficult to introduce code breaking changes in new versions, due to the number of people who were already using it. It would be better to evangelize clojure after the clojure/core team is closer to finalizing the language design and has shifted focus to performance and growing the ecosystem.
- swannodette 15y ago
  Having survived the transitions from pre-1.0 -> 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.2 -> 1.3, there's been surprisingly little in the way of breakage, usually just a bit of search and replace.
  - technomancy 15y ago
    The changes in 1.3 (which honestly should have been called 2.0) have caused a lot of upheval to people using the alpha releases. Even things as basic as ring-devel were broken. But new users should have enough sense to stick with the stable releases. Now that 1.3 has entered beta the number of libraries that remain unpatched are few and far between. It's the folks who are using git master in the middle of the release cycle who are feeling the pain, not the newbies.
praptak 15y ago
A possible improvement to the tutorial would be a part of how to work with code stored in files. If I haven't missed anything, the current version seems solely REPL-based. On the other hand this would into the IDE territory which maybe something that the author intentionally avoided.

183 points by swannodette 15y ago

So, I wanted to start a blog. But then I discovered that all blogging platforms suck, so I decided to write my own. Then I decided that all programming languages suck, so I had to learn a new one to write my blog. I would say Lisp's world domination plan is coming along swimmingly.

rfrey 15y ago
C'mon, be gentle - he said a big reason to write a new blogging platform was to learn the new language. That's legit - dunno how many file system browsers I have lurking around my archives for the same reason.
- sramsay 15y ago
  Yeah, just kidding. It struck me as funny, because it's exactly the kind of thing hackers do (including me -- and I'm also a big Lisp/Clojure nut). As far as I can tell, this is more-or-less exactly how TAOCP was written.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

jcromartie 15y ago

There's a need for good Clojure tutorials for beginners. I have a whole lot of technical nitpicks with the content, but this is a good start and a good thing for the Clojure community. Great work.

mark_l_watson 15y ago
I hope that you give the author a list of things to fix, etc. I write a lot and I can tell you that authors really appreciate feedback and corrections.
- blackstag 15y ago
  Agreed. ;) I am no expert by any means, so feedback is always welcome and I am always looking to improve.
  - hoprocker 15y ago
    Do I get an hexidecimal dollar? ;)
invisiblefunnel 15y ago
I'm sure your feedback would be much appreciated, if you've got the time.

jrheard 15y ago

In Chrome, zooming in on this website makes the layout wider, but the text stays the same size. This is slightly inconvenient. Thanks for the guide, though! Bookmarked.

blackstag 15y ago
I hadn't noticed this. Thank you - I'll need to take a look.
- roryokane 15y ago
  The culprit seems to be “-webkit-text-size-adjust:none” set for all elements at the top of blog.css.
  - blackstag 15y ago
    Fixed & Thanks. I put that in for viewing on the iPad, but forgot to target the iPad only. ^_^

dusklight 15y ago

I don't know if this is the right time to be introducing clojure to beginners yet. The language is still undergoing some basic fundamental changes. If you look at 1.3 there is so much that is different and breaks stuff from 1.2 and before. Right now the main strength of clojure is that the only people using it are the people who are good enough at shipping real software to understand why it's worth the trouble. I would hate for it to become the next fashionable "me too" language like Ruby and get punished by being stuck with supporting too many newbies. Ruby got stuck at 1.8.6 for so long because it was really difficult to introduce code breaking changes in new versions, due to the number of people who were already using it. It would be better to evangelize clojure after the clojure/core team is closer to finalizing the language design and has shifted focus to performance and growing the ecosystem.

swannodette 15y ago
Having survived the transitions from pre-1.0 -> 1.0 -> 1.1 -> 1.2 -> 1.3, there's been surprisingly little in the way of breakage, usually just a bit of search and replace.
- technomancy 15y ago
  The changes in 1.3 (which honestly should have been called 2.0) have caused a lot of upheval to people using the alpha releases. Even things as basic as ring-devel were broken. But new users should have enough sense to stick with the stable releases. Now that 1.3 has entered beta the number of libraries that remain unpatched are few and far between. It's the folks who are using git master in the middle of the release cycle who are feeling the pain, not the newbies.

praptak 15y ago

A possible improvement to the tutorial would be a part of how to work with code stored in files. If I haven't missed anything, the current version seems solely REPL-based. On the other hand this would into the IDE territory which maybe something that the author intentionally avoided.