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Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

manning.com

21–30 of 77 posts

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#21
post #7

Just a word.. not that it is really relevant but I wanted to share this with fellow hackers. To encourage the Clojure community/language, I've pre-ordered the book Joy of Clojure on amazon. On the book's website, it is clearly stated that you also get a free pdf of the book before the release date . So, I was pretty enthusiastic about starting to read the book. But then, I find out that you only get the pdf if you or…

Sounds like Manning just lost the opportunity to win a customer for life. In fact, they chose to lose him for life. Go Amazon!

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record on this topic, I will state again that "Joy of Clojure" is a very good book. (I'm a Clojure newbie, so I can't judge its technical content, just that it is well written.) The Manning early-access program is highly disappointing. We got an update in August 2010, and then again on March 18, 2011. Nothing in between. When I pre-order from PragProg they update their PDFs much…

I just downloaded the finished ebook. Searching for "monad" returns three hits. :lemonad, one mention to monadic and one mention of monads in the source list. I was a little disappointed.

Because you have a fever, and the only prescription is more monad? "Monad" is a loaded term and we didn't feel that talking about them in that way added any value to the book.

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#23
post #16

4.2 on the Rant-o-meter. "fashion-driven to a degree that would embarrass..." more Yegge yadda-yadda. Not sure if i prefer "class-five tropical storm" or a fire hydrant book shoved up. But those fire hydrant books, say, - Wampler / Payne's Scala book, or - Cesarini /Thompson's Erlang book - Syme/Granicz/Cisternino for F# - (dunno if real World Haskell is a fire hydrant; dunno which are scheme/common Lisp fire hydrant…

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Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#24
post #7

Just a word.. not that it is really relevant but I wanted to share this with fellow hackers. To encourage the Clojure community/language, I've pre-ordered the book Joy of Clojure on amazon. On the book's website, it is clearly stated that you also get a free pdf of the book before the release date . So, I was pretty enthusiastic about starting to read the book. But then, I find out that you only get the pdf if you or…

The book hasn't been released yet. You can cancel your Amazon order without penalty until it enters the shipping process.

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#25
post #22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just downloaded the finished ebook. Searching for "monad" returns three hits. :lemonad, one mention to monadic and one mention of monads in the source list. I was a little disappointed.

Because you have a fever, and the only prescription is more monad? "Monad" is a loaded term and we didn't feel that talking about them in that way added any value to the book.

I don't know what you imply with fever, I am not a native english speaker, but I just paid for your book. I am also a beginner to functional programming and curious about what monads are and I have read about them without really understanding them.

I was reading up on monads the last two weeks, these are the good sources I have found for Clojure: http://onclojure.com/2009/03/05/a-monad-tutorial-for-clojure... http://intensivesystems.net/tutorials/monads_101.html http://vimeo.com/20717301

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#26
post #25
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you have a fever, and the only prescription is more monad? "Monad" is a loaded term and we didn't feel that talking about them in that way added any value to the book.

I don't know what you imply with fever, I am not a native english speaker, but I just paid for your book. I am also a beginner to functional programming and curious about what monads are and I have read about them without really understanding them. I was reading up on monads the last two weeks, these are the good sources I have found for Clojure: http://onclojure.com/2009/03/05/a-monad-tutorial-for-clojure... http://…

Those are the best Clojure monad tutorials available. Definitely better than we could have written. :-)

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#27

Context: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-big-language.ht... is/was reasonably well-known, and people have been speculating on which language he meant ever since [EDIT: see reply by dpritchett]. Steve Yegge doesn't quite come out and declare his preference, but... Sadly, he's not written anything on his blog in a while.

Yegge has since admitted that NBL was Javascript. Clojure hits the sweet spot between Yegge's "JVM languages shall inherit the earth" rhetoric in the fabulous "Rhinos and Tigers" talk and his longstanding fondness for Lisp. Clojure will probably never eclipse JS in mindshare even if it is a wonderful language. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/rhinos-and-tigers.ht...

> Yegge has since admitted that NBL was Javascript.

Not really, no.

I work with Steve, and he's always been saddened that nobody really understood that the language he describes in his NBL article doesn't exist. He was hoping that someone would invent it.

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#28

English is not my first language but: "So nobody could be more surprised than I that a Lisp dialect ..." shouldn't it be "than ME"

The rule of thumb would be to fill in the implied verb and see which one makes sense. "So nobody could be more surprised than I was that a Lisp dialect ..." "So nobody could be more surprised than me was that a Lisp dialect ..." Then it becomes clear that "I" is correct.

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Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#29
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gave a significant chunk of their profit to Amazon; it would be nice if they still gave you the PDF (which is the bonus for ordering directly from them), but not doing so is just "not nice", not rage-worthy. If you really wanted it, you could have cancelled your Amazon order and placed your order with manning...

The thing is, on joyofclojure.com, it says: "[...]The Joy of Clojure can now be pre-ordered, which gives you access to the entire book as a PDF now, plus other formats including the printed book once they're available." Which is misleading because you only get the pdf if it get pre-ordered FROM MANNING. And, yes, you are right that I give a part of their profit to amazon, but I still give them money . Maybe you are r…

Yes, that should be worded clearer. But, there's still a way for you to get the advance PDF and Manning to get what they expected in return: you can still cancel your Amazon order and order from Manning instead.

Problem solved. If you don't want to do that, then you're over-reacting.

Re: Steve Yegge's foreword to Joy of Clojure

#30

English is not my first language but: "So nobody could be more surprised than I that a Lisp dialect ..." shouldn't it be "than ME"

The rule of thumb would be to fill in the implied verb and see which one makes sense. "So nobody could be more surprised than I was that a Lisp dialect ..." "So nobody could be more surprised than me was that a Lisp dialect ..." Then it becomes clear that "I" is correct.

> Then it becomes clear that "I" is correct.

No, it's not.

Your sentences are correct, though, but you altered them from the original by adding a verb, thereby requiring the presence of a subject. The original sentence doesn't have a verb, therefore they need the object form.

In other words:

"You're stronger than I am"

"You're stronger than me"

This last sentence is the form used in the article.

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