Clojure for the Brave and True (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#71

Post by straws » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 10:36 AM UTC

terragon wrote: post #44

kls wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me lisp in general was like that. But I just kept on until it clicked (mainly because I was getting sick of hearing all the hype and wanted to fully understand what all the fuss was about). A lot of people talk about when lisp clicks its an ahh-haa moment much like when your first programming language clicks and that is the best way to describe it. When it finally clicks it clicks but you have to put aside so muc…

Would you recommend I start playing around with Lisp before I do clojure?

I've found http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/ to be the best resource to drill the "code as data" mindset necessary for Lisp programming. And I would recommend going through as many exercises in http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/ as possible using the Racket IDE: https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#72

Post by TheSmoke » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 10:56 AM UTC

shadowmint wrote: post #39

bootload wrote: post #5

Really appreciate the access to the book online http://www.braveclojure.com/clojure-for-the-brave-and-true/ more likely to buy products that you can see. This years challenge, learn two new languages. Clojure might be one of them. The reason? Lisp based and in spite of the fact it uses cough , Java (JVM), it runs on JavaScript. A better language to run/work with JavaScript. That is a good enough reason to learn and u…

I hear this a lot, but it totally mystifies me. You lose all the good parts of clojure when you go into the js runtime; stm, parallel processing, java interop, hot reloading, and it pulls in some really quite large js dependencies, and it's impossible to debug. Even console logging becomes a case of 'convert to readable object and log' using special helpers. What's the benefit? I don't see any meaningful reason to us…

i am building a browser plugin with clojurescript and reagent. i could not be happier. i have easy js interop, i have hot reloading, i have easy state management, i have code optimizations thanks to direct integration to google closure compiler.

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#73

Post by zdkl » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 11:13 AM UTC

pgt wrote: post #57

WillPostForFood wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is too much cognitive load in the first stages of learning Clojure for people who haven't had experience with functional programming, Lisps, Java, and Emacs on top of that if you are following Clojure for the Brave and True. So to barely get started you are tackling a new programming paradigm (functional), a new syntax (Lisp), getting error messages in Java, using tools that are complicated to setup and…

I still teach in and prototype in Light Table, even though it is losing its "instarepl". Live evaluation visually matched up to an expression removes a lot of the cognitive load. Clojure stack traces are a big mental overhead.

This. I wish the book would refer to lighttable instead of emacs so as to be considerably more portable and easier to get into. I recommended that combo to a non technical friend and he's happily scooting along after a short primer on (lein) repl vs (windows) command prompt vs lighttable inline evaluation

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#74

Post by zdkl » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 11:17 AM UTC

zerr wrote: post #61

kls wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me lisp in general was like that. But I just kept on until it clicked (mainly because I was getting sick of hearing all the hype and wanted to fully understand what all the fuss was about). A lot of people talk about when lisp clicks its an ahh-haa moment much like when your first programming language clicks and that is the best way to describe it. When it finally clicks it clicks but you have to put aside so muc…

> For me lisp in general was like that. But I just kept on until it clicked Not sure this is the right way... I mean, everything will "click" if you do the same, e.g. VB6, but do you want this?

Some (me included) would argue the value is in learning a new notation for thought/program execution. Talking about the Lisp way kinda feels like converting someone to the dark side, especially with clojure. The mental model is what needs to click, not the language.

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#75

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 11:47 AM UTC

throwaway7645 wrote: post #23

madmax96 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind if I ask what isn't clicking? I've had the exact opposite experience, and have found it very easy to incorporate different libraries. Do you have experience with other lisps? There's certainly a learning curve with clojure and its frameworks.

Everything assumes you're a Java expert.

Just like to use UNIX one needs to be comfortable with C, OS X comfortable with Objective-C, .NET confortable with C#, Web confortable with JavaScript and so forth.

When one needs to look under the hood to solve performance or FFI issues, it is a requirement to know the "systems" language of the host platform, regardless how much we might love/hate it.

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#76

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

shadowmint wrote: post #38

I didn't enjoy this book; the examples used clojure constructs before introducing what they did making them arcane and difficult to understand, and it focused on the language without showing why you would use it or how to use it for real world projects. It's like... a detailed guide to the language, for people who already know clojure. I recommend 'Living Clojure' by Carin Meier for new comers. (Also, avoid the cloju…

This is why I find Apple's decision to go Swift, despite all the hurdles, is very positive.

Sometimes developers are like children, they need to be force feeded their vegetables.

You see this specially in the games industry, where language adoption is driven by OS vendor SDKs.

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#77

Post by tosh » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 12:01 PM UTC

pgt wrote: post #57

WillPostForFood wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is too much cognitive load in the first stages of learning Clojure for people who haven't had experience with functional programming, Lisps, Java, and Emacs on top of that if you are following Clojure for the Brave and True. So to barely get started you are tackling a new programming paradigm (functional), a new syntax (Lisp), getting error messages in Java, using tools that are complicated to setup and…

I still teach in and prototype in Light Table, even though it is losing its "instarepl". Live evaluation visually matched up to an expression removes a lot of the cognitive load. Clojure stack traces are a big mental overhead.

Atom and the ProtoREPL package also make a great Clojure environment.

https://gist.github.com/jasongilman/d1f70507bed021b48625

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#78

Post by ekzy » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 12:09 PM UTC

This is a very good intro book. I skipped the emacs chapter and there was no dependency to emacs through the rest of the book. I used light table. I enjoyed the exercises, there is a good level of complexity and the author often suggests and helps to reimplement some core functions of clojure. It took me about two weeks to complete the book entirely (on the evenings and a bit more on the weekends) with no previous experience in functional programming. I was dragged into the book really quickly, more than 2 other books I started to read about Clojure (on which I gave up quickly). I also bought the paperback version to support the author but I was a bit disappointed on the quality. Overall I highly recommend this book as an intro to FP with clojure. Thanks a lot for writing this book.

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#79

Post by VexorLoophole » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 12:42 PM UTC

dorsatum wrote: post #43

I love this book. Can someone recommend something similar for Go or Elixir?

Also on the search for something like this book for Go or Rust. I liked the book. An easy first step into the language. Sadly i don't want to write everything in jvm and somehow i got hooked on safety concepts like type-safety or even more like ownership in Rust (also when i dont really understand Rust till now).

Re: Clojure for the Brave and True (2015)

#80

Post by ekzy » Sat, Jan 07, 2017, 12:53 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #46

The entire second chapter is devoted to learning emacs. I find this to be a baffling editing decision. "Thanks for reading this book, but before we cover what you came for, let's do this other completely orthogonal thing first."

You are free to skip the chapter and there is not a single reference to emacs in the rest of the book. I did it with another editor, I think the emacs chapter could be an annexe. It's only bonus and I can only be grateful as the book is free