update: 2016-01-04: just finished chapter 6 "Organizing Your Project: A Librarian’s Tale". So far so good (fyi, I'm not working through this full time, so don't read too much into the tempo of my updates). Had some fiddle with the svg to get it to render on my ubuntu vm, but it got there. The most surprising thing was the use of -> and ->> (Thread First & Thread Last macros, respectively), which I had to do a little digging on to understand as I didn't see where it was covered in the text... I would have preferred to see the example code done "long-form way". But so far so good, I'm enjoying the read.
Chapter 5 "Functional Programming" was both enjoyable and helpful, and the game example was pleasantly educational. I ended up manually keying large parts of the game function, just to get practice debugging and executing each bit and coding some unit tests to help me understand what it does. I also found the "assert" function on my own and coded up some tests in my clj file (not covered in the book, but figured I'd mention that here for anyone who is a fan of test driven development to consider): example...
(defn row-num
"Returns row number the position belongs to:
row : positions
1 : 1
2 : 2 3
3 : 4 5 7"
[pos]
(inc (count (take-while #(> pos %) tri))))
; tests... ; row# : positions...
(assert (= 1 (row-num 1))) ; 1 : 1
(assert (= 3 (row-num 5))) ; 2 : 2 3
(assert (= 4 (row-num 10))) ; 3 : 4 5 6
(assert (= 5 (row-num 15))) ; 4 : 7 8 9 10
(assert (= 6 (row-num 16))) ; 5 : 11 12 13 14 15
; tests on pos#'s 10, 15 & 16 ; 6 : 16 17 18 19 20 21
; are intended to catch boundary conditions (spans rows 4, 5 & 6).
(println "TESTS OK: row-num")
I also ended up weaving "println"s and "let"s into the various functions to help me understand what they do. Makes the functions much more verbose, but helpful for my head to "see" what is going on in the inside.
example:
(defn connect
"Form a mutual connection between two positions"
[ board max-pos pos neighbor destination ]
(do
(if trace (println "\n---- connect: max-pos=" max-pos ", pos=" pos ", neighbor=" neighbor ", destination=" destination))
(if (<= destination max-pos)
(let [ result
(reduce (fn [new-board [p1 p2]]
(do
(if trace (do (println "reduce.new-board" new-board)
(println "reduce.p1" p1)
(println "reduce.p2" p2)))
(assoc-in new-board [p1 :connections p2] neighbor)))
board
(do
(if trace (do (println "reduce.new-board" new-board)
(println "reduce.p1" p1)
(println "reduce.p2" p2)))
(assoc-in new-board [p1 :connections p2] neighbor)))
board
)]
(if trace (println "\nresult=" result))
result)
board)))
( let [ c (connect {} 15 1 2 4)]
; expected: {1 {:connections {4 2}}, 4 {:connections {1 2}}}
(assert (= 2 (count c))) ; top level keys, 1 & 4.
(assert (contains? c 1))
(assert (contains? (get c 1) :connections))
(assert (contains? (get (get c 1) :connections) 4))
(assert (= 2 (get (get (get c 1) :connections) 4)))
(assert (contains? c 4))
(assert (contains? (get c 4) :connections))
(assert (contains? (get (get c 4) :connections) 1))
(assert (= 2 (get (get (get c 4) :connections) 1)))
(println "TESTS OK: connects")
)
Chapters 4 "Core Functions in Depth" was interesting, I will be re-reading this again after the sequences and lazy evaluation has some time to sink in... this feels like it will be a big (albeit productive) change in my programmer's world-view. I especially enjoyed the smaller examples, they were thought provoking. For example: "If you want an exercise that will really blow your hair back, try implementing map using reduce, and then do the same for filter and some after you read about them later in this chapter."
Chapter 3 "Do Things: A Clojure Crash Course" had a good temp; the 'hobbit violence' example actually helped me think through more traditional data structures and "clojure style".
update: 2015-11-27: after driving emacs for a while, it reminds me of a much smarter notepad, while I miss the "surgical precision" that I can navigate with in vi, I can see making emacs my clojure ide.
Love it! Life-long vi user here making the transition to emacs as part of the Clojure learning curve, and I found the online "Chapter 2 How to Use Emacs, an Excellent Clojure Editor". I bought the paperback version just now because Chapter 2 is simply That Awesome.
Thank you, good sir, for making what looked like a steep learning curve seem very manageable.
My favorite quote thus far:
"Emacs was invented in, like, 1802 or something, so it uses terminology slightly different from what you’re used to. What you would normally refer to as a window, Emacs calls a frame..."
I'm just not used to laughing that hard when reading technical books :-)
Seriously, the author has put a LOT of energy and thought into how to boil down, package and guide the reader through a complex landscape and I'm impressed with how artfully they do it. I will update when I reach the end.
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Customers find this Clojure book to be a great resource for learning the language, with clear explanations of fundamental features. They appreciate the lein and Emacs introductions, and one customer notes it provides excellent code examples. Customers describe the book as fun and well-written.
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24 customers mention content, 22 positive, 2 negative
Great bookRead more
"Clojure for the Brave and True" is one of the best books, on any topic, to come out in the last 350 years....Read more
Great book for learning Clojure. I looked at, and have a read a few others, but this is my favorite intro book.Read more
It's a great book to get started with Clojure and Functional Programming....Read more
12 customers mention humor, 11 positive, 1 negative
Quite fun book, however a bit superficial about very interesting topics. Number of jokes is a bit less than I expected, but still quite funRead more
...I ended up reading this one as the FIRST book. Good coverage. Fun to read.Read more
...This book is so much fun and it’s full of humor, memorable images, and wisdom. Daniel Higginbotham is an excellent teacher....Read more
...I generally like the content and the humorous way it's presented. I also own two other very good Clojure texts. The Peg...Read more
10 customers mention introduction, 10 positive, 0 negative
I was pleased with the lein and Emacs intros I read in the on-line version of the book, so I purchased it....Read more
Excellent intro to Clojure. I worked through most of it online, but ordered a hardcopy of the book anyway :)Read more
Concisely describes the fundamental features of clojure....Read more
Well explained, well exampled, and incredibly humorous. Written by someone who clearly wants you to love what you’re learning.Read more
5 customers mention writing quality, 4 positive, 1 negative
...The prose is good and the examples in the book have been proof read (a rare thing!) and work....Read more
...It is punchy, relevant, well-written, and mercifully unbombastic. It is earthy, but it is lofty too....Read more
Well written, funny and loaded with useful Clojure content. The whole contents of the book are on Daniel's website....Read more
The book is good but it leaves a lot of holes and it's not succinctly elegant in its presentation of the material.Read more
Seems like a great book... Just not on Kindle
Book seems great! But the kindle formatting errors make it impossible to read. On iOS 10.2 for both iPad and iPhone with the most up to date kindle app.
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VeritechReviewed in Mexico on October 3, 2022
Buen contenido, fácil de digerir
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Ein guter Einstieg in Clojure und Lisp - nichts für den Einstieg in die Programmierung!
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Not many good Clojure books. This is one of them. Buy it.
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