*** WARNING *** This book is under active development, and is not yet content-complete. I will be pushing updates as soon as I have them written. Please be aware of this before buying the book! *** WARNING***
Clojure is awesome. There, I said it. It has all the power I need to accomplish any programming task I want, both in a computer-science-y theoretical way, and in a pragmatic, get-stuff-done way. It has first-class access to all of the Java ecosystem; not just the Java language, but libraries and frameworks written in JRuby, and Jython, and Scala -- any of the many languages which target the Java Virtual Machine as a platform.
Clojure is complex. Namespaces. Macros. Metadata. Functional programming. Concurrency. These are the power tools of the experienced Clojure developer. They are also potential landmines of confusion for the beginner. If you're like me, you may have tried to learn Clojure all-at-once, embracing not only all of the power tools listed above, but Emacs, and paredit, and nREPL, and ... the list goes on. And, if you're like me, you may have given up in despair or frustration. A couple times.
That's where this book comes in. There are several books available now that will help you navigate landmine territory when you're ready for them. But here, starting from the very basics, you will learn in a safe environment both by reading and by doing. You will see examples which build from the most basic of Clojure's building blocks, then slowly add concepts, comparing them to paradigms you are probably more comfortable with; all without using words like "paradigm" or other overly-technical jargon -- too much.
Clojure is awesome. My goal with this book is to get you to agree.
Clojure is awesome. There, I said it. It has all the power I need to accomplish any programming task I want, both in a computer-science-y theoretical way, and in a pragmatic, get-stuff-done way. It has first-class access to all of the Java ecosystem; not just the Java language, but libraries and frameworks written in JRuby, and Jython, and Scala -- any of the many languages which target the Java Virtual Machine as a platform.
Clojure is complex. Namespaces. Macros. Metadata. Functional programming. Concurrency. These are the power tools of the experienced Clojure developer. They are also potential landmines of confusion for the beginner. If you're like me, you may have tried to learn Clojure all-at-once, embracing not only all of the power tools listed above, but Emacs, and paredit, and nREPL, and ... the list goes on. And, if you're like me, you may have given up in despair or frustration. A couple times.
That's where this book comes in. There are several books available now that will help you navigate landmine territory when you're ready for them. But here, starting from the very basics, you will learn in a safe environment both by reading and by doing. You will see examples which build from the most basic of Clojure's building blocks, then slowly add concepts, comparing them to paradigms you are probably more comfortable with; all without using words like "paradigm" or other overly-technical jargon -- too much.
Clojure is awesome. My goal with this book is to get you to agree.
