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The Joy of Clojure

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86 pointsshmichael20 comments

I just picked up the MEAP (Manning Early Access something-or-the-other) edition yesterday, and read the first 2 chapters.

Naturally, the book is an early access so it looks like it use a second pass with an editor. That aside, I really like the way the authors spend some time discussing the features of the language, and why they are implemented the way they are in Clojure. They do a great job of explaining Rich's design decisions, how they affect the way you would normally approach a problem in Clojure, the pitfalls, along with comparing some of them (esp. the concurrency aspects) with other languages like Erlang.

I was a little skeptical before buying this book, but I am glad I did. fogus and the others have done a pretty good job so far. Definitely worth the money.

Just got my copy of the MEAP version and really looking forward to reading it later. I've looked through the authors' code before and they clearly know what they're talking about.

How would you compare it to the Halloway Book?

http://pragprog.com/titles/shcloj/programming-clojure

It's a different intent entirely. Halloway's is purely meant as an introductory piece, this book is more targeted at giving you a deeper understanding of clojure and why you should do things in specific ways.

I'd think of them as companions to each other, and both likely worth getting (I've read 2 of the 4 available chapters and found them very good).

I'll "me too" this as well, though I'm only through the first chapter and part of the second. Pacing of the book is considerably faster than Halloway's so it's convenient if you like faster paced books. I was itching for a highlighter when reading through the stuff, but the material is interesting. The most interesting chapters, however, are the bits that they haven't gotten up to yet. Write faster! ;)

The promo discount code is pretty substantial, total cost of the print book was ~$33 shipped.

Thx for feedback. I might wait til a few more chapters are in and a little copyediting happens, but I'm very looking forward to finished product.

Discount/promo code; you can go to Manning.com, in upper left there's a "Email newsletter" link, they send out codes a few times a month.

I agree. Stuart's book spends a lot of time on the syntax and the constructs of the language while glossing over some of the details, and the idioms of the language.

This book (at least from what I have read of it) is attempting to help you appreciate and align yourself with "the clojure way".

Our very own fogus is one of the co-authors!

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fogus

Looks very promising! For a couple of years I've been thinking more and more about both jumping into the Java world and finally embracing a functional language; and Clojure seems like a great opportunity to take on both at the same time.

One note: I noticed what looks like a Markdown artifact in Footnote 3, in which the URL for the Wikipedia entry on jumping the shark appears to have interpreted the underscores in "Jumping_the_shark" as signifiers that "the" should be emphasized (i.e. rendered in italics).

Good catch! Thanks for pointing that out. We're writing the entire book in a bastardized version of Markdown and Yak-shaving some bits to do so. Unfortunately little things like this still need to be ironed out.

I noticed the italics but don't have a solid enough knowledge of markdown to have realized that was what it was. Neat!

It's a common gotcha in markdown. Some implementations, e.g. Python-Markdown, actually default to ignoring middle-word emphasis. Others, e.g. Python-Markdown2, have ignoring middle-word emphasis as an optional parameter when calling the function.

Very excited about this book. Both chouser and fogus are ripe with deep knowledge of Clojure. It's great to see more books coming down the pipe as they'll only further the adoption of the language as a whole.

chouser has been so helpful to me - mostly indirectly, but directly as well - that I'd order the book even if it was just a rehash of stuff I've already learned reading his newsgroup posts and freenode chats. (order placed now, in fact)

To me, looks like Chapter 11 could be the most valuable, with all the "When to Use..." sections. It's a good thing that Clojure offers multiple paradigms for managing concurrency, but I've had a hard time working out how to choose one to solve a given problem.

Nobody likes Chapter 11...

Interesting manning has 2 clojure books out at around the same time.. http://www.manning.com/rathore/

Just got both, since I got a 50% on total order with my previous order (boofinal50 - may not work for everyone). Maybe I'll post feedback a few months later when there's more chapters. Just start reading the pragmatic one now.

I just ordered both Manning Clojure books for 50% ($45) off with your code. Thanks.

The code worked for me, I grabbed the book for 27$ shipped.

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