Change Of Plan
In the last article I took a basic look at the Clojure language. Now it’s actually time to get moving forward a little. The first thing I got into was trying to work a bit with Light Table. Unfortunately I found it a bit odd when working with the Clojure koans. Not only that but reconsideration that I might want to get more into the Java side of things made me decide that a more feature rich IDE might be better.
Just Read Code
In getting Light Table setup for the koans I was planning on working on I took a look here and there at the source code. I’ve found Clojure was fairly easy to get an idea of what was happening. With that in mind I started randomly looking over Clojure code here and there. Wanted to read some of the core code and contrib libraries, but after talking it up on a Google Group thread realized it may not be such a great idea. Will start soaking in the recommendations there.
Cursive
So Cursive is an IDE plugin for IntelljJ IDEA that helps with Clojure integration. The fact that they call it an IDE is weird though since it’s pretty much a plugin. It has a pretty nice Paraedit feature when working with the LISP side of Clojure. To get a quick overview I took a look at this nice overview video on Vimeo. With that in hand I got a decent setup here for working with Clojure koans:
So on the left I’ve got the koans file setup and on the right is a REPL I use to see my progress. Unfortunately unlike the Ruby koans for example you get a stack trace instead of some kind of test like output. Maybe this would be better off done as in clojure.test, which appears to have better editor/IDE support all around. Anyways at least this gives me something to work with on getting through the koans.
4Clojure
For those not wanting to bust an editor out and just want to try their skills on a browser (or heck as a supplement to koans) there’s a nice site called 4Clojure. It’s got a good amount of problems to work though for getting your feet wet. The main qualm I have about it though is that the registration page is not SSL secured. Now that SSL certs are pretty easy to come by these days (some are even free for open source projects) it’s a good time to consider securing that.
Resources
Here’s some resource I’ve come across so far with my talks on IRC and on the mailing list:
- Mastering Clojure This was just announced on the Clojure Google Group and is something I’d consider more of a save for later
- Clojure Applied and Elements of Clojure were both recommended for talking about idiomatic Clojure in the IRC channel
- Clojure Toolbox A nice listing of some libraries and what not for common needs, and also recommended for doing the whole “learning by reading code” deal
Next Steps
Mainly I’m still in idle mode with the whole thing. Spending time checking out IRC and Google Groups. Will start to work on the koans and 4Clojure problems to get my feet warm. Once that’s done I’m thinking of either working with a video or book resources to help me dive further.
