I often run into what you might call closet functional programmers – people who seem to have a genuine interest in acquainting themselves with a new paradigm, but just can’t manage to find the time to do it. Some of those who do invest the time often end up on something like the Typeclassopedia1, where the combined force of jargon and type signatures kill whatever interest they began with.
Thanks to Clojure Programming, though, I’m happy to report that this will no longer be a problem. This book gives hope to those who have championed Lisp and / or functional programming in vain. Emerick et al. provide not only a thorough tour of the language, but also demonstrate the beauty and conciseness of its solutions to common problems. The book dedicates an entire section (“Practicum”) to describing how Clojure is idiomatically used in different application domains.
I was particularly pleased by the stellar coverage of some of Clojure’s most compelling features:
- Concurrency primitives (
ref,atom,agent,future, and friends) - The power of the JVM and easy Java interop
- Lisp syntax (which makes for easy and powerful metaprogramming)
- The sequence abstraction
These features are all explained in a bottom-up style (fitting for a Lisp!) – the authors build up a sizeable example by providing an implementation in small increments, explaining along the way. This style is a nice parallel to the nature of traditional Lisp programming.
This book would fit best any of these three groups:
- Java refugees. Give me the JVM, hold the
AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean. Clojure Programming shows you how to take advantage of the vast Java ecosystem while avoiding some of the pitfalls of having static typing and OOP forced upon you. The authors make a good case for interactive programming with the Clojure REPL, which gives you a direct line to the JVM not usually available in Java-land. - Beginning functional programmers. For those already acquainted with a scripting language like Python, Ruby, etc., your first Clojure programs will be a breeze. The book spends a chapter first easing you into Clojure syntax before presenting the basics of functional programming in all of their greatness. You’ll come to love the paradigm and appreciate how Clojure facilitates its use so effectively.
- Lispers. While Clojure is by no means a mainstream language, it provides a compelling case of a successful Lisp dialect. The later chapters, which provide examples of Clojure applications in all sorts of distinct domains, will definitely be of interest.
Beginners, intermediate users and masters alike will find something of use in Clojure Programming. It’ll be one of the first books I recommend from now on to anyone curious about Lisp or functional programming.
(Disclosure: I received an electronic copy of this book in exchange for writing a review.)
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I’ve absolutely nothing against this document – it’s a fascinating and wonderfully helpful piece of work – but when the first few paragraphs include the words “category theory,” “monoid,” etc., etc., beginners will tend to get spooked! ↩