Author/s : Michael Fogus, Chris Houser
Publisher : Manning Publications
Category :
Other
Review by : Tim Cooke
Rating : 9 horseshoes
'The Joy of Clojure' teaches intermediate to advanced programmers how to write Clojure the 'Clojure way'. The authors assume a familiarity with the common Lisp syntax which allows them to concentrate on the useful and interesting topics such as concurrency, parallelism, and performance.
The opening chapters present a whirlwind introduction to the Clojure language. The authors start with the
philosophy behind Clojure, continuing with "Drinking from the Clojure fire hose" which, as the chapter name suggests, is an intensive spin through the bare necessities of the language.
The authors have managed to delve into many of the language features that will allow the seasoned programmer to solve a multitude of difficult problems including interoperability with the
Java JDK. Excellent worked examples demonstrate the syntax of the Clojure language. This will be extremely useful to the reader not overly familiar with Clojure or common Lisp.
The final chapter touches on the very interesting topic of building your own Domain Specific Language, thus narrowing the gap between your domain language and your programming language. 'The Joy of Clojure' concludes with a useful run through of some of the Gang of Four design
patterns that can can be achieved using Clojure's built in language features.
A more comprehensive exploration into the topic of
testing would have been a welcome addition. However, The 'Joy of Clojure' is an excellent title and the problem solving approach sets it apart from almost all other Clojure titles available today. Highly recommended.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in
exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
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