Clojure sets and maps are functions.Since they are functions, you don't need functions to get values out of them. You can use the map or set as the example below shows.(#{1 2} 1)> 1({:a 2 :b 3} :a)> 2That's nice, but it's not exactly game changing. However, when you use sets or maps with high order functions you can get a lot of power...

I'll admit it, the first thing I like to do when learning a new language is fire up a REPL. However, I'm usually ready for the next step after typing in a few numbers, strings and defining a function or two.What feels like centuries ago, Mike Clark wrote an article about using unit testing to learn a new language. Mike was ahead of his time...

I'll admit it, the first thing I like to do when learning a new language is fire up a REPL. However, I'm usually ready for the next step after typing in a few numbers, strings and defining a function or two.What feels like centuries ago, Mike Clark wrote an article about using unit testing to learn a new language. Mike was ahead of his time...

In The Joy of Clojure (TJoC) destructuring is described as a mini-language within Clojure. It's not essential to learn this mini-language; however, as the authors of TJoC point out, destructuring facilitates concise, elegant code.What is destructuring?Clojure supports abstract structural binding, often called destructuring, in let binding...

In The Joy of Clojure (TJoC) destructuring is described as a mini-language within Clojure. It's not essential to learn this mini-language; however, as the authors of TJoC point out, destructuring facilitates concise, elegant code.What is destructuring?Clojure supports abstract structural binding, often called destructuring, in let binding...

Before Clojure, I had never used a Functional Programming language. My experience has primarily been in C#, Ruby, & Java. So, learning how to use Clojure effectively has been a fun and eye-opening experience.I've noticed a few things:The Clojure language has a lot of built in support for maps and hashes (literal syntax, destructuring, etc)Rich...

Before Clojure, I had never used a Functional Programming language. My experience has primarily been in C#, Ruby, & Java. So, learning how to use Clojure effectively has been a fun and eye-opening experience.I've noticed a few things:The Clojure language has a lot of built in support for maps and hashes (literal syntax, destructuring, etc)Rich...

In the early days of my project we made the decision to high-level test our Java application with Clojure*. One and a half years later, we're still following that path. It seemed worthwhile to document the progress so far.My current preferred style of testing is rigorous unit testing and less than a dozen high level tests. This style of testing...

In the early days of my project we made the decision to high-level test our Java application with Clojure*. One and a half years later, we're still following that path. It seemed worthwhile to document the progress so far.My current preferred style of testing is rigorous unit testing and less than a dozen high level tests. This style of testing...

When discussing adopting Clojure or JRuby there are often heated discussions concerning the pros and cons of working with a language that has less IDE support. This blog entry will focus on the common concerns I hear.I've never met anyone who has mastered Ruby or Clojure and had the opinion that they are more productive in Java. I think that's...

When discussing adopting Clojure or JRuby there are often heated discussions concerning the pros and cons of working with a language that has less IDE support. This blog entry will focus on the common concerns I hear.I've never met anyone who has mastered Ruby or Clojure and had the opinion that they are more productive in Java. I think that's...

I've been doing a bit of clojure lately and I've often found myself looking to convert a custom collection to a sequence. Unfortunately, several custom collections from libraries that we use don't implement Iterable; therefore, I can't simply use the seq function to create a seq.In Java it's common to simply use a for loop and a get method to...

I've been doing a bit of clojure lately and I've often found myself looking to convert a custom collection to a sequence. Unfortunately, several custom collections from libraries that we use don't implement Iterable; therefore, I can't simply use the seq function to create a seq.In Java it's common to simply use a for loop and a get method to...

In 2007 & 2008 I wrote several blog entires on Pair Programming (tagged with pair programming). Pair programming solved a lot of problems for me: knowledge transfer, mentoring, code review, etc. It also solved another problem at the same time, even though I wasn't aware of it. Pairing helps reduce the number of cooks in the kitchen.These days...

In 2007 & 2008 I wrote several blog entires on Pair Programming (tagged with pair programming). Pair programming solved a lot of problems for me: knowledge transfer, mentoring, code review, etc. It also solved another problem at the same time, even though I wasn't aware of it. Pairing helps reduce the number of cooks in the kitchen.These days...