Context
- I have never used clojure before.
- I will be honest about my approach and thoughts.
- I have experience with various OOP languages, but not in a professional capacity.
- I work as an infrastructure engineer, I am not new to tech.
Setup
Where to start?
- Google “how to install closure”
- Click on “Show instead ‘how to install clojure’“
After poking around the many different ways to get clojure installed - and some failed attempts with WSL2 🥴 - I found that vscode has an extension/environment - Calva.
This was a no-brainer. Though I am also interested in learning Emacs, Vim, and the numerous other editors out there (and I will, I promise), I am already familiar with vscode, and I’m here to give clojure my best effort and full attention.
Installing Calva is easy. Below is the one-liner, or you could use the UI.
code --install-extension betterthantomorrow.calva
It is also admirably beginner friendly, with an interactive getting-started guide that has a witty style. To start this, pressctrl+shift+p, type calfig, press enter (you will learn more about these tasks in the guide!).
Wow. This looks nerdy 🤓. I’ll wait to get stuck in; first, some reading:
- https://clojure.org/guides/getting_started
- https://clojure.org/guides/structural_editing
- https://clojure.org/guides/repl/introduction
Okay, I wish I didn’t read them - even though I know it is essential, it made little sense at this point 🤷♂️. It took a lot to follow, especially for a newbie in this type of programming. In retrospect - this blog was written up a day later - I should have completed the getting-started guide first. A little warm-up is advised.
Actually getting started
Ah, this is better.
My initial thoughts are this is beginner friendly 🙌. Can programming languages be inclusive for newbies? 🤔 I already feel like I am being lured in and want to learn more. As I spend the next ~40 minutes working my way through the introduction.
There are lots of shortcuts worth learning. Below 👇 are the top 4 that I most use so far. I’ll continue to post these as I discover them.
-
alt+enter: evaluate top level form. -
ctrl+enter: evaluate current form. -
ctrl+alt+c,enter: load / reload current file. -
escape: remove all evaluated results.
Wrap up
The getting-started guide is longer than I expected. It’s been a very late hour. Yet I’m still here and even more invested. Have I learned anything? Only that I now understand less. I have no idea what this would ever be used for - but that’s okay. Trust the process.
Let me know your thoughts and recommendations! Apologies if I mistype or misunderstand. I am always open to feedback and corrections.
I’ll check back in tomorrow, thanks for reading 🙏
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