News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Functional programming explained in Clojure with a terminal-based game. Parent comment

Re:Functional programming explained in Clojure with a termin... by brudgers on Friday May 16, 2014 @09:06PM (#7758844)
If the purpose of Clojure for the Brave is not to teach functional programming, why bother teaching it? Why go through the motions when not fully committed? Is it better than pointing the student to excellent resources despite those resources using another form of Lisp?

To put it another way, is anyone really going to know Clojure without knowing the something about SICP? Is there anything out there that more fully captures Clojure's definition of functional programming than On Lisp or Learn You a Haskell for Great Good?

OK so here's where we differ. It's in our definitions [what could be more Clojuresque] of "learning Clojure". Sure, Clojure's syntax takes an hour versus the thirty minutes Ableson takes to cover Lisp syntax including the substitution model. Then what?

Well I'm saying the two things a person needs to learn Clojure are the practices already described in four decades of Lisp's literature and the Clojure interop. Without either piece, I won't know Clojure.

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Functional programming explained in Clojure with a termin... by nonrecursive on Sunday May 18, 2014 @05:14PM (#7764464)
The book covers functional programming because Clojure places a heavy emphasis on functional programming, and learning it is essential to learning Clojure. The book is not "Functional Programming for the Brave and True, with Clojure as the Medium." That doesn't mean that I'm merely "going through the motions" and am "not fully committed" to helping people understand functional programming, and it's bizarre, presumptuous, and rude that you would suggest that. At this point, it seems to me like you're merely being argumentative.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Functional programming explained in Clojure with a termin... by jonnybgood on Friday May 16, 2014 @11:56PM (#7759178)
>Well I'm saying the two things a person needs to learn Clojure are the practices already described in four decades of Lisp's literature and the Clojure interop.

I agree. However, the Lisps all have subtle differences. For example, Clojure's interop is one difference, but it's not the only difference. These subtle differences still need to be explained in that Lisp's context to receive a full understanding of that Lisp. This is what I feel nonrecursive has achieved with his writing about FP in Clojure.

[ Parent | on HN ]