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title = "Clojure for the Brave and True - Daniel Higginbotham"
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date = 2017-04-09
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["books", "daniel higginbotham", "clojure", "reviews", "it", "3 stars"]
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+++
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[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20873338-clojure-for-the-brave-and-true):
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As a Lisp-style functional programming language, Clojure lets you write robust
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and elegant code, and because it runs on the Java Virtual Machine, you can
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take advantage of the vast Java ecosystem. Clojure for the Brave and True
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offers a "dessert-first" approach: you'll start playing with real programs
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immediately, as you steadily acclimate to the abstract but powerful features
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of Lisp and functional programming. Inside you'll find an offbeat, practical
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guide to Clojure, filled with quirky sample programs that catch cheese thieves
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and track glittery vampires.
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<!-- more -->
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{{ stars(stars=3) }}
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There must be something wrong with Lisp (and Lisp-like) people that when they
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write about their language, they show the code first, then explain what they
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wrote -- which is kinda weird, because you read code that you barely
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understand what it is doing at first, then they explain and you have to go
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back and read it again to finally "click" it. And, sometimes, they forget what
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code they just wrote and you're left with commands that you have no idea what
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they do.
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There is also a weird sense of humor, which I believe it could be fun if you
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watch whatever TV series the author uses as reference. For someone that
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doesn't follow and doesn't know what he's talking about, it's just... weird --
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and not fun at all. Fortunately, the "humor" tones down to the end, which
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makes more "pleasant" to read.
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While it covers a lot of ground in the book, some pieces really fall short in
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their examples. Threading and process fall short due the use of
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<tt>sleep</tt>, which is not something you'd normally write; the last
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appendix, about a tool called "Boot" tries to explain some concepts about
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tasks and middlewares with things that are not tasks and do not reflect the
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real world. Lacking this connection to real use of a tool just make things
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harder to udnerstand -- and even harder to see *where* you'd use it.
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It's not the worst book about a Lisp-like language I've read -- and heck, it
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does a good job *selling* the language, to the point I'm already thinking
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about writing something in it -- but damn if these problems don't appear in
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every single one of those.
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