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Clojure in Action: Elegant Applications on the JVM
Summary
Clojure in Action is a hands-on tutorial for the working programmer who has written code in a language like Java or Ruby, but has no prior experience with Lisp. It teaches Clojure from the basics to advanced topics using practical, real-world application examples. Blow through the theory and dive into practical matters like unit-testing and environment set-up, all the way through building a scalable web-application using domain-specific languages, Hadoop, HBase, and RabbitMQ.
About the Technology
Clojure is a modern Lisp for the JVM, and it has the strengths you'd expect: first-class functions, macros, support for functional programming, and a Lisp-like, clean programming style.
About this Book
Clojure in Action is a practical guide focused on applying Clojure to practical programming challenges. You'll start with a language tutorial written for readers who already know OOP. Then, you'll dive into the use cases where Clojure really shines: state management, safe concurrency and multicore programming, first-class code generation, and Java interop. In each chapter, you'll first explore the unique characteristics of a problem area and then discover how to tackle them using Clojure. Along the way, you'll explore practical matters like architecture, unit testing, and set-up as you build a scalable web application that includes custom DSLs, Hadoop, HBase, and RabbitMQ.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
What's Inside
This book assumes you're familiar with an OO language like Java, C#, or C++, but requires no background in Lisp or Clojure itself.
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Table of Contents
Clojure in Action is a hands-on tutorial for the working programmer who has written code in a language like Java or Ruby, but has no prior experience with Lisp. It teaches Clojure from the basics to advanced topics using practical, real-world application examples. Blow through the theory and dive into practical matters like unit-testing and environment set-up, all the way through building a scalable web-application using domain-specific languages, Hadoop, HBase, and RabbitMQ.
About the Technology
Clojure is a modern Lisp for the JVM, and it has the strengths you'd expect: first-class functions, macros, support for functional programming, and a Lisp-like, clean programming style.
About this Book
Clojure in Action is a practical guide focused on applying Clojure to practical programming challenges. You'll start with a language tutorial written for readers who already know OOP. Then, you'll dive into the use cases where Clojure really shines: state management, safe concurrency and multicore programming, first-class code generation, and Java interop. In each chapter, you'll first explore the unique characteristics of a problem area and then discover how to tackle them using Clojure. Along the way, you'll explore practical matters like architecture, unit testing, and set-up as you build a scalable web application that includes custom DSLs, Hadoop, HBase, and RabbitMQ.
Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.
What's Inside
This book assumes you're familiar with an OO language like Java, C#, or C++, but requires no background in Lisp or Clojure itself.
==================================
Table of Contents
432 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2011
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176 people want to read
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 15, 2012
This is the third or fourth Clojure book I've read and it's definitely the most useful. It's pitched at competent programmers who don't necessarily have any functional programming experience. The book strikes a great balance between discussing the features of the language itself and covering the more practical aspects of real world usage with databases, web programming, unit testing, message queues and more. Highly recommended.
June 19, 2016
* this is a rated review of a book, not a language! *
Very dense, intensive & demanding (no easy fly-by), but on the other hand also very competent & packed with reasonably filtered material. Contains pretty much everything you need to start writing Clojure *language-wise* & even much more. Why language-wise? Because there'a almost nothing about the tooling - IDEs & other enhancements that could appear helpful in starting adventures in Clojure.
If you've seen the criticism for Edition One, I've got good news for you - at least in my opinion they do not apply to Edition Two.
Book is relatively up-to-date. AFAIR it covers 1.6 while the latest version (at the moment I'm writing this review) is 1.8.
What I really liked, NO, even loved about this book is that it doesn't follow the usual boring route of presenting just the basic syntax elements & 101 code samples - author isn't afraid of digging into actual reationale behind some more advanced constructs, some macro / closure considerations are really thorough, complex & require full focus to follow. Thumbs UP!
It's not the easiest lecture, but if you're already an experienced functional programmer who wants to learn Clojure - this book may be exactly for you! Recommended.
Very dense, intensive & demanding (no easy fly-by), but on the other hand also very competent & packed with reasonably filtered material. Contains pretty much everything you need to start writing Clojure *language-wise* & even much more. Why language-wise? Because there'a almost nothing about the tooling - IDEs & other enhancements that could appear helpful in starting adventures in Clojure.
If you've seen the criticism for Edition One, I've got good news for you - at least in my opinion they do not apply to Edition Two.
Book is relatively up-to-date. AFAIR it covers 1.6 while the latest version (at the moment I'm writing this review) is 1.8.
What I really liked, NO, even loved about this book is that it doesn't follow the usual boring route of presenting just the basic syntax elements & 101 code samples - author isn't afraid of digging into actual reationale behind some more advanced constructs, some macro / closure considerations are really thorough, complex & require full focus to follow. Thumbs UP!
It's not the easiest lecture, but if you're already an experienced functional programmer who wants to learn Clojure - this book may be exactly for you! Recommended.
March 31, 2014
If you ever wondered what's all the hype about Clojure, and how is it possible that a dialect of Lisp could be used in production environments, then you should read this book. The author not only explains the core language in a simple and elegant way but he also gives a solid introduction to how to use Clojure in different domains such as Data Analysis, Distributed Computing and NoSQL Databases.
August 17, 2014
This should not be your first book in Lisp family of languages, as it has pretty steep learning curve - also some experience with the functional programming is recommended.
The book gives a very nice overview of the Clojure philosophy and various aspects of programming in Clojure style.
The book gives a very nice overview of the Clojure philosophy and various aspects of programming in Clojure style.
December 28, 2011
A nice overview of the language and the popular libraries. But be careful, this is not a reference book or any close to it.
I've read the "early access" version, which was full of errors (and I didn't see them fixed in future versions); without these errors, it would probably be four stars.
I've read the "early access" version, which was full of errors (and I didn't see them fixed in future versions); without these errors, it would probably be four stars.
March 30, 2012
I didn't make it through the whole book, but I gave it two tries. I think that Clojure has a lot to offer, but its simplicity doesn't always shine through with this book. I am hoping to read another book on Closure at some time. Possibly The Joy of Clojure will be a better read.
October 14, 2012
A book full of inspirations for implementing idiomatic and well designed Clojure programs. A resourceful book that explores different aspects of real-life programming challenges with one of the most intriguing technologies around.
February 14, 2014
Really excellent book. It focuses on Lisp as a concept, and how Clojure enables the Lisp mindset. The practical examples are more about teaching one how to think rather than a cookbook-style approach of "here's how you use Redis in Clojure".
January 28, 2014
middle chapters are boring and very technology specific. the ending chapters pick up the pace. will be rereading it soon
April 4, 2017
My first book on Clojure...good introduction but sadly, being Clojure still a young language...some of the examples don't compile...still...nice book to get started...
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews