clojure-notes

The following are unstructured basic notes I took quickly while going through the basics of learning clojure. Unlike the last time I tried to learn clojure, I taking a different approach where I learn from different resources at the same time, rather than try to dive head first into one resource. So far the process has worked. I feel like I understand the concepts better. However I'm still only getting started and haven't even gotten to deep into logic operators!

Anyways below are some of the notes I've taken so far. I may create another snippet, or just update this one over time.

Here's more or less where I am in the "learn" page of clojure docs: https://clojure.org/guides/learn/syntax#_exploring_at_the_repl

Here's a snippet to add:

"In addition, there is a namespace clojure.repl that is included in the standard Clojure library that provides a number of helpful functions. To load that library and make its functions available in our current context, call:"

(require '[clojure.repl :refer :all])

I'll update this issue as I got through with more snippets I can add all together.

To find a doc use:

(find-doc "trim")

Language collection type reference:

'(1 2 3)     ; list
[1 2 3]      ; vector
#{1 2 3}     ; set
{:a 1, :b 2} ; map

Clojure has docs on "weird characters. Should be super useful when starting out: https://clojure.org/guides/weird_characters

Web servers with clojure to checkout:

• ring
• jetty
• compojure (check this one out as a starter as its very simple)
• luminus (this is a good alt)

Basic control flow operator reminder:

• if
  • do
• when

Quote about using internal data structures:

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures.
-Alan Perlis

[...], you learned that function calls are expressions that have a function expression as the operator. The two other kinds of expressions are macro calls and special forms. You’ve already seen a couple of special forms: definitions and if expressions.

anonymous functions notes

The anonymous functions can be declared multiple ways: (both using map and a custom inc-like function

(map (fn [n] (+ n 1)) [1 2 3])
;; (2 3 4)

(map #(+ % 1 ) [1 2 3])
;; (2 3 4)

More docs on shorter anonymous function syntax https://clojure.org/guides/learn/functions#_anonymous_function_syntax

gotcha:

;; DO NOT DO THIS
#([%])

will turn into:

(fn [x] ([x]))

do this instead:

;; Instead do this:
#(vector %)

;; or this:
(fn [x] [x])

;; or most simply just the vector function itself:
vector