6 ms·

Learn Clojure as a holiday project

63 points by edd_dumbill 15y ago

edd_dumbill 15y ago
This came out of me needing an excuse to write some Clojure, and wanting to model a simple coin-tossing game. What started as a guide to Clojure for busy programmers probably makes a right-sized holiday hacking project.
- Lio 15y ago
  Thanks for the article Edd. I've been meaning to have a go at Clojure since I started playing with Lisp/Scheme. (One side point, that background is a little hard to read against; it actually started to give me a headache... :)
  - edd_dumbill 15y ago
    Thanks Lio. Let me know what you think. Also, I got rid of the background. Seems my evil plan to hypnotize the population of HN might not actually work out.
    - uniclaude 15y ago
      This shade of grey is way better than the previous background to me. Thanks !
- jherdman 15y ago
  Sounds interesting, but... I think your site is down.
  - edd_dumbill 15y ago
    Working here. Try again? It's hosted on Tumblr.
    - jherdman 15y ago
      Still boned. I'll try again later. I'm looking forward to it!
- tednaleid 15y ago
  I'm just diving into clojure now and have finally gotten my vim environment set up with a working repl (war scars here for vim users trying to get going: http://naleid.com/blog/2011/12/19/getting-a-clojure-repl-in-vim-with-vimclojure-nailgun-and-leiningen/ http://naleid.com/blog/2011/12/19/getting-a-clojure-repl-in-...) This is exactly the kind of next step I was looking for beyond the 4clojure and clojure koans stuff. I'll be working through it this weekend. Thanks!
SonySeng 15y ago
I just read through this at work (Slow day before Holidays). Very nice. I've also been going through The Joy of Clojure as a beginner book to lisp and small projects like this are very helpful. I learn the same way. If something seems daunting or if something seems trivial, I am not as motivated. There is a good balance that I have to find.
Kittynana 15y ago
Thanks for this. It's hard to find good examples that are so thoroughly explained and aren't trivial.
cmansley 15y ago
Just a note. The distribution being created here is the Binomial distribution. It just so happens that because of the central limit theorem, you can approximate it with the Gaussian distribution. For a low number of samples (n<20), this approximation will degrade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution#Normal_approximation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution#Normal_ap...
RShackleford 15y ago
NO, i am not going to learn Clojure. If its good as a primary programming languages i could learn at the office. Holiday is for resting and laughing not for the (()()(()))
whateverer 15y ago
The tutorial looks lovely but... if you have good a relationship with your family or have close friends, wouldn't it be better to spend time with them rather than learning Clojure these holidays? There will be plenty of time for Clojure the rest of the year, but this is a special occasion.

63 points by edd_dumbill 15y ago

This came out of me needing an excuse to write some Clojure, and wanting to model a simple coin-tossing game. What started as a guide to Clojure for busy programmers probably makes a right-sized holiday hacking project.

Lio 15y ago
Thanks for the article Edd. I've been meaning to have a go at Clojure since I started playing with Lisp/Scheme. (One side point, that background is a little hard to read against; it actually started to give me a headache... :)
- edd_dumbill 15y ago
  Thanks Lio. Let me know what you think. Also, I got rid of the background. Seems my evil plan to hypnotize the population of HN might not actually work out.
  - uniclaude 15y ago
    This shade of grey is way better than the previous background to me. Thanks !
jherdman 15y ago
Sounds interesting, but... I think your site is down.
- edd_dumbill 15y ago
  Working here. Try again? It's hosted on Tumblr.
  - jherdman 15y ago
    Still boned. I'll try again later. I'm looking forward to it!
tednaleid 15y ago
I'm just diving into clojure now and have finally gotten my vim environment set up with a working repl (war scars here for vim users trying to get going: http://naleid.com/blog/2011/12/19/getting-a-clojure-repl-in-vim-with-vimclojure-nailgun-and-leiningen/ http://naleid.com/blog/2011/12/19/getting-a-clojure-repl-in-...) This is exactly the kind of next step I was looking for beyond the 4clojure and clojure koans stuff. I'll be working through it this weekend. Thanks!

SonySeng 15y ago

I just read through this at work (Slow day before Holidays). Very nice. I've also been going through The Joy of Clojure as a beginner book to lisp and small projects like this are very helpful. I learn the same way. If something seems daunting or if something seems trivial, I am not as motivated. There is a good balance that I have to find.

Kittynana 15y ago

Thanks for this. It's hard to find good examples that are so thoroughly explained and aren't trivial.

cmansley 15y ago

Just a note. The distribution being created here is the Binomial distribution. It just so happens that because of the central limit theorem, you can approximate it with the Gaussian distribution. For a low number of samples (n<20), this approximation will degrade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution#Normal_approximation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution#Normal_ap...

RShackleford 15y ago

NO, i am not going to learn Clojure. If its good as a primary programming languages i could learn at the office. Holiday is for resting and laughing not for the (()()(()))

whateverer 15y ago

The tutorial looks lovely but... if you have good a relationship with your family or have close friends, wouldn't it be better to spend time with them rather than learning Clojure these holidays? There will be plenty of time for Clojure the rest of the year, but this is a special occasion.