Functional Design in Clojure

Latest Episodes:

Ep 049: Keywords! Keywords! Keywords! Oct 04, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we discuss a different topic about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, our topic is: "Keywords! Keywords! Keywords!" We examine all the fascinating properties of keywords, how to use them, and why they're so much better than strings and enums.

Selected quotes:

"The question of the day is: Why is there no question of the day?"
"Everything behind the scenes should get turn into integers because that is the good and true way."
"A FAQ after the fact."
"We forget about identical? because Clojure gives us value semantics!"
"Magic numbers you can spell with letters."
"The ability of communicating with letters--something we humans have been developing for a while."
"What is this sorcery?!"
"JSON. That's not not a guy who likes strings."
"Let's blame JSON."
"If you don't have to recursively walk a tree, why recursively walk a tree?"
"A little bit of copying is better than a lot of depending."
"The randomly placed last one wins!"
"Trust but verify."

Ep 048: Help! How Do I Fix My REPL? Sep 27, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "Help! How do I fix my REPL?" We catalog the many ways we've broken our REPLs and talk through our strategies for getting back on track.

Selected quotes:

"The REPL is a wonderful, wonderful thing."
"A cleansing restart."
"What is my Clojure band name?"
"tools.namespace will help you find rename errors early."
"Refresh will continue to work, as long as you continue to work."
"Even a defonce can be def'd again. It's a defonce, for now."

Ep 047: What Is "Nil Punning"? Sep 20, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "What is 'nil punning'?" We gaze into the nil and find a surprising number of things to talk about.

Selected quotes:

"The lowly, magnificent nil. Some people love it, some people hate it."
"Null is the value you give your program if you want to see it die."
"Nil is not null."
"This function found nothing, and I passed that to the next function, and it found nothing in the nothing."
"It's amazing how much nothing you can find in nothing."
"You can pull data out without fear."
"What does a nil Cat look like?"
"A lot of arithmetic stuff is nil-intolerant."
"No answer isn't going to start becoming an answer later."

Ep 046: When Is Clojure Not the Right Tool for the Job? Sep 13, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "When is Clojure not the right tool for the job?" We look at the varied forms that Clojure can assume and consider where it might not fit.

Selected quotes:

"Just reject all the jobs where Clojure is inappropriate and you'll always be able to use Clojure."
"The JVM is like a super tanker. It will get a whole lot of work done. But it takes a little while to get going."
"On the language level, there are social aspects. Bringing in Clojure covertly will make the rest of the team angry."
"A lot of times, when talking about technical things, we tend to overlook the human effects."
"Two questions: Is the technology suitable? Are we going to get screwed if we go down this path?"
"There is a conceptual leap into functional programming that is non-trivial."
"People will have a hard time letting go of their existing language until they can feel how Clojure is different."

Related episodes

038: How do I convince my coworkers to use Clojure?

Ep 045: Why Have Derived Fields in Data When I Can Just Calculate Derived Data as Needed With a Function? Sep 06, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "Why have derived fields in data when I can just calculate derived data as needed with a function?" We take a focused look at the balance of using functions or derived fields and where each is preferable.

Selected quotes:

"Clojure has a gravity toward using the built-in data structures."
"Immutability helps you handle concurrent updates to dependent fields without using locks."
"If you add derived fields, you can query the data using information at different levels of abstraction."

Ep 044: What's So Different About Clojure's REPL? Aug 30, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "What's so different about Clojure's REPL?" We evaluate what a REPL really is and show that it's much more about the developer experience than simply calculating values.

Selected quotes:

"The Clojure REPL is your window into the state of a running application."

"It's a much larger, broader kind of experience."
"It's funny to have mutable programs and immutable data, but that's what Clojure gives you."
"The fact that the REPL can read expressions and run them becomes one of it's least interesting attributes."

Related episodes

Ep 043: What Is 'Faking' a Resource? Aug 23, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "What is 'faking' a resource?" We talk about the virtues of faking and then outline several real techniques for getting work done.

Selected quotes:

"We like to mock mocking, so don't mock us if we mock mocking."
"No object is an island, they always refer to each other."

"It's all about getting work done."
"Why make my own fake data when the computer is so good at it?"
"It's like training a small diminutive version of the external service to behave in the ways you want it to so you can get stuff done."
"Fake it while you make it."

Related episodes

Ep 042: What Does It Mean to Be 'Data-Oriented'? Aug 16, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "What does it mean to be 'data-oriented'?" We merge together different aspects of Clojure's data orientation, and specify which of those help make development more pleasant.

Selected quotes:

"Clojure has the corner on data."
"Other languages have data too, it's just locked in little cages."
"Data is inert, it can't harm you."
"Because Clojure is expressed in its own data structures, and those structures are simple, that makes Clojure syntax simple."
"Find a good way to represent the information that you want to work with, in a way that feels appropriate for the subject matter."
"If you find a good way of representing your information, that representation tends to be pretty stable. All of the change is in the functions you use to work with it."

Ep 041: Why Do Clojurians Make Such a Big Deal About Immutability? Aug 09, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "Why do Clojurians make such a big deal about immutability?" We cover several practical side effects of immutability and why we've become such big fans of data that doesn't let us down.

Selected quotes:

"Well, we don't have Monads to talk about."
"What good is a program, if you can't change stuff!?"
"The memory cost of data structures is in proportion to the changes, not the users."
"I can hang on to a reference to the old state and a reference to the new state very cheaply."
"You can reduce comparison to referential equality."
"Once you can efficiently save every version of the state, going back to a previous version is no big deal."
"I love determinism. Determinism is trustable."
"I can trust immutable data. And if I can trust it, then it can occupy a smaller part of my brain."

Related episodes:

Ep 040: Should I Use Lein, Boot, or Tools.deps? Aug 02, 2019

Show notes

Each week, we answer a different question about Clojure and functional programming.

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss, tweet @clojuredesign, send an email to feedback@clojuredesign.club, or join the #clojuredesign-podcast channel on the Clojurians Slack.

This week, the question is: "Should I use lein, boot, or tools.deps?" We assemble a list of build tool characteristics and talk about how each tool stacks up before giving our recommendations.

Selected quotes:

"The best thing about boot is that you can use all the flexibility of Clojure code. The worst thing about boot is that you can use all the flexibility of Clojure code."
"Tools.deps, the non-build build tool."
"I have a file, it's got Clojure in it, and I want to run it."
"Tools.deps has enabled people to make build functions that stand alone. They don't have any ceremony to become part of the tool. It's just a main."

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