Yes, yes and yes: The videos are great, and all of the information is out there, but it was hard for me to find as I first waded in. And getting contrib to work was one of my first problems. BTW I'd also like to reinforce that although full IDEs aren't necessary to begin -- and besides they're often a matter of taste -- something *slightly* beyond a bare REPL would be a big help for beginners. In particular an editor with language-aware indenting and parentheses/bracket matching is one thing that can make a big difference (and it'd be nice if getting this didn't require too many steps).
One other beginner issue that hasn't been mentioned is the fuzzy line between Clojure and Java in the documentation, which is of course one of Clojure's strengths via interop, and therefore probably always going to be a little messy. But coming from a life in which CLtL2 was all I needed for a reference (and similar things in other languages) I was initially somewhat confused when basic-seeming things weren't in the Clojure docs, and then were or weren't in the contrib docs, and then I finally realized that I have to always look at both of those and then everything that Java provides and quite reasonably hasn't been reimplemented in Clojure. I'm not saying any of those design decisions is bad (on the contrary), but the diffuseness of some of the documentation can be confusing to newcomers, especially those not coming from Java. I could imagine a sort of meta-index to all of this that would be really helpful -- but of course it would also be a lot of work. -Lee On Mar 22, 2010, at 12:13 PM, Luc Préfontaine wrote: > I looked at these videos and they are a very good starting point. > Then do we have a communication problem getting these things known ? > Are these videos listed on the "Getting started" page ? > > What about using contrib ? That would be the first "classpath" problem a > newcomer would face. > > It looks to me that we have all the answers but not in a single spot. > > Luc P. > > On Mon, 2010-03-22 at 06:44 -0700, Sean Devlin wrote: >> Luc, >> Windows users should be good to go. Clojurebox, Enclojure & CCW are >> ready for use for any Java dev with some experience. As for the >> installation process, pick you poison: >> >> >> http://vimeo.com/tag:install_clojure >> >> >> Sorry to self-post, >> Sean >> >> On Mar 22, 7:31 am, Luc Préfontaine <lprefonta...@softaddicts.ca> >> wrote: >> > Is my first impression right or wrong ? >> > >> > Is Clojure harder to setup from Windows for beginners ? >> > >> > Would an installer (.msi) help by hiding Java related details and >> > providing some basic scripts to run it ? >> > >> > Luc P. >> > >> > On Mon, 2010-03-22 at 16:48 +0530, Martin DeMello wrote: >> > > On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Joel Westerberg >> > > <joel.westerb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > > > Every time I've started up with a clojure project I've had to spend a >> > > > few >> > > > hours fiddling with the environment, not that I don't do that with >> > > > other >> > > > languages, but it would be nice with an officially sanctioned solution >> > > > for >> > > > setting up a sane environment. >> > >> > > Even better, an officially sanctioned solution expressed both as >> > > documentation, and as a collection of shell scripts for all the major >> > > platforms. >> > >> > > (As another non-java-familiar clojure adoptee, classpaths were >> > > definitely a hurdle) >> > >> > > martin >> >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your > first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words > "REMOVE ME" as the subject. -- Lee Spector, Professor of Computer Science School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College 893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002-3359 lspec...@hampshire.edu, http://hampshire.edu/lspector/ Phone: 413-559-5352, Fax: 413-559-5438 Check out Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines: http://www.springer.com/10710 - http://gpemjournal.blogspot.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
