On 28 June 2010 22:41, cageface <milese...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 28, 12:16 pm, Martin DeMello <martindeme...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It depends. I found the concepts pretty easy, since I have done a lot
>> of functional programming, but when I was new to clojure I had a truly
>> horrible time figuring out the various classpath issues needed to get
>> things working.
>
> What is it about the classpath in particular that people find
> difficult? Is it that different from things like PYTHONPATH or
> RUBYLIB? The main differences I can see are:
For me (and to be honest, I don't have any real problem with the
*concept* of the classpath, just with some of the practicalities) it's
the fact that by default, Clojure doesn't work. OK, that's overstating
it - the issue is that clojure.jar isn't on the *default* classpath.
This is hardly surprising, of course, but it does make it harder - you
encounter the classpath right at the start, before you even get
Clojure running. And unless you write your own wrapper, you keep
having to deal with it ("hmm, java -cp, now where did I put clojure,
D:\Apps\Clojure\clojure.jar, clojure.main, oops no, this is the PC
it's on the C drive. Or ..."). I know you can set the global
CLASSPATH, but that feels a bit too general - what else might it
affect?
The simple fix to that, of course, is to supply a small wrapper script
with clojure. The response "it's easy for you to write one yourself"
misses the point - we're talking about the out of the box experience.
If clojure.org included a "Download Clojure" link that pointed at a
zipfile containing clojure.jar, clojure-contrib.jar, and a wrapper
script (well, two, one for Unix, one for Windows) which set classpath
based on the location of the script and ran Clojure, then people could
download that, unzip it anywhere, and go. It doesn't solve all the
world's problems, but it sure simplifies the initial experience!
For what it's worth, here's a trivial clj.bat for Windows:
@echo off
setlocal
set CLASSPATH=%~dp0clojure.jar;%~dp0clojure-contrib.jar;%CLASSPATH%
java clojure.main %*
endlocal
Add as much extra complexity as you like, but that's enough for a starter.
Paul.
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