Название: Learn ClojureScript: Functional programming for the web
Автор: Andrew Meredith
Издательство: Merry Kraken Press
Год: 2021
Страниц: 168
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf, epub
Размер: 10.18 MB

ClojureScript is a pragmatic functional programming language for building web applications. Whether you are an experienced javascript developer or a brand-new programmer, this book is your guide to creating impressive web apps in the simple and elegant ClojureScript language. The tutorial-style lessons are easy to follow at your own pace, and the practical capstone projects will reinforce what you have learned.

However, javascript is not without its warts. We need books to tell us what are the “Good Parts” and what parts we had best avoid. We have to deal with the reality of varying levels of support by different browsers (yes, even today). We need expend mental cycles deciding which of many viable UI frameworks we should use on our next project… and which framework we should switch to when we grow frustrated with the first framework we chose. While javascript has matured to meet many of the challenges of large-scale web development, there are times when another language is a better choice for a new project.

Over the course of this book, we will learn the ClojureScript programming language and see how it is especially well-suited to developing large single-page applications. While it may take a while to get used to all the parentheses, we’ll see that this odd-looking language excels at building modular, high-performance user interfaces. Finally, we will see how the simple elegance of the language makes ClojureScript a joy to work with.

At the fundamental level, ClojureScript is a dialect of the Clojure programming language that compiles to javascript. Clojure was created in 2008 by Rich Hickey as a general-purpose programming language with the goal of being pragmatic, safe, and simple. While Clojure originally compiled only to Java Virtual Machine bytecode, ClojureScript entered the scene in 2011 as an option to bring Clojure to client side web development. While there are a few differences between Clojure and ClojureScript, they are largely the same language running on different platforms. ClojureScript inherits Clojure’s pragmatism, safety, and simplicity.

ClojureScript has all the buzzwords of an obscure, academic language - immutable data structures, functional programming, Lisp, etc. - but that should not fool us into thinking that it is a language designed for academia. It is an intensely practical language that was born to address some of the issues that we as javascript programmers find most troubling. ClojureScript specifically addresses those pain points that we run into when building and maintaining large applications. It has presented such successful solutions to asynchronous programming, state management, and higher-level abstractions that numerous javascript libraries have appeared that mimic certain features of ClojureScript. It is a practical language that is especially well-suited to client-side web development.

Beyond being a practical language, ClojureScript can be a very enjoyable language to write. The terseness of a language like ClojureScript is a breath of fresh air when we have grown so accustomed to writing the same boilerplate over and over again. Additionally, ClojureScript comes with a much more extensive standard library than javascript, so those simple tasks that require custom code or a third-party library can often be accomplished without ever leaving core ClojureScript.

By the end of the book, you will have created:

- A weather forecast widget
- A personal contact manager
- A text-based adventure game
- A group chat app