Clojure is an amazingly powerful language. Using it (and watching Rich Hickey videos) has changed the way I think about programming, and the way I code in general. Once I learned the basics of the language, which was a relatively quick process, I fell in love and couldn't look back. I hope this post can help others who are new to Clojure get up and running quickly and painlessly.
This post is opinionated in the sense that I'll suggest certain tools to help those who are new to this scene get on their feet. The things you'll need are:
- Leiningen (pronounced LINE-ing-en) - This is like a package manager, build tool, task manager, and more in one tool. Think npm or nuget, but with more capabilities. There is at least one other build tool for Clojure (boot), but Leiningen is the most widely used.
- JDK - Clojure runs on Java. Throw out any qualms you may have about Java, we aren't coding in Java (though we can through Clojure, and sometimes tha