(ns language.general)
(def cool-message "language in isolation is only part of the story: history, cultural immersion, learning communication patterns and even thought models are what make it all worth it!")
clojure didn't just appear out of nowhere, it is just a branch of a large and ancient familiy of languages: the LISP family.
as such, it inherits adheres to many features from its ancestors, from overall look and feel to semantics and behaviour
the written form of clojure is quite daunting to the uninitiated due to the delimiters,
much like many languages with consonant clusters.
so dont be afraid, it is quite fast to get used too, and soon you will see it actually helps you delimit scopes sentences more easily!
that said, in clojure you can use in strings even emojis as identifiers! try it out at a repl:
(def hard-rockers! ["👩🎤" "🧑🎤" "👨🎤"]) (def 🆔 identity)
since you can use a wide variety of characters for naming things, in clojure we tend to give maning to the char usage:
even? is not only a valid name,but is a clojure function! names endend in ? usually mean a predicate, something that takes a value and returns a boolean, like answering a question(even? 2) ; yes! it is true
assoc! the 'bang' at the end is to call your attention,because this results in a mutation. sometimes also used on side-effecting functions. it is good practice in FP to keep track of those, and naming helps(assoc! (transient {}) :a 1)
some languages work like a sentence in german:
you need to hear it to the end to actually get it (and it may even be rude to interrupt the compiler speaker!).
this usually frees up the order of your meaningful pieces,
so you can put emphasis on what you think matters the most,
like putting your main point on top and pushing utils details to the end.
clojure, on the other hand, needs you to put things on the right order of dependency,
because it works more like a conversation in japanese:
you communicate a small pience of information (a top level s-exp sent to the repl)
and expect some sort of ack (hai!) from the listener.
so that the prefered way of developing a project conversation is through the famed REPL Driven Development.
(comment (defn my-func [x] (my-add x 2)) (defn my-add [y z] (+ y z)))
now that we know about ordering, we can proceed to shape and content