Question

I’ve been reading Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Lisp is teaching me to think in its way. As a java developer, I wish to learn clojure.

I know clojure is similar to lisp. So my question is, does learning Lisp help me learn clojure easily? Are there similar concepts in both languages?

Answer 1

Clojure share many similarities with other Lisps. SICP is a great book and although it focuses on Scheme a lot of what it teaches you will be directly relevant to Clojure.

If you lean one Lisp then it will be substantially easier to pick up another.

There are however a couple of things about Clojure that make it “different” that are worth noting:

• It extends classic Lisp syntax with vectors [], hashmaps {} and sets #{} as well as the traditional lists ().
• It is more of a functional programming language in style than most other Lisps – pretty much everything is immutable, sequences are lazy by default etc. In some ways Clojure feels quite strongly influenced by Haskell
• Clojure embraces the Java platform in a big way – it runs on the JVM you can easily use Java libraries directly. As a result, although you don’t strictly need to know Java to be effective in Clojure it helps to have an understanding of the Java ecosystem and tools.
• The Clojure STM system / support for concurrency is very innovative and different. Worth watching this video: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey