New Clojure for the Brave and True Chapter: Interacting with Java
10 October 2014
After many months of editing existing chapters, I've written a brand-new chapter, "Interacting with Java". Here's a snippet:
There comes a day in every Clojurist's life when she must venture
forth from the sanctuary of pure functions and immutable data
structures into the wild and barbaric Land of Java. This
treacherous journey is necessary because Clojure is hosted on the
Java Virtual Machine (JVM), granting it three fundamental
characteristics. First, you run Clojure applications the same way
you run Java applications. Second, you need to use Java objects
for core functionality like reading files and working with
dates. Third, Java has a vast and wondrous ecosystem of incredible
libraries, and Clojure makes it painless for you to use them. In
this way, Clojure is a bit like a utopian community plunked down
in the middle of a non-utopian country. It's preferable to
interact with other utopians, but every once in a while you need
to talk to the locals in order to get things done.I appreciate all the tweets and emails I've received about the book; it's very gratifying and it helps keep me motivated.
I'll be going to the Clojure Conj again this year. This will be my third Conj, and I'm so excited for it. I don't usually enjoy going to conferences, but I love the Conj because the talks are absolutely incredible. I hope I see you there!