Getting started with Clojure [closed]

Question

I'm a relatively new person to programming, I've read the first half of SICP until I thoroughly ingrained it into every cell in my body, took a class implementing basic data structures in Java, and made programs in Mathematica. But that is about as far as my knowledge goes, which is my problem.

I'm trying to play with Clojure via netbeans/enclojure and, to be honest, I don't know how to get anything beyond constructing functions and manipulating data structures in the REPL.

For example, I want to use Incanter for statistics stuff, but I don't know how to install it since I have never really used a terminal (I'm using windows vista), and don't know where to begin. When I search google, all the tutorials seem to assume knowledge with Unix, or they assume knowledge of how emacs works, etc.

I suppose what I am looking for is an online tutorial that covers the very basics of how to set everything up for a programming environment that doesn't assume previous knowledge.

Thanks,

Bryan

Answer 1

I'm relatively new to programming as well. My suggestion is that Unix or Linux are easier environments to program in. I know you said that you don't have experience with it, but you can pick up the basic commands in an afternoon. Learning basic Unix commands are going to be much, much easier than learning Java or Clojure, for example. The advantage is that once you have some basic familiarity with Unix/Linux then the rest of the environment becomes much simpler. This is a guide to Unix for someone who has never used it before: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/

A quick way to try it out would be to download Cygwin, which is a Unix emulator that runs in Windows. You can install this and then try out Unix. Also, when you install Cygwin, you get a list of languages and text editors that you can install with it, so setting up that environment becomes fairly easy: http://www.mcclean-cooper.com/valentino/cygwin_install/

I wouldn't suggest using Cygwin forever though, it'd just be a way to start out and see if you like programming in a Unix environment.