Clojure Newbie Guide

A quick guide to Clojure and its ecosystem for newbies.

What's the official website?

That would be clojure.org

Wanna try Clojure before installing?

• Checkout the online REPL at repl.it

What's the quickest way to get started?

Check if Java is installed in your system by running:

java -version

If not, follow the necessary instructions based on your OS.

OS X/Linux/Windows

• Install Java (a.k.a JDK)
• Install Leiningen
• Start a REPL by running:

  lein repl

OS X users can also install Leiningen using Homebrew:

brew install leiningen

What about my editor setup?

• Emacs
  • Cider
• Vim
  • vim-clojure-static
  • vim-fireplace
• Sublime Text
  • SublimeREPL
• Atom
  • Proto REPL
• Light Table
• Nightcode IDE
• Cursive (IntelliJ plugin)
• Counterclockwise (Eclipse Plugin)

If you're looking for a simple, standalone solution, try Light Table.

Looking for a tl;dr of Clojure features?

• Learn X in Y minutes where X=Clojure

How about some guided tutorials?

• Clojure By Example, from IN/Clojure
• IN/Clojure's Intermediate Clojure Workshop

Wanna browse some Documentation?

• Clojure API Documentation - The official one
• Clojure Doc - A community-driven documentation for Clojure
• Clojure Docs - Community-powered documentation and examples repository
• Grimoire - Community Clojure Documentation

What code conventions to follow?

A community coding style guide is available here.

Want some exercises to do?

• 4clojure.com (Highly Recommended)
• Clojurecademy (Codecademy for Clojure)
• exercism.io
• Clojure Koans

Looking for a library to solve your problem?

• Clojure Toolbox - A categorised directory of libraries and tools for Clojure

Looking for a cheatsheet?

• Clojure Cheatsheet (the official one)
• Clojure Cheatsheets

Want to watch some awesome talks?

• Clojure Made Simple - Rich Hickey explains Clojure
• Rich Hickey's Greatest Hits by Changelog
• Simplicity Ain't Easy by Stuart Halloway
• Debugging with the Scientific Method by Stuart Halloway
• Running With Scissors: Live Coding With Data by Stuart Halloway

Books

• Clojure for the Brave and True (HTML version available)
• Getting Clojure
• Programming Clojure
• Clojure Programming
• The Joy of Clojure - Although this isn't a book for a beginner, it's too good to leave out
• Elements of Clojure - Excellent book to read once you have some experience under your belt.

Looking for some interesting discussions?

• Resources for thinking in Clojure? - on Reddit
• Am I foolish for diving into Clojure with zero Java experience? - on Reddit

Where's the community at?

• The Clojure Subreddit
• clojurians on Slack. A very active community.
• Clojure Google Group
• #clojure and #clojure-beginners IRC channels on Freenode
• Clojure User Groups

Looking for Clojure flavoured emails?

• Clojure Gazette
• The REPL
• PurelyFunctional.tv

Who uses Clojure?

Want to read some testimonials?

• Clojure for Fun and Profit - eBay Tech
• Why we picked Clojure - Metabase
• Why We're Learning Clojure - Gaslight
• Clojure IN - Case-studies on where Clojure is being used across Europe.
• Community stories - Short interviews with companies doing Clojure

Bird's eye view of the language, its ecosystem and community?

Have a look at State of Clojure 2019 survey results