10+ Free Resources for Learning Clojure

Clojure is a dialect of the LISP programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. It’s becoming increasingly popular as a modern functional programming language. This week O’Reilly Radar blogger Stuart Sierra called it “the hot new language of the moment.” He describes Clojure as”Lisp meets Java with a side of Erlang.” Interested? Here are a few free resources to get you started.

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Trying Clojure Out in the Browser

Try Clojure and 4Clojure provide you with the chance to play with Clojure without installing anything. 4Clojure gives you a set of problems to solve using Clojure code, a bit like koans (see below) or Project Euler.

Tutorials for Beginners

• Guide to Programming in Clojure for Beginners is a nice long beginner’s tutorial, starting with installation and moving on into more advanced features. It doesn’t attempt to cover everything, instead it highlights a few key features and provides an introduction to them.
• Clojure – Functional Programming for the JVM by R. Mark Volkmann is another beginner’s tutorial that briefly covers many features of Clojure.
• Clojure Tutorial For the Non-Lisp Programmer by Moxley Stratton.
• Eric Rochester’s Clojure Series

Clojure Koans

Clojure Koans are a free set of programming exercises for learning the Clojure programming language, similar to the famous Ruby Koans project.

labrepl

labrepl is a Clojure application that you can run on your local computer or server. It provides a set of exercises for learning Clojure with step by step instructions. It was originally created for the Clojure Studio class.

Clojure Programming WikiBook

The Clojure Wikibook seems to be just getting started, but it does have its own example-driven Clojure tutorial, a Clojure cookbook and lots of links (some of which are included here). The concepts page is pretty extensive.

Learning Clojure WikiBook

Learning Clojure is another WikiBook project that is still in its early stages.

Clojure Docs

Clojure Docs is a community powered Clojure documentation site, including references for most (all?) of Clojure’s features. Like the Wikibook, it’s still in its early stages.

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