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Comment by valw | Hacker News Reader

Don't let the title fool you - 90% of the advice given in this book isn't specific to Clojure, and boy is it good advice.

This book contains some of the deepest programming insights I've encountered, to be put on the same level as SICP or the Pragmatic Programmer.

The discussions on naming and abstraction are particularly illuminating, exposing some fundamental tradeoffs like synthetic vs natural names, or principled vs adaptable systems of abstractions. Were these notions more widespread, a lot of the pointless rants and debates we hear in programming circles would disappear.

I would not recommend this book to beginners - this book is most useful when you are experienced enough that your struggle is to make choices, not to get things to work.

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Contrarian opinion here: I've instead found the constant philosophizing tiring. But I still commend his effort because as he explained, he's trying to articulate the inarticulate and the visceral. Most programmers would probably benefit from reading a book in the style of Effective C++ (Scott Meyers) or Effective Java (Joshua Bloch), where recommendations are more concrete and more unequivocal. Once you've done that, the matter of software design only really comes with experience—experience designing software and having an almost tactile reaction to the future maintainability and readability of the code; it doesn't really come from reading a book like this.

I can't recommend Effective Java enough. Even if one hates Java with passion. I haven't managed to find a better book on how to design an API in any language. It learned me to think about the consumers of my code all the time (even if I'm the only author on a given project) The chapters on exceptions, defensive coding, generics are brilliant. The whole book is written in an effective manner. Dense with information, short and still readable. The second best: Eloquent Ruby. Brilliantly written and mature. Instead of hyping everything up, the author elaborates the downsides of each described technique and power tool.

the sample chapter on naming is a great example

https://leanpub.com/elementsofclojure/read_sample

As someone who is currently picking up Clojure, that chapter just sold me on the book. I really liked the sign/referent/sense distinction and discussion. I knew it from philosophy/semiotics, but every other place I come across it instantly goes down another rabbit trail. I'm sure the balance you strike will vary language to language, but it really was useful seeing it discussed in terms of naming in software.

> experienced enough that your struggle is to make choices, not to get things to work.

I think you summarized beautifully the difference between design ("make choices") and implementation ("get things to work"). Am I correct in that?

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