Clojure Gazette 1.20

Written by Eric Normand. Published: September 5, 2012

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Broadened Horizons

Clojure Gazette

Issue 1.20 - September 05, 2012

editorial

Wider World

I was thinking today that I spend so much time on the computer. It's my job to write line after line of code. Despite my occupation, I enjoy learning about things from a much wider circle of intellectual pursuits. I wondered if some of this might not be appropriate for the Gazette. Then I remembered that this newsletter is not specifically about Clojure; it's about inspiring those interested in Clojure.

So I started to put together a issue that touches on topics outside of computing as well as stuff right within Clojure itself. I touch on linguistics, human evolution, and psychology. I hope you like it.

Eric Normand <ericwnormand@gmail.com>

PS. I love to hear from you. Just hit reply!

psychology and programming

Programming Style and Your Brain (video)

Douglas Crawford uses recent developments in psychology and neuroscience to argue that some styles of programming are better than others. He demonstrates the principles in Javascript.

creating passionate users

Kathy Sierra Keynote 2009 New Media Consortium (video)

Kathy Sierra doing her thing: bringing perspective to passion, learning, and what makes products great.

_why ask _why?

why the lucky stiff, ART && CODE

_why, disguised only with sunglasses (though enough to fool even the smartest Lois Lane), discusses teaching programming to children and touches on the deeper question of why we code.

human thought

The Archaeology of Innovation

Sander van der Leeuw gives a fascinating, step-by-step history of the development of human cognitive function through the archaeology of the tools people created.

protocol compliance

Liberator

A promising Clojure library for developing HTTP compliant web servers. It uses a decision tree to determine the correct response to a request. I've developed something with some of the same ambitions (calledplaynice), but this one looks better for handling a wider range of cases in a convenient and correct way. I think there could be a nice marriage, there.

musical magic

Hacking Overtone Live @ Arnolfini

Sam Aaron performing live at an art gallery using Overtone, his music synthesis system written in Clojure. Very impressive what can be done with a bit of music theory and some code!

fp games

Ironclad: Steam Legions

This is an impressive description of a game written in Clojure using a persistent data structure to model the entire state of the world. It uses a prototype-based object system (immutable!), procedurally generated images, and more!

clojurescript/lua

ClojureScript/Lua Lives!

It is amazing to see Clojure moving to new platforms so easily. Clojure could become the new cross-platform lingua franca.

linguistics

How Language Shapes Thought

Lera Boroditsky shares her research into the influence our native language bears on our thought.

gotta have faith?

Faith, Evolution, and Programming Languages

Philip Wadler discusses the dual origin of functional programming in math and logic and how to write a virus for the alien invaders' mothership like in Independence Day.

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