+1 for showing the Ant demo and modifying it while it's running. Emphasize how easy it is to get RELIABLE concurrency using agents/STM. As Steve Jobs has long known, eye candy counts, and Ants is an eye candy way of seeing concurrency in action.
I would also keep a second REPL open and "test" out a simple code change in it before integrating it into the running program. Show how easy it is to call into Java and how they can test out Java libraries from a REPL would be helpful. Some of them might want to explore Clojure just to have a simple way to test ideas on the fly. With that as a hook they might dig deeper later. Drive home how immutability reduces bug counts. Lower priority: Mention, without slamming the other languages, that it's generally faster than all of the others, except Scala (perhaps). Tricky, that last bit, and I think best done by comparing Clojure to native Java and letting the audience work out the difference. Key take-away: "Clojure makes JVM programming easier and more bug-free than it's ever been." On May 18, 3:48 pm, e <evier...@gmail.com> wrote: > i think destructuring is awesome, and loop-recur.... loop-recur is so handy > in not having to have the public version of a function (entry point) versus > the recursive inner version that often has extra parameters that the user > shouldn't have to worry about. > > other ideas: > closures as light-weight objects ... how ratios work in lisps ... I also > like the suggestions about changing a running GUI and showing how macros can > capture design patterns. > > - Eli > > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Mark Volkmann > <r.mark.volkm...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > > > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Michael Wood <esiot...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Mark Volkmann > > > <r.mark.volkm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> I think time is the issue here. The Ant code may be too involved to > > >> describe in the time allotted. I do think it's important though to > > >> describe the use of Refs and STM. To me they are a very important > > >> feature of Clojure. > > > > They may be important, but is 4 minutes enough to show that are better > > > than just using threads and locking directly? > > > Yeah, 4 minutes is quite a restriction. It's just hard for me to > > imagine having the task of trying to convince people of the goodness > > of Clojure and not talking about STM. > > > -- > > R. Mark Volkmann > > Object Computing, Inc. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
