[kaffeinecoma]

I'm trying so hard to love Clojure, but I keep running into examples of code like this in the world: http://imgur.com/79FlpTL. I don't write dense Lisp code like that, but unfortunately a lot of other people do. And I spend far more time reading code than writing it.

[gcv]

Think of this code as taking a built-in data structure and repeatedly refining it by transforming it into a different data structure. With only a little more practice, you'll find reading (and writing!) code like this becomes second nature.

I find it much simpler to deal with this style than with the equivalent in other languages, which would scatter the details across a half-dozen files, a dozen classes, and two dozen methods.

[swannodette]

Well that code seems pretty readable to me and appears to preserve some interesting properties of the original paper as mentioned below the source :)

As far as spending more time reading Clojure than writing it I experience this myself - and I'm pretty sure this isn't a bad thing.

[kaffeinecoma]

I meant that in general, we as programmers will spend more time reading (our, others') code than writing it. Nature of the business. Did not mean to imply this was a bad thing.

When I consider adopting a language, part of that consideration is how well I can read others' idiomatic code. It's so important for understanding libraries. I'm still just having a hard time with Clojure. I know it clicks for a lot of people though.

[Flow]

Perhaps readable if you read a lot of Clojure, but hardly anything that is easy to test piece by piece inspecting intermediate data, using a REPL for example.

[smrtinsert]

These are fairly common functions in clojure. You might not be there yet as it is pretty readable. My personal preference would be to work in some let expressions for extra clarity.

[jgalt212]

Amen to that. I try to write mostly functional Python, but I use a lot of temporary variables to make such things as f(g(args) more readable where each arg is in itself a non-trivial computation that must be passed along to another function.

The problem with your let strategy is this can also impair readability if you use too many as the code becomes too far indented to the right (lets inside of lets inside of lets).

But I guess in these situations you can just use transients that are first defined to nil. Some people will probably yell at you for this.

http://clojure.org/transients

[harperlee]

If you don't mind, what document is that?

[kaffeinecoma]

It's a page from the O'Reilly Clojure Programming book. I hate to point fingers at the authors, because it's generally a really great book. Just that some of the examples are rather dense, and I get the feeling that this is not at all unusual in the community.

[raju]

It's from Clojure Programming by Chas Emerick, Brian Carper, Christophe Grand - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920013754.do