There was a time where I was so fed up with lisps, Clojure, stack traces, and EOF errors. I was ready to go back to Node.js. And then I came a turning point. I stumbled across episode 29 of the Functional Geekery.

The episode was an interview with @gigasquid. It was entertaining and I learned a thing or two. And, and, she sounded like a normal human being. One who had had to work hard. I was energized. So after Functional Geekery, I looked for more podcasts with @gigasquid. There were a fair number of them. Living Clojure had just come out and so everyone was keen to chat about it. It was great fun. I even ended up buying the book. Those podcasts became my companions as devoured the other episodes.

Eventually, my travels led me to the Cognicast. It was amazing! There were close to 100 episodes (at the time). All relating to Clojure. On days when I was too tired to code, I listened to an episode of the Cognicast. Some days I would just listen to an episode for entertainment.

Alternating between coding, reading and listening turned out to be a great way to keep forward momentum. It was like I was truly living Clojure. The switching contexts also helped me deal with the frustration of learning a new skill, in an calm, entertaining and educational way.

Give it a try and lemme know how it goes for you. I’ll be on twitter. And remember when you get frustrated with Clojure, remember @gigasquid’s words: “Parens are like hugs for your code”. Do you really want to write code that’s deprived of hugs? Keep fighting the good fight. Keep living Clojure.

May your build always pass.

Alex

Podcasts on Living Clojure

• Functional Geekery
• The Cognicast
• Hanselminutes
• Changelog

This post is part of the "Advent of Parens".

I know. I know. We were supposed to chat about dealing with dodgy internet while trying to learn Clojure. It’s been one heck of a day so we’ll have to chat about that next week.