

Our Stack: iOS, Mac OS X and Clojure on Google App Engine - DeusExMachina
http://blog.sevenmillennia.com/2011/02/06/our-stack/

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atrain34
I was expecting a more pragmatic explanation of why Clojure, Mac OSX and
Google App Engine. Although at this point, the pragmatic selection of Mac OSX
and iOS is understood.

What did Clojure do for you that the hundreds of others don't or didn't? What
is unique about your infrastructure? What challenges did you find? Etc..

Why the Google App Engine? Cheaper? Free? Faster? Why not the others?

~~~
DeusExMachina
This is a good point.

The post was already quite long, so I tried to summarize everything. I will
reserve this part for another post in the future, also because for now the
apps are not yet live and I will certainly have more experience in the future
to address all these questions better.

------
panduwana
How did you learn about Clojure on GAE? What editor/IDE do you use (for
Clojure)?

~~~
DeusExMachina
At first I started wanting to use GAE and a functional language. I was
learning Lisp but I did not know about Clojure so my first idea was to use
Python, but after some research and asking here on HN I found that Python is
not really suited for FP. That's when I discovered Clojure (someone here on HN
suggested it), since it compiles to the JVM, it works on GAE too.

Then I made some research for a while. At first I found only some blog posts
on how to interact directly with the GAE API. I then came across The Deadline
(<https://the-deadline.appspot.com>) here on HN, which is written in Clojure
on GAE and it's a production app (I believe they do not use the library but a
custom solution, but I really don't know). So I had the validation that it was
possible and started coding the other parts of the project (I started with the
iPhone app to have a proof of concept).

In the meanwhile time passed and I kept searching from time to time on Google
for info about the subject. Some day I found that library on Google and also
this article, which mentions it (again here on HN):
[http://www.glenstampoultzis.net/blog/clojure-web-
infrastruct...](http://www.glenstampoultzis.net/blog/clojure-web-
infrastructure/)

As you can see HN is a really good source for me. ;)

Regarding the editor I use Vim with colored syntax, autocompletion and rainbow
parentheses. At the time I made some research and in the end I decided for
Vim. To build the app I use Leiningen (appengine-magic has some Leiningen
extension for building and deploying).

It works, but to tell the truth I really feel the need for an IDE for Clojure
(and not some generic IDE like Eclipse or Netbeans adapted to Clojure using
some plugins). I even thought about writing one myself, but for now I don't
have the time and probably not even the knowledge.

