On: Clojure Desktop UI Framework

[vaylian]

Clojure is a lisp. Lisp languages represent code as trees. That's why you have so many parentheses. The trees contain language constructs (if, cond, let, defn, ...), data (numbers, strings,...) and names (function names, names of value bindings). There is also some more advanced syntax for quoting and macros.

When reading lisp code, you navigate it like a tree. Indention matters and clean lisp code has the same indention level for all sibling nodes (with minor deviations for special constructs). Most code follows the pattern of defining "variable" bindings (e.g. via `let`) and then it has one final expression that uses all these bindings to calculate a value.

  (defn name-of-a-function-that-i-define [first-argument second-argument]
    (let [sum-of-some-numbers (+ 1 2 3)
          product-of-some-numbers (* 1 2 3)]
      (+ first-argument
         second-argument
         sum-of-some-numbers
         product-of-some-numbers)))

[ulbu → vaylian]

(i'll just make it clear that indentation matters to users as a strongly recommended convention for ease of reading. to the interpreter, you can write everything on a single line)

[gorjusborg → ulbu]

I'll add that the related 'power' many Lisp acolytes talk about stems from the fact that everything is a list of lists. Due to this, you can write programs that take syntax (a list of lists) and modify that syntax to do something else (another list of lists).

Imagine a language that has a built in parser and code generation library.

[vaylian → ulbu]

Correct. This is not python.