Rating: 4/5

For beginners, I think this book is very good. I really like the level of detail in most chapters, and I especially enjoyed the variance in pace: Most chapters go methodically over a certain topic, but there is also a chapter that combines everything to create a web app with a lot of moving parts in a single chapter.

I liked most of the training plan a lot. Really good idea to just start with 4clojure exercises, because why not? They’re very good and just the right level. The exercises created by the author were also very good and provided me with interesting challenges.

I do have a few minor complaints, though. After a while, it felt to me like the Alice in Wonderland references became a bit awkward. I don’t mind references to fiction throughout a book in general, quite the contrary, I find it quite refreshing. But in this case, I found that the examples were sometimes a bit weird and more contrived than necessary.

Also, the final exercise was a bit of a disappointment. The last week of the training plan is dedicated to building a complete web app and deploying it to Heroku.

There are instructions on how to get an app running on Heroku, which is quite helpful. After these instructions, I was expecting a description of the app to build, but this is not how the exercise is designed. Instead, the author allocates a hammock day for the student to come up with their own good idea for what to build.

I’m sure this works well for some people, but I would much have preferred to be told exactly what to build. For me, coming up with an app idea is simply an annoying distraction at a point where I’m eager to start applying everything I’ve read about.

This would also have allowed the author to design a really good challenge that covered much of the material in the book - possibly with some optional features.

In any case, I can definitely recommend this book, especially for beginners.

Here is a link to the book on Goodreads.