I know. I'm late to this train. And there are lots of resources to clarify this. But I have to manifest myself somewhere (and twitter's char limit won't do this time).
Here's the deal. I know I've written a fair share of Clojure lines of code. But I come from the land of the ancient parenthesis (specifically, Scheme, Common Lisp). So whenever I try to teach clojure to someone, it's inevitable to tell them that it's a Lisp, so it's ok to see those rounded delimiters everywhere.
This is where I start by asking them to define a simple function, and instead of defun/define, use defn. Something like this will do:
(defn xpto ()
(+ 2 3))
Simple enough, right? Wrong. (I know it's wrong, now, off course). But for the beginner, the first thing to do is to read the error message. So let's take a look:
Don't know how to create ISeq from: clojure.lang.Symbol
[Thrown class java.lang.IllegalArgumentException]
Yeeeah, isn't that obvious? Clojure wants to make a sequence and I'm trying to use a symb... wait, what?? the only symbol I know I'm using is xpto, and that's about right on the syntax! The Java exception isn't much help either. What argument? The ones I'm not using on the functions (but weren't those parameters?) Or the ones I'm using on the function call (but 2 and 3 are numbers, not strings!! *help*!) Ok, breath. let's take a look into the stack trace, it is usually helpful on java, at least to trace where the error is:
Backtrace:
0: clojure.lang.RT.seqFrom(RT.java:469)
1: clojure.lang.RT.seq(RT.java:450)
2: clojure.lang.RT.first(RT.java:538)
3: clojure.core$first.invoke(core.clj:53)
4: clojure.core$sigs$asig__3331.invoke(core.clj:202)
5: clojure.core$sigs.invoke(core.clj:214)
6: clojure.core$defn.doInvoke(core.clj:268)
7: clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:495)
8: clojure.lang.Var.invoke(Var.java:381)
9: clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:180)
10: clojure.lang.Var.applyTo(Var.java:482)
11: clojure.lang.Compiler.macroexpand1(Compiler.java:5215)
12: clojure.lang.Compiler.macroexpand(Compiler.java:5270)
13: clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:5338)
14: clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:5320)
15: clojure.core$eval.invoke(core.clj:2366)
16: swank.commands.basic$eval_region.invoke(basic.clj:47)
17: swank.commands.basic$eval_region.invoke(basic.clj:37)
18: swank.commands.basic$eval801$interactive_eval__802.invoke(basic.clj:66)
19: clojure.lang.Var.invoke(Var.java:365)
20: myproject.core$eval3896.invoke(NO_SOURCE_FILE)
21: clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:5353)
22: clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:5320)
23: clojure.core$eval.invoke(core.clj:2366)
24: swank.core$eval_in_emacs_package.invoke(core.clj:94)
25: swank.core$eval_for_emacs.invoke(core.clj:241)
26: clojure.lang.Var.invoke(Var.java:373)
27: clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:169)
28: clojure.lang.Var.applyTo(Var.java:482)
29: clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:536)
30: swank.core$eval_from_control.invoke(core.clj:101)
31: swank.core$spawn_worker_thread$fn__453$fn__454.invoke(core.clj:300)
32: clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:159)
33: clojure.lang.AFn.applyTo(AFn.java:151)
34: clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:536)
35: swank.core$spawn_worker_thread$fn__453.doInvoke(core.clj:296)
36: clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:398)
37: clojure.lang.AFn.run(AFn.java:24)
38: java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:637)
Read it all? Want your 3 minutes back? (ok, 30 if you actually went looking for documentation on the API, the source of Compiler, core.clj or worse if you went looking for slime's or Thread :) ). Sick, isn't it? not a single line is useful for our cause.
I'm afraid I have no good news for you, except to tell you what the problem was and hope you'll never forget that. I know I didn't. (until I swapped to a bunch of different programming languages, including common lisp, for a while, and returned with my auto-pilot coding style turned on :) ).
The problem is that clojure expects a sequence of parameters, not a list. And thus, the proper syntax is to use [] instead of (). I know, a list is not a symbol. Or so I thought... I could even go theorize about () being translated to nil in compile time, and so it was a symbol. But evaluating (symbol? nil) quickly clarifies that for us...
Pledge - please, oh please start adding useful semantic to clojure's core language errors... The language entry barrier will lower significantly, I'm sure!
