I suppose this is a strange question to the huge majority of programmers that work daily with Java. I don't. I know Java-the-language, because I worked on Java projects, but not Java-the-world. I never made a web app from scratch in Java. If I have to do it with Python, Ruby, I know where to go (Django or Rails), but if I want to make a web application in Clojure, not because I'm forced to live in a Java world, but because I like the language and I want to give it a try, what libraries and frameworks should I use?
16 Answers
By far the best Clojure web framework I have yet encountered is Compojure: http://github.com/weavejester/compojure/tree/master
It's small but powerful, and has beautifully elegant syntax. (It uses Jetty under the hood, but it hides the Servlet API from you unless you want it, which won't be often). Go look at the README at that URL, then download a snapshot and start playing.
Webjure, a web programming framework for Clojure.
Features: Dispatch servlet calls Clojure functions. Dynamic HTML generation. SQL query interface (through JDBC).
This answer is meant as a placeholder for Webjure information.
Compojure's what I used to build a tiny blogging application. It's modeled on Sinatra, which is a minimal, light-weight web framework for Ruby. I mostly just used the routing, which is just like Sinatra's. It looks like:
(GET "/post/:id/:slug"
(some-function-that-returns-html :id :slug))
There's no ORM or templating library, but it does have functions that turn vectors into HTML.
I'll throw in my two cents for Duct, also from @weavejester, the maintainer of Compojure and Ring.
At it's core, it brings Component and the Ring router under one roof. Reasons why I use Duct:
- Excellent philosophical foundation: it encourages you to build your app as a series of small components, and it strikes a nice balance between holding few opinions while providing sane defaults.
- Stable path: I speak for myself, but over the years I've felt that the Clojure community has presented one less-than-credible web framework after another. A couple simply felt too experimental (my experience with Om and client-side Pedestal) for "getting things done" (not that they won't prove superior down the road). On the other hand, I feel like @weavejester has brought the same stability and measured progress to Duct that he did to Compojure and Ring, which have been superbly born out in the community.
- It's super lightweight, and out of the way of my components.
Major features:
- Organizes routes by "endpoints", small components that can you can think of as mini web servers (or, small cross sections of your HTTP routes).
- Out-of-the-box support for the Reloaded Workflow.
- Perfect integration with Ring and Compojure.
- Development and production configurations (something I've found conspicuously missing elsewhere).
- Good documentation with examples.
Note: It goes without saying, but for the benefit of web development newcomers, like most Clojurey things Duct requires a solid grasp of Clojure the language. I also recommend reading about Component first.
On another personal note, I've been using Duct in several production applications for over a year now and am extremely happy with it.
Related