Elena Machkasova - Adapting Clojure to an Intro CS Classroom

Elena Machkasova discusses the challenges and solutions of using Clojure in an introductory computer science classroom.

Lisps are a great starting point for teaching computer science since they allow introduction of essential concepts, such as functional abstraction, recursion, and higher-order functions. Clojure provides additional benefits for novice programmers due to its rich set of data structures and predefined functions, easy access to concurrent processing, and an active open source and industry community. However, in order to introduce Clojure in an introductory programming class for students with no programming experience, one has to address several challenges, such as non-beginner-friendly error messages and a lack of a beginner-friendly IDE. In this talk I will discuss progress that my students and I have made towards filling in the missing pieces for incorporating Clojure into an introductory class.