When I wrote my last post on ClojureScript, I was really hoping someone would jump in and say: “You’re doing it wrong! Here’s how.”

I did get some interesting replies, especially on HackerNews (where that post was briefly on the front page). There really seem to be two camps here: Newbies as confused as I am, and pros who say you just have to invest the time and learn, then you may be able to make good use of some of existing JS frameworks or (better?) roll your own ClojureScript frameworks. They say it’s worth it once your codebase is big enough.

Getting Angular to Work

Anyway, Greg Weber here on my blog noted that you can actually use Angular with Closure – just need to use explicit dependency injection. So far Angular seemed to require the least work with CLJS, so I was happy to give it another shot. I also found this note on minification in Angular docs very helpful.

In the end I’ve successfully rewritten the “todo” sample application. Here’s one way to do it:

(defn add-todo [scope]
  (fn []
    (.push (.-todos scope) (js-obj "text" (.-todoText scope) "done" false))
    (aset scope "todoText" "")))

(defn remaining [scope]
  (fn [] 
    (count (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos scope)))))

(defn archive [scope]
  (fn []
    (let [arr (into-array (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos scope)))]
      (aset scope "todos" arr  ))))

(defn CTodoCtrl [$scope]
  (def $scope.todos (array (js-obj "text" "learn angular" "done" true)))
  
  (def $scope.addTodo (add-todo $scope))

  (def $scope.remaining (remaining $scope))

  (def $scope.archive (archive $scope))) 

(def TodoCtrl
  (array
    "$scope"
    CTodoCtrl))

The last 4 lines are equivalent of using this array syntax in JavaScript:

TodoCtrl = ['$scope', CTodoCtrl];

Another way to do it is setting the $inject property, like this:

(def TodoCtrl CTodoCtrl)
(aset TodoCtrl "$inject" (array "$scope"))

As usually, complete working project can be found at my GitHub repository.

Implementation Details

Function definition

In the above example I’m defining functions on CTodoCtrl by using “factory functions”. I find this slightly more readable, but it also can be done with in-place definitions like this:

(aset $scope "remaining" 
        (fn []
          (count (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos $scope)))))

Unfortunately, I was unable to get it to work with anonymous functions (it compiled to CTodoCtrl.remaining = (function CTodoCtrl.remaining() {...):

(aset $scope "remaining" #(...))

This did not work either (I wish it did!):

(defn $scope.remaining [] (...))

Objects, Arrays

I’m not quite happy with the use of objects here – I would definitely prefer to use Clojure maps like this:

; Instead of:
; (def $scope.todos (array (js-obj "text" "learn angular" "done" true)))
; Do:
(def $scope.todos [{:text "learn angular" :done true}])

; Insetad of:
; (into-array (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos scope)))
; Do:
(filter #(not (:done %)) (:todos scope))

Unfortunately, it seems Angular doesn’t like ClojureScript types and vice versa. Looks like a small, fixable annoyance.

ClojureScript!

It’s still ugly at places and not quite spectacular, but I like using functional programming with ClojureScript instead of JavaScript loops.

I mean replacing this:

var count = 0;
angular.forEach($scope.todos, function(todo) {
  count += todo.done ? 0 : 1;
});
return count;

with:

(count (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos scope)))

And this:

var oldTodos = $scope.todos;
$scope.todos = [];
angular.forEach(oldTodos, function(todo) {
  if (!todo.done) $scope.todos.push(todo);
});

with:

(let [arr (into-array (filter #(not (.-done %)) (.-todos scope)))]
      (aset scope "todos" arr))

Verdict

All in all, I may finally be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Integration with Angular looks very promising, after addressing the small interop glitches with type mapping it may be quite expressive and straightforward. I probably will shelve Knockout for now and explore Angular.

A while ago I began to play with ClojureScript and tried to get it to work with popular frameworks. I played with a few of them, most recently with Knockout.js. This post sums up those efforts and my not-so-optimistic view on ClojureScript.

• I tried “bare” jQuery. It was pretty smooth.
• I tried Backbone.js. I got it to work on a simple example, though one reader on Twitter rightfully commented that ClojureScript was hideous. Yes, that Backbone example is hideous. Later on I tried to do something less trivial. Eventually I fled in horror, thanks to impedance mismatch between heavily OO Backbone and non-OO ClojureScript sauced with my ignorance in CLJS (and Backbone).
• I also gave Angular.js a shot. It started really smooth, because Angular proudly states that it doesn’t rely on object-oriented programming so much. It was great. Right to the moment when I started arguing with the compiler renaming my variables, soon followed by discovery that Angular and Closure are no go.

So, the time has come to another experiment – this time Knockout.js. I followed the official tutorial and here is what I eventually came up with.

The Page

The complete page in Hiccup looks like this. Nothing particularly exciting here.

(defn render-body []
  (hp/html5
     [:head]
     [:body
 
      [:p "First name: " [:strong {:data-bind "text: firstName"} "todo"]]
      [:p "Last name: " [:strong {:data-bind "text: lastName"} "todo"]]
      [:p "Full name: " [:strong {:data-bind "text: fullName"} "todo"]]
      
      [:p "First name: " [:input {:data-bind "value: firstName"}]]
      [:p "Last name: " [:input {:data-bind "value: lastName"}]]
      
      [:button {:data-bind "click: capitalizeLastName"} "Go caps"]
   
      (hp/include-js 
        "//ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/knockout/knockout-2.1.0.js"
        "js/cljs.js")
      (hp/include-css "css/todo.css")
      ]))

ClojureScript

The most interesting part is the ClojureScript code. Here’s one way to do it:

(ns hello-clojurescript)

(defn app-view-model []
  (this-as this
           (set! (.-firstName this) (.observable js/ko "Bert"))
           (set! (.-lastName this) (.observable js/ko "Bertington"))
           (set! 
             (.-fullName this)
             (.computed js/ko 
               (fn []
                 (str (.firstName this) " " (.lastName this))) this))
           (set!
             (.-capitalizeLastName this) 
             (fn []
               (.lastName this (-> this .lastName .toUpperCase)))))
  nil
  )

(.applyBindings js/ko (app-view-model.))

Yes, I do need to explicitly return “nil” there. Otherwise it returns this.fullName = ..., and that breaks KO.

It works, but it’s hard to defend it in comparison to the JS equivalent:

function AppViewModel() {
    this.firstName = ko.observable("Bert");
    this.lastName = ko.observable("Bertington");
    this.fullName = ko.computed(function() {
        return this.firstName() + " " + this.lastName();    
    }, this);
    this.capitalizeLastName = function() {
        var currentVal = this.lastName();     
        this.lastName(currentVal.toUpperCase());
    };
    
}

ko.applyBindings(new AppViewModel());

Complete code can be found at my GitHub repository.

Better Way – Macro

This code can be made a lot better with a custom macro, as the one presented at StackOverflow:

(defvar name_model
    first_name (observable "My")
    last_name (observable "Name")
    name (computed (fn [] (str (. this first_name) " " (. this last_name)))))

(. js/ko (applyBindings name_model));

Now, that would be something!

… except for that defining macros in ClojureScript is harder than in plain Clojure, to the point that I haven’t gotten it to work yet.

Conclusions on ClojureScript

I spent quite a few hours poking at ClojureScript, and I have mixed feelings.

1. It’s pretty hard to get ClojureScript to work with existing JS frameworks, mostly because using objects in CLJS requires so much ceremony.
2. Contrary to plain Clojure, “fun” and “productive” aren’t the words that come to mind when I think of my adventures in CLJS. “Frustrating” and “intimidating” are much more appropriate. I’m constantly arguing with the compiler and trying to beat it to do the right thing, not having fun solving problems.
3. Some stuff can be covered with macros, but all in all it feels very… rigid and constraining. I feel like every once in a while I’m bound to hit another rough corner, spend too much time on it, write another macro, and so on. All that only to bridge the gaps and make ClojureScript look more like… JavaScript. In fact, that feels like writing my own layer of macros to compile JS-like-DSL to ClojureScript.
4. Perhaps there is a better way and I’m just doing something wrong. Maybe you’re not supposed to use those frameworks at all, but roll your own or use those few written in ClojureScript?
5. Perhaps all of this makes little sense on such a small scale, and you need something really big to appreciate ClojureScript. You just need to invest many hours in passing the learning curve and macroing your way out. Maybe then it becomes more productive, modular and whatnot. I don’t know, in fact I have too little experience in JavaScript itself to answer such questions. I’m not very optimistic about it, though.