Pre-West Interview: Yoko Harada

April 10, 2015

This interview was graciously conducted by Nola Stowe. She's a programmer, the co-founder of DevChix, and a prolific teacher. She recently ran ClojureBridge Austin. Please shout out to her and say thanks!

Introduction

Yoko Harada is the next interview participant. She is giving a talk at Clojure/West about developing the ClojureBridge curriculum. The background to her talk is available, if you like.

Interview with Yoko Harada

Nola: How long have you been doing Clojure and how did you get into it?

Yoko: My experience is quite sparse, but I've been using Clojure for about 4 years. Since I'm a JVM language lover, I had a great interest in Clojure, which was very different from other JVM languages. I started ClojureScript integrating Ruby gem at first.

Nola: What languages did you do before Clojure?

Yoko: Mostly, Java and Ruby.

Nola: What are your thoughts on Clojure being a first language or do you think its more suited to someone who has some experience in programming?

Yoko: It depends. Thinking of the time I was a student, for some folks, lisp was the first language and did well using Lisp. For many people, Clojure coding is not similar to how they think. For example, in OOP, "I have a cup of soup. let's add some spice", in Lisp, "Let's add something and other stuff, what about soup and spice." Sometime, the latter is productive in coding while sometime, the former is. I admit OOP is natural for vast majority. But, at the same time, I don't think programming experience will help to think like Lisp.

Nola: What kinds of help do you need for ClojureBridge?

Yoko:

  1. spread the word
  2. plan to organize ClojureBridge
  3. have experiences of organizing, TAing, and others of ClojureBridge
  4. involve yourself in ClojureBridge curriculum improvements based on the experience
  5. become a ClojureBridge board member
  6. become a ClojureBridge mentor and help people who firstly organize ClojureBridge
  7. donate and support ClojureBridge financially. The workshop needs venue, some food and. sometime, coaches/TAs' travel expense

Nola: What is your favorite clojure library?

Yoko: Hoplon

Nola: Thanks for the interview. It was very informative.

This post is one of a series called Pre-West Prep, which is also published by email. It's all about getting ready for the upcoming Clojure/West, organized by Cognitect. Conferences are ongoing conversations and explorations. Speakers discuss trends, best practices, and the future by drawing on the rich context built up in past conferences and other media.

That rich context is what Pre-West Prep is about. I want to enhance everyone's experience at the conference by surfacing that context. With just a little homework, we can be better prepared to understand and enjoy the talks and the hallway conversations.

Clojure/West is a conference organized and hosted by Cognitect. This information is in no way official. It is not sponsored by nor affiliated with Clojure/West or Cognitect. It is simply me (and helpers) curating and organizing public information about the conference.

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Pre-West Prep: Yoko Harada

March 29, 2015

This summary was graciously written by Nola Stowe. She's a programmer, the co-founder of DevChix, and a prolific teacher. She recently ran ClojureBridge Austin. Please shout out to her and say thanks!

Talk: Joys and Pains to Write a Clojure Curriculum for Beginners

Yoko Harada will be speaking on ClojureBridge and the challenges of writing a curriculum for beginner programmers.

Background

ClojureBridge aims to increase diversity within the Clojure community by offering free, beginner-friendly Clojure programming workshops for women. The curriculum is a work in progress which you can see here. They can use help and you can look at the issues on github to see what is needed!

Please watch the introductory talk on ClojureBridge by founder Bridget Hillyer.

About Yoko Harada

Github - Twitter

This post is one of a series called Pre-West Prep, which is also published by email. It's all about getting ready for the upcoming Clojure/West, organized by Cognitect. Conferences are ongoing conversations and explorations. Speakers discuss trends, best practices, and the future by drawing on the rich context built up in past conferences and other media.

That rich context is what Pre-West Prep is about. I want to enhance everyone's experience at the conference by surfacing that context. With just a little homework, we can be better prepared to understand and enjoy the talks and the hallway conversations.

Clojure/West is a conference organized and hosted by Cognitect. This information is in no way official. It is not sponsored by nor affiliated with Clojure/West or Cognitect. It is simply me (and helpers) curating and organizing public information about the conference.

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