Chapter 1, Getting Started with Luminus, guides you through creating a new project using the Luminus application template. We'll then dive into what was generated, what the out-of-the-box project dependencies are, and the general file structure of a Luminus web app.

Chapter 2, Ring and the Ring Server, describes the core technologies driving our application, and shows you how to use the development web server.

Chapter 3, Logging, demonstrates configuration of some basic logging and the Clojure logging library, Timbre.

Chapter 4, URL Routing and Template Rendering, starts to dive into the important part of web applications. It shows you how to handle incoming requests using Compojure, and how to render web pages using the Selmer templating engine. We'll also create a sign-up form for our application.

Chapter 5, Handling Form Input, teaches you how to validate form data and report form validation errors back to the user.

Chapter 6, Testing in Clojure, is a quick tour of automated testing and its use in Clojure.

Chapter 7, Getting Started with the Database, is the first of three chapters covering database management and interactivity. We'll set up our application's database, and you will learn how to manage your database schema using the Migratus Leiningen plug. Then we will store the form input created in the fifth chapter using YeSQL.

Chapter 8, Reading Data from the Database, continues exploring database interactivity by teaching you how to retrieve data from the database using YeSQL. We'll then create a couple of new web pages that list the most recently added items in our database.

Chapter 9, Database Transactions, gives us a brief overview of what database transactions are. We'll then create a form that transactionally inserts data into multiple tables.

Chapter 10, Sessions and Cookies, demonstrates how sessions and cookies are managed and maintained in Noir. We'll then create an authentication form for our application, and save a cookie in the user's browser to remember their username the next time they log in.

Chapter 11, Environment Configuration and Deployment, guides us through abstracting our environment configuration (such as database connectivity) and describes a few common ways by which we can deploy our application.

Appendix, Using Korma – a Clojure DSL for SQL, covers the modification of the YeSQL model layers to use Korma, a native Clojure Domain Specific Language that can be used to interact with the database if you're not keen on using raw SQL.

First and foremost, you must be familiar with the Clojure programming language. You'll also need to install the Leiningen build tool. Familiarity with basic web technology is also valuable.

This book targets software developers who are already using Clojure but want to use their skill set for web applications. Very little of this book does any fancy frontend development, and most of it focuses on server-side development. If you're primarily a frontend developer, or have never heard of Clojure, this book is precisely not what you are looking for.

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and explanations of their meanings.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code is set as follows:

  :dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.6.0"]
                [lib-noir "0.9.4"]
                [ring-server "0.3.1"]
                [selmer "0.7.2"]
                [com.taoensso/timbre "3.3.1"]
                [com.taoensso/tower "3.0.2"]

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

:ring {:handler hipstr.handler/app
  :init hipstr.handler/init
  :destroy  hipstr.handler/destroy
  :open-browser? false}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# lein ring server-headless

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen."

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title via the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.