This blog will focus on statistical programming in the Clojure language using Incanter.
Incanter is a Clojure-based, R-like statistical computing and graphics environment for the JVM. At the core of Incanter are the Parallel Colt numerics library, a multithreaded version of Colt, and the JFreeChart charting library, as well as several other Java and Clojure libraries.
The motivation for creating Incanter is to provide a JVM-based statistical computing and graphics platform with R-like semantics and interactive-programming environment. Running on the JVM provides access to the large number of existing Java libraries for data access, data processing, and presentation. Clojure’s seamless integration with Java makes leveraging these libraries much simpler than is possible in R, and Incanter’s R-like semantics makes statistical programming much simpler than is possible in pure Java.
Motivation for a Lisp-based R-like statistical environment can be found in the paper Back to the Future: Lisp as a Base for a Statistical Computing System by Ihaka and Lang (2008). Incanter is also inspired by the now dormant Lisp-Stat (see the special volume in the Journal of Statistical Software on Lisp-Stat: Past, Present, and Future from 2005).
Motivation for a JVM-based Lisp can be found at the Clojure website, and screencasts of several excellent Clojure talks by the language’s creator, Rich Hickey, can be found at https://www.youtube.com/user/ClojureTV.
David Edgar Liebke (liebke@incanter.org) is the author of Incanter. He is a developer and statistician working for Clojure/core at Relevance Inc. He has a B.S. in cognitive science (UC San Diego), M.S. in applied mathematics and statistics (Georgetown), an M.B.A. (UC Irvine).
Data Sorcery with Clojure 
Wonderful! Thanks for developing this! It works seamlessly…
Thanks Nicholas, I’m glad to hear it!
Sweet, this I will have to look into! Might give me just that extra motivation I needed to finally learn Clojure: a good stats/prototyping environment to play around with. Thanks!
Is there a mailing list or forum or something for discussing/asking questions about Incanter? I’m interested in using it, and it’s nice to plug in to a support group.
Thanks!
There is no dedicated mailing list yet, but general questions can be posted to the Clojure Google group or the #clojure irc channel, and of course I’m happy to answer questions by email (liebke at gmail).
David
taotree, based on your suggestion I decided to create a Google group for Incanter: http://groups.google.com/group/incanter
David
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After spending a few years as a lisper, I’m just getting into dabbling with Clojure and this looks absolutely great. Thanks for putting in the time to create (and document) this!
Thank you, it’s been my pleasure :-)