Exercism assignment for word-count in Clojure

Question

I would appreciate some insights / comments from Clojure regulars out there about my submission here.

(ns phrase)
(require '[clojure.string :as s])
(defn word-array
 [phrase]
 (-> (s/lower-case phrase)
 (s/split #"\W+")))
(defn word-count
 [phrase]
 (-> (word-array phrase)
 (frequencies)))

• omiel: It seems like a copy of the example code provided in the linked repository. What kind of feedback would you like about it ?
• Low Kian Seong: Well I think it's a little bit shorter than the example. I just reworked my solution until I got the shortest form of it. I just wanted some comments on if this is like succinct clojure code and is it idiomatic.

Answer 1

I would format it like this:

(ns phrase
 (:require [clojure.string :as s]))
(defn word-array [phrase]
 (s/split (s/lower-case phrase) #"\W+"))
(defn word-count [phrase]
 (frequencies (word-array phrase)))

Notice that I included the require statement as part of the ns definition.

Whether or not you use threading macros (->, ->>) is generally a matter of personal preference, and there's nothing wrong with using them here, but I think in this case since you're only using 2 functions, I find the above easier to read. You might also consider using comp:

(def word-array (comp #(s/split % #"\W+") s/lower-case)
(def word-count (comp frequencies word-array))