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#editors
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2021-07-21
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PJ00:07:44

Hi #editors folks, I’m picking up Clojure, and am the point where I am moving from REPL prompt and lein nightlight to finding an editor that works for me. (I’m working through the course by @ericnormand, which is very good and structured, though it’s not cheap!) This editor question is turning out to be a lot more complicated… I’m inclining towards learning emacs or spacemacs, but is there a beginner tutorial or something you’d recommend? because the documentation is really overwhelming for beginners like me.

PJ00:07:01

Fyi i’ve also tried downloading Chlorine (i currently use Atom), and also IntelliJ Cursive, and it seems like everyone has a downside and learning curve. (Atom keeps crashing for me even before)

PJ00:07:33

I’ve also downloaded VS Code with Calva, but the VS Code interface really doesn’t gel with me.

seancorfield00:07:17

I used to use Atom with Chlorine and it was rock solid for me -- on both macOS and Windows -- but I've switched to VS Code since then (due to the WSL2 support on Windows) and I have Calva installed but I use Clover for all my code evaluation -- which is Chlorine-for-VS-Code -- so I have Calva's nREPL UI disabled in the settings.

seancorfield00:07:47

@U01CJD1H0UW What is it about VS Code's UI that you don't like? I felt it was almost exactly like Atom so it felt like a fairly easy switch for me...

seancorfield00:07:44

(I used to use Emacs -- for many years -- but I got tired of dealing with the general old-fashioned nature of it, compared to modern editors)

seancorfield00:07:44

The most popular editors for Clojure developers are Emacs, Cursive (IntelliJ), and VS Code and those are also the best-supported options, in terms of Clojure plugins.

seancorfield00:07:54

There's a #spacemacs channel (and also an #emacs channel) where folks might be able to point you at decent beginner material -- but I generally advise not trying to learn Emacs while also learning Clojure 😓

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raspasov06:07:37

I’ve been using Cursive for years (more or less since I started with Clojure 8 years ago), very happy with it.

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seancorfield06:07:22

Yeah, I hear a lot of good things about Cursive, and @U0567Q30W continues to do an amazing job maintaining it -- I just can't stand IntelliJ (and I've tried to like it, I really have, over the years). But for anyone who is comfortable with IntelliJ, yup, Cursive would be my top recommendation for Clojure.

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PJ08:07:40

Thanks @U04V70XH6! about not learning Emacs while also learning Clojure, duly noted: I am also sensing that doing both might be attempting to eat two elephants at the same time… Also noted on Cursive as a recommendation! (thanks too @U050KSS8M!) On VS Code’s UI, it actually felt quite different from Atom to me. VS Code’s UI felt a lot more like a Microsoft product… (might be my residual allergic reaction mental association from growing up in the 90s…) Atom feels less corporate. I would continue using Atom, if it wasn’t crashing on me so frequently (regularly once every few days).

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mauricio.szabo12:07:40

@U01CJD1H0UW I'm using Atom full-time, and not experiencing these problems. Want to try and troubleshoot it?

PJ12:07:12

interesting! Thanks for sharing @U3Y18N0UC Yeah maybe i’ll try doing that. Are you using a M1 chip?

mauricio.szabo13:07:12

No, I'm on Linux with x86-64...

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mauricio.szabo13:07:51

Did you try any of the atom-beta or atom-nightly builds? I tested then recently, and they were incredibly stable

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PJ02:07:36

Thanks @U3Y18N0UC - will download and try the nightly build!

PJ02:08:59

Hi @U3Y18N0UC, I finally managed to get Chlorine working (took a while to figure out key-mappings that didn’t conflict), and it’s working great on the latest stable version of Atom: no issues so far. Wanted to thank you for Chlorine! 🙏

mauricio.szabo13:08:15

@U01CJD1H0UW Great, I hope everything works fine for you! If you have any trouble, don't hesitate to ask (there's also a #chlorine-clover channel so you can ask there too)!

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