Ah, now it makes sense. I came to Clojure having experience with Java and Emacs. I can see that learning the ecosystem surrounding these things can't be an easy

Ah, now it makes sense. I came to Clojure having experience with Java and Emacs. I can see that learning the ecosystem surrounding these things can't be an easy task if you're doing it all at once. As others have pointed out, there are more 'beginner friendly' options it seems. But, these seem overlooked, and I can see beginners not even being aware they exist. If Clojure wants to see more mainstream success, the community is going to have to provide people with the things they want. Emacs is fantastic (I use it everyday) and I believe it is the best way to write Clojure, but the learning curve of Emacs + Clojure + Java is too great. Cleaning up the Java Stack Traces (I believe there are several projects that try to do this) in Clojure Core would also help with this.