3 ms·

At the risk of starting a war - I'm used to Vim. Is there a benefit to looking into LightTable or Emacs if I want to get into Clojure?

MBlume 13y ago
There may be, I'm not that familiar with either, but do try vim-fireplace, it's pretty darn good.
grayrest 13y ago
Lisps work better from an editor that can provide tight REPL integration. I've used vim for 15 years and use it for everything else but it does not do this well. Clojure support via vim-fireplace is better than nothing and I've used it (and it's predecessors) for couple hundred line projects spaced out over the last few years but it's never felt good to me. Fireplace and the nREPL, unlike the older integration schemes, almost always work but my current complaint is that I don't like how the output is presented. Light Table does the integration right. You load up a clojure file, hit eval, and it works without having to mess with it. Additionally, it works well with Clojurescript, which I never really got working with Vim fireplace. The doc system is integrated, autocomplete works. The Light Table vim plugin provides decent but not great vim emulation (e.g. the b text object is missing, which is important for a lisp) and while it's not as nice for editing as my heavily customized home vim setup, I'm happier doing Clojure in LT than in Vim.
masklinn 13y ago
LightTable and Emacs's SLIME (through swank, for clojure) likely provide much better lisp integration than what vim has available. I've got no idea what's available in vim so I may be wrong, but here's SLIME: http://www.cliki.net/SLIME%20Features http://www.cliki.net/SLIME%20Features
- justinmk 13y ago
  Slime has been completely replaced by cider. https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider
- grandalf 13y ago
  also nrepl
chc 13y ago
Grayrest explained why something like LightTable is so nice, but it's probably worth mentioning that LightTable has a built-in Vim keybindings mode as well, so it will hopefully not be too unfamiliar.
danneu 13y ago
I was used to Vim as well, but I decided to jump into Emacs and Clojure at the same time. Once I installed Evil-mode (Vim bindings), an Emacs buffer felt so similar to Vim that I was immediately productive. From there, I could just focus on the other things like how to open a file (C-x f) and how to launch nREPL and begin evaluating code within Clojure source files.
- cgag 13y ago
  I tried this route for a long time but didn't find it to be worth it at all. All the plugins you use will still have horrible chording style shortcuts. I'm much happier now that I'm just using vim-fireplace.
s_kilk 13y ago
In a word - Yes. I've been using vim exclusively for the past year, after a brief stint with emacs, but this post prompted me to go back and try emacs again. Over the year of vim use I've never really been satisfied with editing clojure in vim, it just doesn't work as well as emacs for that purpose. This weekend I decided to try out emacs with evil-mode and now I've switched permanently to that set up, it's the best of all worlds, you get to have all the emacs/clojure integration goodness while still having super-powerful vi keybindings and editing capabilities. I'd recommend you give it a shot at least :)

MBlume 13y ago

There may be, I'm not that familiar with either, but do try vim-fireplace, it's pretty darn good.

grayrest 13y ago

Lisps work better from an editor that can provide tight REPL integration. I've used vim for 15 years and use it for everything else but it does not do this well. Clojure support via vim-fireplace is better than nothing and I've used it (and it's predecessors) for couple hundred line projects spaced out over the last few years but it's never felt good to me. Fireplace and the nREPL, unlike the older integration schemes, almost always work but my current complaint is that I don't like how the output is presented. Light Table does the integration right. You load up a clojure file, hit eval, and it works without having to mess with it. Additionally, it works well with Clojurescript, which I never really got working with Vim fireplace. The doc system is integrated, autocomplete works. The Light Table vim plugin provides decent but not great vim emulation (e.g. the b text object is missing, which is important for a lisp) and while it's not as nice for editing as my heavily customized home vim setup, I'm happier doing Clojure in LT than in Vim.

masklinn 13y ago

LightTable and Emacs's SLIME (through swank, for clojure) likely provide much better lisp integration than what vim has available. I've got no idea what's available in vim so I may be wrong, but here's SLIME: http://www.cliki.net/SLIME%20Features http://www.cliki.net/SLIME%20Features

justinmk 13y ago
Slime has been completely replaced by cider. https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider
grandalf 13y ago
also nrepl

chc 13y ago

Grayrest explained why something like LightTable is so nice, but it's probably worth mentioning that LightTable has a built-in Vim keybindings mode as well, so it will hopefully not be too unfamiliar.

danneu 13y ago

I was used to Vim as well, but I decided to jump into Emacs and Clojure at the same time. Once I installed Evil-mode (Vim bindings), an Emacs buffer felt so similar to Vim that I was immediately productive. From there, I could just focus on the other things like how to open a file (C-x f) and how to launch nREPL and begin evaluating code within Clojure source files.

cgag 13y ago
I tried this route for a long time but didn't find it to be worth it at all. All the plugins you use will still have horrible chording style shortcuts. I'm much happier now that I'm just using vim-fireplace.

s_kilk 13y ago

In a word - Yes. I've been using vim exclusively for the past year, after a brief stint with emacs, but this post prompted me to go back and try emacs again. Over the year of vim use I've never really been satisfied with editing clojure in vim, it just doesn't work as well as emacs for that purpose. This weekend I decided to try out emacs with evil-mode and now I've switched permanently to that set up, it's the best of all worlds, you get to have all the emacs/clojure integration goodness while still having super-powerful vi keybindings and editing capabilities. I'd recommend you give it a shot at least :)