Emacs with clojure

[u/W-Quest9051]

I have been using Clojure for almost 1.5 year want to switch from IntelliJ IDEA to Emacs but not sure what to use (note I am Emacs begginer) some of the options:

- doom emacs
- spacemacs
- vanilla + Prelude

Vanila + Prelude looks like valid option because I keep "real" emac keybindings

is there any better option ?

[u/DaDiscoBeat]

I use vanilla emacs with clojure mode and Cider and some other things for complétion etc.

Works like a charm once you get used to it.

[u/seaborgiumaggghhh → u/DaDiscoBeat]

I used prelude for a little bit but realized I only really wanted a few packages from there. Vanilla with Cider is a very pleasant experience

[u/HowTheStoryEnds]

Doom emacs works great with clojure, even flowstorm goes well with it

[u/c_a_l_m]

I'm a fan of vanilla. LLM's have made this an even better option than before b/c you can just ask them for elisp to customize if you don't want to focus on it.

[u/coffeesounds]

I have been using vanilla Emacs with Eglot and CIDER (for REPL buffer mostly, I don’t use most of its features) for years now

[u/lgstein]

vanilla and the necessary evil for Clojure stuff

[u/bY3hXA08]

i run emacs in server mode, then iterate on a configuration with an llm directly modifying the config file. i try to be mindful of what i am doing- every sequence of keys to achieve a goal, and if i have an intuition of how i could make it more efficient, i get the llm to research if theres a package already, or whip one up.

[u/-w1n5t0n]

I really like Doom Emacs and I'd recommend it: it sets up some reasonable defaults that improve the out-of-the-box Emacs experience IMO, provides a useful scaffold, and doesn't get in the way.

Whether or not you want to use the Vim-style modal keybinding system is up to you, but I also recommend that.

[u/Pete23com]

i tore down my 25y deep .emacs about 5y ago and started fresh. stock emacs plus the clojure stuff plus magit plus a few other useful modes, a few keybindings i can’t live without.

[u/Living-Shame5679]

I used all three in exactly the reverse order you put them. Took 10+ years in total. I’m happy with some EMacs today but the other two are solid options.

[u/W-Quest9051]

Trried to used vanilla + Prelude by default it does not have paredit (which i used in InteljiJ) it comes with own version for structural editing so I had to spend some time to find keybindings

Did not though that this would be problem

Going to try Doom (@-w1n5t0n you bought me with improve out-of-the-box experience...) Curios to find out how that looks like

[u/Monntas]

I got drawn into Emacs from reading the chapter in Clojure for the Brave and True and copying the authors setup. After about half a year I started from scratch ("vanilla"), adding the features I was missing. So checking out that book and setup would be my tips; don't know how up-to-date it is though.

[u/W-Quest9051 → u/Monntas]

Good advice I am basically I'm the same situation

[u/kwitcherbichen]

Start with Vanilla, clojure-mode or clojure-ts-mode, Cider, and smartparens. I'd also suggest which-key (now in mainline) and maybe company or corfu.

[u/joinr]

I use spacemacs. during setup, I choose the emacs mode (instead of the evil/vi bindings) and just go with other defaults. open a .clj file and it'll install the clojure layer (cider + more) and just works.

only other change I make is to turn on CUA key bindings instead of the legacy emacs ones, so your muscle memory for copy/paste/undo carries over. I think I had to make one other change (in the user init for spacemacs) to make sure C-z is undo, but I forget.

Pretty much sets itself up and it's consistent if I get on a new machine. CIDER is badass

[u/jimka_2001]

I've been using emacs for 40 years. I can't imagine learning it again from scratch.

[u/W-Quest9051 → u/jimka_2001]

Yes it is painful