Clojure Text Editors
One of the most common beginner Clojure/Script questions I see is, "which text editor should I use?". I can relate to this question because it's the same one I had when I started. Most of the answers I found led me to using emacs. So, I started to learn Clojure and emacs at the same time. This was a bad decision becuase it was simply too many things to learn at once.
What I should have done is stuck with the editor that I knew best and focused on learning Clojure.
My goal with this post to provide an outline of the popular editors and some insight into which editor I feel will suit developers at different levels of experience.
Clojure Text Editors
Let's start by introducing the top Text Editors for Clojure(Script) development based on the 2023 State of Clojure Survey.
For those who've been in the programming game for a little while, the above list is probably unsurprising. For those new to programming, the above list can feel overwhelming.
The best thing to know about the above list: they are all good choices and it's going to be your personal preferences which determines which one is going to be the best for your workflow. Additionally, You DO NOT need to use Emacs or IntelliJ to learn or become excellent/get the most out of Clojure.
Which Text Editor to Use
In general, there are two groups of developers:
- A. "Experienced" developers (hobbyist/professionals)
- B. New developers
If you're A, stick with the editor your currently using. If you're B,
try Sublime or VS Code.
A Text Editor is a developer's primary tool. We spend most of our work life inside of them. Given time, you're going to develop an opinion about what you like and don't like about your text editor of choice. For example, I want to know that I'm productive in whichever Text Editor I'm using so I want to know that it's fast and that I can customize it when I need to so I can adapt it to my changing development requirements. So, I want it to start fast, I want to be able to quickly and easily setup my editor on other machines, I don't want to see lag when I'm typing, searching large codebases or opening files. When I want to customize something with the editor, I want to be in control where it makes sense.
All of this is to say that these are my preferences that I have built through years of experimentation and self-analysis. If you have been developing for a while, you will have likely gone through a similar process. But let's go back to the original question of "which text editor to choose?".
As I said earlier, if you're an experienced developer, go with the editor you know.
If you are a new programmer and don't have deep ties to any particular editor,
choose Sublime or VS Code. The reason for this recommendation is because
these editors are easy to use, work on all operating systems, have active and
easy to access communities and support all the modern Clojure tooling one could
ever want.
Im comparison, if you choose an editor like Emacs, Vim, or Intellij you are going to spend more time learning and configuring the editors than learning Clojure. You can always try these editors when you feel more accomplished with Clojure and want to optimize your workflow. But at least when you get to this point you will have a frame of reference.
Knowing this, lets move onto how I setup Atom for my development workflow.
My Text Editor Setup
I use nvim as my daily text editor for all development because it's fast,
customizable and I can control how much or little I want nvim to do. The
problem with Vim is that it's not friendly to people new to software
development. For those interested in my nvim setup you can see my Dotfiles.
Conclusion
Programming communities always form around text editors. No matter which programming language you choose there are always going to be a large number of decisions to make. The important thing to remember is that in the beginning it's often easier if you focus on learning one thing at a time. When it comes to programming, learn the language first and choose tools which allow you to focus on learning your language of choice. Learning new things is hard enough, so be good to yourself in your learning journey and try not to obsess over all the details or aligning to anyone's perception of the ideal programmer.