Emacs (v2)

Why use Emacs for Clojure

Here's a few of references i found recently that help to get up and running with Emacs and Clojure development:

 Iteration I
 Started using the Carbon version of emacs. Then take a look at: Emacs Starter Kit(ESK), it provides a saner set of defaults than you get normally with Emacs. For step by step installation instructions, here's a good tutorial: Setting up Emacs & Clojure with Emacs Starter Kit. And finally, a few of more details about developing Clojure setup with the ESK, from ESK author himself.

Iteration II

After spending some time with Carbon Emacs(and learning a bit better how emacs work) I've decided to try out the Aquamacs version.

Aquamacs is, out of the box, more mac friendly because supports default key bindings like copy, paste, selectAll, etc.. that all mac text handling apps normally have.

And thats actually very useful, even after learning a lot of emacs shortcuts. Note that emacs key bindings are also worth learning, is amazing to discover how many applications support them. But i've found that stuff like Ctr-C, Ctr-V, and Selecting text working as you expect just make you move around faster.

One issue i ran into, is that the ESK i mentioned before is not compatible with Aquamacs because of different key bindings schemes.

But that turned out not to be a problem, and ended up learning on how to customize Emacs in the process, Here's a a few references i've used for my current emacs setup:

References:

• AquamacsFAQ, for several tips and tricks on the Aquamacs
• Emacs Wiki, central point for a lot of emacs packages and tips, essential reference.
• ESK, I use this as a reference, for learning on how to customize and go check what packages are used there. I use, for example, the zenburn.el theme from there.

Packages:

• ELPA, for installing packages, great to install all you need for Clojure development instantly.
• ido, lot of helpful stuff, especially the automatic completion when using Dired.
• espresso, for javascript editing.
• Balancing your parentheses, to customize the highlight of your parenthesis, even possible to highlight a mismatched parenthesis with red, to give visual hint you closing the wrong ones!