Lee, I feel that a lot of concerns stem from the fact that clojure is new and hasn't had a chance to get supported by major IDEs. Of course talking about why isn't going to help your problem so I offer some advice.
Sounds like you want a standalone clojure editor that installs easy and has paredit builtin but without emacs "complicated" keystrokes, and probably multi platform so its easy for students to install on their machines. That's not an easy task but maybe starting an new open source editor written in clojure would be a start. I think the first design choice would be what graphical tool kit to use. Java has its own builtin one which would be multi platform but I hear it has some limitations in functionality. An orthogonal problem would be the editing semantics of a "buffer". Working on that problem would allow one to transition from command line to gui. In a lot of ways, we are rewriting emacs in clojure. The other option is to just use a stripped down version of emacs, which fulfills all of the above. Just type a cheat sheet for paredit, make sure the gui is on so you can save via clicks instead of key strokes and your done. Getting clojure indentation support in emacs should also be easy, I just think that some of the automated methods many suggest can make things overly complicated. A manual installation should suffice. Assuming emacs and git is installed, just get a copy of clojure-mode via git $ cd easy-to-setup $ git clone http://github.com/jochu/clojure-mode.git and modify your .emacs (add-hook 'clojure-mode-hook (lambda () (paredit-mode +1))) (add-to-list 'load-path "~/easy-to-setup/clojure-mode") (require 'clojure-mode) Best, Brent On Jun 29, 12:19 am, Lee Spector <lspec...@hampshire.edu> wrote: > Thanks for the explanation re: classpaths. That helps, and perhaps part of > what I (& others?) have been asking for is a little more explanation about > this on a Clojure getting started page, for folks who aren't coming from Java > and for whom "put it on your classpath" doesn't immediately help. > > The editor issue is key when we're talking about an environment for > newcomers. Yes emacs has built-in paren matching but emacs (like vi) is > something that has to be learned, not all newcomers will know it, I don't > want to force my students to use it (although I use it), and anyway you > really need indentation too (IMHO) and getting emacs to do Clojure > indentation is cumbersome. The single-download environments that I've > mentioned for Lisp & Scheme & Processing (and someone else just said they're > also available for Groovy and Jython) have editors that are good enough for > real use. I should also say that I think NetBeans/Enclojure has a fine editor > and I also have no complaints about its ease of download/installation. My > only complaint there is that I've had to learn a bit more about Java project > organization that I would have liked in order to get NetBeans/Enclojure to > find clj files that I require. Not insurmountable, but I only crossed that > hurdle with persistence and generous hand-holding, dealing with things that > were quite independent of the Clojure language itself. > > On Jun 28, 2010, at 11:54 PM, Brent Millare wrote: > > > > > > > Well indentation is a function of the editor you are using. Emacs has > > it builtin, if you are looking at something at like eclipse or > > textedit, or whatever, just speaking practically here but as a > > function of what most clojure developers use, you're just not going to > > see those editors supported as well. This is just being realistic, as > > a someone who uses those editors, it would be good if those people > > could help develop clojure support. > > > Its easy to add contrib, just download, extract, and add to classpath. > > > If you want me to spell it out, > > > $ cd easy-to-setup > > $ wgethttp://clojure-contrib.googlecode.com/files/clojure-contrib-1.1.0.zip > > $ unzip clojure-contrib-1.1.0.zip > > $ java -cp "clojure-1.1.0/clojure.jar:clojure-contrib-1.1.0/clojure- > > contrib.jar:./" clojure.main > > > You can put whatever clojure source files you want in the directory > > easy-to-setup and depend on each other, sans circular dependencies. > > (Be sure to note the ":./" at the end of the -cp argument). You can do > > this during runtime cause source files are read and re-read everytime > > you (require .. :reload) it. > > -- > Lee Spector, Professor of Computer Science > School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College > 893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002-3359 > lspec...@hampshire.edu,http://hampshire.edu/lspector/ > Phone: 413-559-5352, Fax: 413-559-5438 > > Check out Genetic Programming and Evolvable > Machines:http://www.springer.com/10710-http://gpemjournal.blogspot.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
