It may have to do with whether the environment you are using buffers Clojure's output. When I run your example code in Emacs, I see this:
user=> (run-with-msg "Working" (Thread/sleep 2000)) Working... and then 2 seconds later, it looks like this: user=> (run-with-msg "Working" (Thread/sleep 2000)) Working...done -- 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