The Evolution of the Clojure Tooling for Emacs

Slides from my Clojure/conj 2014 talk

Transcript

1. The
   Evolution
   of the
   Clojure tooling
   for
   Emacs
   narrated by Bozhidar I. Batsov
   

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2. Hello!
   

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3. @bbatsov
   

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4. Bug
   

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5. A (Dark) Knight of
   the
   Order of Emacs
   

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6. Why I am here?
   

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7. Bulgaria
   

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8. 2013
   Other
   24%
   LightTable
   8%
   CCW
   8%
   fireplace
   10%
   Cursive
   3%
   CIDER
   48%
   2014
   Other
   13%
   LightTable
   12%
   CCW
   5%
   fireplace
   14% Cursive
   14%
   CIDER
   42%
   

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9. –Nancy Pearcey
   “Competition is always a good thing. It
   forces us to do our best. A monopoly
   renders people complacent and satisfied
   with mediocrity.”
   

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10. The critics
    

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11. CIDER sucks big time!
    

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12. CIDER breaks on every update!
    

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13. CIDER has become bloated and
    slow!
    

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14. CIDER’s setup is overly
    complex!
    

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15. View Slide

16. CIDER is doing great!
    

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17. Near future
    Others
    10%
    CIDER
    90%
    

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18. Near future
    Cursive
    25%
    Others
    15%
    CIDER
    60%
    

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19. A not so long time ago in a
    galaxy not far away…
    

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20. Java, PHP and .NET ruled the
    dev world
    

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21. Lisps were out of
    fashion
    

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23. A gentleman
    &
    a scholar
    

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24. Clojure
    

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25. Biggest Clojure problem at
    launch?
    

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26. 0 Clojure dev environments
    

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27. Emacs was the last Lisp
    stronghold
    

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28. SLIME
    

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29. Superior
    Lisp
    Interaction
    Mode for
    Emacs
    

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30. SLIME Features
    • REPL
    • Interactive evaluation
    • Compilation notes
    • Code completion
    • Definition lookup
    • Documentation lookup
    • Apropos
    

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31. SLIME Features
    • Debugger
    • Value inspector
    • Tracing
    • Find usages
    • Macroexpansion
    • Scratchpad
    • Minibuffer code evaluation
    

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32. SLIME
    (Emacs Lisp)
    SWANK
    (Common Lisp)
    Clozure
    RPC
    LispWorks
    CMUCL
    ABCL
    SBCL
    Client Server Backends
    

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34. clojure-mode
    &
    swank-clojure
    

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35. SLIME
    (Emacs Lisp)
    SWANK
    (Common Lisp)
    swank-clojure
    

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36. A star was born
    

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37. swank-clojure
    • Requires knowledge of swank (Common Lisp)
    • Bundles a frozen SLIME version
    • Subpar features (e.g. debugger, inspector, find usages)
    • Monolithic (no swank plugins)
    

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38. SLIME is a
    Common Lisp
    tool
    

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40. Another esteemed
    gentleman
    &
    scholar
    

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41. nREPL
    

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42. A common foundation
    for Clojure dev tools
    

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43. • Load (compile) a Clojure file
    • Evaluate a Clojure form
    • Interrupt evaluation
    • Read from the standard input
    

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44. Extensible via middleware
    

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46. nrepl.el
    

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47. nrepl.el
    (Emacs Lisp)
    nREPL
    (Clojure)
    

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48. A workhorse is retired
    

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49. nrepl.el
    • lacked many SLIME features
    • relied heavily on evaluation of inlined code
    • made assumptions about the environment
    • flawed bencode parser
    

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51. Don’t settle for good.
    Demand great!
    

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52. –Phil Karlton
    “There are only two hard things in
    Computer Science: cache invalidation and
    naming things.”
    

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54. Clojure
    Integrated
    Development
    Environment &
    REPL
    

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55. Clojure
    Interactive
    Development
    Environment
    Reimagined
    

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56. CIDER
    (Emacs Lisp)
    nREPL
    (Clojure)
    cider-nrepl
    

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57. (defun nrepl-jump-to-def (var)
    "Jump to the definition of the VAR at point."
    (let ((form (format "(let [ns-symbol '%s
    ns-var '%s
    ns-file (clojure.core/comp :file
    clojure.core/meta
    clojure.core/second
    clojure.core/first
    clojure.core/ns-publics)
    resource-str (clojure.core/comp clojure.core/str
    clojure.java.io/resource
    ns-file)
    file-str (clojure.core/comp clojure.core/str
    clojure.java.io/file
    ns-file)]
    (cond ((clojure.core/ns-aliases ns-symbol) ns-var)
    (let [resolved-ns ((clojure.core/ns-aliases ns-symbol) ns-var)]
    [(resource-str resolved-ns)
    (file-str resolved-ns)
    1])
    (find-ns ns-var)
    [(resource-str ns-var)
    (file-str ns-var)
    1]
    (clojure.core/ns-resolve ns-symbol ns-var)
    ((clojure.core/juxt
    (clojure.core/comp clojure.core/str
    clojure.java.io/resource
    :file)
    (clojure.core/comp clojure.core/str
    clojure.java.io/file
    :file)
    :line)
    (clojure.core/meta (clojure.core/ns-resolve ns-symbol ns-var)))))"
    (nrepl-current-ns) var)))
    (nrepl-send-string form
    (nrepl-jump-to-def-handler (current-buffer))
    nrepl-buffer-ns
    (nrepl-current-tooling-session))))
    not portable
    

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58. (defun cider-jump-to-var (&optional var line)
    "Jump to the definition of VAR, optionally at a specific LINE.
    When called interactively, this operates on point, or falls back to a prompt."
    (interactive)
    (cider-ensure-op-supported "info")
    (cider-read-symbol-name
    "Symbol: " (lambda (var)
    (-if-let (info (cider-var-info var))
    (cider--jump-to-loc-from-info info)
    (message "Symbol %s not resolved" var)))))
    portable
    

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59. CIDER Features
    • Interactive evaluation
    • Compilation notes
    • Code completion
    • Definition lookup
    • Documentation lookup
    • Apropos
    

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60. CIDER Features
    • Value inspector
    • Command selector
    • Tracing
    • Macroexpansion
    • Scratchpad
    • Minibuffer code evalution
    

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61. Bonus features
    

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62. Javadoc support
    

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63. JavaDoc Support
    

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64. C-c C-d d
    

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66. Jump to Java definition
    

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67. JavaDoc Support
    

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68. M-.
    

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70. Jump to resource
    

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72. C-c M-.
    

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73. resources/conj/demo/resource.txt
    

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74. Sanity-preserving stacktraces
    

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78. clojure.test integration
    

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79. C-c ,
    

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82. Namespace Browser
    

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84. Classpath browser
    

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86. Grimoire integration
    

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88. C-c C-d g
    

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90. • nREPL session manager
    • Smart ns reloading
    • ClojureScript support
    

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91. Extensions
    (are easy)
    

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92. • refactoring (clj-refactor + refactor-nrepl)
    • profiling (cider-profile + nrepl-refactor)
    • session tracking (cider-spy + cider-spy-nrepl)
    

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93. CIDER
    tastes better than
    SLIME
    

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94. What’s still missing?
    

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95. • Debugger
    • Find usages
    • A proper manual
    CIDER 1.0
    

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96. Why CIDER?
    

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97. IDE
    

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99. Emacs
    

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105. Emacs users
     know how to build productive Lisp
     workflows
     

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106. • Emacs (ultimate Elisp dev env)
     • SLIME (and SLY)
     • Geiser
     • racket-mode
     • CIDER (obviously)
     

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107. • paredit
     • smartparens
     • rainbow-delimiters
     • rainbow-identifiers
     • sexp-fu
     • paxedit
     

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108. Community impact
     

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109. cider-nrepl
     https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider-nrepl
     

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110. refactor-nrepl
     https://github.com/clojure-emacs/refactor-nrepl
     

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111. compliment
     https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/compliment
     

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112. cljs-tooling
     https://github.com/gtrak/cljs-tooling
     

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113. profile
     https://github.com/thunknyc/profile
     

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114. nREPL improvements
     

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115. Open development
     

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118. 85 contributors!
     

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119. Please, send more help!
     

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120. One more thing…
     

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121. CIDER 0.8 is out!
     

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122. Thanks!
     

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123. CIDER Demo / Q & A Unsession
     today @ 7 pm
     

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124. Felina
     

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