Totally agreed! It sounds like we’re all working on the situation Bruce Hauman describes:
When I refer to a fluid interactive programming workflow in Clojure I am thinking mainly of inline-eval. Most programmers do not have an experience of what inline-eval is. They have nothing to compare it to. They have not used LISPs and SEXPs. You can describe inline eval and demonstrate it to them until you’re blue in the face and they won’t get it.
It is not until a programmer actually experiences inline-eval as a programming tool that the light goes on. SEXPs start to make more sense, and the why of LISP starts to dawn.
I’m just saying that under a federated ecosystem of editors, we have to provide paths (plural), not one “clear and clean path”. That means my answer to your original question about “finding a quick, easy, and widely appealing editor-connected REPL setup” is that there is none; we’re stuck with all of them and should therefore install lights and signage on each path to editor/REPL integration for custom emacs, Spacemacs, Cursive, and anything else we think should be used. (I see @plexus’ Clojure Mayonnaise article as a meta-guide for which topics to cover in such “highway improvement” projects.)
My current efforts on this front are focused on maria.cloud and community discussion, but I have hope that someone with screencast skills starts doing emacs-rocks-style screencasts of what editor-integrated REPL workflows feel like. Parens of the Dead does a good job at the opposite end of the spectrum, with longer, higher-level screencasts. I think there’s still space in the ~90-second end of that spectrum, and for written guides that hold the new user’s hand more.
Apologies for somewhat hijacking the thread 