Exploring REPL tooling with socket prepl

A SkillsCast for this session is not available.

Starting with a brief discussion of nREPL, a network REPL that provides a server and client, common APIs for tooling and other tools to evaluate Clojure code in remote environments. We will show that CIDER / nREPL is based around middleware, with the ethos that the tool and middleware are one cohesive thing.

The main talk will be a dive into what a socket prepl is and how it works. I'll be sharing my opinions and ideas about these different tooling foundations through my Neovim plugin project, Conjure https://github.com/Olical/conjure.

Comparing socket prepl to nREPL I'll show that it can be just as powerful even without middleware support. I'll also use figwheel and prepl together to show practical ClojureScript uses. The ClojureScript prepl is almost the same but has a few pitfalls (mainly for other tool authors).

Then onto building tools on top of prepl, tools which I use day to day at work on the same projects as my colleagues but without any tool specific dependencies.

Wrapping up with a Q&A on tools, the foundations they're built on and different methodologies of REPL tooling.

References

https://oli.me.uk/2019-03-22-clojure-socket-prepl-cookbook/

https://nrepl.org/

https://lambdaisland.com/guides/clojure-repls/clojure-repls

https://github.com/Olical/conjure

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