ClojureScript: Up and Running

Chapter 9. Development Process and Workflow

At the beginning of the book, we introduced Leiningen with lein-cljsbuild as an easy way to get started with ClojureScript. However, it is far from being the only way to work with ClojureScript.

This chapter will give a brief overview of some alternative means of installing ClojureScript (including the cutting-edge development branch), as well as instructions on how to use the more low-level tools included with ClojureScript to compile manually or script your own personal workflow. It will also include some pointers to more advanced features of Leiningen that you may find useful for particular tasks.

Most importantly, perhaps, it also includes a discussion of the ClojureScript browser REPL, which you can use for interactive coding in a live browser environment.

Installing ClojureScript

Leiningen works by referencing the ClojureScript JAR file directly from a public Maven repository (via a local cache on your computer, of course). The Maven release, however, does not include some of the command-line tools and tests included in the source release.

In addition, the source release includes cutting-edge features from the master Git branch, whereas the Maven repository will only contain the latest milestone releases. For most production or educational work, the milestone releases are desirable, but bug fixes are often available much sooner on the master branch. If you’re developing a ClojureScript library or tools for working with ClojureScript, ...