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+#+BEGIN_QUOTE
+  This notes are mostly for me to remember how to get an environment up
+  and running.
+#+END_QUOTE
+
+I've tried to play with
+[[https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript][Clojurescript]] a few times
+already, but I never managed to get an environment working as I wanted.
+Granted, I didn't try very hard, and my requirements are probably not
+commons, so I'm not blaming the tools.
+
+This time I've decided to dedicate a little bit more times and try to
+see how far I could go. My requirements are:
+
+-  it needs to work in a linux VM
+-  I want to have a nREPL connection
+
+   -  so I can execute code from the REPL and execute them in the
+      browser
+   -  I also want to be able to call functions from the browser REPL
+
+-  It needs to work within Emacs and/or Intellij IDEA
+
+The Intellij IDEA requirement is new. I've never used an IDE before and
+I've decided to give it a try. I've installed the
+[[http://cursiveclojure.com][Cursive]] plugin for Intellij and so far
+I'm happy with it.
+
+I'm pleased to say that after a few hours I had a completely working
+environment meeting all my requirements. I'm pretty sure this notes will
+become outdated quickly, so I'll try update this post as I discover more
+things.
+
+** The VM
+
+I like Vagrant and there's no reason to not use it for this kind of
+projects. I've created a
+[[https://github.com/franckcuny/devbox][repository]] on GitHub with my
+setup for that. It's a simple VM with VirtualBox and Vagrant. I'm using
+Ansible to do the provisioning part.
+
+After cloning the repository, you can run =vagrant up= and a virtual
+machine, running Ubuntu 13.10, will be started and provisionned (a bunch
+of tools like tmux are installed, but what really interest us here is
+the openjdk). Once it's up, a I run =vagrant ssh= then I start a =tmux=
+session.
+
+** Create a project
+
+I create a project using the
+[[https://github.com/magomimmo/cljs-start][cljs-start]] template for
+leiningen. To be honest, all the hard work is done by this template, I'm
+just putting the pieces together to have the setup I want build around
+it. With this template, you get:
+
+-  the ability to start a HTTP server for serving your static files
+-  a browser-repl from nREPL
+
+This plugin relies on [[https://github.com/cemerick/austin][Austin]].
+
+All I needed to do was to run =lein new cljs-start project= (where
+project is the name of my project).
+
+** The REPL
+
+Once you've started to work with a REPL it's hard to go back to a
+language that don't have one. When working with Clojure, you get used
+very quickly to it, especially since nREPL is so nice, and allows you to
+work on a remote box.
+
+The only tricky thing when setting up the VM is to be sure to forward a
+few ports for:
+
+-  nREPL - so you can connect from the host to the REPL running on the
+   guest
+-  the browser REPL - so your REPL can talk to the browser
+
+I run the REPL in headless mode on the VM (in my =tmux= session), from
+my project's directory:
+
+#+BEGIN_SRC sh
+    # specify a port that I will be forwarded from my host to the guest
+    AUSTIN_DEFAULT_SERVER_PORT=4343 lein repl :headless :host 0.0.0.0 :port 4242
+#+END_SRC
+
+The =AUSTIN_DEFAULT_SERVER_PORT= variable is the port that will be used
+by your REPL to talk to the browser. That's why you need to forward this
+port in Vagrant. The other options (*host* and *port*) are here to tell
+the repl to listen on all the interfaces (so I can connect from the
+host) on the given port.
+
+** Editor
+
+#+BEGIN_QUOTE
+  I'm focusing on Intellij IDEA here, but it works the same with
+  Emacs/[[https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider][CIDER]].
+#+END_QUOTE
+
+To install the Cursive plugin, you need to go to
+[[http://cursiveclojure.com/userguide/index.html][this page]] and follow
+the instructions.
+
+I can now open a project in Intellij and start coding. I've configured
+my project to use a remote REPL.
+
+#+CAPTION: remote nrepl
+
+[[/imgs/remote-nrepl.webp]]
+Now I can connect to the remote REPL and do a quick test to see if it
+works:
+
+#+CAPTION: test remote nrepl
+
+[[/imgs/test-remote-nrepl.webp]]
+Great! It's time to start the web server to serve our static files and
+see if I can connect the browser-repl to it too. Running the following
+code in the REPL should do the trick:
+
+#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
+    (run) ;; will start a server with jetty on port 3000, that I can reach from port 4000
+    (browser-repl) ;; that’s the *really* cool part
+#+END_EXAMPLE
+
+If I want to test something, all I have to do is to load the file into
+the REPL and then call a function. For example:
+
+#+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
+    (.log js/console "Hi from Intellij IDEA!")
+#+END_EXAMPLE
+
+and see the output in my browser's console!
+
+#+CAPTION: it works!
+
+[[/imgs/nrepl-it-works.webp]]
+When working on the project, I can run evaluate the file or a form and
+send it to the browser. Again, this would be the same with Emacs,
+instead of having CIDER to use a local nREPL session, you'll just
+connect to a remote one.
+
+** Conclusion
+
+I realize that it's not the easiest setup. I'm maintaining the build
+system we have at work for our sites; we use javascript and nodejs, and
+I'm really upset by the complexity of our process. If I had to put with
+all of that to build a site I would be pretty mad. Still, I think this
+setup can be simplified a lot. But using a VM also makes it easier to
+give a working environment to a new developer, and it's easy to throw it
+away, after all, I'm using it mostly to run the REPL and to have it
+working in an environment similar to what it would be in production.
+
+I have to admit that so far, I enjoy Cursive, it's stable and it works
+well. I'm still learning how to use the IDE, but some features are
+usefull (creating the functions, checking the number of parameters,
+displaying docstring, etc). We will see how long I stick to it.