Rapid Prototyping in Clojure with boot-clj

I find boot-clj to be great in doing rapid prototypes. It can be considered analogous to GroovyConsole. We can dynamically add dependencies, write, modify code, run, experiment all within a single file without having to create a project as with default lein setup. Create a folder for experiments and add boot.properties in it.

#https://github.com/boot-clj/boot
BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME=org.clojure/clojure
BOOT_VERSION=2.7.1
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.8.0

Then we can create out prototype files, say pilot.clj with the below example template.

#!/usr/bin/env boot

;; To add some repository
(merge-env! :repositories [["clojars" {:url "https://clojars.org/repo/" :snapshots true}]])

(defn deps [new-deps]
  "Add dependencies to the namespace."
  (merge-env! :dependencies new-deps))

;; Add clojure
(deps '[[org.clojure/clojure "1.8.0"]])

;; Require
(require '[clojure.string :as str])
;; Import
(import '[javax.crypto.spec SecretKeySpec])

(println (str/upper-case "hi"))  ;; HI 

For faster startup of the boot-clj, add the following to the shell profile (.zshrc). Tune according to the machine.

# boot-clj faster startup
export BOOT_JVM_OPTIONS='
  -client
  -XX:+TieredCompilation
  -XX:TieredStopAtLevel=1
  -Xmx2g
  -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
  -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
  -Xverify:none'