Getting Started with Clojure Aliases 

I'll answer this myself since I think I've kind of figured it out. It seems the "--eval" flag is only useful when run alongside a main or "-m" specification (which makes way more sense now that I'm typing it). Providing main-opts for an alias that only serves to pull in extra dependencies is kind of pointless because...where is it supposed to evaluate the statement you gave it when you've provided no main to run? No where. I am surprised these aliases can't be composed together in a way that allows you to have simple dependency imports whose sole purpose is to import a library and then require it into your current namespace. That dependency alias itself couldn't be run alone, but would work in conjunction with an alias that had a main specified. Example: :aliases {:async {:extra-deps {org.clojure/core.async {:mvn/version "1.2.603"}} :main-opts ["--eval" "(require,'[clojure.core.async,:as,a])"]} :rebel {:extra-deps {com.bhauman/rebel-readline {:mvn/version "0.1.4"}} :main-opts ["-m" "rebel-readline.main"]} clj -A:async:rebel ;; runs a rebel main and also pulls in the async library clj -A:rebel ;; runs a regular rebel main - no additional libs required to run.

That's a good question. The reason we don't pass it into the `main-opts` in the `:async` alias is because while you can compose aliases and they will merge their dependencies correctly, the `main-opts` key does not, TMK, merge together when you combine aliases. So, if you write `clj -A:async:rebel` the `main-opts` from `:rebel` is the one that will be used. Now, as you may have noticed, this makes the `:rebel` alias problematic because you cannot run it without composing it with `:async`. It's for this reason, that I wouldn't recommend separating the `--eval` as I have done. This was meant to be a way to break things down for learning and also to illustrate some of the gotchas. So, what might be some alternatives? 1. Create aliases that already include all the deps you need + using the `-e` 2. Creates aliases that already have all the deps you need + provide a `user.clj` to perform your setup tasks. With this in mind, your dot-clojure is your personal file. That's what's great about it. So a good step forward is jamming on the aliases till you find ones that work for your particular workflow. Hopefully this answers the question? Let me know!

​@@BetweenTwoParens Yeah! My answer above was close to this, but your explanation provided more details and good alternatives as well, so I feel much better about this. Thanks!

Thanks, Illia! The keyboard is a Gk64. Bought it from keyboard fans. www.mechtype.com/gk64-review/

@@BetweenTwoParens Sweet, good to know