[nickbauman]

Well I think you're absolutely right! There was a post not too long ago about creating "friendlier Clojure" that was all about addressing this problem. I find that I write the code first with pure "intellectual will" until all my tests pass. Then I go back and try to simplify, pull out functions into smaller functions and remove more complex logic.

As far as syntax highlighting is concerned, I find that using emacs helps a lot here. This is my `emacs.d` config.

https://github.com/nickbauman/emacs-dot-dee

This allows structural navigation for Clojure code. Good luck.