I preach about using the REPL non-stop to my coworkers and we don't use Clojure. The problem with REPL-driven development is that you need to invest in your setup - so you have to believe it's worth it. Not even the Clojure REPL works out of the box: you need to make sure your definitions are reload-friendly, Emacs/Calva have to be connected for you to eval stuff with commands, use comment blocks as scratchpad, etc - it's a bunch of little conventions you need to buy into.

That being said, the setup cost is paid pretty quickly. Developers underestimate how much time they waste reloading stuff into place. Updated a function - woops, have to clear the variables I setup and run intermediate steps all over again. Even if you think 'yeah but I just write tests and those run the whole flow' using a REPL is worth it. I work with Rails, use guard and try to keep tests fast by sticking to POROs and still does not beat the interactivity of the REPL.

One workflow that comes close is working with Elm's compiler. Super friendly and interactive; gives you a similar iterative flow as a REPL but in a different context.

It's good to see this acknowledged. I tried to learn Clojure and appreciated the language but I just couldn't get my vim head around the emacs ecosystem well enough to experience the nirvana.

I may well try again.

This is a key piece of the REPL workflow: you rarely type into the REPL, you use commands in your editor to select code and run it in a REPL. The idea is that you eval stuff in the same place you type, and that gets run in the same environment over and over again without having to restart it or redefine the data you're using to iterate your functions.