gigasquid, do you happen to know if this is compatible with ClojureScript, or does it have some Java dependencies? I ask because I started writing a Markdown processor in ClojureScript, but I eventually realized the find-and-replace-based approach I took (similar to John Gruber's version) wasn't going to cut it.
One of my future blog posts is going to deal with how what makes a problem area "sexy" often has to do with how much of computer science you touch along the way. I call it the Ingress Factor; how cool something is, is directly proportional to how likely it is to get you exposed to other seemingly unrelated things. For example, an inordinate number of people want to get into "data science"/machine learning right now. What makes ML attractive, I would argue, is how much it brings you into interaction with all sorts of CS stuff that the corporate world would otherwise block out as "too hard" for average developers.<p>Clojure has this same aura, I think. What's great about it is how much of computer science is accessible at the REPL. It's not about firing up some IDE and not knowing how any of the magic works. Whatever it is, the community makes sure that there's a way to dive in and explore it quickly, and that's really admirable.