I'm a regular emacs user, but I normally use expand-region[1] and cut/paste to edit lisp code. Expand-region usually knows what I want to move around after just one or two calls, only requires one key binding, and has visual feedback. And it works great in every language I have used.
Try smartparens. It's a successor to paredit and works for other languages as well.
I have never coded (and navigated code) faster than in Clojure on Emacs w/ smartparens.
Also try Lispy (only for lisps). Works just like SP and Paredit except most commands require a single unmodified key press, but can only be used when point precedes or follows a delimiter or text is selected. Feels like magic.
I'm racking my brains, but in the #lisp channel I read a discussion about dealing with parentheses before paredit, and it was really interesting. I entirely forget the key-chords that were mentioned though...
- "backward slurp" is "<(" (move opening paren to the left)
- "forward slurp" is ">)" (move closing paren to the right)
- "forward barf" is "<)" (move closing paren to the left)
- "backward barf" is ">(" (move opening paren to the right)
[1]: https://github.com/tpope/vim-sexp-mappings-for-regular-peopl...