I did this with a tslime plugin from vim for several years. I used it extensively for javascript, sql, python, and clojure. After awhile, I stopped fighting and switched to spacemacs so I wouldn't have to both do my dayjob and maintain an IDE.

I have a nice 'generic-eval' operator in evil that lets me select via motions and eval the result. This is the best experience I've found so far. Documented here: https://gist.github.com/ad2b435bfdf2ec5f0b4d57aa8ea40df6