It may be that I don't understand the installation instructions for ilisp
very well because I just got emacs for NT a couple days ago, and I want to
learn LISP (and prolog) programming. Anyway, I was advised to look into
installing CLISP and ilisp, and much of what is presented in the
installation instructions for ilisp might as well be written in greek for
all the good it does me. I noticed in the makefile reference to rm, which
is a unix tool I used to use long long ago, but as far as I know it isn't
present in NT (if it is, I have never used to so I don't know how it would
relate, if at all, to the unix command), and I am doing all this on NT.
I have produced a fair bit of fortran and C++ code, but the contents of the
lsp and el files don't look anything like the code I have seen for these
other languages.
I have never written any LISP code before, and it has been eons since I last
looked at emacs (and even then, I just used it a smart text editor).
Could someone please give me a step by step procedure for installing CLISP
and ilisp so that they will play nicely together with emacs, without
breaking anything else on my system? I do not want to find myself fighting
with a lisp program only to learn subsequently that I made a mistake on the
installation rather than in the program. Once I have this stuff installed,
can someone suggest a test I could do which would verify that it is all
installed correctly?
It would also be good to find a couple neat examples of what I could do with
lisp once I have learned it (to add motivation for putting in the effort
:-).
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Ted
R.E. Byers
·········@sympatico.ca
PS: I like to keep c: reserved as much as possible for the OS and put my
applications and data on d: and e:, if that affects the installation
procedure.
>>>>> "Ted" == Ted Byers <·········@sympatico.ca> writes:
Ted> It may be that I don't understand the installation
Ted> instructions for ilisp very well because I just got emacs
Ted> for NT a couple days ago, and I want to learn LISP (and
Ted> prolog) programming. Anyway, I was advised to look into
Ted> installing CLISP and ilisp, and much of what is presented
Ted> in the installation instructions for ilisp might as well be
Ted> written in greek for all the good it does me. I noticed in
Ted> the makefile reference to rm, which is a unix tool I used
Ted> to use long long ago, but as far as I know it isn't present
Ted> in NT (if it is, I have never used to so I don't know how
Ted> it would relate, if at all, to the unix command), and I am
Ted> doing all this on NT.
Ted,
I was in a similar place a couple of weeks ago and have two pieces
of good news for you: [1] If you fire up Google (or any other good
search engine I expect) you'll find a wealth of information out
there; [2] Almost everything works great right out of the box.
Let's start with CLISP. I assume that you've downloaded everything
and got it unzipped into a directory. If you try to run CLISP by
just typing 'lisp', then you'll probably get the following warning:
WARNING: No initialisation file specified.
Please try: lisp.exe -M lispinit.mem
If we had read the directions, we would have already known about
this -- but the program is kind enough to tell us what we did wrong.
So, hit Ctrl-Break to exit CLISP and try again using the correct
command argument.
Great, now CLISP starts without a warning. We can now enter some
simple code just to make sure everything is working correctly:
[1]> (defun addme (x y) (+ x y))
ADDME
[2]> (addme 1 2)
3
[3]> (bye)
Bye.
Cool. Now we want to setup emacs so that we can use CLISP more
efficiently.
Start by looking at the ilisp documentation. Look over the file
'INSTALLATION' in the ilisp directory, but don't panic if you don't
understand it. A lot of what we need just to get started is in the
example .emacs file that is provided: ilisp.emacs.
Look at the code in ilisp.emacs and try and understand what is going
on. If it still seems like Greek then maybe hitting the library for
some intro Lisp books or an online tutorial would help get you
started. You might like 'Writing GNU Emacs Extensions' by Bob
Glickstein.
Pressing ahead to setting up ilisp. . . open up your own .emacs file
and try adding something like the following (the paths are generic,
edit them to map to your own system):
;; Setup CLISP to run as an inferior process using ILISP
(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "d:/ilisp/") load-path))
(setq inferior-lisp-program "d:/clisp/lisp.exe -M d:/clisp/lispinit.mem")
(setq clisp-hs-program inferior-lisp-program)
(autoload 'clisp-hs "ilisp" "Inferior Haible/Stoll CLISP Common Lisp." t)
(setq lisp-mode-hook '(lambda () (require 'ilisp)))
Now, tell emacs to go into Lisp mode when we start editing a source
file. Your .emacs file may already have a section that looks like
this -- in which case you can just add the second line to your file.
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode)
) auto-mode-alist))
You should be all set to give everything a try now -- once you have
either restarted emacs or used load-file to reload your .emacs. To
test that everything works open a new file and call it something
like 'test.lsp' Emacs will look at the extension and go into Lisp
mode -- which will trigger the lisp-mode-hook that we defined:
(require 'ilisp). Next, type 'M-x ilisp-mode' to run ilisp mode and
answer 'clisp' when prompted for the dialect.
With any luck, you should be in nerdvana now -- all set to start
writing and evaluating your code.
Caveat emptor: As I mentioned -- this is newbie to newbie
communication. I'm sure the kind denizens of this newsgroup will be
able to correct the numerous omissions, flaws, and outright
falsehoods that I may have made. Hope this helps though -- I've had
a LOT of fun with this and I'm looking forward to learning more.
Best regards and don't give up. . .
Bob
--
Bob Burnham
········@dartmouth.edu
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~bburnham
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your help so far.
First, what ought to be a simple question. I would infer from what I
currently see in the .emacs file (especially what the SWIprolog installer
added to it), that I ought to be able to run prolog, lisp and Perl &c.
programs from withn emacs. The question is how. I see in a submenu
commands to compile and debug, but not run. In myother development tools
(BCB, Delphi, MS VC++, MS VB), there is a run command right on the main
menu, and this takes the currently open file or project, compiles it if it
hasn't been compiled, and runs it. What is the equivalent in emacs?
I did all you suggested, but a little problem has arisen right at the end of
the process. I have appended my .emacs file so it will be easier to correct
whatever I may have messed up there.
Right at the end, after lisp and ilisp have been loaded, I get a message
"Spawning child process: invalid argument."
Thanks
Ted
==============================================================
The contents of the message buffer are the following lines:
Loading ilisp-chs (source)...done
Loading ilisp-acl (source)...
Loading ilisp-acl (source)...done
Loading ilisp-hlw (source)...
Loading ilisp-hlw (source)...done
Loading ilisp-kcl (source)...
Loading ilisp-kcl (source)...done
Loading ilisp-luc (source)...
Loading ilisp-luc (source)...done
Loading ilisp-sch (source)...
Loading ilisp-sch (source)...done
Loading menu interface.
'ilisp-*enable-cl-easy-meny-p*' is t
Loading ilisp-cl-easy-menu (source)...
Loading ilisp-cl-easy-menu (source)...done
Loading ild (source)...
Loading ild (source)...done
Loading ilisp-imenu (source)...
Loading ilisp-imenu (source)...done
Spawning child process: invalid argument
=====================================================================
The contents of my .emacs file.
(add-to-list 'initial-frame-alist '(font .
"-*-Courier-*normal-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-c-90-iso8859-1"))
(setq default-frame-alist initial-frame-alist)
(autoload 'load-el "find-el" "find-el" t)
(setq load-path (cons "D:\Program Files\prolog\bin" load-path))
(autoload 'run-prolog "prolog" "Start a Prolog sub-process." t)
(autoload 'prolog-mode "prolog" "Major mode for editing Prolog programs." t)
(autoload 'mercury-mode "prolog" "Major mode for editing Mercury programs."
t)
(setq prolog-system 'sicstus)
(setq auto-mode-alist (append '(("\\.swi$" . prolog-mode)
("\\.m$" . mercury-mode)
("\\.lisp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.cl$" . lisp-mode))
auto-mode-alist))
(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "D:/ilisp/") load-path))
(setq inferior-lisp-program "d:/clisp/lisp.exe -M d:/clisp/lispinit.mem")
(setq clisp-hs-program inferior-lisp-program)
(require 'completer)
(autoload 'run-ilisp "ilisp" "Select a new inferior Lisp." t)
(autoload 'common-lisp "ilisp" "Inferior generic Common Lisp." t)
(autoload 'clisp-hs "ilisp" "Inferior Haible/Stoll CLISP Common Lisp." t)
(setq lisp-mode-hook '(lambda () (require 'ilisp)))
(setq common-lisp-hyperspec-root
"file://D:/Lisp/Lisp Books/HyperSpec/")
(add-hook 'ilisp-load-hook
'(lambda ()
(defkey-ilisp "" 'common-lisp-hyperspec)
(add-hook 'ilisp-init-hook
'(lambda ()
(default-directory-lisp ilisp-last-buffer)))
))
===========================================================================
NB: I did not add the prolog stuff to it, so that must have been aded when I
installed SWIprolog. And I have no idea what "mercury-mode" is.
OK Bob,
Thanks for your help so far.
First, what ought to be a simple question. I would infer from what I
currently see in the .emacs file (especially what the SWIprolog installer
added to it), that I ought to be able to run prolog, lisp and Perl &c.
programs from withn emacs. The question is how. I see in a submenu
commands to compile and debug, but not run. In myother development tools
(BCB, Delphi, MS VC++, MS VB), there is a run command right on the main
menu, and this takes the currently open file or project, compiles it if it
hasn't been compiled, and runs it. What is the equivalent in emacs?
I did all you suggested, but a little problem has arisen right at the end of
the process. I have appended my .emacs file so it will be easier to correct
whatever I may have messed up there.
Right at the end, after lisp and ilisp have been loaded, I get a message
"Spawning child process: invalid argument."
Thanks
Ted
==============================================================
The contents of the message buffer are the following lines:
Loading ilisp-chs (source)...done
Loading ilisp-acl (source)...
Loading ilisp-acl (source)...done
Loading ilisp-hlw (source)...
Loading ilisp-hlw (source)...done
Loading ilisp-kcl (source)...
Loading ilisp-kcl (source)...done
Loading ilisp-luc (source)...
Loading ilisp-luc (source)...done
Loading ilisp-sch (source)...
Loading ilisp-sch (source)...done
Loading menu interface.
'ilisp-*enable-cl-easy-meny-p*' is t
Loading ilisp-cl-easy-menu (source)...
Loading ilisp-cl-easy-menu (source)...done
Loading ild (source)...
Loading ild (source)...done
Loading ilisp-imenu (source)...
Loading ilisp-imenu (source)...done
Spawning child process: invalid argument
=====================================================================
The contents of my .emacs file.
(add-to-list 'initial-frame-alist '(font .
"-*-Courier-*normal-r-*-*-*-120-*-*-c-90-iso8859-1"))
(setq default-frame-alist initial-frame-alist)
(autoload 'load-el "find-el" "find-el" t)
(setq load-path (cons "D:\Program Files\prolog\bin" load-path))
(autoload 'run-prolog "prolog" "Start a Prolog sub-process." t)
(autoload 'prolog-mode "prolog" "Major mode for editing Prolog programs." t)
(autoload 'mercury-mode "prolog" "Major mode for editing Mercury programs."
t)
(setq prolog-system 'sicstus)
(setq auto-mode-alist (append '(("\\.swi$" . prolog-mode)
("\\.m$" . mercury-mode)
("\\.lisp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.lsp$" . lisp-mode)
("\\.cl$" . lisp-mode))
auto-mode-alist))
(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "D:/ilisp/") load-path))
(setq inferior-lisp-program "d:/clisp/lisp.exe -M d:/clisp/lispinit.mem")
(setq clisp-hs-program inferior-lisp-program)
(require 'completer)
(autoload 'run-ilisp "ilisp" "Select a new inferior Lisp." t)
(autoload 'common-lisp "ilisp" "Inferior generic Common Lisp." t)
(autoload 'clisp-hs "ilisp" "Inferior Haible/Stoll CLISP Common Lisp." t)
(setq lisp-mode-hook '(lambda () (require 'ilisp)))
(setq common-lisp-hyperspec-root
"file://D:/Lisp/Lisp Books/HyperSpec/")
(add-hook 'ilisp-load-hook
'(lambda ()
(defkey-ilisp "" 'common-lisp-hyperspec)
(add-hook 'ilisp-init-hook
'(lambda ()
(default-directory-lisp ilisp-last-buffer)))
))
===========================================================================
NB: I did not add the prolog stuff to it, so that must have been aded when I
installed SWIprolog. And I have no idea what "mercury-mode" is.
>>>>> "Ted" == Ted Byers <·········@sympatico.ca> writes:
Hi Ted,
Ted> First, what ought to be a simple question. I would infer
Ted> from what I currently see in the .emacs file (especially
Ted> what the SWIprolog installer added to it), that I ought to
Ted> be able to run prolog, lisp and Perl &c. programs from
Ted> withn emacs. The question is how.
I'm a long way from being an emacs expert (and this part is probably
off topic for this newsgroup) but I think this depends on the
language and the particular package that is written for it. Some
packages have support for running programs, others for compiling and
debugging, and some just for editing. At the very least, you can
always invoke a shell (M-x shell) and run programs within that.
Ted> I did all you suggested, but a little problem has arisen
Ted> right at the end of the process. I have appended my .emacs
Ted> file so it will be easier to correct whatever I may have
Ted> messed up there.
Ted> Right at the end, after lisp and ilisp have been loaded, I
Ted> get a message "Spawning child process: invalid argument."
Honestly, I'm afraid this is the blind leading the blind -- I know
that what I sent you works on my setup, but I'm not sure about the
other things that you added (e.g. I haven't had a chance to look at
the HyperSpec package yet). I would suggest stripping down your
.emacs to the minimum -- perhaps just the code that I posted -- and
then building on additional functionality once the basics are
working.
I'm happy to help, but we should probably take this off list in
order not to annoy the experts. Feel free to contact me directly
via email and I'll help if I can.
Best regards,
Bob
--
Bob Burnham
········@dartmouth.edu
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~bburnham
"Ted Byers" <·········@sympatico.ca> writes:
> It may be that I don't understand the installation instructions for ilisp
> very well because I just got emacs for NT a couple days ago, and I want to
> learn LISP (and prolog) programming. Anyway, I was advised to look into
> installing CLISP and ilisp, and much of what is presented in the
> installation instructions for ilisp might as well be written in greek for
> all the good it does me. I noticed in the makefile reference to rm, which
> is a unix tool I used to use long long ago, but as far as I know it isn't
> present in NT (if it is, I have never used to so I don't know how it would
> relate, if at all, to the unix command), and I am doing all this on NT.
I am afraid the installation of ILISP under Windows is lagging. There
has been no demand for it (although I am sure that people have ported
it one way or the other). My suggestion is to try to write a *new*
ILISP.MK file that works with NMAKE or whatever you can use under
Windows. Using cygwin should give you a fairly complete UN*X like
environment under Windows.
Even though I am one of the ILISP maintainers, I am not all that
familiar with Windows (I am an old guy :) ). Other people will have
comments about running "Emacs + <any inferior process>" on Windows.
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti ========================================================
NYU Courant Bioinformatics Group tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488
719 Broadway 12th Floor fax +1 - 212 - 995 4122
New York, NY 10003, USA http://bioinformatics.cat.nyu.edu
"Hello New York! We'll do what we can!"
Bill Murray in `Ghostbusters'.
Thanks Marco,
I apreciate this.
I am an old guy too, but before OS/2, I used DOS and Unix (but the last time
I did anything significant on unix was close to ten years ago), and I
started using Windows NT a year and a half ago. On NT, I feel like a newby,
and it is fair to say my unix skills are rather rusty (presumably it has
changed significantly since last I used it). I used the Gnu tools almost
exclusively on OS/2, but that was C++ programming (and before that is was
Pascal and BASIC on DOS and FORTRAN on a mainframe: remember the old card
readers :-). I was interested in getting cygwin, but apparently it has a
mutual hate relationship with Network Associates' Virus Scan software (and I
do not have a pressing need for it since I have MS Visual Studio and
Borland's C++ Builder: to earn my living). Maybe I'll get Cygwin to play
with once I have a budget to get a second machine (and when I can afford a
third machine, I may look into Linux too).
Judging from Bob's remarks, the installation ought to be fairly easy. As
one used to teaching biostatistics and computer simulation to biology
students who were frightened of both, what I would suggest is an
installation guide that assumes only that the reader knows how to turn the
computer on, and how to use the mouse and keyboard. If that is well done,
an experienced user will still find the guide useful precisely because all
the required information is present in a well organized manner, and still
people who are trying to learn will find it easy to follow. The
installation guide for the OS/2 version of gcc provides a fairly good
example of this (although I would probably add even to that a little extra
information for really inexperienced newbies). So it may not be so much a
question of changing the installation under Windows but rather one of
improving the documentation.
Anyway, I have seen a number of references to running an inferior process
with emacs. Am I correct in inferring that that is a reference to child
processes?
Also, I see from your signature you are involved with bioinformatics. Are
you using lisp for that? What aspect of bioinformatics are you working
with? I ask because I am a theoretical ecologist who develops decision
support software for use in environmental science (mostly involving
simulation and/or RDBMS). It would be interesting to see an example of how
LISP can be used in this discipline, if it is being used for this.
Thanks again,
Ted
On Fri, 13 Apr 2001 14:27:43 GMT, "Ted Byers" <·········@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> Anyway, I have seen a number of references to running an inferior process
> with emacs. Am I correct in inferring that that is a reference to child
> processes?
Yes. Emacs is able to send to the inferior process input coming from a
buffer, and getting back in the buffer the output of the process. This way
the buffer works more or less like a shell. ILISP is based on those
features, by the way.
> simulation and/or RDBMS). It would be interesting to see an example of how
> LISP can be used in this discipline, if it is being used for this.
See:
BioLisp.org
http://www.biolisp.org/
Have (de)fun,
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
On Fri, 13 Apr 2001 04:53:13 GMT, "Ted Byers" <·········@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> learn LISP (and prolog) programming. Anyway, I was advised to look into
> installing CLISP and ilisp, and much of what is presented in the
> installation instructions for ilisp might as well be written in greek for
> all the good it does me. I noticed in the makefile reference to rm, which
For Windows you can change the values of the LN and RM macros in the
makefile to the following values:
LN = copy
RM = del
The `compile', `clean' and `loadfile' should work with most Windows
implementations of make.
> I have produced a fair bit of fortran and C++ code, but the contents of the
> lsp and el files don't look anything like the code I have seen for these
> other languages.
You bet :)
> I have never written any LISP code before, and it has been eons since I last
> looked at emacs (and even then, I just used it a smart text editor).
Since I am one of the maintainers of ILISP I shouldn't say this... :) But
at this very early learning stage, it would be much simpler for you to get
one of the free of charge trial versions of commercial Common Lisp
implementations provided by major vendors:
LispWorks (by Xanalys)
http://www.xanalys.com/
Corman Lisp (by Roger Corman)
http://www.corman.net/CormanLisp.html
Allegro CL (by Franz)
http://www.franz.com/
All of the above products come with a standard Windows installer and an
integrated development environment similar to the ones you are already
familiar with. Note that although the trial versions of Allegro CL and
LispWorks, being reduced versions of the full commercial products, do have
some limitations, you are not going to bump into them anytime soon.
> It would also be good to find a couple neat examples of what I could do with
> lisp once I have learned it (to add motivation for putting in the effort
> :-).
You can find open-source Lisp code and applications at:
CLiki
http://ww.telent.net/cliki
As for neat examples, here's one:
RAX - Remote Agent Experiment
http://rax.arc.nasa.gov
It's a Lisp application (written with an appropriately modified LispWorks,
by the way) that was given control on mission planning and scheduling of a
spacecraft for the first time in the history of spaceflight.
As for adding motivation, this is difficult because different people are
motivated by different things. This Alan Perlis quotation, however, seems
relevant: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about
programming, is not worth knowing". Lisp does heavily affect the way you
think about programming.
Since you are a C++ programmer, for example, you may be interested in
learning why Lisp can do without most of the popular design patterns. And
since you are also a Fortran programmer, you may have a look at the Fortran
to Common Lisp translator that is part of CLOCC:
CLOCC (Common Lisp Open Code Collection)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clocc
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
Thanks Paolo
I appreciate this,
One of the reasons I am looking at lisp and prolog is that languages like
fortran and C++ are not adequate for some of the more interesting problems
I'd like to be able to examine. For example, I saw one reference dealing
with the nature of randomness by Chaitin that used Lisp to prove a couple
mathematical theories.
Also, I would like to be able to explore individual and community learning
as it may occur in environmental management, where, if we take a fishery as
an example, everyone is learning something all the time, but not necessarily
sharing what they have learned, and the decisions by each will affect the
success of most of the others. So, I'd like to explore the process of
learning, forgetting and sharing information in this context, and making
decisions based on experience of the effectiveness of different decisions in
different contexts. I would suppose that the NASA example would be a rather
simplistic example of this (ONLYone object that has to figure out what to
do, in the absense of others of its kind). NB: this would be a
phenomenological simulation of learning in the realm of logic, rather than
one in the realm of psychology, treating agents as logical beings (and we
know that human beings are often less than logical.
Ted
On Fri, 13 Apr 2001 16:32:50 GMT, "Ted Byers" <·········@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> I'd like to be able to examine. For example, I saw one reference dealing
> with the nature of randomness by Chaitin that used Lisp to prove a couple
> mathematical theories.
Here are a few math-related Lisp resources:
"A FORTRAN->LISP Translator"
(paper by K.M. Pitman)
http://www.world.std.com/~pitman/Papers/Fortran-to-Lisp.html
"Fast Floating Point Processing in Common Lisp"
(paper by R.J. Fateman, K.A. Broughan, D.K. Willcock, D. Rettig)
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/papers/lispfloat.ps
Kenzo
http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~sergerar/Kenzo/
Mathematics section of CLiki
http://ww.telent.net/cliki/
Maxima
http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/wfs/maxima.html
SimLab
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Projects/SimLab/releases/release-1-0.html
> Also, I would like to be able to explore individual and community learning
This might be relevant to your work:
Surf-Hippo
http://www.cnrs-gif.fr/iaf/iaf9/surf-hippo.html
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/