Hi,
I have been getting curious about lisp lately, so I bought Graham's ANSI
Common Lisp book.
But now it seems that the tools I need lack very basic information on
how to get started... (or I am too stupid to find it, then just give me
the links - honestly, I never felt so helpless with any other language I
used so far)
I found some hints that clisp and ilisp would be a good start, so I
installed the debian-woody packages. But I don't know how to go further:
1) How do I start clisp? Is it by "M-x clisp-hs"? (But there is always
an error message that the -a option is deprecated...)
2) How do I use the debugger? (The commands for "abort" and "backtrace"
would be enough for a start...)
3) What to add to the .emacs-file - I mean: just the basic things:
syntax colouring etc., not a thousand different configurations that I
don't understand. While I have been using emacs for quite some time, I
never learned how to configure it. You know, all those parentheses ;-)
4) In lisp-mode the if-expression is formatted the following way:
(if ...
(some code)
(some other code))
and not the way I see it everywhere with (some other code) exactly
aligned under (some code). Why is that?
Thank you in advance,
Chris
In article <············@online.de>, Christian Hofer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have been getting curious about lisp lately, so I bought Graham's ANSI
> Common Lisp book.
> But now it seems that the tools I need lack very basic information on
> how to get started... (or I am too stupid to find it, then just give me
> the links - honestly, I never felt so helpless with any other language I
> used so far)
>
> I found some hints that clisp and ilisp would be a good start, so I
> installed the debian-woody packages. But I don't know how to go further:
>
> 1) How do I start clisp? Is it by "M-x clisp-hs"? (But there is always
> an error message that the -a option is deprecated...)
This is harmless, clisp is started as normal after this.
>
> 2) How do I use the debugger? (The commands for "abort" and "backtrace"
> would be enough for a start...)
There will be variations between lisp implementations, but in clisp just
type abort or backtrace, followed by enter.
> 3) What to add to the .emacs-file - I mean: just the basic things:
> syntax colouring etc., not a thousand different configurations that I
> don't understand. While I have been using emacs for quite some time, I
> never learned how to configure it. You know, all those parentheses ;-)
I don't use syntax coloring myself, but (font-lock-mode 1) in your
emacs file or M-x font-lock-mode , should do the trick.
--
Gisle S�lensminde
Computational biology unit, University of Bergen, Norway
Email: ·····@cbu.uib.no
Christian Hofer wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have been getting curious about lisp lately, so I bought Graham's ANSI
> Common Lisp book.
> But now it seems that the tools I need lack very basic information on
> how to get started... (or I am too stupid to find it, then just give me
> the links - honestly, I never felt so helpless with any other language I
> used so far)
>
> I found some hints that clisp and ilisp would be a good start, so I
> installed the debian-woody packages. But I don't know how to go further:
The Linux-aware gurus here will have to help you with that Giant Leap
Back Into the Sixties software, but the short answer is that you are
indeed in for a little needless pain and suffering until you get a setup
you are comfortable with, then you can start to have some fun.
If you are accustomed to a modern (post-1984) IDE, unless you get ACL
for Win32...ouch. But I cut my Lisp teeth on MCL and got over the
aggravation in short order, and was having fun even with the
aggravation.
One tip is that you'll need DEFSYSTEM once you get into multi-file
projects. That serves the purpose of make, roughly speaking.
>
> 1) How do I start clisp? Is it by "M-x clisp-hs"? (But there is always
> an error message that the -a option is deprecated...)
>
> 2) How do I use the debugger? (The commands for "abort" and "backtrace"
> would be enough for a start...)
>
> 3) What to add to the .emacs-file - I mean: just the basic things:
> syntax colouring etc., not a thousand different configurations that I
> don't understand. While I have been using emacs for quite some time, I
> never learned how to configure it. You know, all those parentheses ;-)
>
> 4) In lisp-mode the if-expression is formatted the following way:
> (if ...
> (some code)
> (some other code))
I'm with you on this one. I guess the thinking is that since there is no
visible else keyword to provide a break between the two clauses, they
need to have a little fun with the indentation. ACL/win32 IIR let's you
override default indentation.
kenny
--
clinisys, inc
http://www.tilton-technology.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------
"[If anyone really has healing powers,] I would like to call
them about my knees."
-- Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
From: Christian Hofer
Subject: Re: getting started...
Date:
Message-ID: <bkq7r6$970$1@online.de>
Thank you all for your answers! They have been really a great help to
get started. Meanwhile I have remembered that for Linux / Emacs there is
something like "info". Though I am more comfortable with html, I think I
will figure out further details regarding ilisp there...
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> The Linux-aware gurus here will have to help you with that Giant Leap
> Back Into the Sixties software, but the short answer is that you are
> indeed in for a little needless pain and suffering until you get a setup
> you are comfortable with, then you can start to have some fun.
>
> If you are accustomed to a modern (post-1984) IDE, unless you get ACL
> for Win32...ouch. But I cut my Lisp teeth on MCL and got over the
> aggravation in short order, and was having fun even with the
> aggravation.
I like what you say about the Giant Leap... Since years I try to get
accomodated to Linux, but somehow it never really happens. I will try
out ACL as well. Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk IDEs.
I have hoped that LISP would offer the same great tools, but it seems
that the price to pay for that is much higher.
Christian
Christian Hofer <·······@gmx.de> writes:
> Thank you all for your answers! They have been really a great help to
> get started. Meanwhile I have remembered that for Linux / Emacs there
> is something like "info". Though I am more comfortable with html, I
> think I will figure out further details regarding ilisp there...
It sounds like you're not a Unix/C/Emacs guy ... in that case, I'd
lose the (Gnu/X)Emacs approach. Emacs is hard to learn. I'm very
glad I learned it, but it's just an annoyance when learning a
programming language, especially one like Lisp, where it's very much
about interacting with the language.
If you're a Unix guy, get CMUCL, and use Hemlock, the built-in editor.
If you're a Mac guy, get yourself a copy of MCL.
> > The Linux-aware gurus here will have to help you with that Giant Leap
> > Back Into the Sixties software, but the short answer is that you are
> > indeed in for a little needless pain and suffering until you get a setup
> > you are comfortable with, then you can start to have some fun.
Well, Hemlock is more like the '80's. At some point, if I can figure
out all the intellectual property mess, I'd like to release my Hemlock
additions, which add enough tools to bring it into the '90's.
> > If you are accustomed to a modern (post-1984) IDE, unless you get
> > ACL for Win32...ouch. But I cut my Lisp teeth on MCL and got over
> > the aggravation in short order, and was having fun even with the
> > aggravation.
Pure hyperbole. I would have *loved* MCL when I was using Borland
Turbo C++, one of the most early-90's environments imaginable.
> I like what you say about the Giant Leap... Since years I try to get
> accomodated to Linux, but somehow it never really happens. I will try
> out ACL as well. Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk
> IDEs. I have hoped that LISP would offer the same great tools, but it
> seems that the price to pay for that is much higher.
It does. The Free Lisps suffer in the tool department because once
you get comfortable in Lisp, you can work around the tool issues so
easily, no one feels like making the Good Shit toolwise. So, either
get yourself MCL, ACL, or LispWorks; or, get Hemlock, or even
Emacs/ILISP, and trust that once you get the hang of it, the tool
situation is good enough.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Thomas F. Burdick writes:
> Well, Hemlock is more like the '80's. At some point, if I can figure
> out all the intellectual property mess, I'd like to release my Hemlock
> additions, which add enough tools to bring it into the '90's.
Could you elaborate on the intellectual property mess related to Hemlock?
Paolo
--
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it>
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it> writes:
> Thomas F. Burdick writes:
>
> > Well, Hemlock is more like the '80's. At some point, if I can figure
> > out all the intellectual property mess, I'd like to release my Hemlock
> > additions, which add enough tools to bring it into the '90's.
>
> Could you elaborate on the intellectual property mess related to Hemlock?
Just for the archive, there is none. The IP mess is of my own
creation, and only applies to my own Hemlock extensions.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
···@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> It does. The Free Lisps suffer in the tool department because once
> you get comfortable in Lisp, you can work around the tool issues so
> easily, no one feels like making the Good Shit toolwise. So, either
Speaking as a Free Lisp developer, I don't think that's the reason:
personally I'd _love_ to have an editor less easily confused than ilisp.
The reason this stuff is not seeing too much progress is (a) there are
only so many hours in the day, (b) a perhaps over-zealous approach to
doing the Right Thing instead of doing something that will be
available soon. At least, having spent most of my SBCL hacking time
over the past year on support for Linux native threads, that's my
personal opinion.
(It's really been a year? Sigh. It doesn't seem that long)
In another article on this thread you mentioned Hemlock licensing
issues - as far as I know it's public domain. Or were you talking
about licensing issues for your code that jazzes it up? If you have
code for Hemlock that you can release, the Portable Hemlock hackers
<http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~unk6/hemlock/> would be very
pleased to hear from you.
Also on the subject of tools for the free-as-in-religion Lisps, have
you seen SLIME? Eric Marsden and Luke Gorrie's work on an ILISP replacement
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slime/
http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-shot.png
You can't obviously see from the screenshot, but the underlined text
in the upper window is mouse sensitive; the lower window shows the
text of the compiler error message/warning/note for that form
-dan
--
http://www.cliki.net/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
Daniel Barlow <···@telent.net> writes:
> ···@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
>
> > It does. The Free Lisps suffer in the tool department because once
> > you get comfortable in Lisp, you can work around the tool issues so
> > easily, no one feels like making the Good Shit toolwise. So, either
>
> Speaking as a Free Lisp developer, I don't think that's the reason:
> personally I'd _love_ to have an editor less easily confused than ilisp.
I phrased myself badly there. It's not that no one feels like making
it, it's just that ...
> The reason this stuff is not seeing too much progress is (a) there are
> only so many hours in the day, (b) a perhaps over-zealous approach to
> doing the Right Thing instead of doing something that will be
> available soon. At least, having spent most of my SBCL hacking time
> over the past year on support for Linux native threads, that's my
> personal opinion.
... so far, the developers who put the most time into the Free Lisps
have had other priorities. Maybe if ILISP were totally unusable,
someone would have gotten fed up, and made something better already.
But, since ILISP works well enough most of the time, people have been
more inspired to rip into PCL, or Linux native threads, or ...
> In another article on this thread you mentioned Hemlock licensing
> issues - as far as I know it's public domain. Or were you talking
> about licensing issues for your code that jazzes it up?
The latter -- I wrote a lot of it on a mixture of my own time, and
company time :-(
> Also on the subject of tools for the free-as-in-religion Lisps, have
> you seen SLIME? Eric Marsden and Luke Gorrie's work on an ILISP replacement
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/slime/
> http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-shot.png
>
> You can't obviously see from the screenshot, but the underlined text
> in the upper window is mouse sensitive; the lower window shows the
> text of the compiler error message/warning/note for that form
I knew this was in the works, but didn't want to reccommend it to a
newbie, because it's still under heavy development. Then again, I
haven't used it, so maybe it's perfectly usable.
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
···@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> I knew [SLIME] was in the works, but didn't want to recommend it to
> a newbie, because it's still under heavy development. Then again, I
> haven't used it, so maybe it's perfectly usable.
SLIME is indeed usable, but it's changing rapidly so you're right not
to recommend it to newbies. When it settles down we'll make a real
release and post a note. Since ILISP is already very nice and mature,
I don't feel a great need for us to post 0.x releases in the interim.
If you have a recent snapshot release of CMUCL and a taste for
adventure then you may enjoy grabbing SLIME from CVS and taking it for
a spin. The various URLs are:
Project page: http://sf.net/projects/slime/
Mailing list: slime-devel (at) lists.sourceforge.net
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slime-devel
Gmane archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.slime.devel
ChangeLog: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/slime/slime/ChangeLog?rev=HEAD
There are also some pretty pictures:
http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-shot.png
http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-dbg.png
http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-xref.png
http://www.bluetail.com/~luke/misc/lisp/slime-apropos.png
Questions and comments are best directed to the mailing list. It's
possible to post without being a subscriber.
Cheers,
Luke
Daniel Barlow wrote:
> Also on the subject of tools for the free-as-in-religion Lisps, have
> you seen SLIME? Eric Marsden and Luke Gorrie's work on an ILISP replacement
>
Well, it has been a while since I basically dropped ILISP work.
However, Slime is AFAIU CMUCL/SBCL only. ILISP even handles some Scheme
dialects. Not that I have anyhting against slime (what a pun! :) ), but
so far it seems a good CMUCL/SBCL emacs tool. If you use CLisp, you are
out of luck.
Cheers
--
Marco
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Daniel Barlow wrote:
>
>> Also on the subject of tools for the free-as-in-religion Lisps, have
>> you seen SLIME? Eric Marsden and Luke Gorrie's work on an ILISP replacement
>>
>
> Well, it has been a while since I basically dropped ILISP
> work. However, Slime is AFAIU CMUCL/SBCL only. ILISP even handles
> some Scheme dialects. Not that I have anyhting against slime (what a
> pun! :) ), but so far it seems a good CMUCL/SBCL emacs tool. If you
> use CLisp, you are out of luck.
Since I decided to use CMUCL for the time being I saw SLIME and
checked it out, but there doesn't seem to be anything available other
than a short summary on the CLiki (no files released on sourceforge
either). Is there an alternate page that contains information on
SLIME?
--
burton samograd
······@hotmail.com
http://kruhftwerk.dyndns.org
On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:13:35 GMT, Burton Samograd <······@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Since I decided to use CMUCL for the time being I saw SLIME and
> checked it out, but there doesn't seem to be anything available
> other than a short summary on the CLiki (no files released on
> sourceforge either). Is there an alternate page that contains
> information on SLIME?
Have you looked at the CVS repository on Sourceforge? It comes with a
little README file, too.
Edi.
Marco Antoniotti <·······@cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> Well, it has been a while since I basically dropped ILISP
> work. However, Slime is AFAIU CMUCL/SBCL only. ILISP even handles
> some Scheme dialects. Not that I have anyhting against slime (what a
> pun! :) ), but so far it seems a good CMUCL/SBCL emacs tool. If you
> use CLisp, you are out of luck.
Sorry, yes. SLIME is CMUCL-only right now, though an SBCL port is on
the cards. I should have been more precise.
-dan
--
http://www.cliki.net/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
> ...Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk IDEs.
Yeah, when I got into Lisp I had been using Symantec and CodeWarrior IDEs on
the Mac and I really hated the MCL environment. But pretty soon I had cooked
up my own little poor man's project manager and I was off and running. Mind
you, MCL is far ahead of EMACS/ILISP, tho some swear by the latter (I think
because they swear by EMACS).
You might want to follow Rainier's lead and switch to Lispworks. You'll get
pretty far before hitting any limitations from it being free (can't say that
I hit any and I was wailing on it pretty hard). Use that with mk::defsystem
or ASDF and you'll be in excellent shape. I do not love the win32 version
because it seems so menu-reliant for everything, but that is relatively
minor.
kt
"Kenny Tilton" <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message news:<····················@twister.nyc.rr.com>...
> > ...Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk IDEs.
>
> Yeah, when I got into Lisp I had been using Symantec and CodeWarrior IDEs on
> the Mac and I really hated the MCL environment. But pretty soon I had cooked
> up my own little poor man's project manager and I was off and running. Mind
> you, MCL is far ahead of EMACS/ILISP, tho some swear by the latter (I think
> because they swear by EMACS).
>
> You might want to follow Rainier's lead and switch to Lispworks. You'll get
> pretty far before hitting any limitations from it being free (can't say that
> I hit any and I was wailing on it pretty hard). Use that with mk::defsystem
> or ASDF and you'll be in excellent shape. I do not love the win32 version
> because it seems so menu-reliant for everything, but that is relatively
> minor.
>
> kt
Have anybody tried Jabberwocky?
When I tried it I ran into some stability problems and switched back to emacs/ilisp.
--
Ivan
In article <············@online.de>, Christian Hofer <·······@gmx.de>
wrote:
> Thank you all for your answers! They have been really a great help to
> get started. Meanwhile I have remembered that for Linux / Emacs there is
> something like "info". Though I am more comfortable with html, I think I
> will figure out further details regarding ilisp there...
>
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> > The Linux-aware gurus here will have to help you with that Giant Leap
> > Back Into the Sixties software, but the short answer is that you are
> > indeed in for a little needless pain and suffering until you get a setup
> > you are comfortable with, then you can start to have some fun.
> >
> > If you are accustomed to a modern (post-1984) IDE, unless you get ACL
> > for Win32...ouch. But I cut my Lisp teeth on MCL and got over the
> > aggravation in short order, and was having fun even with the
> > aggravation.
>
> I like what you say about the Giant Leap... Since years I try to get
> accomodated to Linux, but somehow it never really happens. I will try
> out ACL as well. Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk IDEs.
> I have hoped that LISP would offer the same great tools, but it seems
> that the price to pay for that is much higher.
On Linux, the commercial LispWorks has an usable IDE.
For learning there is a personal edition...
If you are ready to BUILD one, join the McCLIM
wave : http://clim.mikemac.com/
For example you could use and improve the Lisp
listener:
http://clim.mikemac.com/images/listener1.jpg
From: Christian Hofer
Subject: Re: getting started...
Date:
Message-ID: <bks4ks$q1o$1@online.de>
Rainer Joswig wrote:
> On Linux, the commercial LispWorks has an usable IDE.
> For learning there is a personal edition...
This is indeed the IDE I was looking for:
- similiar to Smalltalk IDEs
- good documentation on getting started
- immediately usable (I felt lost in ACL: I did not want to create a
project and to design any forms, but only evaluate some simple
functions; but I think I will take another look at it later...)
Only disadvantage: I don't use Red Hat, but Debian Woody with Gnome 1.4.
There the debugger window is so huge, that I cannot find the bottom of
it to make it smaller. Pop-ups are in the top-left corner of the screen.
Linux compatibility...
I tried CMUCL as well, but I could not get it running properly. It said
that the clx-module was missing after I installed every woody-package I
could find starting with "cmucl", there were further error-messages I
did not understand and the built-in editor did not allow me to write
parentheses: Shift-8 (were the "(" should be) always displayed an 8.
That is quite bad for writing Lisp code...
> If you are ready to BUILD one, join the McCLIM
> wave : http://clim.mikemac.com/
I hope very much that this project succeeds: I have read some
descriptions of CLIM and it sounds really cool (it was one of the things
that awoke my interest in Lisp). I think that present UIs are really
out-dated, and I have been experimenting a bit with Morphic
(http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/30), which is some steps ahead
(though the code is rather messy). So: yes I am interested in modern
user interfaces, and thanks for the "invitation" to join. But first
things first: I am just starting to learn Lisp...
Chris
Christian Hofer writes:
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
[...]
>> If you are ready to BUILD one, join the McCLIM
>> wave : http://clim.mikemac.com/
>
> I hope very much that this project succeeds: I have read some
Having followed the project from its early stages, I think it is
already successful.
Paolo
--
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it>
"Christian Hofer" <·······@gmx.de> wrote in message
·················@online.de...
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>
> > On Linux, the commercial LispWorks has an usable IDE.
> > For learning there is a personal edition...
>
> This is indeed the IDE I was looking for:
> - similiar to Smalltalk IDEs
> - good documentation on getting started
> - immediately usable (I felt lost in ACL: I did not want to create a
> project and to design any forms, but only evaluate some simple
> functions; but I think I will take another look at it later...)
ooo, good point. on the rare occasions I fire up ACL just to hack an example
for c.l.l. I always hate being hassled about the default new project it
opens up.
anyway, once you are doing anything more than a line or two long and
actually intend to save a text file full of Lisp, the project manager lets
you add that text file to some "test" project, then define an init function
for the project (the function you are testing), and then after you do a
bunch of editing just do control-shift-r and (if you set up the options this
way under the Tools menu) first save all your source, then compile anything
changed, then run the test function, then open a backtrace (when you crash
<g>).
kenny
"Christian Hofer" <·······@gmx.de> wrote in message
·················@online.de...
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>
> > On Linux, the commercial LispWorks has an usable IDE.
> > For learning there is a personal edition...
>
> This is indeed the IDE I was looking for:
> - similiar to Smalltalk IDEs
> - good documentation on getting started
> - immediately usable (I felt lost in ACL: I did not want to create a
> project and to design any forms, but only evaluate some simple
> functions; but I think I will take another look at it later...)
>
You can use one of the other ACL executables rather than the one with the
full blown IDE.
I do this myself and run the "smaller" ACL executable as an inferior Lisp
under Emacs.
> Only disadvantage: I don't use Red Hat, but Debian Woody with Gnome 1.4.
> There the debugger window is so huge, that I cannot find the bottom of
> it to make it smaller. Pop-ups are in the top-left corner of the screen.
> Linux compatibility...
>
I don't speak from experience, but I hear that Debian Linux and Lisp go
together quite well.
* Christian Hofer <·······@gmx.de>
| I tried CMUCL as well, but I could not get it running properly. It
| said that the clx-module was missing after I installed every
| woody-package I could find starting with "cmucl", there were further
| error-messages I did not understand and the built-in editor did not
| allow me to write parentheses: Shift-8 (were the "(" should be) always
| displayed an 8. That is quite bad for writing Lisp code...
I think that you are talking about hemlock. The same happens
to me (Debian unstable here), just turn off NumLock. Dont
ask me why this works :)
BTW, (require :cmucl-clx) should work out of the box with Woody.
--
Eduardo Mu�oz | (prog () 10 (print "Hello world!")
http://213.97.131.125/ | 20 (go 10))
Rainer Joswig <······@lispmachine.de> wrote in message news:<····························@news.fu-berlin.de>...
> If you are ready to BUILD one, join the McCLIM
> wave : http://clim.mikemac.com/
I emailed Mike about finding a copy of the paper formerly known as
http://www.bricoworks.com/~moore/clim-paper.pdf , but just in case he
doesn't respond, does anyone know where a copy is? I'll temporarily
mirror it until bricoworks.com comes back online.
If anyone wants to email me, please email tayss_temp2 instead of
tayss_temp at yahoo. The latest email DDOS has nuked my yahoo acct
and they don't offer sufficient tools to protect. (Thank *deity* I
didn't upgrade with them.)
Christian Hofer writes:
> out ACL as well. Indeed I am used to Java Eclipse and to Smalltalk
> IDEs. I have hoped that LISP would offer the same great tools, but it
> seems that the price to pay for that is much higher.
If you stay with Lisp long enough to try CLIM and CLIM listener, you
will get a glimpse at those tools.
Paolo
--
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it>
On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:37:18 +0200, Christian Hofer <···············@gmx.de> wrote:
> I have been getting curious about lisp lately, so I bought Graham's
> ANSI Common Lisp book. But now it seems that the tools I need lack
> very basic information on how to get started... (or I am too stupid
> to find it, then just give me the links - honestly, I never felt so
> helpless with any other language I used so far)
Stay tuned. You'll feel very powerful in a couple of weeks... :)
> I found some hints that clisp and ilisp would be a good start, so I
> installed the debian-woody packages.
That's a fine choice. If you're on x86 hardware make sure you also
check CMUCL and SBCL. On PPC take a look at OpenMCL. All of these are
more ANSI-compliant than CLISP and compile to native code.
> But I don't know how to go further:
>
> 1) How do I start clisp? Is it by "M-x clisp-hs"? (But there is always
> an error message that the -a option is deprecated...)
You can ignore this message. If you want to get rid of it check the
value of the Emacs variable "clisp-hs-program" - that one should be
the culprit. I have the line
(setq clisp-hs-program "/usr/local/bin/clisp -ansi -I -K full -Efile ISO-8859-1 -i ~/.clisp.lisp")
in my ~/.ilisp file - note that it uses "-ansi" instead of "-a".
> 2) How do I use the debugger? (The commands for "abort" and
> "backtrace" would be enough for a start...)
When you're in the CLISP debugger you can type "?" to see the list of
available commands. This will work with most CL implementations (or
try something like "help" or ":help") but note that the debugger
commands are implementation-dependent.
You can also use ILISP's debugger commands - that way you don't have
to remember different debugger commands for each implementation but
you'll only have something like the lowest common denominator
available. The easiest way to find these commands is from the ILISP
menu.
> 3) What to add to the .emacs-file - I mean: just the basic things:
> syntax colouring etc., not a thousand different configurations that
> I don't understand. While I have been using emacs for quite some
> time, I never learned how to configure it. You know, all those
> parentheses ;-)
For syntax coloring just add
(global-font-lock-mode 1)
to your ~/.emacs file unless you have a _very_ old and slow machine.
> 4) In lisp-mode the if-expression is formatted the following way:
> (if ...
> (some code)
> (some other code))
>
> and not the way I see it everywhere with (some other code) exactly
> aligned under (some code). Why is that?
This is how Emacs thinks IF forms should be intended because their
semantics in Emacs Lisp is different from how they work in Common
Lisp. Add something like
(add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook
(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable lisp-indent-function)
'common-lisp-indent-function)))
to your ~/.emacs file to get better indentation.
You should also make sure that you have the CLHS and CLtL2 available
from within ILISP. I think this can be done conveniently with apt-get
- I'm not a Debian user.
Have fun,
Edi.
Edi Weitz <···@agharta.de> writes:
> > and not the way I see it everywhere with (some other code) exactly
> > aligned under (some code). Why is that?
>
> This is how Emacs thinks IF forms should be intended because their
> semantics in Emacs Lisp is different from how they work in Common
> Lisp. Add something like
Subtle issue:
> (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook
> (lambda ()
> (set (make-local-variable lisp-indent-function)
That should be: (set (make-local-variable 'lisp-indent-function)
Because `make-local-variable' evaluates its argument.
It would usually work the other way too, since the default value of
the variable lisp-indent-function is the symbol of the same name!
Cheers,
Luke
"Christian Hofer" <···············@gmx.de> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
·················@online.de...
> Hi,
>
> I have been getting curious about lisp lately, so I bought Graham's ANSI
> Common Lisp book.
[snip]
> 3) What to add to the .emacs-file - I mean: just the basic things:
> syntax colouring etc., not a thousand different configurations that I
> don't understand. While I have been using emacs for quite some time, I
> never learned how to configure it. You know, all those parentheses ;-)
I'm sensing a circular dependency here... :-)
> Thank you in advance,
Thanks for starting that thread here, 'cause I'm kind of in a similar
situation (havn't done Lisp in ages and never came around to the features
of Common Lisp like OO etc.)
There seem to be tons of tutorials out there:
http://www.google.de/search?q=%22common+lisp%22+tutorial
I guess you know already, that there is a PDF version of Paul Graham's "On
Lisp". If not, you can find it here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html
Kind regards
robert