3 ms·

The hardest thing is the lack of a "batteries included" standard package. There are competing implementations (which all have strengths and weaknesses) and lot

The hardest thing is the lack of a "batteries included" standard package. There are competing implementations (which all have strengths and weaknesses) and lots of libraries (many of which are good, few of which are widely accepted as "standard"). The short answer is to setup SBCL and Slime/Emacs (here's a guide I wrote: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/installing-sbcl-emacs-and-slime-on-windows-xp/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/installing-sbcl-em... ) A previous discussion on learning Lisp: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=125766 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=125766 Plus another article I wrote: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/ Additional resources: SLIME/Emacs cheat sheet: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/public-beta-open-for-ultimate-n00b-slimeemacs-cheat-sheet/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/public-beta-open-f... Watch the SLIME movie (http://www.guba.com/watch/3000054867 http://www.guba.com/watch/3000054867 ) and read my notes on it (http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/reference-for-the-slimelispemacs-screencast/ http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/reference-for-the-... ) EDIT: To avoid the setup hassle entirely, try Thnake (http://jasonfruit.com/thnake/ http://jasonfruit.com/thnake/ ) - a Linux liveCD with SBCL/SLIME/emacs preconfigured, complete with webserver and gui packages.

dpritchett 17y ago
I note that the poster described a Lisp and not specifically Common Lisp. Clojure at least has plenty of batteries available via its Java interoperability. The biggest thing holding Clojure back at the moment appear to be installation, building other people's projects, and IDE setup. I don't know if Clojure is a helpful suggestion to the OP but it is certainly a more appealing way for me to get into Lisp than Common Lisp was. Edit: I have just recently completed the install/build/IDE trifecta myself thanks to ELPA and leiningen but it certainly wasn't a one-day process. One of my biggest problems was reading out of date tutorials rather than the latest and greatest. It can be hard for a newcomer to see a HOWTO blog post from mid 2009 and decide whether or not to try it out.
- pchristensen 17y ago
  I can do an SBCL/emacs/SLIME setup in 15 minutes or so, but I've done it a bunch of times. Someone following my guides can do it in ~1 hour. I'd love to try out clojure, but I want to type something like 'sudo apt-get install clojure-sandbox'.
  - regularfry 17y ago
    Leiningen actually isn't that far from being exactly that. It's not a one-liner, but setting up a scratch project that'll give you a repl is very straightforward. Setting up swank is only slightly less simple because you've got to edit a config file. It can be difficult to figure out the right incantation for that because the docs are pretty nonexistent, but google is helpful enough there.
  - dpritchett 17y ago
    ClojureBox provides what you ask for, but it's windows-only. To get up and running in Ubuntu you'd have to do the following: sudo apt-get purge openjdk* sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk git-core wget http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/raw/stable/bin/lein lein self-install git clone git://github.com/relevance/labrepl.git cd labrepl lein deps script/repl elinks http://localhost:8080 Edit: To get emacs you'd want to use ELPA to install swank-clojure. The apt commands were lifted from Lau Jensen's video tutorial: http://www.vimeo.com/8398020 http://www.vimeo.com/8398020

dpritchett 17y ago

I note that the poster described a Lisp and not specifically Common Lisp. Clojure at least has plenty of batteries available via its Java interoperability. The biggest thing holding Clojure back at the moment appear to be installation, building other people's projects, and IDE setup. I don't know if Clojure is a helpful suggestion to the OP but it is certainly a more appealing way for me to get into Lisp than Common Lisp was. Edit: I have just recently completed the install/build/IDE trifecta myself thanks to ELPA and leiningen but it certainly wasn't a one-day process. One of my biggest problems was reading out of date tutorials rather than the latest and greatest. It can be hard for a newcomer to see a HOWTO blog post from mid 2009 and decide whether or not to try it out.

pchristensen 17y ago
I can do an SBCL/emacs/SLIME setup in 15 minutes or so, but I've done it a bunch of times. Someone following my guides can do it in ~1 hour. I'd love to try out clojure, but I want to type something like 'sudo apt-get install clojure-sandbox'.
- regularfry 17y ago
  Leiningen actually isn't that far from being exactly that. It's not a one-liner, but setting up a scratch project that'll give you a repl is very straightforward. Setting up swank is only slightly less simple because you've got to edit a config file. It can be difficult to figure out the right incantation for that because the docs are pretty nonexistent, but google is helpful enough there.
- dpritchett 17y ago
  ClojureBox provides what you ask for, but it's windows-only. To get up and running in Ubuntu you'd have to do the following: sudo apt-get purge openjdk* sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk git-core wget http://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/raw/stable/bin/lein lein self-install git clone git://github.com/relevance/labrepl.git cd labrepl lein deps script/repl elinks http://localhost:8080 Edit: To get emacs you'd want to use ELPA to install swank-clojure. The apt commands were lifted from Lau Jensen's video tutorial: http://www.vimeo.com/8398020 http://www.vimeo.com/8398020