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Commenting on the last paragraph: I honestly believe that one of the biggest obstacles for newcomers to Lisp is Emacs. Don't get me wrong, I love Emacs and it

Commenting on the last paragraph: I honestly believe that one of the biggest obstacles for newcomers to Lisp is Emacs. Don't get me wrong, I love Emacs and it is truly the superior environment to do work in Lisp. However it has a bit of a steep learning curve just like Lisp itself and fighting two battles (one with Lisp and one with Emacs) is no easy task for someone coming from a Java / C# and Eclipse / Visual Studio background. I know because I've been there. That's why I decided to start work on an open source Visual Studio add-in to support for Common Lisp in Visual Studio itself. I think being able to do the first steps in a familiar environment would be a great help for newcomers. I wonder what you guys think of the idea?

b-man 17y ago
Did you ever tried Drscheme?
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  Yes, DrScheme is awesome. However, I was specifically thinking of supporting Common Lisp, not Scheme as Scheme already has enough friendly tools for beginners.
  - b-man 17y ago
    How about cusp[1] then? It is an eclipse plugin. Never tried myself, but it could be a starting point. [1] http://sergeykolos.com/cusp/intro/ http://sergeykolos.com/cusp/intro/
    - DrJokepu 17y ago
      Yes, I've never seen that one before but it definitely looks promising. I'll have a look at it and see what it can do.
  - derefr 17y ago
    Why not just bootstrap knowledge of Common Lisp by learning Scheme first, then?
mahmud 17y ago
You want LispIDE http://www.daansystems.com/lispide/ http://www.daansystems.com/lispide/ Hardly a substitute for Emacs/Slime, but for beginners, you can get a lot done. I use it when I am not plugged into in A/C outlet; it saves battery ;-)
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  Yes I know LispIDE, however it is really nothing more than notepad.exe with syntax highlighting and some basic REPL integration. I think of the VS F# editor with REPL ("interactive mode" as it is called there) as an example of what I'm trying to achieve.
eru 17y ago
The other way round could also work: Make people use Emacs for C first, then switch them to Common Lisp. (However I like Scheme better anyway.)
- jockc 17y ago
  I started using emacs as a C programmer; even for C, emacs was a great environment, especially back in 1989; good integration with the compiler and cvs, auto indent, syntax highlighting, etc..
DennisP 17y ago
As a C# developer in my day job, I think that is a completely awesome idea.

b-man 17y ago

Did you ever tried Drscheme?

DrJokepu 17y ago
Yes, DrScheme is awesome. However, I was specifically thinking of supporting Common Lisp, not Scheme as Scheme already has enough friendly tools for beginners.
- b-man 17y ago
  How about cusp[1] then? It is an eclipse plugin. Never tried myself, but it could be a starting point. [1] http://sergeykolos.com/cusp/intro/ http://sergeykolos.com/cusp/intro/
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    Yes, I've never seen that one before but it definitely looks promising. I'll have a look at it and see what it can do.
- derefr 17y ago
  Why not just bootstrap knowledge of Common Lisp by learning Scheme first, then?

mahmud 17y ago

You want LispIDE http://www.daansystems.com/lispide/ http://www.daansystems.com/lispide/ Hardly a substitute for Emacs/Slime, but for beginners, you can get a lot done. I use it when I am not plugged into in A/C outlet; it saves battery ;-)

DrJokepu 17y ago
Yes I know LispIDE, however it is really nothing more than notepad.exe with syntax highlighting and some basic REPL integration. I think of the VS F# editor with REPL ("interactive mode" as it is called there) as an example of what I'm trying to achieve.

eru 17y ago

The other way round could also work: Make people use Emacs for C first, then switch them to Common Lisp. (However I like Scheme better anyway.)

jockc 17y ago
I started using emacs as a C programmer; even for C, emacs was a great environment, especially back in 1989; good integration with the compiler and cvs, auto indent, syntax highlighting, etc..

DennisP 17y ago

As a C# developer in my day job, I think that is a completely awesome idea.