4 ms·
> I feel like I'm in the minority in that I prefer to NOT learn things by just "diving in". I am much more successful when I start from the absolute fundamental
by susam 6y ago
> I feel like I'm in the minority in that I prefer to NOT learn things by just "diving in". I am much more successful when I start from the absolute fundamentals.
A bit more off-topic, but this resonated with me. I too feel more comfortable when I start with the absolute fundamentals. When something does not work, knowing the fundamentals helps me to reason about why it does not work from the first principles. On similar lines, I did a relevant "Show HN" post here today:
Emacs4CL: https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl (35 lines of ~/.emacs to turn Emacs into Common Lisp dev environment)
It bothers me a little when someone new to Common Lisp or Emacs is encouraged to start off with Portacle or Spacemacs directly without appreciating the extensibility of Emacs and how SLIME fits in the environment. The Show HN post on Emacs4CL I have linked to above is an attempt to promote a more DIY approach to setting up one's development environment for Common Lisp without having to spend a lot of time.
- ragnese 6y agoExactly. Though, to be fair, if someone says they want to learn LISP and then you tell them to learn Emacs... well, now they have TWO problems! xD I love and use Emacs. And I also, unsurprisingly, don't like or recommend that people start off with all of these "starter packs". But at the same time, if you don't already know Emacs and you want to learn LISP, I don't know what I'd recommend.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- susam 6y ago> But at the same time, if you don't already know Emacs and you want to learn LISP, I don't know what I'd recommend. Here is my attempt to make it easier to get started with vanilla Emacs + SLIME + SBCL without hiding the underlying details like a starter pack does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25440690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25440690
- mjul 6y agoFor Clojure, VSCode with the Calva and clj-kondo extensions installed is a pretty good, free starting point. Also, if you are used to the Jetbrains tools like IntelliJ, try the Cursive IDE (paid).
- finmodbod 6y agoI fixed CL as my first programming language to learn just 4-5 days back (after 3 weeks of mulling over what to learn) and had installed Portacle yesterday. A fellow redditor kindly listed out few steps like you suggested above, and I tried it for the sake of experience. It was not detailed as yours hence I was stuck until I saw this post on Reddit. The instructions in your link were fantastic and easy. Thanks a lot for this !!
- susam 6y agoThank you for the feedback. If you like Emacs4CL, please do take a look at the "Show HN" post for it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25440690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25440690 Indeed the intention behind the .emacs and detailed documentation for it was to make it easy for beginners to set up a Common Lisp development environment with Emacs and SLIME quickly while understanding every step of the setup process. I am glad you like it!