4 ms·
SBCL is great, but one should not use an editor, which doesn't have proper paren matching and some indentation support. That is just making your life miserable.
by _ph_ 6y ago
SBCL is great, but one should not use an editor, which doesn't have proper paren matching and some indentation support. That is just making your life miserable. So SBCL+Slime+Emacs is a great combination. Or alternatively, get the free version of Lispworks.
- harperlee 6y agoWhoa, that's a big jump you made there from paren matching plus indentation to emacs. If he is just learning, emacs might be overkill. I was just simplifying the minimum requirements. But I agree with you about parens. This is not 100% popular but for a newbie I'd add the following recommendation: Make sure your editor has parinfer available. Not parindent, parinfer. People swear by parindent, but you don't need it on day one. Just try it later on. Parinfer is your friend.
- _ph_ 6y agoYes, it is a step, but learning the very basics of emacs isn't that hard either. I just cannot bear the view of someone trying to edit Lisp code with an editor without the basic support. This easily leads to all the horror stories you can read on the internet about Lisp :). Also, with Slime you get a great integrated environment. You can evaluate functions directly from the sources. Unless you plan to go with one of the IDEs, Slime is a great Lisp environment. Once you know Emacs+Slime, you won't need any other environment, so why not start with it?