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Looks like vim-slime is essential to how you work with CL + vim. I've only used vim for not even 2 years, and came across vim-slime 6 months ago when working in

by nomilk 2y ago

Looks like vim-slime is essential to how you work with CL + vim. I've only used vim for not even 2 years, and came across vim-slime 6 months ago when working in ruby and wanting to quickly 'send' code from editor (neovim) to rails console. 2 months ago I launched a startup and for hours every day had to swat/fix repercussions of bugs that weren't apparent pre-launch (as well as doing via the console things users needed but weren't able to do because the feature to do it hadn't been built yet). It was daunting. I don't know how I'd have managed without vim + vim-slime. Probably a lot of copy/pasting from vscode. Vim + vim-slime was at least a 2x productivity improvement, and >2x increase in developer happiness. Another huge benefit of vim and vim-slime is it is immediately valuable when you use/learn any new language. So long as the language has a REPL/console/interpreter that can be opened from the terminal or terminal emulator in any form (e.g. CL, ruby, python, bash etc etc etc) then vim + vim-slime will be a brilliant ~IDE. (Possibly the only thing I haven't been able to do but wanted to is 'send' code from neovim to the javascript console in chrome, which would be pretty awesome!) A side note: I found doom-emacs very similar to vim, only needed ~10 or so new keyboard shortcuts to be productive in emacs. (I still much prefer vim, but I'm not so down on emacs).

ofalkaed 2y ago
>Looks like vim-slime is essential to how you work with CL slime has some issues for me (obviously not OP) and I am not convinced lisp and vim are a good pair. lem is getting pretty good and improving by the day, find it much better to work with than vim when it comes to lisp and vim is my primary editor. https://github.com/lem-project/lem https://github.com/lem-project/lem
- djtango 2y ago
  I have been using Clojure and before that Racket using only vim and vim-surround for almost a decade now. I am sure I have left some productivity on the table not investing in workflows like cider etc but I have gotten a decent workflow using just vanilla tmux, a repl pane and vim-surround The % matcher in vim does so much heavy lifting, I've never felt limited by a lack of slurp and barf I actually wrote my own tiny plugin to send snippets to the repl using nc and I'm still happy enough tearing the clojure repl up and down and copying stuff in by hand because dealing with repl state can be pain. Even though I have at times had repls open for months, there is a freedom in just tearing it all down and up again. Clojure itself has plenty of functions to load in files or snippets to help as well
tempodox 2y ago
Yep, I'm using the `slimv` plugin for vim and the `swank` server in a running `sbcl` instance in a second terminal tab. Since I'm on macOS, I could build a keyboard shortcut in vim that automates opening the 2nd terminal tab with the “Lisp machine + swank” when I say “connect” in vim. slimv/swank practically make vim an IDE for Lisp.
ferfumarma 2y ago
How do you learn vim-slime? I have used vim before, so I have basic skills there, but I get lost and run out of time when I try to figure out how the slime model works and how to create a lisp project. Is there a tutorial you followed or a video you found useful? What was your starting fund of knowledge?
- nomilk 2y ago
  Great question - it's shocking easy to learn. Just three steps 1. Install (via vim-plug, lazy.nvim, or whatever vim plugin manager you're using), 2. configure it. Depending on your terminal the instructions are a little different, but it should only take a few moments due to the brilliant instructions found here: https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime/tree/main?tab=readme-ov-file#targets https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime/tree/main?tab=readme-o... I use kitty so I add two lines to kitty.conf and it's all ready to go. But it will depend on your terminal/terminal emulator. The instructions in the readme should have you covered. Then 3. use it. This is shockingly easy, open two panes in your terminal with neovim on one side and REPL/interpreter on the other. For example I have neovim with my ruby file on the left pane and a rails console on the right (but on the right could be SBCL, python interpreter, or any other interpreter). In neovim, move the cursor to the line you want to run and press ctrl + c twice in quick succession. It will 'send' that line to the interpreter on the right pane and run that line! Note: The first time you do this you may be asked which pane vim-slime should 'send' the code to, with the numbers displayed over the panes. For example in kitty I'm usually sending to pane 2, so I press: 2 enter enter. If it was pane 5, I'd press 5 enter enter etc. If the line of code is immediately proceeded by another line(s) it will run that/those as well (for example, a multi-line Active Record query). It will do the same if there's one or more lines immediately above the current line. This takes a tiny bit of getting used to as you may unintentionally run lines immediately above/below the line for a short while. That's all there is to it! A few tips - As explained above, ctrl + c ctrl + c will run the line under the cursor. But you can also select and run any code you want by selecting it with vim's visual mode and ctrl + c ctrl + c to run that selected code. For example, if you want to run part of a line, select it in visual mode and ctrl + c ctrl + c and it will run! Same for say a few hundred lines of code: select it all in visual mode (e.g. v ctrl + f ctrl + f then j or k to get to the exact line), then ctrl + c ctrl + c will run everything you selected. - Rails specific: The rails console has a pager set to 'on' by default (this would necessitate back and forth between panes in order to press 'q' to quit out of the pager). So I turn it off by adding one line (IRB.conf[:USE_PAGER] = false) to ~/.vimrc or just .vimrc in the project directory. Let me know if you have any questions/troubles.
quesera 2y ago
> I don't know how I'd have managed without vim + vim-slime. This is interesting -- I've worked with people who swear by common lisp, emacs, and SLIME. I'm happiest with ruby and vim, but I have not tried vim-slime (nor even heard of it before, so thank you!). But FWIW, my strategy for running larger bits of ad hoc code on the ruby/rails console is to: 1. Add the code to a persistent local file (e.g. "ops_console_tools.rb") 2. scp the file up to the target machine where I am running the irb/pry console 3. In the console, run `load '/PATH/TO/ops_console_tools.rb'` 4. Run the new code: `Ops::User::CustomReport.run(90.days.ago..)` To keep things a bit more sane, all of the ad hoc ruby code is in modules, e.g. `Ops::User`. And it helps to include some code to clear constant definitions which would otherwise complain to STDERR if you update and reload the file multiple times. None of this is as awesome as SLIME of course, but it's pretty tolerable with a bit of readline-style up-arrow and command-history conveniences. Disclaimer: Of course, running ad hoc code in prod is frowned upon. But we're extolling the virtues of CL in this thread, so I'll confess to breaking best practices in environments where it's permissible! Also this process gives you syntax highlighting while editing without requiring config on target host, and you can include the file in version control for greater formality.
- pritambaral 2y ago
  I replaced a similar workflow with SLIME-style `eval-defun` by just running the remote Ruby console within emacs, using inf-ruby. Combined with robe, you get code intelligence for free, but without the heavy and error-prone static indexing of Solargraph or Ruby-LSP.

by nomilk 2y ago

ofalkaed 2y ago

>Looks like vim-slime is essential to how you work with CL slime has some issues for me (obviously not OP) and I am not convinced lisp and vim are a good pair. lem is getting pretty good and improving by the day, find it much better to work with than vim when it comes to lisp and vim is my primary editor. https://github.com/lem-project/lem https://github.com/lem-project/lem

djtango 2y ago
I have been using Clojure and before that Racket using only vim and vim-surround for almost a decade now. I am sure I have left some productivity on the table not investing in workflows like cider etc but I have gotten a decent workflow using just vanilla tmux, a repl pane and vim-surround The % matcher in vim does so much heavy lifting, I've never felt limited by a lack of slurp and barf I actually wrote my own tiny plugin to send snippets to the repl using nc and I'm still happy enough tearing the clojure repl up and down and copying stuff in by hand because dealing with repl state can be pain. Even though I have at times had repls open for months, there is a freedom in just tearing it all down and up again. Clojure itself has plenty of functions to load in files or snippets to help as well

tempodox 2y ago

Yep, I'm using the `slimv` plugin for vim and the `swank` server in a running `sbcl` instance in a second terminal tab. Since I'm on macOS, I could build a keyboard shortcut in vim that automates opening the 2nd terminal tab with the “Lisp machine + swank” when I say “connect” in vim. slimv/swank practically make vim an IDE for Lisp.

ferfumarma 2y ago

How do you learn vim-slime? I have used vim before, so I have basic skills there, but I get lost and run out of time when I try to figure out how the slime model works and how to create a lisp project. Is there a tutorial you followed or a video you found useful? What was your starting fund of knowledge?

nomilk 2y ago
Great question - it's shocking easy to learn. Just three steps 1. Install (via vim-plug, lazy.nvim, or whatever vim plugin manager you're using), 2. configure it. Depending on your terminal the instructions are a little different, but it should only take a few moments due to the brilliant instructions found here: https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime/tree/main?tab=readme-ov-file#targets https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime/tree/main?tab=readme-o... I use kitty so I add two lines to kitty.conf and it's all ready to go. But it will depend on your terminal/terminal emulator. The instructions in the readme should have you covered. Then 3. use it. This is shockingly easy, open two panes in your terminal with neovim on one side and REPL/interpreter on the other. For example I have neovim with my ruby file on the left pane and a rails console on the right (but on the right could be SBCL, python interpreter, or any other interpreter). In neovim, move the cursor to the line you want to run and press ctrl + c twice in quick succession. It will 'send' that line to the interpreter on the right pane and run that line! Note: The first time you do this you may be asked which pane vim-slime should 'send' the code to, with the numbers displayed over the panes. For example in kitty I'm usually sending to pane 2, so I press: 2 enter enter. If it was pane 5, I'd press 5 enter enter etc. If the line of code is immediately proceeded by another line(s) it will run that/those as well (for example, a multi-line Active Record query). It will do the same if there's one or more lines immediately above the current line. This takes a tiny bit of getting used to as you may unintentionally run lines immediately above/below the line for a short while. That's all there is to it! A few tips - As explained above, ctrl + c ctrl + c will run the line under the cursor. But you can also select and run any code you want by selecting it with vim's visual mode and ctrl + c ctrl + c to run that selected code. For example, if you want to run part of a line, select it in visual mode and ctrl + c ctrl + c and it will run! Same for say a few hundred lines of code: select it all in visual mode (e.g. v ctrl + f ctrl + f then j or k to get to the exact line), then ctrl + c ctrl + c will run everything you selected. - Rails specific: The rails console has a pager set to 'on' by default (this would necessitate back and forth between panes in order to press 'q' to quit out of the pager). So I turn it off by adding one line (IRB.conf[:USE_PAGER] = false) to ~/.vimrc or just .vimrc in the project directory. Let me know if you have any questions/troubles.

quesera 2y ago

> I don't know how I'd have managed without vim + vim-slime. This is interesting -- I've worked with people who swear by common lisp, emacs, and SLIME. I'm happiest with ruby and vim, but I have not tried vim-slime (nor even heard of it before, so thank you!). But FWIW, my strategy for running larger bits of ad hoc code on the ruby/rails console is to: 1. Add the code to a persistent local file (e.g. "ops_console_tools.rb") 2. scp the file up to the target machine where I am running the irb/pry console 3. In the console, run `load '/PATH/TO/ops_console_tools.rb'` 4. Run the new code: `Ops::User::CustomReport.run(90.days.ago..)` To keep things a bit more sane, all of the ad hoc ruby code is in modules, e.g. `Ops::User`. And it helps to include some code to clear constant definitions which would otherwise complain to STDERR if you update and reload the file multiple times. None of this is as awesome as SLIME of course, but it's pretty tolerable with a bit of readline-style up-arrow and command-history conveniences. Disclaimer: Of course, running ad hoc code in prod is frowned upon. But we're extolling the virtues of CL in this thread, so I'll confess to breaking best practices in environments where it's permissible! Also this process gives you syntax highlighting while editing without requiring config on target host, and you can include the file in version control for greater formality.

pritambaral 2y ago
I replaced a similar workflow with SLIME-style `eval-defun` by just running the remote Ruby console within emacs, using inf-ruby. Combined with robe, you get code intelligence for free, but without the heavy and error-prone static indexing of Solargraph or Ruby-LSP.