Getting Started in Common Lisp

Modern IDEs don’t improve the feedback loop much unfortunately, more often it’s quite the opposite. They are slow, bloated and distracting. Some of them might be good at renaming one’s variables as part of their refactoring offer, but otherwise the situation is quite often bleak.

SBSL+SLIME+Emacs usually put one in the flow state in no time. That’s what keeps amazing me and keeps me productive.

And then, Claude seems to be quite alright discussing tricky Common-Lisp-related stuff.

For vim users, there's vim-slime:

https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime

I don't know if it's as powerful as the real thing, but it allows you to "send" your current vim line or paragraph to a tmux instance running a lisp interpreter, essentially. Very useful.

I've been writing Lisp code off and one since the 80s. The standard for Common Lisp has to be sbcl but the REPL is pretty minimal. The available packages tend to be more limited than Go which I've been using a lot lately. I did find a way to have a more functional REPL and also have access to all the Go packages by writing SLIP (https://github.com/ohler55/slip). Yes I know this is a plug for SLIP and if that offends anyone I apologize. The reasons mentioned for developing it are valid though and I've managed to use Lisp for almost all the data mining and processing tasks.

I've been waiting for ages for a Lisp that allows me to develop in one running system, creating minimized images with a tree shaker to distribute parts of the system for production when needed, and that never came (at least not with an affordable license, I don't know about the commercial Lisps). People recommend Smalltalk for this but that's not a Lisp. Eventually, I've switched to Go because if I have to write individual files in Emacs anyway, I can just as well use a more static language.

Mark: So how do I get started in Common Lisp?

Nolan: That's the neat thing—you don't.

One of the interesting and, depending on your perspective, perhaps unfortunate side effects of LLM-assisted development becoming the standard is that LLMs almost completely disincentivize choosing an unpopular language for serious work. Due to the much higher volume of training data, you're better off using TypeScript, Go, or Rust (or Swift if you're in Apple-land or Kotlin if you're in Android dev hell). Those languages with an LLM will make you far more productive than even an "expressive" language like Lisp.

Plus there are complete, modern IDEs for those that let you get started right from the jump, rather than having to build your own IDE out of Emacs and assorted parts before you can actually develop your application.

SBSL+SLIME+Emacs usually put one in the flow state in no time. That’s what keeps amazing me and keeps me productive.

And then, Claude seems to be quite alright discussing tricky Common-Lisp-related stuff.

s/SBSL/SBCL/. pardon my mobile typing accuracy O:-)

Mark: So how do I get started in Common Lisp?

Nolan: That's the neat thing—you don't.

I'm currently working on a game (SBCL & OpenGL) and Claude had no problems helping me with rendering pipeline issues in SBCL.

Claude has been doing a pretty good job at writing newlisp code, reasonably idiomatic too. newlisp is a niche language.

The right way to start is with LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp, exactly the surviving Common Lisp IDEs, instead of building your own IDE out of Emacs and SLIME.

However I do agree with the AI part.

And yet: current state of the art models are also great at navigating and trying language ecosystems that aren't as mainstream. So if you're curious it's now great to explore topics, languages, concepts that — even if not mainstream — were so far a bit out of reach.

For vim users, there's vim-slime:

https://github.com/jpalardy/vim-slime

I don't know if it's as powerful as the real thing, but it allows you to "send" your current vim line or paragraph to a tmux instance running a lisp interpreter, essentially. Very useful.

Vim slime is awesome. I use it for tinkering in languages with a repl like ocaml or javascript.

The feedback loop is probably the best in class from anything i have ever used. No IDE comes even close.

I'm currently working on a game (SBCL & OpenGL) and Claude had no problems helping me with rendering pipeline issues in SBCL.

The right way to start is with LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp, exactly the surviving Common Lisp IDEs, instead of building your own IDE out of Emacs and SLIME.

However I do agree with the AI part.

Claude has been doing a pretty good job at writing newlisp code, reasonably idiomatic too. newlisp is a niche language.

Vim slime is awesome. I use it for tinkering in languages with a repl like ocaml or javascript.

The feedback loop is probably the best in class from anything i have ever used. No IDE comes even close.

An easy way to start with Lisp-Stat

It’s never been easy for a developer to get started in Common Lisp. Emacs, though a powerful editor, isn’t considered an IDE by modern standards. Setting up a compiler, quicklisp, slime, swank, and then learning an entirely new programming paradigm has scared off many would-be entrants to the Common Lisp community.

Given the size of the Common Lisp community this is understandable. Making the new user experience smooth and frictionless as possible is hard work. It’s the kind of work that no one volunteers for; it’s the kind of work you have to be paid for.

Still, it’s a pre-requisite for new users, so I’ve created ls-dev-image, a ‘batteries included’ OCI image for Lisp-Stat or just plain Common Lisp development. Assuming you have an OCI (e.g Docker) runtime installed, you can get started with:

docker run --rm -it --user vscode -w /home/vscode ghcr.io/lisp-stat/ls-dev:latest bash

and from the shell you can type ’emacs’ followed by ‘M-x slime’ and start hacking Common Lisp.

This OCI image is configured with emacs, slime, quicklisp, lisp-stat and a few sample data sets and plots. A ls-server is also configured to start automatically on port 20202. If you open your browser and point it to https://localhost:20202 (or other port, depending on your OCI container configuration) you’ll see the web interface for displaying plots and viewing/editing data-frames. It also has a ‘refresh’ script so that you can stay synced with the upstream lisp-stat, which is being updated frequently.

You can also run a this image in GitHub codespaces.

I’d like to point out that you can use this for any Common Lisp development, not just Lisp-Stat. Contributions and bug reports are welcome and encouraged.

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Getting Started in Common Lisp

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