Ask YC: which editor to use for LISP programming?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=73412

by Tichy • 19 years ago

10 28 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I have used emacs many years ago, but I wonder if that is still the way to go? Are there IDEs that make sense?

gibsonf14• 19 years ago

I've been using the Lispworks IDE for the last few years with medium to low satisfaction. Our production server is running SBCL on Ubuntu (which runs considerably faster that LW) and my cofounder is working with Slime. He swears by Slime and I'll be making the switch soon. We are also moving from SVN to GIT.

Tichy• 19 years ago

Thanks for the info! I was more tending towards Scheme than Common LISP, does that make a difference?

apgwoz2• 19 years ago

Slime doesn't exist for scheme. You can use Slime48 for Scheme48 version 1.3, but I don't know of any other ports for Scheme.

apgwoz2• 19 years ago

If you're using MIT Scheme, you might try Edwin?

corentin• 19 years ago

The best Scheme IDE probably is DrScheme (plt-scheme.org)

yrashk2• 19 years ago

+1 for both slime and git

gibsonf14• 19 years ago

Performance Note: Our code is running at least 10x faster on Ubuntu with SBCL over Lispworks on Windows

dfranke2• 19 years ago

Really? That is a lot. I noticed a factor of two when I moved from CLisp to SBCL, and I was under the impression that CLisp is generally the slowest implementation.

Shooter• 19 years ago

Do you attribute most of the difference in performance to the OS change or to the implementation change, though? (I'll never use Windows, but I've been considering using Lispworks again on OS X for a few things.) I've always used LW with Emacs in the past, not the LW IDE. I use Aquamacs for almost everything now...and SLIME is great.

What Lisp libs are you using, if you don't mind my asking? I'm trying to figure out why CL-Memcached is slower than freaking PHP and Python for most things (!)

- dcphillips /AT/ runbox /DOT/ com

sdr• 19 years ago

Out of curiosity (as a Lispworks and SBCL user who has never seen this sort of performance difference between the two) is there anything in particular that you could attribute this to (eg. FFI, Streams)

yrashk2• 19 years ago

I was quite happy hacking lisp code (cmucl and then sbcl and a bit of clisp) in emacs with slime

sspencer• 19 years ago

Vim and SBCL.

dfranke2• 19 years ago

How do you interact with your REPL? SBCL is designed around SLIME. I find it virtually unusable without it.

Zak3• 19 years ago

SBCL recommends SLIME, but I see no evidence that it's "designed around" SLIME.

mqt• 19 years ago

You could use vilisp.vim[1], which will basically copy-and-paste Lisp forms into your REPL for you. If you use OSX, you can try pg's method[2] of dragging text between terminals.

Better yet, you could resurrect Slim-Vim[3] if you really want SLIME-like features.

[1] http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=221

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72863

[3] http://wiki.alu.org/Slim-Vim

gml• 19 years ago

Vim and Chicken.

abstractbill• 19 years ago

I can't recommend slime highly enough - I miss something comparable now that I'm hacking Python.

icey• 19 years ago

Maybe IPython would fit the bill for you: http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/

zandorg2• 19 years ago

Nedit is very nice.

Zak3• 19 years ago

Can Nedit send expressions from the file you're editing to a REPL? I think that's a requirement for a decent Lisp editor.

zandorg2• 19 years ago

I don't think it can, but I tend to copy and paste code from Nedit into a REPL.

mnemonicsloth• 19 years ago

Besides Slime, there's also the Cusp plugin for Eclipse (although I haven't used it):

http://bitfauna.com/projects/cusp/index.html

And for Scheme/Emacs there's Quack (google quack.el)

Ask YC: which editor to use for LISP programming?

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