

Ask YC: which editor to use for LISP programming? - Tichy

I have used emacs many years ago, but I wonder if that is still the way to go? Are there IDEs that make sense?
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gibsonf1
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.

~~~
gibsonf1
Performance Note: Our code is running _at least_ 10x faster on Ubuntu with
SBCL over Lispworks on Windows

~~~
Shooter
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

~~~
quasi
You call being slower by a (sometimes) 34 msec over 10000 network io requests
as slow ? Most of the io stuff for php etc. is pure C. If you have /any/ non
trivial application then the stability and performance of CL systems become
apparent. If that is your problem, then try benchmarking string operations of
CL vs. the rest of the gang.

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mnemonicsloth
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)

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

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

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

------
sspencer
Vim and SBCL.

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

~~~
mqt
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>

------
zandorg
Nedit is very nice.

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

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

~~~
Zak
I did that sort of thing when I first started out with Lisp too. Do yourself a
favor and try an editor that integrates with the REPL. It makes life so much
easier.

