alive-lsp VS clasp

There is the alive extension for vscode which comes with a LSP.

It's a great article. Since then, we have more tools and resources so we can enhance it:

Pick and Editor

The article is right that you can start with anything. Just `load` your .lisp file in the REPL. But even in Vim, Sublime Text, and Atom [and also VSCode] you can get pretty good to very good support. See https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/editor-support.ht... (also Lem, a CL editor that works for other languages, Jupyter notebooks, Eclipse (basic support) and LispWorks (proprietary, advanced graphical tools).

> if anyone is interested in making a Common Lisp LSP language server, I think it would be a hugely useful contribution to the community.

Here's a new project used for VSCode: https://github.com/nobody-famous/alive-lsp There's also https://github.com/cxxxr/cl-lsp

Other resources

I already linked to it, but the Cookbook (to which I contribute) is a useful reference to see code and get things done, quickly. https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/

While I'm at it, my first shameless plug: after my tutorials written for the Cookbook and my blog, I wanted to do more. Explain, structure, demo real-world Common Lisp. I'm creating this course (there are some free videos): https://www.udemy.com/course/common-lisp-programming/?coupon... (ongoing -50% coupon for June).

Web Development

See the Cookbook, and the awesome list (see below). We have many libraries, you still have to code for things taken for granted in other big frameworks. I have some articles on my blog.

We have new very cool kids in town, especially CLOG, that is like a GUI for the browser. Check it out: https://github.com/rabbibotton/clog

Game Development

See again the awesome-cl list. And the Kandria game, in the making, all done in CL: https://kandria.com/ (it just got accepted for a Swiss grant, congratulations).

Unit Testing

We have even more test frameworks since 2018! And some are actually good O_o

Projects

To create a full-featured CL project in one command, look no further, here's my (shameless plug again) project skeleton: https://github.com/vindarel/cl-cookieproject you'll find the equivalent for a web project, lighter alternatives in the README, and a demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFc513MJjos&feature=youtu.be

Libraries

He doesn't mention this list, what a shame: https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl => the CL ecosystem is probably bigger than you thought. Sincerely, only recently, great packages appeared: CLOG, cl-gserver (actors concurrency), 40ants-doc, official CL support on OVH through Platform.sh, great editor add-ons (Slite test runner, Slime-star modules…), Coalton 1.0 (Haskell-like ML on top of CL), April v1.0 (APL in CL), a Qt 5 "library" (still hard to install), many more… (Clingon CLI args parser, Lish, a Lisp Shell in the making, the Consfigurator deployment service, generic-cl)…

His list is OK, I'd pick another HTTP client and another JSON library (new ones since 2018 too), but that's a detail.

BTW, see also a list of companies: https://github.com/azzamsa/awesome-lisp-companies/

Community

We are also on Discord: https://discord.gg/hhk46CE and on Libera Chat.

Implementations

CLASP (CL for C++ on LLVM) reached its v1.0, congrats. https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp/releases/tag/1.0.0

I accidentally a Common Lisp that interoperates with C++ (https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp.git). We would also like to move beyond BDWGC and Whiffle looks interesting. I will reach out to you and maybe we can chat about it.

Clasp might be such a language, it seems.

https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp

/u/jeaye are you aware of CLASP? https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdXeRBbgDM

Sounds to me like CLASP; it automatically exports C++ objects to be used from Common Lisp also via llvm.

Now, the difference of compiling speed of SBCL and CCL is not so big. Look at cl-benchmark, LispWorks is really fast, CCL is on par with Allegro, SBCL is close to CCL. Or https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp/wiki/Relative-Compile-Performance-of-clasp, it depends on specific project (SBCL sometimes faster, slower, alike), overall difference is not big.

So..

"Why do you want to make Lisp more popular? If you were sucessful, what would be different in the world, and why is that desirable to you?"

Normally at this point I'd listen to the response, and ask more questions based on that. That would wind up with a very, very deep thread, so I'll break a cardinal rule and pre-guess at some answers.

This kind of question comes up pretty frequently. In many cases, I suspect the motivation behind the question is "Wow! Here's this cool tool I've discovered. I want to make something really useful with it. I want to do it as part of a community effort; share my excitement with others, share in their excitement, and know that what I'm making is useful because others find it desirable and are excited by it." The field could be cooking, sports, old machine tools, tiny homes, or demo scene. Its the fundemental driver for most content on HN, YouTube, Instructables, and such. It is a Good Thing.

If that is your motivator, then my suggestion is to find something that bugs you and fix it. You've already decided you're only interested in code, not other aspects. You said you preferred vim, but the emacs ecosystem has a very rich set of sharp edges that need filing off, and a rich set of tools with which to attack them.

One example: even after 50 years there's no open IDE which allows you to easily globally rename a Lisp identifier. I don't know about LispWorks or other proprietary environments, but you can't in emacs or vim do a right-click on "foo" in "(defun foo ()...)" and select a command which automatically renames it in all invocations. [Queue lots of "but you can..." replies here.] I don't think vim is up to the task of doing this internally. It would be possible in emacs; but would require a huge effort with lots of help from other people. If you emerged alive from that rabbit warren you'd join the company of Certified "How Hard Could it Be?" Mad Scientists such as Dr. "I just want to draw molecules" Meister [1] and "Wouldn't an OS in Lisp be Cool" Froggey [2].

[1] https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp

[2] Mezzano https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano

But also, there's a reason why most implementations readily make an effort to provide interoperability tools with a variety of runtimes. Clasp much like ABCL gives access to a whole library of other libraries trivially wrapped to interoperate with at little to no performance to cost (depending on how thin you make the wrappers, mainly).