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Emacs vs Other CL Implementations

Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 4:04 pm
by Tranquil Hegemony
I'm pretty new to CL and have been just playing around with it for a year or so. Originally tried the Emacs implementation but it was maddening trying to get used to the text editor and could never figure out how to save and open program files so pretty much everything I did ended up getting lost after I was done with a session; could never build on it. What I've been using for a while now is Allegro CL (v8.2; Free Express Edition by Franz) and it gets me by because it is pretty user friendly but it lacks the power of the full edition which would cost around $600. So, if I ever got past the newb stage, I don't know if I'd really want to drop that much coin on a commercial implementation for personal use.

I understand there are many users of Emacs who really think it is the best and also that there are many who either love it or hate it. I know it is a very powerful implementation. I'd be happy to give it a try again if someone could convince me that it is worth becoming proficient in and could point me to some good resources for getting it set up and up to speed in its use. I mostly use a machine with Windows 7 but also have a Linux box set up (running Ubuntu) that I could use.

Don't want to leave the other tools out so, are there strong feelings for VI, VIM, others?

Looking forward to the feedback!

Re: Emacs vs Other CL Implementations

Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 6:07 pm
by gugamilare
Emacs is not an implementation, it is just an editor. You can use it to run Emacs Lisp code, which is not Common Lisp.

The best open source implementations are Clozure CL and SBCL.

Take a look in this thread about environments.

Re: Emacs vs Other CL Implementations

Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 10:56 pm
by Tranquil Hegemony
All,

I was able to finally find, and and am beginning to work my way through, the FAQ on the lispforum site. Sorry for not finding the FAQ sooner. I'll continue to look through the FAQ. Will also look through the thread provided by gugamilare. After briefly looking through that thread, I see that I have not asked a relevant question here. Apologies for the inappropriate post.