Quicklisp Not Loading Systems Weirdness: Help needed

I recently installed SBCL (MS Windows not Cygwin), Emacs (MS Windows not Cygwin), Slime, and Quicklisp. The problem is Quicklisp; when I first installed it everything was okay until:

(ql:add-to-init-file)

Which failed and froze the REPL! I realized there wasn't a .sbclrc file so I created it, and tried again, same result. So I added the relevant code to the .sbclrc :

  (let ((quicklisp-init (merge-pathnames "quicklisp/setup.lisp"
                                         (user-homedir-pathname))))
    (when (probe-file quicklisp-init)
      (load quicklisp-init)))

I checked 'merge-pathnames and it is correct for the file path. Now it loads Quicklisp, but not the systems I downloaded (alexandria and bordeaux-threads). I can load and use both packages via:

(ql:quickload "alexandria")
(ql:quickload "bordeaux-threads")

but shouldn't they load when I start Slime? This isn't the usual behavior I get from Quicklisp. Thanks.

It sounds like unusual behaviour to me loading quicklisp's systems on their own. I'm used to load packages which I want.

Goheeca wrote:It sounds like unusual behaviour to me loading quicklisp's systems on their own. I'm used to load packages which I want.

I thought that each system was loaded at slime/quicklisp startup ; so you're saying the default behavior is to load a system as I described above?! If so, I'll defer to your opinion.

If you have a system installed you can loaded it by:

(require :system-name)

there exist many options how to do it.
I've finally set up ASDF's config file ~/.config/common-lisp/source-registry.conf.d/quicklisp.conf:

(:tree "~/path-to-quicklisp/dists/")

and now I can write little lisp script files beginning with:

(require :asdf) ;ASDF is included in SBCL
(require :system-name)

the key thing is that I don't have to load .sbclrc manually in a script file during running SBCL with the --script switch turned on.

Don't forget expand the tilde in quicklisp.conf otherwise it doesn't work under normal windows command prompt.