clasp next steps ? speed-up ?

[Markus Krummenacker]

Andrew Robin writes:
 > Hi Markus,
 > 
 > If Dr, Schafmeister hasn't suggested an area for you to work on, can you 
 > tell us what areas of Clasp you are interesting in working and where
 > your skills are strongest (C++, build tools, Lisp)?  Your efforts in 
 > getting Clasp to compile are appreciated, and I encourage you to keep 
 > working on this project!

hi andy,

nice to meet you too.

it looks like you are keen to keep me in the volunteer labor pool  :-)

yeah, drmeister has been silent so far.  i don't know if he even reads
this mailing list.  i have not tried to bug him harder yet.

i am primarily interested in lisp, precisely in order to avoid c++ and
whatnot, but it looks like this won't be so simple with this project.
i am actually wondering whether it is a good use of time.  it seems to
me like it still will take a huge amount of effort to turn this into a
user friendly lisp and productive implementation.  (this time might be
better spent writing molecule design code...)


part of my own problem is that i don't try to spend time updating all
of my software, environment, and dependencies constantly, all the
time.  in particular, i'm still using an old version of xemacs that i
like, and i'm not likely to change all that.  turns out now that slime
has discontinued support for xemacs, apparently.  i think this is
crazy.  but what it means is that i have not yet seen slime interact
with clasp, which maybe would return actual stack backtraces ?  does
it actually ?

i tried copying over the clasp-specific file to my older slime
installation and tweak it a bit, but it does not get very far.  these
are the types of error messages i get:




(progn (load "/lisp/elisp/slime/swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank-loader:init")) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start-server") "/tmp/kr/slime.32538"))

Starting MPS Clasp 0.2 ... loading image... it takes a few seconds

Condition of type: SIMPLE-ERROR
Could not compile func
No restarts available.

Top level.
> 
Debugger received error of type: SIMPLE-PROGRAM-ERROR
Unbound symbol-value for PROGN
Error flushed.
> 
;;; Loading #P"/lisp/elisp/slime/swank-loader.lisp"
T
> 
;;; Loading #P"/home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-backend.fasl"
; Compiling file: /opt/elisp/slime/swank-clasp-prelude.lisp
Writing fasl file to: #P"/home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-clasp-prelude.fasl"
Linking app-resources:lib;release;intrinsics_bitcode_mps.o
Linking #P"/home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-clasp-prelude.bc"
Running link time optimization module pass manager
Generating object file  /home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-clasp-prelude.lbc  -->  /home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-clasp-prelude.o  reloc-model: RELOC-MODEL-PIC-
;;; Loading #P"/home/kr/.slime/fasl/2012-04-27/clasp-mps-0.2-5d59a06e-linux-x86-64/swank-clasp-prelude.fasl"
; Compiling file: /opt/elisp/slime/swank-clasp.lisp
Loading sockets.lisp;; 
;; Error while compiling /opt/elisp/slime/swank-clasp.lisp:
;;   FUNCTION special operator only supports symbol names or lambda expression - you gave: NIL
;; Aborting.
;; 
Debugger received error of type: SIMPLE-CONTROL-ERROR
Restart ABORT is not active.
Error flushed.
> 
Debugger received error of type: SIMPLE-PACKAGE-ERROR
In interpret_token_or_throw_reader_error ../../src/core/lispReader.cc line 349
COMMON-LISP:PACKAGE-ERROR :initializers (:PACKAGE "SWANK"  )

Error flushed.
> 





i find the error messages not very helpful:

Condition of type: SIMPLE-ERROR
Could not compile func

well, which function was it trying to compile ?

or:

;;   FUNCTION special operator only supports symbol names or lambda expression - you gave: NIL


it would help if a stack backtrace were dumped into the terminal.

and the line number in the lisp source file, where the error occurred,
should be printed too.



so, if other people also don't see much more debugging info, maybe a
first task for me would be to find out how to print more illuminating
details of what goes wrong...

what are the top 5 under-explained error messages, and how can they be
reproduced ?

-- 
--
Regards
Markus Krummenacker