[pro] Are you an Imager or a Filer?

[Martin Cracauer]

Ala'a Mohammad wrote on Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 07:45:29PM +0400: 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm continually learning Common-lisp and trying to find the best style
> that suites me better. I've tried 'an imager' style (cooking a an
> image with all required libraries loaded when required), and 'a filer'
> style (loading files or systems each time I fire-up a CL
> implementation). I'm interested to hear what others use CL. How do
> they manage day to day work? how do their preferred style mesh into
> their production pipeline (coding, debugging, deployment and
> maintenance)? and what makes them prefer one way over another or the
> mix if applicable?

I'm an imager.  Even my dotfiles are "converted" into an image.  When
I log into a new machine I run a script to set up my dotfiles and the
Lisp part of it loads my personal libraries, changes settings the way
I like and then saves an image.

The major reason is that it's much faster to load the result.  I also
make it shut up for good so that starting this image doesn't have any
output except a (customized) prompt.

It also safeguards you against somebody messing with the OS-installed
Lisp.

Martin
-- 
Martin Cracauer, Programmer, ITA Software Inc, 617-714-2130