[slime-devel] SLIME User Survey

[Andras Simon]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Luke Gorrie wrote:

> Questions:
>
> Which Lisp versions do you use SLIME with?

cmucl, abcl

>
> Which Emacs versions?

GNU Emacs 21.2.1

> How well does SLIME work for you?

Very well!

> What bugs (reproducible or otherwise) or missing features annoy you?

Only minor things like unwarranted window config changes; e.g. when
compiling/loading files, the emacs window splits and I get the REPL which I
didn't ask for. Also, when completing symbols, the *completions* buffer
sometimes doesn't go away, or it does, but the window remains split. A test
case showing the former (and also a bug in the completion algorithm):
try to complete 'list-'; the point will back up to the hyphen, so you have to
move it forward, and this will confuse slime-complete-symbol enough that even
after a successful completion, the *completions* window doesn't disappear.

On the features side: I think that RET should do newline and indent in a source
buffer (who would want to write lisp code without indentation?). I use

(defun slime-mode-newline ()
  "Indent, insert a newline and indent again."
  (interactive)
    (save-excursion (lisp-indent-line))
    (newline 1)
    (lisp-indent-line))

(taken from eli), but there are probably easier/better ways to achieve this.

Also, multiple REPLs to the same lisp image (like in eli) would be nice. (I'd
probably switch from eli to slime with acl.)

An easy way to toggle (with no questions asked) between source files and the
REPL (or REPLs) with the same (simple) key chord. Ideally, with a prefix
argument, it would offer the recently visited source files or REPLs,
depending on whether we're in a REPL or a source file.

And I second Zach:

> I also wish the REPL would re-send old input if you hit RET while on
> that input.

It'd also be nice if in this situation, C-RET or M-RET or something similar
would copy the old input to the last prompt and jump there, so that one could
modify and evaluate it without 'changing history'.

>
> Is there some packaging system (e.g. Debian) that you would like to
> see SLIME 1.0 bundled with? If so, do you know how to coordinate this?

No.

>
> If you said anything negative above then please say something nice
> here to make us feel good:

Good bye, ILISP!

Andras