[slime-devel] Re: SLIME User Survey

[Glenn Ehrlich]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:58:45 +0200, Luke Gorrie wrote:

> If the ALU can do it then so can we :-). It would be nice to get some
> feedback to understand which backends are getting the most/least usage
> and which ones are flaky.
> 
> So if you are an active SLIME user and you have a moment then please
> reply to this mail (send the reply to the list).
> 
> Questions:
> 
> Which Lisp versions do you use SLIME with?

Mostly SBCL & CMUCL, a little bit of CLISP.

> 
> Which Emacs versions?

Emacs 21.3.1.  I was recently a hardcore XEmacs user, but I've moved
back to Emacs.

> 
> How well does SLIME work for you?

I think it's great.  It has *significantly* enhanced my usage and enjoyment
of Common Lisp over the past year.

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

Bugs: none that I can think of.  Daily CVS seems to work pretty well.

Missing features:

Inspector navigation seems a little off, could be a little better, one
of the wish items mentioned in Helmut's wish list.

I'd like to see viewing source from a stack frame try and go to the
actual line of source code, instead of just the function.

I think a stepper like the Emacs Lisp debugger or like gdb-mode would
be pretty cool.  I realize there's a lot of challenges to doing nice
stepping in Lisp.  I think this would help newbies get a better feel
for the language, especially since it's a common feature in the IDEs
they come from.

> 
> 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?

I think getting it apt-gettable via Debian and Fedora (yum) would be
really useful.  Maybe for the 1.0 release.  Ultimately, I just
download it from the daily CVS whenever I use it.  That's pretty easy
to do.

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

I didn't say anything negative, but I can't emphasize how important I
think SLIME is to the community as a whole and to it's future growth.
I think it is an incredible tool and I can't imagine not using it.  It
is light years ahead of ILISP, for example.

Kilo-kudos to all of you!  (ok, mega-kudos!)

-- 
Glenn Ehrlich
http://cooking-with-lisp.blogspot.com