[slime-devel] SLIME48: a Swank back end in Scheme48

[Andras Simon]

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Taylor Campbell wrote:

>    Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005 01:33:44 +0200 (MEST)
>    From: Andras Simon <andras at renyi.hu>
>
>    On Fri, 16 Sep 2005, Brian Mastenbrook wrote:
>
>    > On Sep 16, 2005, at 6:14 AM, Helmut Eller wrote:
>
>    [...]
>    > >
>    > >    Compatibility with other Common Lisps is not a goal.
>    > >
>    > > Sadly, the goals shifted a bit since then.
>    > >
>    >
>    > I don't think very many people would agree that this is "sadly". If
>
>    That's right and I'm not one of them (I've used slime with five CL
>    implementations so far). But then it's mainly Helmut (and Luke, and a select
>    few, of course) who has had to worry about the idiosyncracies of the various
>    implementations.
>
> I don't think that they would have to worry about the Scheme48 Swank

I think they have to worry about everything that goes below
common-lisp.net:/project/slime/cvsroot :)

> implementation.  Once SLIME48 is fairly stable with respect to
> existing SLIME features, I think I could probably maintain its
> continual development in the context of SLIME's pretty easily.
>
>    OTOH it'd be great if schemers created a fork of SLIME.
>
> Can you explain why you think this would be better than (very

Because Schemers would then be free to modify it so that it becomes more
scheme-friendly, to experiment with features that are important to them (doing
cool stuff with continuations, whatever), etc without having to worry about CL
compatibility. You say later that

>                                              (I don't think there
> are many other Schemes that could support or be supported by Swank
> anyway in the same way that Scheme48 & MIT Scheme can, by the way.

Wouldn't it be better to (at least be free to) redesign, or experiment with
extensions, to Swank, so that other Schemes can be supported? And as long as
there's no significant divergence, you could easily track developments in
SLIME proper. Of course, even this means more work for you (as opposed to work
for Helmut & co.). But you'll probably get more Schemers joining the effort so
it's probably worth it.

> non-invasively) adding Scheme support to the regular SLIME?

I'd leave judging the level of invasiveness to the maintainers. Besides, what
starts out as a non-invasive change may end up as a mess, especially if other
schemes come along. Where do you draw the line?  Maybe I'm just a little
paranoid. (But isn't everyone who have seen Ilisp?:))

>
>    > > I'm not that excited about supporting every Frankenstein Lisp on the
>    > > planet, just because we can.  And frankly, who wants to use a Lisp
>    > > which doesn't even have docstrings?
>    > >
>    >
>    > Taylor's goal in this project was to make a good Emacs IDE for
>    > Scheme48, not to make SLIME support "every Frankenstein Lisp". SLIME
>    > was just the tool he chose to make this happen.
>
>    The problem with Scheme is that there's so many of it. At least the number
>    of CL implementations is bounded.
>
> So many of it?  SLIME48 is just Scheme48, nothing else.  I have
> considered an MIT Scheme Swank implementation, too, which would be
> somewhat closer to CL, actually, at least in threading; however, this
> is just two Schemes, not the whole Scheme world.  (I don't think there
> are many other Schemes that could support or be supported by Swank
> anyway in the same way that Scheme48 & MIT Scheme can, by the way.)

See above. Plus, I think Scheme (or at least its major variants) deserve(s) a
SLIME of its (their) own (SSLIME? SSIME? S2IME? SLIME/S? SLIMES?). I'd say go
for it!

Andras