[slime] swank-loader could use ASDF (#65)

[Helmut Eller]

On Wed, Jan 08 2014, João Távora wrote:

> But I'm also not necessarily opposed to recommending, bundling, or
> installing quicklisp. The latter too seem a little out of SLIME's
> jurisdiction though.

The problem "How do we get from a vanilla Lisp to one where we can do
(require :asdf)" was solved by forcing every implementation to bundle
ASDF.  IMO, quicklisp is facing a similar problem.  Should quicklisp use
a similar "bundle it with the implementation" strategy?  I think not,
because a) it needs a lot of communication b) the bundled version gets
outdated quickly.

<aside> As far as I understand, the "upgrade" mechanism in ASDF is only
 needed because the bundled version may be too old.
</aside

I think this annoying but important problem could be solved more
elegantly by agreeing on the name of a configuration file and the names
of some configuration variables.  If not a configuration file then a
.init file, that we all agree to load from .sbclrc or .ccl-init etc.

Yes, this problem has not much to do with SLIME or Emacs but nobody else
seems solve it or think about it much.

Helmut