Slime usage with .lisp buffer?

[Vladimir Sedach]

Nicholas Papadonis <nick.papadonis.ml at gmail.com> writes:

> I'm transitioning from 'mit-scheme -edit' (edwin) to Slime.  I've installed
> Slime via MELPA and have the *slime-repl sbcl* up.  I also opened a file
> C-x C-f 't.lisp' and the buffer shows only 'Lisp adoc'.
>
> Is this correct?

Yes. I assume "the buffer shows only 'Lisp adoc'" refers to the mode
line at the bottom of the window?

This is a GNU Emacs thing. Every Emacs buffer has one major mode, and
any number of minor modes. By default, the mode line at the bottom of
the window shows the major mode the buffer is in. As Pascal
mentioned, C-h m will show you all the minor modes in the buffer.

The default mode when opening files with a .lisp extension is
lisp-mode, which shows up as "Lisp" in the mode line (this is what
you want). When you open a .lisp file and also have SLIME running,
you should also see "Slime" in the list of enabled minor modes when
you do C-h m.

Some minor mode packages also decided they should display something
alongside the major mode in the mode line all of the time. "adoc"
(slime-autodoc) is one of them. I don't see why slime-autodoc has to
do this, or any benefit to it. The mode line strings are arbitrary,
and if you load enough minor modes that have them, the mode line
looks like word salad, and can push useful information, such as line
number, off the side. Very annoying. You can try disabling this per
minor mode. I just customize the mode line not to display anything
about the buffer modes. If for some weird reason a buffer opens in
the wrong major mode, you will realize it right away.

> I saw videos where the .lisp buffer showed 'sbcl'.  Also, it appears I can
> evaluate the t.lisp buffer using C-x C-e with results, however am not sure
> if this is SBCL, Slime or some other method of evaluation.
>
> Does anyone know how Slime should behave with respect to a *.lisp buffer
> and evaluation?

SLIME forwards all evaluation requests to whatever Lisp it is
connected to. If you only have 1 Lisp process running, it all goes
there. It only gets confusing when you have SLIME connect to multiple
Lisp processes at the same time, but you have to go out of your way
to do that.

--
Vladimir Sedach