[toronto-lisp] Development helpers

[Paul Tarvydas]

> Hi there,
> 
> A bit of a noob question - let's say that I have an interactive Repl
> session that has been going on for about an hour or so, and all of a
> sudden I wish to modify a defun I wrote a while ago. What is the
> easiest way first to show that code on the console, modify it, and
> load it back into Repl ?
> 
> I am just trying to come up with a comfortable development environment
> for myself.

There is something called "(dribble)" which records a transcript of your session.  I've never used it.

With LW, I typically use the editor to type into a file (buffer) and compile-load the buffer, or ^E one form or defun.  Undo can get you back to an earlier state.  I find that if I'm experimenting, I do it a function at a time, until I'm happy with it, so I never have to go back a full hour.

I take it that most free lisp users use emacs+slime.  You split the emacs window into two, one half shows your edit buffer, the other shows a lisp interaction.  A keystroke sends your current form to the interaction and you see the result in the interaction buffer.

pt