Stefan Scholl  <stesch@no-spoon.de> wrote:
+---------------
| They ways of other languages: Take an editor of your choice, which
| can be a VI if you want to, save your work, run the implementation
| of the Language to either execute (Perl, Ruby, Rexx, Python, ...) or
| compile (C, C++, OCaml, ...) it. Error in the code? Jump to the
| indicated line and correct it.
| 
| In CL you are forced to use Emacs (or some emacs like editor of the
| commercial vendors) to make the differences worth the effort of
| using CL at all.
+---------------

This is a persistent myth. Yes, if you use (or *can* use[1]) Emacs,
there are some significant speedups in performing certain tasks, but
one really *can* develop sizable Common Lisp apps just fine with "vi".

"Vi" has paren-matching, paren-flashing, and shift left/right to matching
paren. So rather than do *everything* in one window (or set of windows)
as in Emacs-with-SLIME (or ILISP), when using "vi" (or some other editor)
one keeps another window open to a REPL in the application, where you
invoke LOAD (or something more convenient, such as ASDF) whenever you
write out an update from the editor. [And you use the mouse to cut'n'paste
from the editor to the REPL for trial evaluation of single redefined
functions.] You're still "living in the editor", mostly...


-Rob

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Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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