jcipar  <jcipar@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| One thing that I was put off by at first was the idea that
| emacs+slime is the *only* way to develop lisp code.
+---------------

It's not. Really, no matter what the fanatics will try to tell you.
It [or some equivalent IDE] *is* the way preferred by most of the
CL community, but there are a few holdouts who still insist on
using some other editor[1] and even a bare REPL[2] for interactive
development, and even find it comfortable and very productive.

+---------------
| Then I discovered CUSP (http://bitfauna.com/projects/cusp/index.html)
...
| It still took me a little while before I was coding "smoothly" in it
| (it's not always clear when the current version of you program is
| loaded into the lisp session), but I would highly recommend it.
+---------------

Fine. Then for you that's "some equivalent IDE". Go with it!

And welcome to the last programming language you will ever
need to learn...  ;-}  ;-}


-Rob

[1] I unapologetically use "Vi" ("nvi-1.79", to be precise).

[2] O.k., so not a totally *bare* REPL. One really needs to define a
    few helper functions for oneself to do things like recompile/reload
    the current set of source files you're editing. E.g., I have one
    called LOAD* that just "does the right thing" when I'm noodling
    around. [For more complicated situations, I have a convenience
    wrapper around ASDF.]

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607