I've been wanting to teach myself Lisp for a while. However, all the interpreters of which I've heard involve some flavor of emacs.
Are there any command line interpreters, such that I could type this into the command line:
lispinterpret sourcefile.lisp
just like I can run perl or python.
While I'd also like to become more familiar with Emacs (if only not to be frustrated when I work with somebody who uses Emacs), I'd rather decouple learning Emacs from learning Lisp.
Edit: I actually want to follow SICP which uses Scheme, so an answer about Scheme would be more useful. I'm just not that familiar with the differences.
You could also try DrScheme, which whilst not exactly a standalone interpreter, isn't emacs :)
It's basically a simple IDE that has an area to type in code that can be executed as a file, and then another area that is the running interpreter that you can interact with.
(Also, find the UC Berkeley CS61A podcasts and listen to them, as well as reading SICP)
It looks like Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) also caters to what you want:
http://www.sbcl.org/manual/#Shebang-Scripts
SBCL is both top rate and open source.
Checkout CLISP wiki-link that ie. was used by Paul Graham
Direct link
I often write lisp shell scripts which start with this line:
#!/usr/bin/clisp
Then you don't even need to type "lispinterpret" on the command-line. Just mark the script executable and run it directly.
Most scheme interpreters that I am familiar with can be run from the command line. (Much of the list below is extracted from the comparative table at Alexey Radul's Scheme Implementation Choices page. There is a more extensive list at schemewiki but that page does not immediately provide command-line invocation syntax.)
Here's how you run a number of implementations at the command line:
Chez Scheme: scheme, petite
MIT Scheme: mit-scheme
Scheme 48: scheme48
RScheme: rs
Racket: racket (But I recommend trying the DrRacket IDE, especially for beginners.)
Guile: guile
Bigloo: bigloo
Chicken: csi
Gambit: gsi
Gauche: gosh
IronScheme: IronScheme.Console
Kawa: kawa, java kawa.repl
Larceny: larceny
SCM: scm
If you are looking for Scheme to work with the SICP, take a look at MIT/GNU Scheme
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/scheme/
http://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/index.html
The most widely used IDE for Common Lisp, particularly in the free software subset of the community, is in fact SLIME, which runs on Emacs. You can use whatever CL compiler you prefer and invoke Lisp source files the way you describe, but if you do that, you won't be taking advantage of many of Lisps dynamic features that are so incredibly useful while developing your application.
I suggest you take a look at this SLIME demonstration video to see what I mean, even though it might be a bit outdated at this point.
If the problem is that you (think you) don't like Emacs, I seriously suggest you try to learn it. Seriously. No, really, I mean that. However, there are alternatives, such as the IDEs provided by commercial Lisp implementations such as Allegro and Lispworks (free trials available), or an Eclipse plug-in called Cusp.
Did you try Allegro CL from http://www.franz.com/?
#Nathan: I've upmodded the Common Lisp links, because you asked about Lisp (especially with reference to Emacs Lisp). However, Common Lisp is very different from Scheme. A program written for one is unlikely to run on the other.
As you mentioned, SICP is for learning Scheme, not Lisp (or at least, not Common Lisp and not Emacs Lisp). There are some overlap in principles, however you can't simply cut and paste code from SICP and expect it to run on any Common Lisp or Emacs Lisp system. :-)
No "interpreter" requires emacs.
Also, emacs can run elisp in a headless manner.
It seems like scheme shell is suitable for your purpose.
Take a look at http://www.scsh.net/index.html
Another good dialect of lisp is cmucl. They used to love to brag about being the "fastest" lisp.
Related
I know there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a compiled or interpreted language.
But, generally speaking, is LISP used to write scripts like Python, bash script, and batch script?
Or is it a general purpose programming language like C++, JAVA, and C#?
Can anyone explain this in simple terms?
Early versions of Lisp programming language and Dartmouth BASIC would be examples interpreter language (parse the source code and perform its behavior directly.). However, Common lisp (Current version) is a compiler language.
Note that most Lisp compilers are not Just In Time compilers. You as a programmer can invoke the compiler, for example in Common Lisp with the functions COMPILE and COMPILE-FILE. Then Lisp code gets compiled.
Additionally most Lisp systems with both a compiler and an interpreter allow the execution of interpreted and compiled code to be freely mixed.
For more details check here
Lisp is a compiled general purpose language, in its modern use.
To clarify:
“LISP” is nowadays understood as “Common Lisp”
Common Lisp is an ANSI Standard
There are several implementations of Common Lisp, both free and commercial
Code is usually compiled, then loaded into an image. The order in which the individual parts/files of an entire system are compiled and loaded is usually defined through a system definition facility (which mostly means ASDF nowadays).
Most implementations also provide a means for loading source code when started. Example:
sbcl --load 'foo.lisp'
This makes it also possible to use lisp source files as “scripts”, even though they will very likely be compiled before execution.
Traditionally, LISP can be interpreted or compiled -- with some of each running at the same time. Compilation, in some cases, would be to a virtual machine like JAVA.
LISP is a general purpose programming language, but rarely used as such anymore. In the days of microcoded LISP machines, the entire operating system, including things like network, graphics and printer drivers, were all written in LISP itself. The very first IMAP mail client, for example, was written entirely in LISP.
The unusual syntax likely makes other programming languages, like Python, more attractive. But if one looks carefully, you can find LISP-inspired elements in popular languages like Perl.
I recently picked up an old book on lisp and I'm trying to learn lisp using emacs. I am using both the ielm mode and interactive-mode, but I ran into this problem of keywords not being define. I am following the book's example but sometimes I would get a
*** eval error *** Symbol's function definition is void: -the keyword-
The keywords such as: DEFINE, TIMES, DIFFERENCES, ADD1, ect would not work. While other keywords such as: SQRT, MAX, MIN, ect would work.
I am a complete beginner in emacs so I don't quit understand what is wrong.
There are several dialects of lisp, e.g. Common Lisp, Scheme, Emacs Lisp, etc.
Functions, variables or keywords that are available in one dialect may not be in another one.
As Rainer said, the dialect from your book is probably not in use anymore and you shouldn't learn it. Pick a more recent one and buy a book or find documentation online. If you are new to Lisp, it is probably a good idea to start with Scheme which is a major dialect of Lisp and it relatively simple.
Last thing: Emacs is an editor, you can use it to program in any Lisp dialect. Now, Emacs itself is (mainly) written in Emacs Lisp which is a Lisp dialect that was specially designed for Emacs. It is only useful to know it if you want to modify or customize Emacs.
Your book is probably very old and uses a Lisp dialect which no longer is in use.
You may want to get a slightly newer version of that book.
See: http://people.csail.mit.edu/phw/Books/#AI for old Common Lisp (from the 80s) code for the book.
You'd probably be better of with a book discussing Emacs Lisp (one is bundled with Emacs itself, type C-h i m Emacs Intro RET to access it).
Btw, this books looks ancient and I guess it describes a non-standard Lisp dialect. Consider reading something like Practical Common Lisp or Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs instead.
Christian Queinnec has written a masterpiece called LISP In Small Pieces, which features eleven Lisp Interpreters and two Lisp compilers.
When you go to download the code from the website here - it has the comment:
The programs of this book are available on the net.
These programs used to run with some Scheme systems around 1994.
Any idea:
(a) What Scheme systems these ran on at the time, and more importantly;
(b) What Scheme systems these would run on today?
There's a lot of programs in there. I did a few tests to see how well I could answer this without having to try them individually. There are 131 files in the tarball with extension ".scm". However there appear to be Scheme programs with other extensions such as .bgl. So I did a search for files containing 'L i S P' in the first five lines. That yields 173 files. I tried running all of these on my preferred Scheme implementation. 31 of these run without error. Almost all of these are in the "src" directory. So the language-specific programs really do seem language-specific. Let's look at one of the src/ files that failed, "chap9z.scm". It's choking on define-abbreviation. I don't know the origin of this symbol, but it's not defined anywhere in guile. But all of its uses could be performed by guile's syntax-rules.
Some Scheme implementations that existed in 1994 still are still around and maintained: Scheme 48, Chez Scheme, Gambit, Bigloo, MIT Scheme and SCM.
Probably the code from LiSP will run in other modern Scheme systems such as Guile or Larceny.
Personally, I would recommend using Racket. Most likely, much of the code will run in #lang racket with no changes, and there's no requirement to use [] (but your code may be easier to read :). Things that don't work are probably easy to fix, and you can also use the R5RS language implementation provided by Racket which will likely work for all of the code.
(a) What Scheme systems these ran on at the time
The Makefile in the source tarball from the author's website has targets for running the code under bigloo, elk, gambit, mit-scheme, scheme2c, and scm.
The Makefile mentions SCM 4e1 and Bigloo 1.9d as known working versions, though I haven't tested them myself. I didn't find any mention of specific versions for the other schemes.
(b) What Scheme systems these would run on today?
The code in this github repo has been updated so that almost all of the tests in the included test suite pass with current (as of 06/2014) versions of bigloo, gambit, and mit-scheme.
If you just want to be able to run the code and follow along with the book, one of those schemes should work for you.
[full disclosure: I'm the owner of the repo and I'm a Scheme noob. The code in the repo is WOMM certified, but your mileage may vary.]
If, on the other hand, you're not content to use bigloo / gambit / mit-scheme, it shouldn't be too hard to add support for guile / racket / insert-favorite-scheme-here. Use one of the book.* files as a starting point, e.g. gambit/book.scm or mitscheme/book.mit. If you can get a version of book.scm to load in your favorite scheme, then have a look at the test.interpreters make target, and finally the grand.test target to verify things are working as expected.
The included README file states:
These files were tested with a Scheme interpreter augmented with
a test-suite driver (tester.scm),
the define-syntax and define-abbreviation macros (using
Dybvig's syntax-case package),
and an object system: Meroonet (meroonet.scm).
Bigloo, Scheme->C, Gambit, Elk or SCM can be used. The first three are
better since a specialized interpreter may be built that contains a
compiled Meroonet and compiled hygienic macros.
Apparently Appleby has posted an updated version of the source code. Racket is missing though )=
See https://github.com/appleby/Lisp-In-Small-Pieces
I use Emacs everyday as it is the standard editor for Erlang.
I decided as my New Years Resolution to learn to programme eLisp. I decided that writing a book about eLisp was the best way to learn.
I have make pretty good progress:
Learn eLisp For Emacs
The strategic structure of the book is
getting started/basics
more advanced eLisp
writing a minor mode
writing a major mode
I have got through the basics (ie the first of these 4 points), covering:
evaluating expressions
debugging
adding menu items/toolbars
loading your own emacs files
etc, etc
If you are writing a book about a programming language you usually start by knowing the language well - well I don't - so my major problem now is a completeness problem:
How do I know that I have covered all the features that an Emacs programmer should have mastered?
How do I ensure that there aren't gaps in the content?
So I thought I would address these by asking the community here. My question is What Is Missing From My Table Of Contents? (in particular what should the more advanced eLisp Section contain).
Now that's an interesting way to learn a language...
I think you've probably skipped a bunch of the fundamentals in the getting started/basics section. If you've not already read it, I recommend reading "An Introduction To Programming In Emacs Lisp" (at gnu.org), which covers what I'd expect to see in the "basics" portion. I won't bother cut/paste the table of contents.
As far as knowing when you've written a complete book... Well, once you've re-written the Emacs Lisp manual in "how to" form, you know you're done. Alternatively, if you've written a book that can be used to answer/interpret all of the elisp and emacs questions, then you've probably got decent coverage.
What advanced features could you write about? There's advice, process communication, non-ASCII text, syntax tables, abbrevs, text properties, byte compilation, display tables, images, and a bunch more in the manual.
Note: The proper capitalization of elisp is either all lowercase, or possibly an uppercase E. The GNU documentation doesn't use "elisp" very much at all (mostly as a directory name, all lowercase), it prefers "Emacs Lisp."
Note: In the current version of your book, you treat global variables negatively. It's probably worth reading the RMS paper to gain some insight into the design decisions made, specifically on global variables as well as dynamic binding (the latter which you've yet to cover, which is a key (basic) concept which you've already gotten wrong in your book).
Instead of asking the community here, why not use what the community already offers? Review all the questions tagged "elisp" and see where they fit it your book. A survey of what people actually want to understand could be some of the best information you will get.
"I have read both the GNU manuals - but they are not so much use if you don't know Lisp/elisp."
Tip: Emacs is not much use if you don't know Lisp.
Not really true, of course, but you get the idea. This one is really true:
Tip: Emacs is much, much, much, much more useful if you know Lisp. Not to mention more fun.
Wrt what to learn:
symbols (they are simple objects, with properties -- not just identifiers)
lists -- cons cells, list structure (including modification/sharing)
evaluation
function application
regexps
text/overlay/string properties (values can be any Lisp entities)
buffers and windows
I'd suggest you'll take a look what the two Info manuals included with Emacs Emacs Lisp Intro "An Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp" and Elisp "The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual" already have to offer and then decide what you would like to add to or do differently than those.
I'm an experienced C++/.NET/Java Windows/web programmer trying to learn (Common) Lisp. I'm reading Practical Common Lisp and using SLIME.
I'm getting the Lisp language easily enough, but I'm having trouble groking the mechanics of development. One of my issues is dealing with Emacs. I have no experience with it and find it generally confusing with hard to find/figure out commands.
Specific questions:
I get the REPL, but I don't quite get how I can use it effectively. When I need to change a function I have to retype the defun and make changes (tedious and error prone). How can I do this better?
How do I get from entering code at the REPL to actually having a program? I'm used to the C model where you have code files that you can review, edit and recompile. I know Lisp has something similar (via the load function), but how does one get a function I just defined and tested into a file to be saved? I'm hoping there's a better method than my current select+copy+paste.
How do you debug errors? Is there any ability to step into code like I would with other languages?
As long as the S-expression is valid, I don't get any errors when entering a (defun ...). It's not until I try to use it that I find out it's not valid. Is there any way to get errors sooner (i.e. compile the code)?
Is there some IDE that would be more familiar to me or allow me to play with the language easier?
Should I switch to learning Scheme instead?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
-I get the REPL, but don't quite get how I can use it effectively. When I
need to change a function I have to
retype the defun and make changes
(tedious and error prone). How can I
do this better?
-How do I get from entering code at the REPL to actually having a program?
I'm used to the C model where you have
code files that you can review, edit
and recompile. I know lisp has
something similar (via the load
function), but how does one get a
function I just defined and tested
into a file to be saved? I'm hoping
there's a better method than my
current select+copy+paste.
Load SLIME. Enter code in your .lisp file, and then run slime-eval-buffer to load all your code into Lisp. Then, for a specific function you are hacking on C-e, C-j to redefine it in your running Lisp.
-How do you debug errors? Is there any ability to step into code like I would with other languages?
Yes. (trace 'my-function) - or some variant on that - and when my-function is called, it will break into the debugger.
-As long as the S-expression is valid, I don't get any errors when entering a
(defun ...). It's not until I try to
use it that I find out it's not valid.
Is there any way to get errors sooner
(i.e. compile the code)?
To some degree, that is a characteristic of dynamic languages (Python, Perl, Ruby, Lisp, etc.). Try SBCL for better error-checking.
-Is there some IDE that would be more familiar to me or allow me to play with the language easier?
Emacs is the free IDE for Lisp. Allegro has a free edition I believe; I've never tried it though..
-Should I switch to learning Scheme instead?
Nah, Scheme is not as pragmatic a language.
I'm an experienced C++/.NET/Java Windows/Web programmer trying to learn (Common) Lisp. I'm reading Practical Common Lisp and using SLIME.
One can also use the LispWorks Personal Edition for learning Lisp. It has some limitations and the full product is commercial, but it is quite a bit easier to use.
I get the REPL, but don't quite get how I can use it effectively. When I need to change a function I have to retype the defun and make changes (tedious and error prone). How can I do this better?
The REPL has a history. With keyboard commands you can get back prior input and change it. Other than that just edit a Lisp file and compile code from there. In Lisp you can compile/eval individual expressions and definitions. Typical IDEs like SLIME, LispWorks or Allegro CL allow you to run code also from normal Lisp text windows - additionally to executing expressions in the REPLA (aka Listener).
How do I get from entering code at the REPL to actually having a program? I'm used to the C model where you have code files that you can review, edit and recompile. I know Lisp has something similar (via the load function), but how does one get a function I just defined and tested into a file to be saved? I'm hoping there's a better method than my current select+copy+paste.
Copy and paste in one thing. But the correct way is to work from a text file in an editor window. One can compile/load expressions, the editor buffer or the associated file.
How do you debug errors? Is there any ability to step into code like I would with other languages?
See STEP, TRACE and related. SLIME, LispWorks and Allegro CL have lots of additional features.
As long as the S-expression is valid, I don't get any errors when entering a (defun ...). It's not until I try to use it that I find out it's not valid. Is there any way to get errors sooner (i.e. compile the code)?
For many cases one uses a compiler. The compiler will find a range of errors and also will note when something is unusual (for example a function does not exist or a variable has not been defined).
-Is there some IDE that would be more familiar to me or allow me to play with the language easier?
LispWorks, Allegro CL are the best under Windows. There are some alternatives like Corman Lisp (I don't know it is maintained right now) or even Ufasoft Lisp.
Should I switch to learning Scheme instead?
Not really.
It doesn't sound like you're really using SLIME, or at least not in the way it was intended to be used. ("have to retype the defun", "the C model where you have code files")
I recommend watching some SLIME screencasts (or, even better, watching a Lisp programmer use SLIME for a few minutes, if you have one handy). The SLIME webpage has a couple.
It sounds like you'd really enjoy the DrRacket IDE. Racket is closer to Scheme than to Common Lisp, but you could dip your toes into the Lisp family without the speed bump of the Emacs style of development.