Configuring SLIME on MacOSX

Question

I have been dancing around LISP for decades, but now I have decided seriously. I am viewing the online version of Practical Common LISP.

This is my setup:

MacOSX 10.7.8
Xcode 4.5.2
SBCL 1.0.55.0-abb03f9
Emacs 24.2.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin, NS apple-appkit-1038.36)
SLIME 1.6

I tried to follow the instructions listed in the link:

http://emacs-sbcl-slime.blogspot.com/2010/11/sbcl-emacs-slime-macosx.html

... but the problem is that on the MacOSX platform nothing was found where it should be.

SBCL was installed using its own script ... it works.

I configure SBCL_HOME env var according to the instructions.

Emacs was installed by dmg at this link:

http://emacs-sbcl-slime.blogspot.com/2010/11/sbcl-emacs-slime-macosx.html

... and working.

SLIME, however (which was loaded via cvs at ~ / .emacs.d / slime) does not seem to be recognized. I cannot get the prompt "CL-USER>" described by the author.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

• Copy the entire slime directory to emacs/site-lisp
• Make sure your lisp is accessible from the terminal. Just enter sbcl in Terminal. lisp should start the translator.
• enter something like (setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") in the .emacs file (setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl")

Then it should work.

Answer 2

I would suggest just getting Emacs Prelude , which comes with a good Common Lisp + SLIME configuration by default. It is preconfigured for Clozure CL on OSX (given that this is perhaps the most popular Common Lisp distribution on OSX), but a simple Emacs Lisp line in your personal Prelude configuration can switch the default SLIME Lisp to SispL LIM:

 (setq slime-default-lisp 'sbcl) 

The best way to install SLIME itself is probably through the Quicklisp SLIME helper .

Answer 3

Have you considered using the great LispBox package that takes care of all the settings for you? This is super easy: http://common-lisp.net/project/lispbox/

It includes emacs, SLIME, Clozure Common Lisp, QuickLisp, and all pre-configured ones.