Getting Started in Common Lisp

Source: Hacker News

An easy way to start with Lisp-Stat

It’s never been easy for a developer to get started in Common Lisp. Emacs, though a powerful editor, isn’t considered an IDE by modern standards. Setting up a compiler, Quicklisp, SLIME, Swank, and then learning an entirely new programming paradigm has scared off many would‑be entrants to the Common Lisp community.

Given the size of the Common Lisp community this is understandable. Making the new‑user experience smooth and frictionless as possible is hard work. It’s the kind of work that no one volunteers for; it’s the kind of work you have to be paid for.

Still, it’s a prerequisite for new users, so I’ve created ls-dev-image, a “batteries‑included” OCI image for Lisp‑Stat or plain Common Lisp development. Assuming you have an OCI (e.g., Docker) runtime installed, you can get started with:

docker run --rm -it --user vscode -w /home/vscode ghcr.io/lisp-stat/ls-dev:latest bash

From the shell you can type emacs followed by M-x slime and start hacking Common Lisp.

This OCI image is configured with Emacs, SLIME, Quicklisp, Lisp‑Stat, and a few sample data sets and plots. A ls-server is also configured to start automatically on port 20202. If you open your browser and point it to https://localhost:20202 (or another port, depending on your OCI container configuration) you’ll see the web interface for displaying plots and viewing/editing data frames. It also includes a “refresh” script so you can stay synced with the upstream Lisp‑Stat, which is updated frequently.

You can also run this image in GitHub Codespaces.

I’d like to point out that you can use this for any Common Lisp development, not just Lisp‑Stat. Contributions and bug reports are welcome and encouraged.