On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:39:32 -0400, Zach Beane wrote:
Hi,
I've been trying to learn more about how Quicklisp has changed how Common Lisp hackers work. When I posed the question on the Quicklisp list, I got a response from Elliot Slaughter with a point that I hadn't considered before:
I think part of what makes Quicklisp successful (in my opinion) is that both new *and old* Lisp users love and make use of it. To me, it's really magical to be able to cd into my project, start lisp, and quickload it, and have it just work, even if I have customized versions of some of the dependencies. I think the extent to which Quicklisp "just works" but also stays out of the way makes older Lisp hackers happy, which in turn makes the community more vibrant because library and implementation authors are using the same system that new users are being told to use (which wasn't always true with e.g. lisp-starter-pack or asdf-install).
As I suspect the "pro" list likely has more old-timers than newcomers, I'd like to get your take on this idea.
I don't think I qualify as an old-timer, but here are my 2 cents:
1. As a user, Quicklisp made library management much easier. I just update regularly with each release, and get a reasonably recent version of libraries that passed a few quality control checks. Recently, I was setting CL up on a new machine, and it literally took no more than a few minutes -- thanks to Quicklisp. It is also great for keeping my laptop and the server are use in a consistent state when it comes to versions of libraries.
2. As an author of a few libraries, I am now paying attention to the Quicklisp release cycle (it would be great if the dates could be made more transparent though). I used to put experimental code to the main branch of my git repos (essentially using Github as a glorified backup tool), but now I either branch or wait with pushing until I use it for a while. In particular, Quicklisp's automated checks about symbol conflicts etc that are reported as issues on Github are very useful (I hope that they are indeed automated and don't require a lot of effort on your part).
Once again, thanks for Quicklisp!
Tamas