Slime Developers,
I have tested the following using Emacs 29 (started with `emacs -Q') and Slime 2.30.
In the Slime Info manual for version 2.30, the installation instructions in the "Installation" section of the "Getting Started" chapter are incomplete. The text reads:
Slime -> Getting Started -> Installation:
"The easiest way to install and keep SLIME up-to-date is using Emacs’s
built-in package manager. SLIME is available from the MELPA repository.
After setting up the MELPA repository, SLIME can be installed via ‘M-x
package-install RET slime RET’. You should then define your default
Lisp in your ‘.emacs’ as follows:
(setq inferior-lisp-program "/opt/sbcl/bin/sbcl")
At this point, you should be ready to start *note running SLIME:
Running."
If the command M-x slime RET is entered after following the instructions above, then the user will see "[Not found]" briefly displayed after M-x slime in the minibuffer. The reason for this is that Emacs's variable `load-path' has not been updated to include the directory in which the `package-install' command has installed Slime. Adding this directory to `load-path' is documented much later in the "Basic Customization" section.
Slime -> Getting Started -> Setup Tuning -> Basic Customization:
"Once you have the basic no-frills setup working, you can enhance your
SLIME installation with bundled extensions:
;; _Setup load-path, autoloads and your lisp system_
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/dir/to/cloned/slime")
..."
The simplest solution to this that I have found is to include the function `package-activate-all' in the Emacs user's initialization file (.emacs or some variant). This adds the directory of the installed Slime package to the `load-path'. Instructions to do this could be added to "Installation" section, above, and removed from the "Basic Customization" section.
Note: According to the Emacs Lisp reference manual, this should not be necessary because `package-activate-all' is supposed to be run before the user's Emacs initialization file, if the variable `package-enable-at-startup' is set to T. See the section "(elisp) Packaging Basics" in the Elisp manual:
" Whenever Emacs starts up, it automatically calls the function
‘package-activate-all’ to make installed packages available to the
current session. This is done after loading the early init file, but
before loading the regular init file (*note Startup Summary::).
Packages are not automatically made available if the user option
‘package-enable-at-startup’ is set to ‘nil’ in the early init file.'
..."
Whether the Slime manual should be changed to move the instructions for updating the value of `load-path' or to add instructions to add a call to `package-active-all' to the user's Emacs initialization file, the instructions need to corrected so that new users who are following the instructions will get Slime to start as described. As the instructions are now, Slime will not start after a new installation of the package.
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