Nicholas Papadonis nick.papadonis.ml@gmail.com writes:
I'm transitioning from 'mit-scheme -edit' (edwin) to Slime. I've installed Slime via MELPA and have the *slime-repl sbcl* up. I also opened a file C-x C-f 't.lisp' and the buffer shows only 'Lisp adoc'.
Is this correct?
Yes. I assume "the buffer shows only 'Lisp adoc'" refers to the mode line at the bottom of the window?
This is a GNU Emacs thing. Every Emacs buffer has one major mode, and any number of minor modes. By default, the mode line at the bottom of the window shows the major mode the buffer is in. As Pascal mentioned, C-h m will show you all the minor modes in the buffer.
The default mode when opening files with a .lisp extension is lisp-mode, which shows up as "Lisp" in the mode line (this is what you want). When you open a .lisp file and also have SLIME running, you should also see "Slime" in the list of enabled minor modes when you do C-h m.
Some minor mode packages also decided they should display something alongside the major mode in the mode line all of the time. "adoc" (slime-autodoc) is one of them. I don't see why slime-autodoc has to do this, or any benefit to it. The mode line strings are arbitrary, and if you load enough minor modes that have them, the mode line looks like word salad, and can push useful information, such as line number, off the side. Very annoying. You can try disabling this per minor mode. I just customize the mode line not to display anything about the buffer modes. If for some weird reason a buffer opens in the wrong major mode, you will realize it right away.
I saw videos where the .lisp buffer showed 'sbcl'. Also, it appears I can evaluate the t.lisp buffer using C-x C-e with results, however am not sure if this is SBCL, Slime or some other method of evaluation.
Does anyone know how Slime should behave with respect to a *.lisp buffer and evaluation?
SLIME forwards all evaluation requests to whatever Lisp it is connected to. If you only have 1 Lisp process running, it all goes there. It only gets confusing when you have SLIME connect to multiple Lisp processes at the same time, but you have to go out of your way to do that.
-- Vladimir Sedach