SBCL 2.2.8 | Hacker News Reader

SBCL 2.2.8

sbcl.org

112 pointssusam30 comments

I use SBCL for learning Lisp because I have found the combination of Lisp compiler and a Lisp book which seems working for me, for the sake of effectively learning some Lisp. Any IDE or something with GUI for making SBCL interpreter look easier like for example Racket?

My problem is that I can not use cursor keys for editing what I have typed in console and debugger is currently too hard for my understanding.

Launch

rlwrap sbcl

Instead of sbcl directly to get all your line editing niceties.

As far as IDE are concerned, Emacs and the slime module are unbeatable, but it may be difficult to ease into them. There are many tutorials online. You won't regret it.

whats your learning resource?

Successful Lisp David B. Lamkins

I like how Windows is listed after _Solaris_ in the list of supported platforms.

Well, I guess, the UNIX derivatives were just grouped together, which is logical.

The website used to say support for Windows is experimental, but I installed it and a graphics library to draw pretty things in a window and it worked fine

Anything newsworthy about that version in particular? It looks like a minor bugfix release.

Bumping up visibility, is all… Lisp deserves more attention than it has.

Am I wrong in thinking a selling point of SBCL is that there aren't 'major' releases, and only tweaks and bugfixes, which makes it so reliable and stable?

It certainly is to me. I like knowing that I can run code as long as I want, and not as long as their packagers allow. You can always compile old versions of ruby, python, etc yourself but let's be honest, it's a ball ache. And it'll only get worse as dependencies become more and more outdated.

Has Common Lisp really changed in the last few time units?

I just wish we could build and run it on macOS 12. The bootstrapping compiler required (sbcl-1.2.11) is nonfunctional there.

What's the problem with building on macOS 12?

Hm, Roswell installs it pretty straightforwardly.

At least 2.2.7 does, I have built it myself on my M2 Air. What is your issue?

What did you use for bootstrapping? sbcl-1.2.11 does not work (on x86_64).

Some other SBCL version, I don't know what I had installed on x86_64. I can look on monday, what it was. Probably the 1.2.11 that can be found on the download site. What was the issue you were running into?

Alternatively, you can try ABCL, which should run everywhere due to be JVM-based.

Thinking about it, have you made sure, that sbcl-1.2.11 works at all for you before trying to build? I remember it took a bit of trying due to gatekeeper. I had to allow both the sbcl executable as well as the core file, before it was fully functional. After that, you should be able to bootstrap from it.

That is the problem, the sbcl-1.2.11 binary doesn't work at all for me, even after telling gatekeeper to allow the executable and core file.

I have suggested on sbcl-devel that the link to the binary should be removed from the Download web page, people would then look in a third-party package collection for a bootstrap binary.

The binary does work (at least on Big Sur). It would be nice though, if there were signed executables available. Not sure what I did to make it work, if I can remember that required some trial-and-error.

I have run into this problem too, maybe someone could update the official binaries to something newer.

I was able to build it for M1 without any issue. You just need a previous lisp to bootstrap, a previous release or even clisp can be used, for example.

I almost always build it from source. There are useful build options that you can use.

I do most of my work with LispWorks Pro, but SBCL is also a valuable part of my tool set. Much gratitude to the developers!

I made an asdf-vm installer for it that I've been keeping up to date: https://github.com/smashedtoatoms/asdf-sbcl

If you don't want to use it, it installs from source, so you might be able to look at the source to see an example of how to build it yourself. It works on intel and arm macs.

I've looked into the repo and it seems to download sbcl-1.2.11 as the bootstrapping compiler for x86_64. That is exactly what doesn't work on my machine (macOS 12, x86_64). The problem is getting a bootstrapping compiler that works on that platform.

Uh, cmucl required an existing cmucl, SBCL was explicitly forked of that to simplify the bootstrapping by allowing any standard compliant CL compiler as host. On MacOS Clozure CL might be the obvious choice.

Well, that's the idea at least, I haven't actually tried it (long time ago, I did compile sbcl with CLISP on Linux/x86-64, which worked fine).

Is there a reason you need a different version of the binary to compile it? I mean, if you were to compile gcc, would you insist you had a different version of the compiler to do that?

Is there any commonly used software developed in Common Lisp or any other Lisp? It seems LISP is this perennial hype language that everybody praises as a superpower but nobody uses for any real task...

Is it just me ? Or is lisp-like(Take that all those REST-Like post from yesteryear) post/tech making a comeback ??

Just one datapoint.(ie glorious me)

I like php(yea suck it haters) ,c,go,mysql,solr,ml,linux,svelte and choose star trek over starwars.

Ok so with that picture, ive been dedicating myself to learn clojure(lisp'ish?) and dabble in sbcl/scheme

I definitely see the value in it if you can stick through the frustration and learning curve. Just to he honest this learning curve of lisp-like is bigger then going from OOP to Functional paradigm ateast for me.

It sorta like bad karate... you not really dangerous until you hit blackbelt level1000, but if you stick with it, you get a new perspective !

Look im not saying dont code your next startup in rust+typescript. Im saying if you know lisp and its teaching you will do a better job at coding yout next startup in typescript+rust

TL;DR!

Dammit man(woman?) you a computing-profesional you need to learn lisp just to so you better at deploying the inferior tech stack :)

Also lisper are nicer ppl than java/rust/react ppl (personal experience)

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