Lisp Installation

Read below for some specific recommendations for our class, but the generally
recommended ways are from this page:
 - https://lisp-lang.org/learn/getting-started/

You don't need to install SLIME or Quicklisp. Just get SBCL or CLISP and you're all set.


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On Mac:
 - via homebrew, which is a pretty useful general purpose package manager:
   - brew install sbcl
   - brew install clisp
   - brew install rlwrap
   - (or, brew upgrade whateverThing)

 - nice aliases to have: (enter these in your .bash_profile for example)
   - alias clisp="clisp -q"
   - alias sbcl="rlwrap sbcl"

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On Windows:

install SBCL and create one extra configuration file.

go to https://www.sbcl.org/platform-table.html, and download/run the installer.
 - likely this is the Windows row, AMD64 column for all of us.
 - It'll put your executable in C:/Program Files/Steel Bank Common Lisp/.
   - but now you can just search "sbcl" from the start menu, and it opens a
     REPL ("read eval print loop") - the interactive interpreter.

If you load that, though, its working directory is C:/Windows/System32/
  by default.  We'll fix that as part of our setup.

We can always load code with an absolute path:
    (load "/Users/yourOwnUsername/Desktop/go.lisp")

But that's cumbersome; so let's change our current working directory.
 - let's put this in a config file that SBCL looks for, so it's automatic.
   - it's here by default: "C:/Users/yourOwnUsername/.sbclrc"
   - to check where SBCL is looking, run this command in SBCL itself (the REPL):
     (SB-IMPL::USERINIT-PATHNAME)
 - I'm choosing to use the Desktop as my new working directory here;
   use whatever you want.
    (setf *default-pathname-defaults* #P"C:/Users/yourOwnUsername/Desktop/")
   - Alternatively, you could use this version.
    (setf *default-pathname-defaults* (pathname "C:/Users/yourOwnUsername/Desktop/"))

We can always check what the cwd is.
 - run this in your REPL (lisp interactive prompt):
    (print *default-pathname-defaults*)

now, we can load a file as always from that cwd:
    (load "filename.lisp")

So, go create that .sbclrc file with the one pathname statement, put your code
and the tester in your chosen place, and you can load it normally like the
homework instructions say.

Use whatever text editor you'd like!




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alternate option: LISPSTICK
 - via http://www.iqool.de/lispstick.html

 - but always run this command first, to reset the current working directory:
    (setf *default-pathname-defaults* #P"C:/Users/yourOwnUsername/Desktop/")

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On Zeus:
 - sbcl is not  available directly, but can be added:
   - run "module keyword sbcl", and you'll see which version is available.
     For me, it was sbcl/2.1.7.
   - then, run "module add sbcl/2.1.7". Far better is to just put this in
     your .bash_profile file so it always loads up.
 - clisp is currently available on zeus-1 only.
   - You can run e.g. "clisp -q" and land in the interpreter. 


I'd suggest running the code locally (not on zeus) if you can as it's likely
more comfy a setup. There should not be version issues whether you use clisp
or sbcl.

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