Re: subscribe
Hi Sundar, On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 09:03:39AM +0530, sundar bp wrote: > a newbie wanting to join and learn Great! Welcome! :) ☺/ A!ex -- UNSUBSCRIBE: mailto:picolisp@software-lab.de?subject=Unsubscribe
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a newbie wanting to join and learn regards, sundar -- Preparation. Patience. Decisiveness. Discipline. http://issuu.com/bpsundar
Re: picolisp-mode
Rick, Thank you again for your multiple thoughtful and detailed replies :) > On Jan 23, 2019, at 17:09, r...@tamos.net wrote: > >> The discussion is not about changing anything for people who already use one >> or the other mode. It is about proposing something easy to use *and* not >> confusing to new comers. > > OK. I understand. There were also some specific questions or issues that > you noticed (e.g., on Debian-like systems) in another email you sent which I > took to mean that you did not quite understand how emacs > packages can be installed and how emacs can (maybe, should) be configured. I > tried to answer that in another email I just sent. > Sorry, if I was off base -- was just trying to help. If you already > understand all that; then, fantastic. I'm definitely not a fluent emacs user. I can find my way and when I'm lost check the documentation. So I am aware of the issues you mentioned and I do sometimes manually install emacs packages, but most of the time I just use gnu/elpa/melpa. >> Then there is literally a ressource visibility issue at least on Debian. >> This one is not easy to fix and requires information from the Debian >> packager. I can ask for more information and see if there is a relatively >> easy fix. > > The "resource visibility issue" that you described (in your other email) > sounded like a misconfigured emacs setup to me. But I'm sure you will look > into that to rule out that possibility. Thank you for looking into potential > Debian issues. I'll check that but my setting is an "out of the flashed box" Raspbian machine and the only thing that I had added was a reference to the Melpa archive to be able to install some packages. Not only couldn't I find Alexis' package, but the picolisp menu failed when I tried to run an inferior lisp on my buffer. I had to run "run-inferior-picolisp" (function name from memory) manually to make it run. That's when I started to check the various versions and found all the things I'm discussing now. I'm replying to your other mail here so as to put all the information in one place: >> 1) On debian and related distributions, the picolisp official mode is >> installed by default > > Just to be clear, there is no "picolisp official mode" Ok, but let's just call it that way for the purpose of the discussion :) > It should probably stay there solely because it is not hosted (in a > permanent sense) anywhere else AFAIK. In fact it also is hosted on Github but it looks like the hosted version and the offline versions are slightly different (my understanding from Alexis' earlier mail, I did not diff the files). >> and in fact, there is no mention of that mode in the emacs package >> manager when you look for it, > > When you say "there is no mention of that mode in the emacs package manager > when you look for it", if you mean that you can't see it when you look at the > list generated by `package-list-packages` That's correct. > Well, if you load a picolisp source file (*.l) and you are in some > picolisp-mode and you didn't cause that to happen by purposefully setting > that up in your emacs configuration, then that is simply due > to dumb luck. Not dumb luck, but Debian packaging :) My understanding is that when you select picolisp to be installed in apt then it automatically installs that picolisp mode. I'm checking that with the Debian packager, but I suspect he's trying to install everything that is available in the "official picolisp distribution" which does include that picolisp mode. >> 2) Similarly, on Debian, the alternative picolisp mode from Alexis >> is not listed in the emacs package manager. > > If "listed in the emacs package manager" means that you can see it in > package-list-packages` output buffer, then *not* seeing it there means that > your emacs configuration is *not* pointing to the melpa service -- check the > `package-archives` variable -- (because we know that > Alexis's package is registered on melpa) or your network connex to melpa was > temporarily down. > > For instance, I can see it here now in my package-list-packages output: Can you confirm that you're checking that on Debian ? The output is different on Raspbian (as far as I can tell, and I have other melpa packages visible). I don't have the box with me so I'll confirm later. > I suppose we could mention that there are a few choices of emacs major modes > for picolisp programming and even a rundown of their functionality / > capability. Sounds good. Please do that if you have > time. Thanks. I did talk about the "official" character of that mode because it is documented on the wiki documentation as *the* emacs mode. Hence my confusion. > I hope that some of this info helped. Please forgive me if I seemed > in any way lecturing. I just don't really know your skill level with > emacs or admin stuff. No worry :) I'm always learning. Jean-Christophe Helary
Re: picolisp-mode
Hi Jean-Christophe! Sorry, I forgot to address the other things you mentioned. On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 02:33 -05:00, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote: > The discussion is not about changing anything for people who already > use one or the other mode. It is about proposing something easy to > use *and* not confusing to new comers. OK. I understand. There were also some specific questions or issues that you noticed (e.g., on Debian-like systems) in another email you sent which I took to mean that you did not quite understand how emacs packages can be installed and how emacs can (maybe, should) be configured. I tried to answer that in another email I just sent. Sorry, if I was off base -- was just trying to help. If you already understand all that; then, fantastic. > Besides for the merits of the various modes and the merits of having > multiple modes, I think there is a big documentation issue. It is > easily fixable and since that information is on the wiki that's > something I can fix. That's great. Always strike when the motivation is there, I always say! Glad you are thinking about that. > Then there is literally a ressource visibility issue at least on > Debian. This one is not easy to fix and requires information from > the Debian packager. I can ask for more information and see if there > is a relatively easy fix. The "resource visibility issue" that you described (in your other email) sounded like a misconfigured emacs setup to me. But I'm sure you will look into that to rule out that possibility. Thank you for looking into potential Debian issues. Cheers, --Rick On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 03:01 -05:00, r...@tamos.net wrote: > Hi Jean-Christophe! > > On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 02:33 -05:00, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote: > > There is also a maintenance issue for the official mode. From what I > > understand, there seems to be 3 different versions of that mode and the > > authors are not active anymore (and have not been for 6 years)... > > That's ok. They are working fine for us for years anyway. Many of us > (including me) know elisp and can fix them, but honestly, there has > never been an issue with them. > > > In all honesty, if picolisp had not been maintained and updated for 6 > > years, would you consider using it ? I don't think you would. > > I agree. But also,. I would argue that that's not exactly an > apples-to-apples comparison. Editor configurations are much easier to > work with and much less complex than language and virtual machine > implementations. I'll leave the latter to Alex. :) > > -- > UNSUBSCRIBE: mailto:picolisp@software-lab.de?subject=Unsubscribe > -- UNSUBSCRIBE: mailto:picolisp@software-lab.de?subject=Unsubscribe
Re: picolisp-mode
Hi Jean-Christophe! Trying to clear up maybe some confusion (and I had already started composing this too long ago :). On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 00:17 -05:00, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote: > 1) On debian and related distributions, the picolisp official mode is > installed by default Just to be clear, there is no "picolisp official mode" or even "official picolisp mode". Certainly, Alex does not claim this; he is only including a version of picolisp-mode in the picolisp distro for the user's convenience. He started doing this probably way before there was even an emacs package manager. :) Back then (were dinosaurs roaming the earth then, Alex? :), this was the way to distribute that for visibility sake (and I'll bet that was the first picolisp-mode too). At any rate, please don't think that the picolisp-mode in the picolisp distro is "official" in any sense. It's more like a remnant. It should probably stay there solely because it is not hosted (in a permanent sense) anywhere else AFAIK. At any rate, it's not "official." > and in fact, there is no mention of that mode in the emacs package > manager when you look for it, When you say "there is no mention of that mode in the emacs package manager when you look for it", if you mean that you can't see it when you look at the list generated by `package-list-packages`, that would be correct, since those packages are registered with an ELPA service (like melpa) and the picolisp-mode in the picolisp distro is not registered with any ELPA service AFAIK (nor does it need to be IMO). This might be a good place to mention that melpa isn't: (1) the only ELPA-like service/archive and (2) it is not the only way to install emacs packages. I mentioned this in one of my other emails today. And, I include some detail on this below. > so you have no idea that anything is installed until you load a > picolisp file. Well, if you load a picolisp source file (*.l) and you are in some picolisp-mode and you didn't cause that to happen by purposefully setting that up in your emacs configuration, then that is simply due to dumb luck. Any emacs user has to be sure to put the location (directory) of any packages on `load-path` and set up an association to *.l files. Just like when you login to a unix system, you should know where the programs are located and how to set up PATH (and other things) to get it working right, the same holds for emacs configurations. If you can't "see" a package / mode, that means that you have lost the handle on where things are located. That's on you. And that's also why I mentioned (in a previous email, again), that to stabilize that situation, I recommend to use the same emacs setup and install picolisp yourself to a "standard" (for you) directory (maybe under your $HOME) and that way you will know where everything is -- and it will Just Work(TM) with no further config tweaking. IOW, I recommend not to rely on your OS/distros package manager to install picolisp (they don't install them in consistent places from one distro to another, as you've noticed). > 2) Similarly, on Debian, the alternative picolisp mode from Alexis > is not listed in the emacs package manager. If "listed in the emacs package manager" means that you can see it in package-list-packages` output buffer, then *not* seeing it there means that your emacs configuration is *not* pointing to the melpa service -- check the `package-archives` variable -- (because we know that Alexis's package is registered on melpa) or your network connex to melpa was temporarily down. For instance, I can see it here now in my package-list-packages output: > picolisp-mode is an available package. > > Status: Available from melpa -- Install > Archive: melpa > Version: 20190105.720 > Commit: 39e54f31b5d10483aac2765bf5cc4ad92f9e4467 > Summary: Major mode for PicoLisp programming. >Homepage: https://github.com/flexibeast/picolisp-mode >Keywords: picolisp lisp programming > It may be because of a namespace issue, I have no idea. No. > 3) I don't know how all that works for other Linux distributions. It > could be the same, it could be different. Well, at least for emacs, it (emacs) works according to your personal emacs configuration (normally either in ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs). Please tell me that you have one of these and are not relying on the "fallback" emacs site/system configuration. If that were the case, that could be the cause of inconsistent emacs behavior from one platform to the next. > 4) On my Mac, from where I can only ssh to my Raspbian picolisp, I > have access to the melpa picolisp package and I discovered that this > was not the same as the one distributed with picolisp when I noticed > differences in behavior that caused a bit of confusion (no access to > docs, etc.) Yes. This is OK, i.e., there are different versions / forks of picolisp-mode. Pick the one you like. > There are a number of ways to solve all that in order of >
