I'm not sure what the cleanest fix is here.

But what about the other warnings? Is the "main: not defined" warning due to my racket version?

The second warning (./arc.sh: line 40: [: too many arguments) disappears if I change (in arc.sh):

    if [ $repl = '#t' ]

    if [ "$repl" = '#t' ]

However, running arc in emacs (I use arc.el and arc-inferior.el) gives an error:

    rlwrap: error: My terminal reports width=0 (is it emacs?)  I can't handle this, sorry!

Thanks for explaining the reason for that flag.

Edit 15 minutes later: I've made the flag to disable rlwrap '-n' like in the master branch.

It's ok for me that the the flag is -n.

I think that the arc script was named "arc.sh" because the folder which is used by the news server is "arc", and it would conflict. We can either take back the "arc.sh" name or change the news server's directory to something else, perhaps "www" like in the master branch.

Edit: We should also change the flag of the default program name in inferior-arc.el (line 95):

    (defvar arc-program-name "arc --no-rl"

    (defvar arc-program-name "arc -n"

Yeah you're right. I'm going to switch to arc.sh everywhere.

You're welcome.

[0] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp

a) what version of asdf (and sbcl and OS and processor...) you have tried and seen it working on,

b) which directory you put Clamp in when you clone it,

c) which directory you run sbcl from, and

d) what commands you use to load clamp after starting sbcl?

It would only take a few sentences/minutes, and it'll help immeasurably to get people unfamiliar with Common Lisp started with Clamp. Telling people how to get up and running (without needing to understand the dependencies you rely on) is the bare minimum prerequisite necessary to contemplate replacing Arc-on-Racket with Clamp-on-Common-Lisp.

It seems not a month passes without some new project I would find most interesting to try out, except it doesn't have a Readme, or it has a Readme with tons of prose except for the one primary thing I care about in the beginning: what are the precise concrete commands that have been known to have it do something, at least on some one computer? It's a super easy way to stand out among the crowd, and it only takes a few sentences compared to the thousands of lines of code you've already written.

[1] http://www.arclanguage.org/item?id=18895

  $ sudo apt-get install emacs
  $ emacs --version
  GNU Emacs 24.3.1

  $ cat .emacs
  ; from http://melpa.org/#/getting-started
  (require 'package) ;; You might already have this line
  (add-to-list 'package-archives
               '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
  (when (< emacs-major-version 24)
    ;; For important compatibility libraries like cl-lib
    (add-to-list 'package-archives '("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")))
  (package-initialize) ;; You might already have this line

  ; from https://www.common-lisp.net/project/slime/doc/html/Installation.html
  (setq inferior-lisp-program "/usr/bin/sbcl")

  $ pwd
  /home/akkartik
  $ ls common-lisp
  Clamp/

  $ emacs
  M-x package-install RET slime RET
  # some errors
  M-x slime
  # seemed to work
  * (require :clamp)
  Don't know how to REQUIRE CLAMP.
     [Condition of type SB-INT:EXTENSION-FAILURE]

I didn't think this was a problem since https://common-lisp.net/project/asdf/#downloads suggested just using the version that comes with my CL. Should I upgrade my sbcl as well?

Everytime I consider installing asdf manually I'm stymied by that last link. It provides an asdf.lisp but doesn't say what to do with it. Do I just load it? I just tried that without luck. I also tried various incantations from these tabs I have open: https://www.common-lisp.net/project/asdf-install/tutorial/in...; https://www.common-lisp.net/project/asdf-install/tutorial/se....

Common Lisp's crap documentation is culturally recursively turtles all the way down, just like all the good things about it.. :/ This is why I'm rooting for you to break out of this cycle of suck and improve things. Would you consider starting with a pristine Ubuntu 14.04 without sbcl or anything on it, and saving all the commands you type in until you get to a working Clamp? That would be wonderful to include in the Readme.

Another option might be to eschew asdf since the default versions on the most common Ubuntu release interact so poorly. Just dump all notion of dependencies and directly include all the code you need in the appropriate relative paths. Give me a single "sbcl --load" command to rule them all, just like Arc 3.1's classic "racket -f as.scm".

(It's not just Common Lisp, by the way. I have yet to meet a language-specific package manager that didn't suck. Pip, RubyGems, CPAN, it's all utter garbage. NPM hasn't started to suck yet, but I'm constantly looking for signs of incipient over-complexification.)

No. It's just that asdf >=3.1.2 will check the ~/common-lisp directory by default. Prior to 3.1.2, you had to manually specify the directories you wanted asdf to check.

> https://common-lisp.net/project/asdf/#downloads suggested just using the version that comes with my CL. Should I upgrade my sbcl as well?

It looks like the version of sbcl you are using is old enough that the asdf version it comes with is older than 3.1.2. From that link, there is https://common-lisp.net/project/asdf/asdf.lisp Copy paste that into a file and add `(load "/foo/bar/asdf.lisp")` to your .sbclrc. I believe that Quicklisp comes with a more recent version of asdf, so you can also try setting that up and seeing if that configures asdf properly.

> I also tried various incantations from these tabs I have open

Those are for asdf-install which IS NOT asdf: http://www.cliki.net/asdf-install

asdf-install was the previous version of Quicklisp, but you should now be using Quicklisp instead.

> Those are for asdf-install which IS NOT asdf: http://www.cliki.net/asdf-install

  $ sudo apt-get install sbcl
  $ wget https://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp  # following instructions at https://quicklisp.org
  $ sbcl --load quicklisp.lisp
  * (quicklisp-quickstart:install)
  * (ql:add-to-init-file)
  * (quit)
  $ cd quicklisp/local-projects
  $ git clone https://github.com/malisper/Clamp

  $ sbcl
  * (ql:quickload :clamp)
  * (in-package :clamp)
  * (use-syntax :clamp)

  * (map [+ _ 1] '(1 2 3))
  (2 3 4)

  $ cat quicklisp/local-projects/Clamp/init.lisp
  (ql:quickload :clamp)
  (in-package :clamp)
  (use-syntax :clamp)
  $ sbcl --load quicklisp/local-projects/Clamp/init.lisp
  ; Loading "clamp"
  * (map [+ _ 1] '(1 2 3))
  The variable [+ is unbound.

You might want to consider trying to setup Slime, as it provides some really amazing Smalltalk-esque features. I detailed most of them in my blog series, Debugging Lisp[0]. Some of the ones I covered in the post are: recompilation of code at runtime, restarting of a stack frame at runtime, an object inspector, interactive restarts (restarts are a better form of try/catch), various forms of function lookup (e.g. list all functions who call function X). I haven't yet covered it, but I eventually want to, is slime-macrostep[1]. It lets you interactively expand parts of a macro step by step.

[0] http://malisper.me/2015/07/07/debugging-lisp-part-1-recompil...

  Cannot restart frame: #<SB-DI::COMPILED-FRAME EVAL>

  $ clamp

  $ emacs
  M-x slime RET
  # in the slime buffer
  * (ql:quickload :clamp)
  * (in-package :clamp)
  * (use-syntax :clamp)

Yes, that's what I typically do. If you wanted to, you could add those instructions to your .sbclrc, and that should load Clamp on start up.

> Also, when I try to C-x C-e an arc expression in some random buffer after the above steps, it doesn't seem to remember the above commands anymore.

You need to have slime-mode enable in the buffer you are editing. You can add the following code to your .emacs:

    (require 'slime)
    (add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook (lambda () (slime-mode t)))

Yes, customizing Emacs is really useful for making it better to use. To help with that, here are some of my config's settings for things you've mentioned. My show-paren-mode settings are here (https://bitbucket.org/zck/.emacs.d/src/default/init.el?filev...).

Instead of paredit, I use smartparens. They do similar things, but when I looked at the two, I thought smartparens was better, although I can't remember why right now. My config is here (https://bitbucket.org/zck/.emacs.d/src/default/init.el?filev...).

We need a compiler for that btw (ie. the arc macro Im talking about nearby?) because 1) language designers need a compiler and 2) right now, it is missing parts of Arc; specifically:

  ('(1 2 3) 0)
  (mylist 0)
  ("Yoopi" 0)
  (+ "Hello" " World")
  top level ssyntax
  What case are missing for destructuring?
  What am I forgetting? Do we have 'for'?

Run your lisp wherever you want and then:

  (asdf:load-system :clamp)
  (defpackage #:mypkg (:use clamp))
  (in-package #:mypkg)

> Telling people how to get up and running

  $ uname -a
  Linux akkartik 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 9 19:32:08 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

  $ pwd
  /home/akkartik

  $ sbcl --version
  SBCL 1.1.14.debian

  $ ls quicklisp/local-projects
  Clamp/  system-index.txt

  $ rlwrap sbcl
  This is SBCL 1.1.14.debian, an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp.
  More information about SBCL is available at <http://www.sbcl.org/>.

  SBCL is free software, provided as is, with absolutely no warranty.
  It is mostly in the public domain; some portions are provided under
  BSD-style licenses.  See the CREDITS and COPYING files in the
  distribution for more information.
  * (require :asdf)

  ("ASDF")
  * (asdf:load-system :clamp)

  debugger invoked on a ASDF/FIND-SYSTEM:MISSING-COMPONENT in thread
  #<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {ABFC8D1}>:
    Component :CLAMP not found

  Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL.

  restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
    0: [ABORT] Exit debugger, returning to top level.

  ((:METHOD ASDF/OPERATE:OPERATE (SYMBOL T)) ASDF/LISP-ACTION:LOAD-OP :CLAMP) [fast-method]
  0]
  *

  (arc :l "myprogram.arc")
  (arc :e (f:g 3.14))

  $ git clone https://github.com/akkartik/wart
  $ cd wart
  $ git checkout sbcl
  $ ./wart
  wart> car.nil
  nil

Differences between Arc and Common Lisp.

Lisp-1 vs Lisp-2: Arc is what's know as a Lisp-1. That means that procedures are really just procedure objects stored in regular variables (ie "len" is just a variable in Arc, whose value is a procedure that can calculate the length of a sequence). Common Lisp on the other hand is a Lisp-2. This means that it is possible to have a procedure "len" (which can calculate the length of a sequence), and a variable "len" (which may be the length of a particular sequence), without any conflicts even though they are both named "len". Some people prefer a Lisp-1 because it makes code simpler and shorter (you never have to use something analogous to Common Lisp's funcall), and some people prefer a Lisp-2 because then don't have to deal with conflicts between procedures and variables having the same name.

Special Syntax: Arc provides a special kind of syntax called ssyntax, short for special syntax. Each ssyntax provides a shorter way for writing a common pattern. For example a&b is short for (andf a b), a:b is short for (compose a b), a.b is short for (a b), and a!b is short for (a 'b). The last two are extremely useful for accessing into data structures which I explain more in the next section. I just want to point out that it is possible to write a version of ssyntax in Common Lisp[1][2][3]. There are some issues that come up because Common Lisp is a Lisp-2.

Data Structure Access: In Arc, you can use data structures as procedures. Calling a list with an argument will get that place in the list [ie (x 5) will get the element at index 5 in x.]. Note that this is why the shorthand a.b and a!b are so useful. Anarki takes things a step further by allowing a programmer to define how to coerce types to other types and therefore allows one how to define what happens when you call an arbitrary object as a procedure. Common Lisp provides nothing like any of this.

Procedure Arguments: There are some differences in how procedures are defined and called between Common Lisp and Arc. Arc provides an easy way to destructure and argument. For example it is possible to a procedure to get the first element of a list as just (def car ((a . b)) a). It is possible to implement this feature in Common Lisp[4][5]. There are some slight differences with syntax to define a procedure that has optional arguments or rest arguments. Another difference between the two is that Common Lisp provides something called "keyword arguments". Keyword arguments provide a way of having arbitrary ordered optional arguments. For example I wrote a procedure "group"[6], which does roughly the same thing as both pair and tuple in Arc. There are some versions of Arc that provide keyword arguments (Anarki is not one of them).

Reader Macros: Arc provides a shorthand for lambda functions of one argument (Anarki has extended this feature to provide any number of arguments). It is possible to write [+ _ 5] instead of writing out (fn (_) (+ _ 5)). Common Lisp provides something much more general called "reader macros". Reader macros allow a programmer to design new syntax. While I won't go in depth about reader macros, they allow a programmer to create new syntax within Common Lisp. Using brackets as a shorthand for lambda functions is possible to implement with reader macros.

Module System: Most versions of Arc do not provide a module system.

Debugger: One of the most important differences between the two is Arc's lack of a debugger. AFAIK, the only way to debug Arc code is to include print statements throughout your code (using print statements is actually a really effective way to debug code), and there are ways of creating more advanced debugging techniques through the use of macros. Common Lisp provides a full debugger along with something called "restarts"[7]. The Common Lisp restart system is extremely useful, although it should be possible to implement something similar in Arc.

IDE: Arc does not have any sort of IDE, whereas Common Lisp has Emacs/Slime. I wrote about some of the features Slime provides here[8].

[0] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp

[1] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/tests/ssyntax-...

[2] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/experimental/s...

[3] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/experimental/s...

[4] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/tests/destruct...

[5] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/experimental/d...

[6] https://github.com/malisper/Clamp/blob/master/src/list.lisp

[7] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Common_Lisp/Advanced_topics/Con...

This is exactly the kind of information I have been looking for and that I think he would be interested in.

I'll just include a reference to this[0] in the readme.

  $ sbcl
  * (require :asdf)
  NIL
  * (require :clamp)
  ASDF could not load clamp because
  Error while trying to load definition for system clamp from pathname
  ~/Clamp/clamp.asd:
     The name "ASDF-USER" does not designate any package..

  debugger invoked on a LOAD-SYSTEM-DEFINITION-ERROR in thread
  #<THREAD "initial thread" RUNNING {1002998F33}>:
    Error while trying to load definition for system clamp from pathname
    ~/Clamp/clamp.asd:
       The name "ASDF-USER" does not designate any package.

  Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:QUIT) to exit from SBCL.

  restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name):
    0: [RETRY                                 ] Retry EVAL of current toplevel form.
    1: [CONTINUE                              ] Ignore error and continue loading file "~/Clamp/clamp.asd".
    2: [ABORT                                 ] Abort loading file "~/Clamp/clamp.asd".
    3: [REINITIALIZE-SOURCE-REGISTRY-AND-RETRY] Retry finding system clamp after
                                                reinitializing the
                                                source-registry.
    4:                                          Exit debugger, returning to top
                                                level.

  ((FLET #:LAMBDA2286 :IN ASDF::LOAD-SYSDEF)
   #<SB-KERNEL:SIMPLE-PACKAGE-ERROR "The name ~S does not designate any package."
     {10049EB763}>)
  0]