[slim-vim] Vial has a home on common-lisp.net

[Brad Beveridge]

On 23/10/06, Jim Bailey <dgym.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> You aren't supposed to write an editor yet... first you have to implement
> your own language.
Doh, I knew I was doing something wrong! :)

> There hasn't been much positive feedback about your vial announcements but
> don't worry, this is probably just usual editor loyalty. I have seen the
> vim's source and even tried to work with it and I agree both with your
> comments and your intentions. On the surface it is a great editor, but
> behind the scenes it isn't exactly what any developer would want to work
> with.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who thought that Vim's internal code
is pretty bad.  As to editor loyalty, I am still going to use Vim for
most things myself and I wouldn't try to convince people otherwise.
But Vim is fundamentally hard to make into a decent CL environment, so
the next best thing is to create a clone that feels like Vim for 80%
or more of the functionality, but that works well as a Lisp IDE.  I
don't really expect too much fanfare of Vial until it gets to the
point where it is clearly the better choice for developing Lisp code.

> There is also one major selling point for a CL editor: portability. An
> ncurses interface is a vital first step, but it also leaves open the option
> for running native guis (CLISP seems to be adding my GTK2 bindings, and both
> CLISP and GTK2 are very portable) and on java thanks to ABCL.
I've tried to make choices that will allow for easily writing new
rendering backends, though until another backend actually gets done I
won't know for sure :)

> I have often been frustrated with vim and emacs and look forward to trying
> out vial, I might even try adding clisp+gtk2 support. Hopefully I will get
> an internet connection soon, just waiting for the telco to send a
> technician.
I'd love more people helping out on Vial!  Right now it is
surprisingly useful, the code has quite a few rough edges, but they'll
get worn down in time - a clean design and clean code are two of the
driving factors for Vial after all.

> Good luck with the development.
Thanks!  My rough time line is to have a working Vial with Slime
integration, that is clearly "better" than Vim by the new year.

Cheers
Brad