[slim-vim] Anyone out there? Resurrection!

[Brad Beveridge]

On 29/04/2008, Mikael Jansson <lists at mikael.jansson.be> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  After having worked on getting the easier parts of a Lisp IDE up and
>  running (boot a Lisp and send code to it), I'm getting interested in
>  what can be done to talk to SWANK.
>
>  Now, while the current implementation of vim+ecl+async seems rather
>  complete, barring the issues w/ thrashing internal Vim state, I'd like
>  to approach the problem from a different angle.
>
>  For me, what's most important is to be able to use a /small/ part of
>  SWANK's possibilities for introspection (changing package, getting a
>  list of symbols for completion and function lambda lists), and not
>  necessarily being able to code Lisp /in/ Vim (even though it helps when
>  trying to communicate with SWANK).
>
>  So, I've been looking through some different approaches at asynchronous
>  communication with Vim, and the most promising approach here is the
>  |clientserver| feature.  It gives you an asynchronous send from the
>  client, and a blocking receive on the server, completely within the
>  boundaries of an unpatched Vim.
>
>  What I had in mind was to make a thin wrapper around SWANK, letting it
>  pretend to be a Vim server.  I haven't really investigated it any
>  further than by testing some code by Vim user "A. Politz":
>
>  ----------
>  " client.vim
>  "
>  " $ vim --servername client
>  " :source client.vim
>  " :Tool "hello, world"
>  " :messages
>
>  "Get to know each other
>  call remote_expr("SERVER","1","serverid")
>
>  augroup server
>    au!
>    "Do something with the reply
>    au RemoteReply * echom remote_read(g:serverid)
>  augroup END
>
>  "Send messages via SERVER
>  com! -nargs=* Server :call server2client(g:serverid,<q-args>)
>  ----------
>
>  ----------
>  " server.vim
>  "
>  " $ vim --servername server
>  " :source server.vim
>  " :let data = ReceiveDataBlocking()
>  " :echo data
>  " :call Reply("I, the server, received \"".data."\" from the client")
>
>  "Get to know each other
>  call remote_expr("CLIENT","1","clientid")
>
>  func! ReceiveDataBlocking()
>    "called from your tool, blocks till msg is available
>    return remote_read(g:clientid)
>  endfun
>
>  func! Reply(msg)
>    "called by the tool to reply
>    call server2client(g:clientid,a:msg)
>  endfun
>  ----------
>
>  Is this a path you've already been on?
>
>  (Yes, it is very simple, but like I said, I believe having something
>  simple is better than not having at at all.)
>
>  Regarding my current work, it's just an extension of Larry Clapp's
>  VILisp package, and is available at
>  http://mikael.jansson.be/hacking/limp, so you see where I'm coming from.
>
>
>  -- Mikael
>  _______________________________________________
>  slim-vim mailing list
>  slim-vim at lispniks.com
>  http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/slim-vim
>
I don't think that anybody tried this approach, so you may have some
luck doing it this way.
I think a lot of the protocol code I wrote to talk to swank should
probably still work with your approach.

Have fun!
Brad