[slimpl] Update on vim internals and ECL

[Larry Clapp]

On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 10:35:30PM +0000, Jim Bailey wrote:
> Thanks for the very encouraging replies. It seems that whatever
> method is used for the final VIM interfacing, something has to be
> done about asynchronous events, so I will endevour to join the
> vim-devel list and see how the idea of sorting it out is received.
> 
> I will let you know how it goes, and if it doesn't I might just post
> some patches here for the truly adventurous.
> 
> Since the idea of adding ECL as an extension language was met with
> some enthusiasm, I have made a patch and some brief instructions
> available at http://69.61.72.246/~dgym/ . My direct email address is
> there to hopefully curb any off-topic discussions on this list.
> Right now it is probably almost as technically viable as Perl for
> writing slim[pl/py/cl], with a big plus for being common-lisp and a
> huge minus for being not very widespread, tested, etc.

I got your patch to work, with some modifications, on Vim & ECL from
CVS.  Tomorrow I'll post a diff here or email it.

The two main issues: instead of "include ecl.h" I had to "include
ecl/ecl.h", and I had to change a structure definition in Vim from
"struct frame" to "struct vim_frame", since ecl.h uses "struct frame"
too.

> Parallel development of slimpl and slimcl (and slim AJAX something
> or other) would probably be advantagous if the:
> [editor interface] <-> [slime frontend] <-> [slime backend]
> architecture is followed as it would highlight what should be done
> in the front end, and what the front end needs to support to be
> generically useful. I would definitely be interested in helping out
> if I can on the slime frontend if people decide to go that route.

With ECL available for Vim, I'm leaning towards abandoning the SLIMPL
Perl module and doing one in straight CL.

Thanks again for this work!  How long did it take you?  What did you
use as your model?

-- L