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susam
emacs4cl
Emacs Lisp2020–2025
susam / emacs4cl

emacs4cl

A tiny DIY kit to set up vanilla Emacs for Common Lisp programming

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3Distinct people
19Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
395GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A tiny DIY kit to set up vanilla Emacs for Common Lisp programming

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

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Also in these discussions

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year19 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2020-12-11 13:48:44 UTC to 2025-12-11 02:34:04 UTC.

0369122020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 6 submissions, 5 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
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PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1165
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

19 sources
susam·Dec 11, 2025
Quicklisp is great and I recommend using it along with a brief introduction in both my Common Lisp setup guides for Vim and Emacs: https://susam.net/lisp-in-vim.html https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl However, for my personal projects, I usually just download the package versions I need from GitHub with curl within a simple while loop: https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/0.4.0/Makefile#L83-L... https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/0.4.0/meta/cldeps/fo... Then I point ASDF to the download directory with CL_SOURCE_REGISTRY and load it in my Lisp program using good old ASDF:LOAD-SYSTEM: https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/0.4.0/etc/form.servi... https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/0.4.0/form.lisp#L5 The last four links I have shared above all get automated by a simple QL:QUICKLOAD call if we're using Quicklisp, and that's one o
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f the reasons Quicklisp has become almost a de facto standard in the community.
In Common Lisp, ASDF, and Quicklisp: packaging explained
susam·Feb 22, 2024
Are you using the CL REPL directly on a terminal emulator? I do not type expressions directly into the REPL often. I do sometimes but not often. Instead I send expressions right from the editor to the REPL. The REPL itself is available as a separate buffer in the editor. How this is done depends on the editor/IDE. Some examples: • With Emacs + SLIME, we can type C-M-x (evaluate current top-level form) or C-x C-e (evaluate the expression before the cursor). • With Vim + Slimv, it is ,e and ,d respectively. • Yet another popular option is Vim + Vlime in which case the key sequences are \ss and \st instead. I have written two guides to explain how to create such a development environment from scratch and get started with such a setup: • https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl • https://susam.net/lisp-in-vim.html There are commercial implemen
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tation + IDEs too which according to many people provide even better integrated development experience. The most popular among them is perhaps LispWorks. I use Emacs + SLIME myself.
In Reading "A Programmer's Guide to Common Lisp"
susam·Mar 12, 2021
> I'll just say if you want to do Common Lisp, vim works fine, so don't let that hold you back from pursuing your interest. I agree. For those who are interested in using Vim as their development environment for Common Lisp, I have written a detailed comparison between Slimv and Vlime here: https://susam.in/blog/lisp-in-vim-with-slimv-or-vlime/ And for those who are willing to start Common Lisp development using Emacs, there is Portacle which is a really quick way to set up a working environment with a few clicks. There is also https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl that I wrote to offer as a quick-starter DIY alternative for those who want to use vanilla Emacs and want to configure it themselves without wasting too much time.
In From Vim to Emacs in fourteen days (2015)
susam·Dec 21, 2020
Last week, I shared a 35 line ~/.emacs (as a Show HN post) that turns Emacs into a Common Lisp development environment pretty quickly: https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl . It provides a good middle ground between configuring Emacs manually by installing SLIME, Paredit, etc. yourself with M-x package-install commands and installing Portacle. It promotes a do-it-yourself approach to setting up Emacs for Common Lisp programming quickly while understanding each step of the set up process and each line of ~/.emacs well.
In Getting Started with Lisp (2019)
susam·Dec 16, 2020
> I feel like I'm in the minority in that I prefer to NOT learn things by just "diving in". I am much more successful when I start from the absolute fundamentals. A bit more off-topic, but this resonated with me. I too feel more comfortable when I start with the absolute fundamentals. When something does not work, knowing the fundamentals helps me to reason about why it does not work from the first principles. On similar lines, I did a relevant "Show HN" post here today: Emacs4CL: https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl (35 lines of ~/.emacs to turn Emacs into Common Lisp dev environment) It bothers me a little when someone new to Common Lisp or Emacs is encouraged to start off with Portacle or Spacemacs directly without appreciating the extensibility of Emacs and how SLIME fits in the environment. The Show HN post on Emacs4CL I have linked to
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above is an attempt to promote a more DIY approach to setting up one's development environment for Common Lisp without having to spend a lot of time.
In Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
susam·Dec 16, 2020
Here are my recommendations on this topic: - Choose Common Lisp because it has been the most popular dialect of Lisp in the overall history of Lisp. It is more convenient than Scheme if one decides to develop serious software in Lisp. Clojure appears to be more popular in the technology industry than Common Lisp among organizations (my workplace included) that use Lisp. I still recommend Common Lisp because I believe that it is more likely that one would work on an independent open source or hobby Lisp project than one would encounter one of the rare organizations who use Clojure at work. - Choose SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) as the implementation.[1][2] It is the most popular[3] Common Lisp implementation and is recommended in many online discussions. CCL (Clozure CL, not to be confused with Clojure which is a separate dialect) is also
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another very good implementation. - Work through this book: Practical Common Lisp: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ (available in print too if you search online). Just use a modern alternative to Lisp in a box when you reach Chapter 2. In fact, I encourage using vanilla Emacs and setting it up with SLIME and Paredit yourself. See Emacs4CL for example.[4] - A Vim user may consider installing Slimv or Vlime[5]. Slimv and Vlime offer an environment similar to Emacs/SLIME. They display the REPL in a Vim buffer. Slimv also comes with Paredit mode that makes typing and executing S-expressions quite convenient. - In case you want to postpone setting up Emacs + SLIME or Vim + Slimv/Vlime until a time you have become more familiar with the language, you can also execute your Lisp source code files from the shell.[6] - Optionally, keep another implementation of Common Lisp. Common Lisp is a standard that is implemented by various implementations. Each implementation may have its own extensions or implementation-specific behaviour regarding error handling, command line options, FASL format, unspecified behaviour, etc. Experimenting with concepts with another implementation of Lisp occasionally may offer some perspective about how some things could be different in different implementations. I keep CLISP around for this purpose.[7][8] [1]: Install SBCL on macOS: brew install sbcl [2]: Install SBCL on Debian-based distro: apt-get install sbcl [3]: State of Common Lisp Survey 2020: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfg7UJRKrkI3OjOHWL4... [4]: Emacs4CL: https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl [5]: Lisp in Vim with Slimv or Vlime: https://susam.in/blog/lisp-in-vim-with-slimv-or-vlime/ [6]: Load (execute) code in a file and exit: sbcl --script foo.lisp [7]: Install CLISP on macOS: brew install clisp [8]: Install CLISP on Debian-based distro: apt-get install clisp Disclosure: I am the author of [4] and [5].
In Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
susam·Dec 16, 2020
I wrote this while teaching Common Lisp. It helps in setting up SLIME, Paredit, etc. in Emacs quickly. The section "Line-by-Line Explanation" of the README at https://github.com/susam/emacs4cl#line-by-line-explanation explains every line of the .emacs file. It provides a middle ground between manually installing SLIME, Paredit, etc. yourself with M-x package-install commands and installing Portacle that hides away the underlying details of what goes into making Emacs ready for Common Lisp development. It promotes a DIY approach to automate customizing Emacs into a Common Lisp programming environment.
In Show HN: Emacs4CL: 35 line .emacs to turn Emacs into Common Lisp dev environment

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