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Welcome!

Please enjoy tinkering with all my useful (ish) LISP code. I learn most about programming by reading code from other people. Here, I present together some of their most useful LISP tricks (plus a few of my own). Have fun!

The long term goal of this code is a DSL for applications that readily combine data mining with optimization.

But right now, ISH is just a bunch of cool little LISP tools. To help you understand it all, my code has no huge monoliths. Instead:

• All code divides into lots of small files, independently executable and understandable.
• All code files know their own dependencies so, to explore my code, load anything into LISP and see what happens
• If you want little worked examples on how to use code in any X.lisp file, look for Xeg.lisp.

So just install your LISP (e.g. clisp), download this code, and go.

Uninstall (is easy)

This code needs no bash aliases; no magic shell variables that must be set; no initialization of a package management system (*); no ``just install these 17 packages inside the code editor''; and most important of all, no config files written outside of these directories.

So if none of this code impresses you, you can kill it all with no side-effects using rm -rf ish.

(*) not to rude to the latest generation of LISP package managers-- tools like QUICKLISP are very good indeed.

Install (is easy)

All this code was debugged from the command line, so no EMACS/Slime config (zsh-- the ultimate REPL!).

Step1: Install LISP

Install clisp or sbcl. E.g. on a Mac:

  brew install clisp

Note that this code has been tested on CLISP and SBCL . I need a tester for Allegro. Anyone?

Step2: Get Files

Usinggit clone

  git clone http://github.com/timm/ish
  cd ish

Using a zip file

  wget https://github.com/timm/ish/archive/master.zip
  unzip master.zip
  cd ish-master

Step3: Testing your installation

  cd src
  clisp tests
  # or
  sbcl --script tests.lisp

This should execute dozens of tests, one of which will fail (just to show that the test engine can catch failing tests).

Tips

Running Files

Each file X.lisp knows its own dependencies so can be loaded separately to all the rest. E.g. (in clisp):

  cd src
  clisp X
  # or
  sbcl --script X.lisp

Most files X.lisp comes with a little executable tutorial on how to use it in Xeg.lisp.

Most of the code in these tutorial are deftests; i.e. unit tests that check if the right thing is being generated by the functions. To run X.lisp's unit tests, just load its tutorial:

  cd src
  clisp Xeg
  # or
  sbcl --script Xeg.lisp

Regression Suite

To run all the unit tests, run:

  cd src
  clisp tests
  # or
  sbcl --script tests.lisp

This loads all the *eg.lisp files (in alphabetical order), then runs all their tests. That code outputs something like the following:

; stringeg
; test
; string
; listeg
; list
; testeg
; macroeg
; macro

;;; CHARS!
; seeking 3 characters

;;; FRED!
; seeking association list

;;; _AA
; should be one failure
; fail : expected 2

;;; DOITEMS!
; seeking association list

; pass : 4 =  80.0%
; fail : 1 =  20.0%

Note the last line-- the ISH test suite contains one deliberate failure (so we can test that the unit tests can catch failing tests).

Editing

I've been collecting my favorite VIM configs for editing files (in general) and editing LISP (in particular). These can be access via:

  cd src
  vim -u ../.vim X.lisp

Gitting

  git pull
  git commit -am "updating"; git push

Note that this distribution comes with a .gitignore that blocks the usual temporaries from getting inappropriately added to git.

Annoyances

This code was written to run in SBCL and CLISP. These implementations of LISP go their own separate ways on many things, including CLOS. When I just cannot resolve their differing approaches, I do something to dodge the problem (e.g. go to defstruct rather than defclass, or building my own simpler class system called defthing).

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How to Contribute

See CONTRIB.md.