Announcing first public release of Vls

From: William Paul Vrotney (vrotney_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 02/28/04 

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 04:26:47 GMT

Vls (Vanilla Lisp Shell) 1.2 for Emacs has been released and is available
for download at

        http://www.interhack.net/projects/vls

Vls is actually an Emacs facility that allows many different kinds of
commands for running Lisp Shells (also referred to as an inferior Lisp
process). This package provides a very simple command for running any
number of Vls Lisp shells, but many different kinds of ways of invoking Vls
are possible. For example instructions are included for running Vls Lisp
Shells thought Agroups (see http://www.interhack.net/projects/agroups).

                               Short Overview

   The Vanilla Lisp Shell (VLS) is designed to provide an Emacs
interface to a Lisp process that from the user's perspective works
basically the same way for every flavor of Lisp. For example `M-RET'
evaluates an expression and `C-c C-b' produces a back-trace regardless
of the type of Lisp. VLS will work with any Lisp specification such as
Common Lisp or Scheme and any Lisp implementation such as Allegro
Common Lisp or CMU Common Lisp.

   This flexibility is achieved by Lisp type specifics files that have a
simple syntax for associating common symbols with specific Lisp command
strings. Those common symbol values are then used by VLS commands in
forming a dialog with a specific Lisp process. VLS provides a
comprehensive set of type specifics files based on current Lisp
implementations, but the user can have his own set of type specifics
files and edit them for customized effects.

   VLS tries as much as possible to make the VLS commands work exactly
the same way whether in the Lisp shell buffer or in a Lisp source code
file buffer. This philosophy allows the Lisp shell buffer to work more
like a free form scratch pad rather than a sequential prompt enter
paradigm; although the user may operate that way also if that is what
they are accustomed to.

   VLS tries to be as intelligent as possible. For example when
evaluating a form in a Common Lisp file VLS will search the source file
and automatically put the Lisp process in the correct package before
evaluating the form.

   Along with the expected Lisp shell capabilities VLS also provides
sophisticated Lisp tools. One such tool is generalized source code
instrumenting. Conditional breakpoints are just one example of a source
code instrument. VLS provides a small useful set of instruments and a
facility to make it easy for the user to add custom instruments.

Note: Vls does not currently work correctly under XEmacs. But a group
of people will be working on the fixes and it will be posted on Interhack. 

-- 
William P. Vrotney - vrotney@earthlink.net

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