Lisp in a Box

From: Rayiner Hashem (heliosc_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 04/23/04 

Date: 22 Apr 2004 20:14:01 -0700

I've had occasions where people have asked me to point them to a good
Lisp implementation to get started with the language. At some point, I
realized that it would be great if Lisp was distributed kind of like
the JDK, with lots of libraries and documentation all in one place.
That way, people new to the language wouldn't have to let the
practicalities of seeking out libraries, building software, get in the
way of learning the language. Basically, I forsee some sort of "Lisp
in a box," a simple tarball with the compiler and lots of libraries
included and pre-configured, maybe a pre-configured Emacs + SLIME
setup, along with lots of documentation and maybe some basic tutorial
material. Not to big in scope, just enough to make a nice
first-impression.

Yes, I am volunteering to put this together. My question is:

1) What do you think of the idea? Any suggestions?
2) What libraries should be included? Which compiler?

--- Rayiner Hashem

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