Ready Lisp is a binding together of several popular Common Lisp packages especially for Mac OS X, including: Aquamacs, SBCL and SLIME. Once downloaded, you’ll have a single application bundle which you can double-click – and find yourself in a fully configured Common Lisp REPL.

It’s ideal for OS X users who want to try out the beauty of Common Lisp with a minimum of hassle. It could also be used by teachers to give their Mac students a free, complete Common Lisp environment to take home with them.

Requirements

The current version of Ready Lisp is 20080428 and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

It includes the following component software versions:

Package Version
Aquamacs 1.3b
SBCL 1.0.16
SLIME 2008-04-24
CL-FAD 0.6.2
CL-PPCRE 1.3.2
LOCAL-TIME 0.9.3
SERIES 2.2.9
CL HyperSpec 7.0
paredit.el 20
redshank.el 1
cldoc.el 1.16

Download

Ready Lisp is distributed as a disk image that’s approximately 74 megabytes in size.

Getting started

Just download the disk image, copy the application bundle that’s inside to your “Applications” folder, and double-click on Ready Lisp.app. You should find yourself in a Common Lisp REPL within moments.

Things to be aware of

Using asdf-install

If you use asdf-install and choose a “system-wide” installation, the installed package will end up inside your Application bundle. This works fine only if you don’t move your application bundle to another directory. In that case, all the symbolic links which will be broken. Because of this, I recommend installing any new packages into your home directory instead.

Features

Runs on Emacs

Ready Lisp uses Aquamacs (version 1.3b) as the base platform for providing a rich Common Lisp editing experience.

The latest free software

Bundles the latest versions of SBCL (1.0.16) and SLIME (2008-04-24).

Universal binary

The application bundle is a fully universal binary, and runs on PowerPC and 32-bit Intel processors.

Note: There is no port of SBCL to 64-bit PowerPC. On G5 systems, it will run SBCL at 32-bit.

Complete documentation

Info documentation for the Common Lisp pieces is now bundled in, including:

  • Common Lisp HyperSpec
  • SBCL manual
  • SLIME manual
  • ASDF documentation

Just type C-h i and look for them in your documentation index. Also, when editing Common Lisp files, you can type C-h f to instantly access the HyperSpec index. In Emacs Lisp files, C-h f will get you help on Emacs Lisp functions.

There is also HTML and PDF versions of all documentation in:

  • Ready Lisp.app/Contents/Resources/html
  • Ready Lisp.app/Contents/Resources/doc

Use the Source!

The full source code for SBCL is integrated into your environment, meaning that if you type M-. (go to definition) and choose a function like mapcar, you’ll be able to instantly read the source code for SBCL’s implementation of mapcar.

Some libraries included

Several popular Common Lisp libraries come pre-bundled in the core image:

  • CL-FAD
  • LOCAL-TIME
  • SERIES
  • CL-PPCRE

I find these libraries very handy, but mainly I’m including them because the upcoming release of my CL-Ledger accounting tool depends on them, so it will work for Ready Lisp users out-of-the-box.

Verify your download

There is a GnuPG signature for the Ready Lisp disk image in the same directory you downloaded it from; just append .asc to the same filename to download it. To install my public key on your keyring (assuming you have GnuPG installed), use this command:

$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv 0x824715A0

Once installed, you can verify the download using the following command:

$ gpg --verify ReadyLisp.dmg.asc
© 2007 John Wiegley