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From: mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp.x
Subject: Re: level of nesting in xlisp 2.1
Message-ID: <6363@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 13 Dec 90 23:45:14 GMT
References: <1990Dec9.183859.2705@stretch.cs.mun.ca>
Reply-To: mayer@hplabs.hp.com (Niels Mayer)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Labs, Software & Systems Lab, Palo Alto, CA.
Lines: 47
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In article <1990Dec9.183859.2705@stretch.cs.mun.ca> matthew1@stretch.cs.mun.ca (Matthew J. Newhook) writes:
>Hello:
>    I have several versions of xlisp 2.1, the most recent being the one
>    updated by Tom Almy.  I am running it under several versions of Unix 
>    (SunOS, System V, BSD 4.3), and they all have the same common problem.  
>    They don't show the current level of nesting.
>    ie:
>    if i type
>    >(setq a '(a b c)
>    it should say
>    1>
>    however, it doesn't, it just shows nothing...
>    also a return at the > prompt should return with another >, that
>    doesn't do the job either:

The xlisp reader is just waiting for you to give it a complete
s-expression before it fires off the evaluator. Xlisp doesn't have any
feature that will tell you the nesting of input s-expressions, and in
my opinion, it shouldn't. Here's why:

Why bother with having XLISP do what an editor should be doing for
you? With a good editor like gnuemacs, you can have it format/indent
your code and help you match parentheses. In particular, gnuemacs'
lisp-mode will format and paren-balance your code, and the emacs-lisp
extension file xlisp-mode.el will interface emacs to xlisp running as
a subprocess. xlisp-mode.el defines xlisp-send-defun which will allow
you to interactively send the current s-exression to be evaluated.
xlisp-send-buffer will send the current buffer off to be evaluated. 

xlisp-mode.el was included in the Almy-patched xlisp that I made
available via anonymous ftp from expo.lcs.mit.edu in directory
contrib/winterp. (The WINTERP distribution includes capabilities
similar to xlisp-mode.el via emacs-lisp extension file
src-client/winterp.el)

Gnuemacs is available FOR FREE all over the place, see newsgroups
comp.emacs or gnu.emacs for details. In my opinion it is simply THE
BEST software package available on Un*x, anywhere, for any amount of
money. Gnuemacs makes those other overpriced $5000.00 Un*x software
packages look offal. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	    Niels Mayer -- hplabs!mayer -- mayer@hplabs.hp.com
		  Human-Computer Interaction Department
		       Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
			      Palo Alto, CA.
				   *