Mine, an IDE for Coalton and Common Lisp

(coalton-lang.github.io)

52 points | by varjag 6 hours ago

6 comments

  • MarsIronPI 1 hour ago
    Huh, I wonder why they made their own IDE instead of integrating with Sly/SLIME. Not trying to knock the project, just genuinely curious. Writing a whole editor sounds like a lot of work.

    I like the choice of Iosevka as a font, though.

    Edit: One value I do see myself getting from Mine is as an example Coalton project. Last time I tried Coalton I couldn't figure out how to get ASDF to load standalone Coalton files. Now I have a working example to copy.

    • mepian 1 hour ago
      There is an explanation in the blog: https://coalton-lang.github.io/20260424-mine/

      > However, the above is a tall order for someone just wanting to dip their toes in, to see if they have any interest in Coalton or Common Lisp. A couple hours on the weekend is easily sunk into getting configurations right, and the right subsystems installed, and the right paths setup, just so the first line of code can be executed.

      > mine is not Emacs. It aims to eliminate all of that, and be a Coalton/Lisp-first development environment, whose only job is to be a Coalton/Lisp-first development environment. But more than that, it needs to be accessible. A non-programmer should find it easy to download, install, and run mine with nothing more than a download link.

  • mark_l_watson 44 minutes ago
    I live in Emacs, but I will give Mine a try when get a free hour. I read about Coalton in X and follow the author but I haven't invested time yet to try out.
  • sctb 2 hours ago
    Interesting! Looks like the IDE itself is written in Coalton (https://github.com/coalton-lang/coalton/tree/main/mine) and you can either bring your own terminal or use the standalone version which uses Tauri and Xterm.js.
  • armitron 1 hour ago
    If you're a power user, the sooner you learn Emacs the better as the synergies with any Lisp language (particularly Common Lisp) are simply too strong to be ignored and there is no contemporary alternative that rivals it.

    For new users, this looks like a welcome alternative to messy things like Lem that never really worked very well for me.

    • vfclists 39 minutes ago
      Lem doesn't claim to be a Lisp development environment or IDE. It describes itself as

      General-purpose editor/IDE with high expansibility in Common Lisp

  • bitwize 31 minutes ago
    I keep hoping the Common Lisp community will step up and deliver better Visual Studio Code support. Asking new devs to learn Emacs, alongside all of Lisp's idiosyncrasies, is too tall an order. I bro'd through it in the 90s but today's new devs have been spoiled by modern UIs (and that's a good thing) and shouldn't have to cope with Emacs and its stubborn retroness.

    Seeing something like this is a step in the right direction.

  • threethirtytwo 1 hour ago
    As a programmer for over 2 decades, I permanently stopped using IDEs and text editors this year. It’s really cool to see projects support legacy concepts and ideas though. Love this!
    • greggroth 1 hour ago
      Same. It's an awkward time to develop a new IDE.
      • threethirtytwo 52 minutes ago
        It’s not awkward at all. It’s a fun project and neat. I support these types of projects. I guess I’m being voted down because people hate IDEs and text editors now.

        I think it’s wrong to trash this project just because it’s an older concept.

        • eikenberry 33 minutes ago
          You are being downvoted for calling IDEs and text editors legacy, which is seen as signalling and not contributing to the conversation.