Re: Guile outside of Emacs + Geiser

["Ricardo G. Herdt" <r.herdt@posteo.de>]

Hi Christine,

I started writing a Guile LSP server a while ago 
(https://codeberg.org/rgherdt/scheme-lsp-server). Like you said it is 
incomplete, but I got following features so far:

- show signature
- show documentation
- autocompletion
- jump to definition
- show diagnostics

There is an open issue to integrate it into Guix: 
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/60286

I also wrote a simple client for VS Code: 
https://codeberg.org/rgherdt/vscode-scheme-lsp
This extension is focused on LSP support though, sort of a proof of 
concept. Syntax highlighting, REPL support etc could be integrated with 
other extensions. Or someone could implement a more involved extension 
to integrate these features, like what Magic Racket seems to do.

Honestly I have mixed feelings towards LSP. It's kind of a different 
mindset compared to traditional lisp editors: you get a language server 
that typically analyses the project statically, providing information 
regardless of the user's interaction with the REPL. My implementation 
relies, at least for Guile, on Geiser, so it works by interaction with a 
running Guile instance in the background. It might be enough for users 
coming from other editors, but I still prefer the way Slime/Swank works, 
where the REPL is the same image that provides information to the 
editor.

Regards,

Ricardo

Am 27.09.2023 21:07 schrieb Christine Lemmer-Webber:
> There's a long thread on guix-devel which is related and touches on 
> many
> things, but I thought I'd narrow in on this one thing.
> 
> Has anyone had a "good" experience programming with Guile without using
> Emacs?  If so, what was your development experience like?
> 
> Furthermore, what's the right direction to making non-Emacs users have
> as nice of an experience as Emacs users do?  Racket, for instance, has
> lovely support in vscode with "Magic Racket".  What's the right path to
> recommend for the present, and what's the best path to improve the
> future?  LSP?  There are a few incomplete implementations I think but I
> haven't tried them.
> 
> (Let's leave aside whether or not everyone should be using Emacs, or
> other approaches to make Emacs easier for newcomers.  This thread is
> specifically about making Guile useful to people who already have a 
> tool
> they like and present experiences.)
> 
>  - Christine