Quicklisp beta now available

The Quicklisp beta is now available. Please see the release notes for a few known issues. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to use the Quicklisp discussion group.

Quicklisp client and bootstrap code is also now available on the Quicklisp github page.

Quicklisp beta and survey

Next Saturday, October 9th, I'm going to release a public beta of Quicklisp for anyone who wants to try it. As of right now, the discussion group is open for any kind of Quicklisp discussion.

I also created a 10-question survey to find out more about people who might use Quicklisp. If you use CL, would you please take the time to fill it out?

Quicklisp projects: what's missing?

Here are the projects in Quicklisp right now:

• 3b-swf
  
• 3bil
  
• adw-charting
  
• alexandria
  
• anaphora
  
• archive
  
• arnesi
  
• aromyxo
  
• array-operations
  
• asdf-system-connections
  
• asn.1
  
• babel
  
• binary-types
  
• binge
  
• bknr-datastore
  
• black-tie
  
• blackthorn-engine
  
• bordeaux-fft
  
• bordeaux-threads
  
• buildapp
  
• calispel
  
• cells
  
• cffi
  
• ch-image
  
• ch-util
  
• chillax
  
• chipz
  
• chunga
  
• cl+ssl
  
• cl-base64
  
• cl-cairo2
  
• cl-cli-parser
  
• cl-closure-template
  
• cl-colors
  
• cl-cont
  
• cl-containers
  
• cl-ctrnn
  
• cl-data-format-validation
  
• cl-devil
  
• cl-difflib
  
• cl-docutils
  
• cl-dot
  
• cl-fad
  
• cl-fftw3
  
• cl-ftp
  
• cl-gd
  
• cl-geometry
  
• cl-graph
  
• cl-growl
  
• cl-gtk2
  
• cl-heap
  
• cl-heredoc
  
• cl-html-diff
  
• cl-i18n
  
• cl-interpol
  
• cl-irc
  
• cl-irregsexp
  
• cl-jpeg
  
• cl-jpl-util
  
• cl-json
  
• cl-lex
  
• cl-libxml2
  
• cl-m4
  
• cl-markdown
  
• cl-modlisp
  
• cl-mongo
  
• cl-ncurses
  
• cl-num-utils
  
• cl-oauth
  
• cl-openal
  
• cl-opengl
  
• cl-pdf
  
• cl-photo
  
• cl-png (new)
  
• cl-ppcre
  
• cl-prevalence
  
• cl-qprint
  
• cl-random
  
• cl-rcfiles
  
• cl-redis
  
• cl-routes
  
• cl-rss
  
• cl-s3
  
• cl-sasl
  
• cl-skip-list
  
• cl-smtp
  
• cl-soap
  
• cl-sqlite
  
• cl-store
  
• cl-typesetting
  
• cl-unicode
  
• cl-unification
  
• cl-utilities
  
• cl-vectors
  
• cl-webdav
  
• cl-who
  
• cl-xmpp
  
• cl-yacc
  
• cl-zmq
  
• clem
  
• cleric
  
• clon
  
• clonsigna
  
• closer-mop
  
• closure-common
  
• closure-html
  
• clot
  
• clouchdb
  
• clpython
  
• clsql
  
• cluck
  
• clws
  
• clx
  
• colorize
  
• command-line-arguments
  
• conduit-packages
  
• conium
  
• contextl
  
• cxml-rng
  
• cxml-rpc
  
• cxml-stp
  
• cxml
  
• date-calc
  
• declt
  
• defsystem-compatibility
  
• documentation-template
  
• drakma
  
• dynamic-classes
  
• eager-future
  
• eos
  
• esrap
  
• evol
  
• external-program
  
• f-underscore
  
• f2cl
  
• fare-csv
  
• fare-matcher
  
• fare-utils
  
• fcgi
  
• ffa
  
• fft
  
• fiveam
  
• flexi-streams
  
• flexichain
  
• folio
  
• fsbv
  
• fset
  
• garbage-pools
  
• genhash
  
• getopt
  
• glaw
  
• glop
  
• graphic-forms
  
• graylex
  
• gsd
  
• gsll
  
• gtfl
  
• gzip-stream
  
• hemlock
  
• ht-simple-ajax
  
• html-encode
  
• html-template
  
• hu.dwim.asdf
  
• hu.dwim.common-lisp
  
• hu.dwim.common
  
• hu.dwim.computed-class
  
• hu.dwim.def
  
• hu.dwim.defclass-star
  
• hu.dwim.delico
  
• hu.dwim.logger
  
• hu.dwim.partial-eval
  
• hu.dwim.perec
  
• hu.dwim.quasi-quote
  
• hu.dwim.rdbms
  
• hu.dwim.reiterate
  
• hu.dwim.serializer
  
• hu.dwim.stefil
  
• hu.dwim.syntax-sugar
  
• hu.dwim.util
  
• hu.dwim.walker
  
• hunchentoot
  
• hyperobject
  
• ie3fp
  
• ieee-floats
  
• imago
  
• incf-cl
  
• iolib
  
• irc-logger
  
• ironclad
  
• iterate
  
• jpl-queues
  
• js
  
• jsown
  
• jwacs
  
• kmrcl
  
• l-math
  
• levenshtein
  
• lift
  
• linedit
  
• lisp-magick
  
• lisp-on-lines
  
• lisp-unit
  
• lispbuilder
  
• lla
  
• lml
  
• lml2
  
• local-time
  
• log5
  
• ltk
  
• lw-compat
  
• magicffi
  
• mcclim
  
• md5
  
• mel-base
  
• meta
  
• metabang-bind
  
• metacopy
  
• meta-sexp (new)
  
• metatilities-base
  
• metatilities
  
• micmac
  
• mime4cl
  
• misc-extensions
  
• mixalot
  
• montezuma
  
• moptilities
  
• mt19937
  
• mw-equiv
  
• named-readtables
  
• net-telent-date
  
• net4cl
  
• npg
  
• nst
  
• oct
  
• odd-streams
  
• ods4cl
  
• okra
  
• osicat
  
• parenscript
  
• parse-declarations
  
• parse-js
  
• parse-number
  
• patron
  
• pcall
  
• pg
  
• pipes
  
• pithy-xml
  
• plexippus-xpath
  
• plokami
  
• png-read
  
• portable-threads
  
• portableaserve
  
• postmodern
  
• postoffice
  
• prepl
  
• protobuf
  
• psgraph
  
• ptester
  
• pubmed
  
• puri
  
• py-configparser
  
• py-configvalidator (new)
  
• quicklisp-slime-helper
  
• quickproject
  
• rcl
  
• regex
  
• relational-objects-for-lisp
  
• retrospectiff
  
• reversi
  
• rfc2109
  
• rfc2388-binary
  
• rfc2388
  
• rfc3339-timestamp
  
• rlc
  
• rpc4cl
  
• rt
  
• rucksack
  
• rutils
  
• s-base64
  
• s-http-client
  
• s-sysdeps
  
• s-utils
  
• s-xml-rpc
  
• s-xml
  
• salza2
  
• sclf
  
• scribble
  
• series
  
• sheeple
  
• simple-date-time
  
• simple-finalizer
  
• simpsamp
  
• skippy
  
• slime
  
• smtp4cl
  
• snmp
  
• soundex
  
• spatial-trees
  
• split-sequence
  
• st-json
  
• static-vectors
  
• stefil
  
• string-case
  
• sw-db
  
• sw-http
  
• sw-mvc
  
• sw-stm
  
• symbolicweb
  
• tbnl
  
• teepeedee2
  
• tilde
  
• tinaa
  
• tpapp-utils
  
• trees
  
• trivial-backtrace
  
• trivial-features
  
• trivial-garbage
  
• trivial-gray-streams
  
• trivial-http
  
• trivial-ldap
  
• trivial-shell
  
• trivial-timeout
  
• trivial-utf-8
  
• ucw
  
• uffi
  
• umlisp-orf
  
• umlisp
  
• unit-test
  
• unix-options
  
• until-it-dies
  
• url-rewrite
  
• usocket-udp
  
• usocket
  
• utils-kt
  
• uuid
  
• vcs-tree
  
• vecto
  
• verrazano
  
• weblocks
  
• wiki-parser
  
• xarray
  
• xlunit
  
• xmls
  
• xptest
  
• xuriella
  
• yaclml
  
• yason
  
• zcdb
  
• zlib
  
• zpb-exif
  
• zpb-ttf
  
• zpng
  
• zs3
  

Every day I hear about new, useful, mature projects that I have never seen or heard of before. Help me speed up the process: what am I missing from my list?

Kind words from Jorge Tavares

Jorge Tavares wrote about his experience trying Quicklisp, and he is very enthusiastic about it.

One passage that struck me:

No more worries about how to install a library and dependencies. After a while, you even start installing things just for the fun of it!

I used to try to install libraries by hand only to find they had a number of dependencies, and those dependencies had dependencies, and they were sometimes unavailable, hard to find, time-consuming to install, etc. But now, when wearing my Quicklisp Library Hunter hat, I'm delighted to find things that have dependencies that aren't in Quicklisp already. That means I have an opportunity to grow Quicklisp with a set of new, hopefully-useful libraries. The more dependencies, the better! It's taken a source of pain and turned it into a source of excitement, and that's helped avoid burnout working on Quicklisp.

Hans Hübner on Quicklisp

Hans Hübner wrote a nice article about Quicklisp on his blog today:

...I thought I'd give Quicklisp a spin. After all, parsing some XML and sending HTTP requests are no big deal in Common Lisp either, and an OAuth library is available, too. With Quicklisp, all it should take was write some glue code to connect DRAKMA, CXML, cl-ppcre and cl-oauth. Installing the bunch should be a matter of loading quicklisp.lisp, then typing (ql:quickload `("drakma" "cxml" "cl-ppcre" "cl-oauth")) and watching the show scroll by.

And hey, it worked right away. I even embedded a web server in the gateway application so that it can be monitored by the system status monitors provided by my hosting provider. All in all, rewriting the thing in Common Lisp and deploying it took no longer than two hours, and the source is not significantly longer than the Clojure version either. Furthermore, the new gateway properly deals with non-ASCII characters. Embarrassingly, the Clojure gateway was buggy in that respect and never properly twittered the titles of my own blog posts. Thanks, Zach!

I hope other people find it just as easy.

Quicklisp chat on freenode

If you'd like to try Quicklisp, join #quicklisp on freenode and ask someone for the quickstart URL. If you have any trouble or questions, please let me know.

Quicklisp introduction screencast

I made a screencast showing a little bit of what Quicklisp can do. You can view it on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2.

Andreas Fuchs kindly made a auto-playing playlist for both parts.