Re: question

[Daniel Pittman]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, Yiu-Pun Wong wrote:
> I am a beginner of Emacs. I have a question about the useage of the
> function "defconstant" in CommonLisp. 

Emacs and XEmacs both use the same Lisp dialect, known as Emacs Lisp,
with a mostly similar library.

Common Lisp is an ANSI standardized Lisp dialect with a number of
implementations.

There are a large number of stylistic and library differences between
Emacs Lisp and Common Lisp. You will find that while there is a
superficial similarity in syntax between the two it is almost impossible
for a program written in one to work in the other.[1]

> I downloaded and installed Emacs 21.4.6 in my computer. 

If you are using GNU Emacs it's generally considered polite to ask
questions about it of the authors of it. :)

> I wrote a small program in which I used the function "defconstant". 
> However, it didn't work. 

I presume that you wrote this in an Emacs buffer and evaluated it there.
If you want to run Common Lisp programs in the Emacs environment then
you should investigate the ILisp package.

This will allow you to interact with a Common Lisp implementation from
the Emacs environment. You can read more about the ILisp package by
starting Emacs and entering:

  C-h C-i ilisp <ret>

That should bring up the documentation. You will also need a Common Lisp
system installed. For a beginner Allegro Common Lisp is a good choice. 

You should download their demonstration version and try that, at:
<http://www.franz.com/>


There are also a number of free Common Lisp implementations available.
These have less well developed tools but allow full use of their
features for free. Both clisp <http://clisp.cons.org/> and CMU Common
Lisp are worth considering. <http://www.cons.org/cmucl/>

> The message of debug said that "defconstant" is not defined. Do you
> know how to solve this problem? 

If you intended to write Emacs Lisp code, another poster already
mentioned the solution. If you intended Common Lisp code I hope I have
pointed you in the right direction.

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  Tools and libraries to assist in porting from one to the other
     exist but they are far from complete.

-- 
The scenario of terrorism, then, as a mutating virus that copies itself to
American rage on its way to revenge against the host-scapegoat.
        -- Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, _Terrorism of Viral Power_