Most Lisp developers consider emacs preferable to vi since it can be
customized to indent, balance parens, highlight code, and most
importantly run Lisp within a separate buffer with a tightly
integrated compile/test cycle. However, for those already familiar
with vi who aren't yet ready to make the switch to emacs, vi can do
two of the most important functions of an editor for Lisp: balance
your parens and assist with indentation.

(A) "set sm" turns on the blinking of matching parens as you type the
close paren. I don't think there is any way to have matching parens
keep blinking as with XEmacs under X. 

(B) "set ai" turns on auto-indentation. However, this means that the
following line matches the previous line's indentation. It does NOT
figure out the indentation needed based on number of open parens, as
emacs does. NOTE: Since Lisp functions generally consist of nested
function calls, the indentation level is one of the keys to reading
Lisp code. So if your editor doesn't do it automatically, take
particular care to get it right. On the other hand, since the
indentation level indicates the nesting level, Lisp programmers ignore
the parens. So putting each close paren on a line by itself is a waste
of space in Lisp, and only serves to distract the reader from the key
point, which is the nesting level.

(C) To my knowledge, there is no way to run Lisp in a vi buffer. But
you can avoid restarting Lisp and vi each time by suspending each
(Control-z) and jumping to the other via '%lisp' or '%vi'. If you use
vi and aren't familiar with this, send me email and I'll give more
details. Of course, on X, just make two xterm windows: one for Lisp
and one for vi. You won't get incremental compilation, but you won't
have to restart the editor and/or Lisp for each change.

				- Marty
				  hall@apl.jhu.edu