Question 1

How do I use Serapeum with Alexandria without conflicts?

Accepted Answer

You can safely use both by including them in defpackage with :use or by using the serapeum/bundle package with package-local nicknames, as Serapeum is designed as a supplement to Alexandria without symbol clashes.

Question 2

Serapeum vs Alexandria: which one should I choose for my Common Lisp project?

Accepted Answer

Alexandria is more self-contained and conservative, while Serapeum extends it with utilities inspired by other languages and adds features like compile-time exhaustiveness checking. Use Serapeum if you need those extensions while maintaining Alexandria compatibility.

Question 3

Can I install Serapeum without using Quicklisp?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can clone the repository into your local-projects directory, but Quicklisp is the preferred method. The README mentions this alternative for getting the latest version, though it may require manual setup.

Question 4

How to implement memoization locally using Serapeum's internal definitions?

Accepted Answer

Use the local form with a custom defmemo macro, as shown in the Example section, which allows memoized functions to be defined within a local scope, expanding into efficient labels-based code.

Question 5

Does Serapeum work on Lisp implementations like CLISP or Allegro?

Accepted Answer

It's intended to be portable but is principally tested on SBCL and Clozure CL; the README welcomes patches for other Lisps, but functionality might vary, and some optimizations could be implementation-specific.

Question 6

What are the performance benefits of fbind compared to regular funcall?

Accepted Answer

fbind can produce code that eliminates funcall overhead and enables compiler optimizations, sometimes even removing the need for higher-order function wrappers, as detailed in the Binding Values section with examples like compose and curry.

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