четверг, 2 мая 2013 г.

Slime/Swank, Quicklisp and long running programs

I have a small problem with Slime/Swank and long running servers.

These servers run for weeks and month, with an older version of Swank loaded. I periodically connect to them to change a function or two (quick fixes and small functionality updates), without restarting.

Now, when a Quicklisp update arrives, versions of Slime on my local machine and Swank on remote machines diverge. Even if I upgrade Swank in all remote installations, I need to reload Swank  in each of these image. 

That's quite interesting if it is possible to do so w/o actually restarting the image. Will try.
Typcally slime/swank version difference does not matter much, but to be on the safe side, it is better to keep them syncronized.

A wider questoin is whether it is a good practice to upgrate your dependencies inside your running servers. And whether it makes sense to automate this.