# Need help to get goblins running **URL:** \ **Category:** Uncategorized\ **Created:** [June 29, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://community.spritely.institute/t/need-help-to-get-goblins-running/523 "2024-06-29T20:08:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![j12i](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@j12i](https://community.spritely.institute/u/j12i)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://community.spritely.institute/t/need-help-to-get-goblins-running/523/1 "2024-06-29T20:08:52Z")
So I wanted to dip my feet into Goblins today. I started with [A Scheme Primer](https://spritely.institute/static/papers/scheme-primer.html), read that to the halfway point where it said “that’s enough for understanding [The Heart of Spritely](https://spritely.institute/static/papers/spritely-core.html)”. Then I continued with that, until Chapter 3.1 referred me to _Appendix: Setting up Guile, Wisp, and Goblins_. I looked at it and thought: no, I don’t want to just run `make install` on all these. So I updated Guile from 3.0.7 to 3.0.10 using the build script included in my distro, and then spent several hours writing SlackBuilds for guile-fibers, guile-gcrypt, guile-gnutls and guile-goblins, effectively packaging them for Slackware. I think this work is done now, and I will publish those scripts when I’m convinced it’s really working. I also installed geiser-guile, company, paredit and wisp-mode into Emacs. (I’m not really sure where I came upon instructions to do so, except for wisp-mode where I know I didn’t.) But now I’m still stuck advancing through The Heart of Spritely. Chapter 3.2 has some code I’m supposed to put in a file, and some I’m supposed to input on the REPL. But I think I have to connect the code in the file to the REPL somehow, and I have no idea how. C-x C-e on the code in the file throws an error. What am I supposed to know or do? ---
**Author:** ![j12i](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@j12i](https://community.spritely.institute/u/j12i)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2024, 9:43pm UTC](https://community.spritely.institute/t/need-help-to-get-goblins-running/523/2 "2024-06-29T21:43:50Z")
Ok I give up for today. I got it working once, but I couldn’t replicate it. These are the steps:? - open `taste-of-goblins.w` - start REPL with `M-x geiser` - activate Geiser mode in the source file buffer with `geiser-mode` in REPL: 1. `(use-modules (goblins))` 2. `,L wisp` in source buffer 3. `C-c C-a` 4. somehow this doesn’t work, do it again, it works the second time in REPL: 5. ```auto define a-vat spawn-vat ``` (press return twice afterwards) 6 . `,enter-vat a-vat` in source buffer: 7. `C-c C-b` 8. ^greeter is not defined ---
**Author:** ![juli](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.spritely.institute/juli/32/331_2.png) [@juli](https://community.spritely.institute/u/juli)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://community.spritely.institute/t/need-help-to-get-goblins-running/523/3 "2024-07-01T19:55:40Z")
Firstly, thanks for packaging all that for Slackware! It’s awesome to hear there’ll be a bit more Guile goodness out there now 😃 I tried to reproduce this and couldn’t seem to do so – though I did have a different error. Running ```auto define a-vat spawn-vat ``` did not expose `a-vat` in the environment. But, I entered the vat _after_ loading in the source file. After tweaking things a few times, I realized that this is because `,enter-vat` doesn’t work with Wisp – it assumes the language is Scheme. Anything you load in the context of `,enter-vat` will need to be Scheme or it won’t work. I was able to get `^greeter` and friends by loading them before entering a vat. Though that doesn’t explain why defining a vat didn’t work the first time… If you load things outside of a vat and then use `call-with-vat` and `with-vat` to actually run things in vats, do you run into similar issues?