Slurp is my personal code for checking out publically available Common Lisp
repositories and later updating them to get the latest changes.  Slurp
contains a database of public Lisp repositories and knows how to access
repositories managed by CVS, Darcs, Git, Mercurial, and Subversion.

I only use Slurp with SBCL, so Slurp will require a bit of porting if you
are using a different Common Lisp implementation.  I hope it will prove
useful for you.  Please send suggestions and bug reports to robert.brown at
the email hosting site gmail.com.

You'll need to configure Slurp before you use it.  For now, that means
editing slurp.lisp itself so that the values of *SOURCE-ROOT* and
*SYSTEMS-ROOT* are correct for your system.  The parameter *SOURCE-ROOT*
names the directory on your computer where Slurp will place checked out
source code repositories, while *SYSTEMS-ROOT* indicates which directory
Slurp should use when creating symbolic links to the ASDF system definition
files in the checked out directories.  To be useful, you should make the
*SYSTEMS-ROOT* directory a member of ASDF:*CENTRAL-REGISTRY* so that ASDF
uses the symbolic links there to compile and load the packages you have
checked out.

After you have modified *SYSTEMS-ROOT* and *SYSTEMS-ROOT*, load slurp.lisp
into your Lisp system.  Load the file directly if you do not have ASDF
installed:

  (load "package.lisp")
  (load "slurp.lisp")

If you have ASDF and have also arranged for it to find slurp.asd, then you
can load Slurp by executing:

  (asdf:operate 'asdf:load-op 'slurp)

Test Slurp by checking out a code repository.  The following expression will
check out Slime, an Emacs IDE for Common Lisp:

  (slurp:checkout 'slime)

Make sure that the Slime code was checked out in the directory you specified
for *SOURCE-ROOT*.  Verify also that Slurp created a symbolic link to
swank.asd in the directory you chose for *SYSTEMS-ROOT*.

At this point you can either check out another repository in Slurp's
database or check out all the Lisp repositories Slurp knows about.  The
second is accomplished by evaluating:

  (slurp:checkout-all)

In either case, at some point you'll want to get the latest version of a
repository.  To update one repository, use SLURP:UPDATE.  The following
expression updates Slime:

  (slurp:update 'slime)

To update your local versions of all the repositories, evaluate:

  (slurp:update-all)

Occasionally, something goes wrong when you update one or all the
repositories.  A repository may be unavailable or you may experience a
temporary network glitch.  If either happens, you'll end up in the debugger.
You can skip over the bad repository and continue the update process with
another repository by using the function UPDATE-ALL-STARTING-WITH.  For
instance, to update all repositories starting with Slime, evaluate:

  (slurp:update-all-starting-with 'slime)

Please send me an email with suggestions for improvements or with patches to
support other Common Lisp implementations or source code management systems.
My email address is robert.brown at the email hosting site gmail.com.