I am not sure if I understand what you mean with multi-file and why it matters. As a lisp, the program is already in memory, I can interact with it through the repl. I am sure I can ask it to format itself?
If the program has syntax errors, nothing can happen, how would it know how to format it self if it is not correct?
Perhaps the approach is very different in lisp (and smalltalk which I have some experience with), there is no parsing of the program from the outside - or - if you take that approach and treat the s-expr as dead text you have to sort of reimplement the parser (or the system) in order to have some understanding of it, which in my mind seems very inefficient.
If the program has syntax errors, nothing can happen, how would it know how to format it self if it is not correct?
Perhaps the approach is very different in lisp (and smalltalk which I have some experience with), there is no parsing of the program from the outside - or - if you take that approach and treat the s-expr as dead text you have to sort of reimplement the parser (or the system) in order to have some understanding of it, which in my mind seems very inefficient.