The author of “Let Over Lambda” dislikes Emacs and does not use it. What’s more, he didn’t use Slimv or anything like it or even Vim at all. He used a more basic vi, maybe nvi.
So perhaps the interactive experience is not essential. You can just edit and compile like you would in C. That’s not what I do—-I use Slime—but it is possible. Also, a lot of the interactivity is required by the standard to be built in to your Lisp’s REPL, so you can do quite a bit if your REPL isn’t primitive. SBCL doesn’t even have readline but you can use rlwrap.
So perhaps the interactive experience is not essential. You can just edit and compile like you would in C. That’s not what I do—-I use Slime—but it is possible. Also, a lot of the interactivity is required by the standard to be built in to your Lisp’s REPL, so you can do quite a bit if your REPL isn’t primitive. SBCL doesn’t even have readline but you can use rlwrap.
https://letoverlambda.com/