Between Two Lisps (2020)

It&#x27;s nice to see the CL ecosystem evolving. SBCL sees regular updates with new optimizations. The editor support is getting better: Vim, Atom, Sublime, VSCode… have good to very good support[0], &amp; Jupyter notebook, the Lem editor… and a new lisper started a CL editor based on Tauri: Parrot <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fonol&#x2F;parrot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fonol&#x2F;parrot</a>. Cool projects emerge (lisp-stats , the Sento &#x2F; cl-gserver actors library, the Kons-9 3D graphics library, the CLOG web-gui…)<p>&gt; 50MB<p>With compression (zstd now), SBCL binaries weigh ±25MB. Start-up time is super fast. I built a standalone binary for my web app, it is straightforward to start it on the background and access it from an Electron window.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lispcookbook.github.io&#x2F;cl-cookbook&#x2F;editor-support.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lispcookbook.github.io&#x2F;cl-cookbook&#x2F;editor-support.ht...</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Lisp-Stat&#x2F;lisp-stat&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Lisp-Stat&#x2F;lisp-stat&#x2F;</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mdbergmann&#x2F;cl-gserver" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mdbergmann&#x2F;cl-gserver</a>

I feel most &quot;at home&quot; in Common Lisp, though I agree that Scheme is more elegant. Speaking of elegant I recently had some fun playing around with Janet (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;janet-lang.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;janet-lang.org</a>) and I have to say it is <i>quite</i> nice.<p>If I had to pick a language to stay in forever and I had the time to really grow it into what I wanted using C extensions I&#x27;d probably choose Janet (or make my own similar lisp).<p>Like most people, though, I have a day job and until I decide to retire I won&#x27;t have time to reinvent an entire personal programming system for myself. For pure &quot;get in there and have fun&quot; sessions after work Common Lisp gets my vote despite its clunkiness. And besides... it&#x27;s a lisp! If something&#x27;s <i>too</i> clunky I&#x27;ll just fix it.

&gt; That said, Com­mon Lisp is weird. What I find par­tic­u­larly jar­ring is that func­tions and vari­ables live in dif­fer­ent name­spaces:<p>Lisp-2s aren’t the only languages in which functions and variables are different namespaces - the same is true of PHP, Perl, Bash, etc. But the later mark the distinction through syntax - variables start with a dollar sign, functions don’t. I think there is something to be said for that approach, compared to the Lisp-2 way it is easier for beginners to understand, and it is instantly obvious whether a symbol is a variable or something else like a function, while also avoiding the Lisp-1 problem of built-in function names clashing with those of popular variable&#x2F;argument names. I wonder why there are so few Lisp-like languages which adopt the “sigil solution”. (Common Lisp does have sigils, such as :keywords, but not for variables.)

Archived: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;HspMS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.ph&#x2F;HspMS</a>

Previous discussion (2020): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25313311" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25313311</a>

I wonder, how hard it would be to write something like xv6: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mit-pdos&#x2F;xv6-public" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;mit-pdos&#x2F;xv6-public</a><p>But in Lisp&#x2F;Scheme? Preferrably no C. Just Lisp&#x2F;Scheme and assembly.

If you want to do something like what the article is describing with Guile, but without the GPL constraints, you might like s7 Scheme. It&#x27;s a bit like a cross between Guile and Janet, with CL macros, keywords, and first class environments. I use it for Scheme for Max, an extension to the Max&#x2F;MSP computer music platform allowing one to script Max in Scheme. It&#x27;s BSD licensed.<p>Also, the author Bill is very helpful on the mailing list.<p>s7: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ccrma.stanford.edu&#x2F;software&#x2F;snd&#x2F;snd&#x2F;s7.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ccrma.stanford.edu&#x2F;software&#x2F;snd&#x2F;snd&#x2F;s7.html</a> Scheme for Max: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;iainctduncan&#x2F;scheme-for-max" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;iainctduncan&#x2F;scheme-for-max</a>

Does this have anything to do with a comedian called Zakariyyah Galifyanakkis?

Nice write up. I also have the use many Lisp languages habit.<p>Not mentioned: Hy (hylang) that adds Clojure-like syntax to Python, and some other super fine Scheme implementation’s not mentioned in the article.

Are there any schemes besides racket with interactive edebug style debugging support in emacs?