July 20, 2020 ❖ Tags: opinion, programming, lisp, common-lisp, scheme
This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while now: one anecdotally comparing programming languages in the Lisp family. I consider myself to be a Lisp hacker. Perhaps that much was obvious from the letter λ adorning my website's header, a reference to the λ-calculus which inspired John McCarthy to design the first LISP [1]. Yet, "Lisp hacker" likely means little unless you, too, consider yourself to be a Lisp hacker. Calling yourself one seems carry some level of unstated meaning. Indeed, some identify with more specific groups. "Schemer," or "Guiler," or "Racketeer," or "Clojurist." But "Lisp Hackers" ⊇ "Schemers". There is commonality shared among all, or at least most, of these programming languages, and the Lisp hackers recognize and appreciate that commonality – the characteristics that make a programming language a Lisp. Homoiconic syntax, powerful metaprogramming facilities, and editor support that, in my opinion, is unparalleled. (Yes, I am alluding to GNU Emacs.) This article, however, is concerned with the differences. In it, I will be considering the specifics of each dialect, and whether or not those specifics make for a language I would want to use to develop a new piece of software.