Question

I am an intermediate programmer, and have decided to learn either common lisp or scheme. My question is simple, which one would you choose? I don’t care much for the difficulty of the syntax, just the power, flexibility, and other aspects of the language itself. Also, which implementation of either common lisp or scheme should I choose? Thanks!

Answer 1

Like so many things, it depends on what you want to do.

Remember, if you choose one now, it doesn’t preclude you from changing later. In fact, I found it quite easy to switch from knowing a little Scheme to learning a lot of Clojure.

If you just want to learn, and play around with a Lisp, or even build moderately complex programs, I’d say Scheme is probably a better bet. It’s got a cleaner, crisper (smaller) standard library, and there are a lot of resources out that that cater to the learner (not that there aren’t for CL, either).

If you want the raw power of tons of libraries (many very well written) and the toolkit of a standard (as standard as a CL implementation gets) library that comes with a CL, then it’d be your better bet.

Alternatively, I’d suggest Clojure. It’s a relatively new language (< 5 years), but it’s got a lot going for it. It’s built for concurrency, with plenty of primitives that make it easy to write state-safe programs if you need to have state. And plenty of other perks, though again, the standard library manages to stay small.

It’s also on the JVM, so you have access to all the libraries you would if you were using Java, should you need any of them, plus the raw speed that the JVM has to offer is at your fingertips.

However, it is a new language, with a new (but very friendly!) community. If you just want to dip your toes in the pool of Lisp, I’d say Scheme is your best bet. If you want to get things done, my preference and my love is Clojure.

EDIT Honestly, you can’t go wrong with any of the three. One may be better depending on what you want to do, and I’d recommend Clojure to just about anyone.