[clartaq]

I've used Clojure for going on 10 years now and it has been one of the most enjoyable programming languages I've ever used. But I've gone back to Scheme for a few ridiculous reasons.

1. TCO. Using `recur` in Clojure just breaks my thought process. 2. Difficulty in getting down to the metal when needed. Using JNI is painful. In Scheme, when needed, the FFI usually handles plain old C. Much easier in my opinion. 3. Community. Rich is a really smart guy and has made great contributions, but he doesn't suffer fools lightly and I am a fool. Great for a scientist, not so much for a "benevelent dictator for life" of a programming language. 4. Pragmatism over correctness. There was a long running conflict about some set operations that did not return correct results. To my mind, there is no argument against correctness. 5. Slow startup. Not always a problem except when it is. 6. ClojureScript. Could be my unfamiliarity with ClojureScript/JavaScript, but I find I have to revert to JavaScript too often to get something done. And if I can't just use ClojureScript, why use ClojureScript?

Like any Lisp, Scheme is easier to read than Python, Java, JavaScript, Haskell, PHP, Perl, Fortran, Forth, APL, etc. Pascal is pretty good in this regard though. Clojure might actually be better in my opinion.

Why not Common Lisp? It's pretty good and at least as powerful. The warts annoy me though.

So I will continue using Scheme while looking into Janet https://github.com/janet-lang/janet. Janet has most of the things I like about Scheme _and_ Clojure. More experience will tell. I just miss the way maps are handled in Clojure.

[Syzygies]

Yes. Chez Scheme in particular is a remarkable implementation. Idris 2 for example (a leaner, dependently typed relative of Haskell) relies on Chez Scheme.

As a mathematician I don't need a large ecosystem of other people's work. What keeps drawing me back to Haskell is the experience of reasoning about code paradigms as if they are a branch of algebra (not everyone appreciates algebra, but those who do can never turn around), and a support for parallel code that is decades ahead of any other language I have tried.

[iLemming]

I don't understand arguments of the kind: "Lisp A vs. Lisp B". A Lisp is a Lisp. I am honestly so grateful for my younger self for the decision I made years ago to learn Lisp. These days, pretty much any platform, any hardware, or a VM supports at least one dialect of Lisp. And that's awesome!

I switch between Lisps with relative ease: Scheme, Fennel, Clojure, Elisp, Common Lisp - they feel pretty much the same language. Yes, each has its own oddities and quirks, but I still feel like if I'd discovered some ancient secret - learn it and you start understanding every possible human language. That's how knowing and "breathing" Lisp feels sometimes.

Because Lisp is not a language. It's an idea. An incredibly awesome one. Arguably - the most influential idea in Computer Science. "Once in a millennia" idea.

That's why I never feel anxious about the popularity of programming languages. I don't care what's in the top of RedMonk or TIOBE or whatever else. I don't care if some new programming language gets promoted by the Queen of England, Supreme Pontiff, or Dalai Lama. If it's not a Lisp - it has an expiration date. Lisp, though, will never die.

[clartaq]

I think of the "Lisp A vs. Lisp B" discussions like describing the nuances of you favorite color. My favorite color is yellow, but that covers a lot of ground. I prefer a nice bright lemon yellow, but don't care for mustard yellow or brown as much. But any Lisp is better than Fortran just as I prefer any yellow over purple, for example.

I prefer Scheme to most other Lisps because of guaranteed TCO, the way continuations are handled, regularity of function names, and define-syntax macros.

Within the Scheme family, I usually prefer Chez for its performance, its FFI and because I happen to prefer an R6RS compliant system at the moment.

Just nuances.

[Blikkentrekker]

> I don't understand arguments of the kind: "Lisp A vs. Lisp B". A Lisp is a Lisp. I am honestly so grateful for my younger self for the decision I made years ago to learn Lisp. These days, pretty much any platform, any hardware, or a VM supports at least one dialect of Lisp. And that's awesome!

“Lisp” is no more a language family than “curly braces" is. Individual Lisps are often further apart from each other than either from various other languages.

[kazinator]

> I switch between Lisps with relative ease

The only relevant measure is: how much actual code do you switch?

Because otherwise that's just like saying "I switch between brain surgery, jazz saxophone, chess and rock climbing with relative ease".

[iainctduncan]

Curious, because I'm also doing Scheme now, and Clojure was my gateway drug, which Scheme are you using and for what sort of problem? I'm using s7, but that's because my use case is very much oriented to s7's non-typical feature set (it's computer music), but Janet looks really nice too. (Many similarities to both Clojure and s7 actually).

[clartaq]

Mostly Chez. Racket is remarkable too -- I have never felt that I was stretching its capabilities. Enjoying Janet, trying to get over Clojure habits where the two differ.

Most of my career has been involved in medical diagnostic, data analysis, and desktop applications. Hobby projects include text processing, editors, outliners, wikis, and knowledge management.

[iainctduncan]

Cool, thanks for the details.

[blacktriangle]

Interesting, Clojure was my gateway drug to CL. I wonder how common it is for people who come to Clojure but get warned off by the JVM to migrate further down the lisp road?

[iainctduncan]

yeah that was basically it for me. JVM for computer music just doesn't make any sense but I loved the language so went hunting for others.