Can't we just deploy the Smalltalk or Common Lisp code and not make changes to the live image? Then we can deploy Smalltalk/Common Lisp projects just like we deploy Python/Ruby prjoects. Can't we?
For Common Lisp: sure we can. We can run a program from the sources, as a script, just like Python, and we can build a binary, with all dependencies baked in. CL has the feature to save the current image: it's excellent for development (see how Ravenpack ships images with several GBs of data baked in: the image will start instantly, you won't have to wait for your development data to be initialized again).
And we can run the Lisp program and not touch it. But… if we want, we can easily connect to the running Lisp image, introspect it, change a couple parameters… or do a software upgrade, which can involve installing Lisp libraries… and we could connect to the image on the remote server from our editor and develop the app (while still saving the changes in source control locally), but that would be silly and it isn't a standard way.
Yeah, just don't save the image. Whenever you restart the program use a fresh image. This is pretty much indistinguishable from a "normal" program's state when it is running.
Here are some libraries and a program in Smalltalk Interchange Format being loaded into a Smalltalk image, the image being saved, and the saved image being used to run the program on the command line —
And we can run the Lisp program and not touch it. But… if we want, we can easily connect to the running Lisp image, introspect it, change a couple parameters… or do a software upgrade, which can involve installing Lisp libraries… and we could connect to the image on the remote server from our editor and develop the app (while still saving the changes in source control locally), but that would be silly and it isn't a standard way.