[some-mthfka]

Absolutely, it's image-based. I have considered Smalltalk, but I like macros a bit too much. I am pretty sure CL code will have better performance too, but don't quote me on this. A point worth making: if I were to do it in Smalltalk, I would choose the standardized one, as the most stable one. Stability is pretty important for a project like this, as you would imagine.

[guestbest]

I think you mean you like emacs but got hit by autocorrect. I think the key is to duplicate a mid nineties office suit that is hackable with a programmers IDE thrown in. Something like AppleWorks or MS Works with a database that is universal across all the documents in the suite with structures that allow reuse

[MonkeyClub]

I think he meant Common Lisp macros, a powerful feature of the language (and missing from Smalltalk) that allows one to easily write code that writes code.

[guestbest]

Are macros performant enough to allow a power user to replace a scripting language like elisp for a long file of strings, which if I remember correctly was the main issue with using emacs over clisp, unstructured strings.

[kagevf]

Common Lisp macro expansion happens at compile time, so they wouldn't affect runtime performance.

[ElevenLathe]

...but it's a fair thing to think about if the "poweruser" interface encourages creating new macros on the fly. Common Lisp can "compile" at the REPL or otherwise in the live environment.