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by Zambyte 983 days ago
> and think LISPy language will always remain niche, which is part of its appeal

As someone who uses Scheme regularly and follows Scheme communities fairly actively, I think most people who use Scheme and other LISP dialects would disagree. People often (I think only half jokingly) talk about the possible "Utopia" we missed out on if LISP has won. The word "successful" is often used to refer to implementations or dialects based on how much use they have.

I think the fact that LISP is niche is actually a negative for most of the community, not part of the appeal.

1 comments

I agree—if I could use Racket (first choice) or Common Lisp (second choice) and make use of the breadth of libraries available to Python, I'd be a very happy camper. Being niche, and what being niche implies about shared lift, is what keeps me from reaching for Racket all the time.
It would be outstanding if Racket could target a JS or WASM backend. I know there have been a couple of third-party attempts in that direction, but the last I checked they were all abandonware. If someone knows otherwise, please let me know!

That said, I've been following Hoot with interest. Can't wait until the non-experimental browser releases catch up.

You might be interested in Hissp, a Lisp with access to the breadth of libraries available to Python. https://github.com/gilch/hissp