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by FrustratedMonky 31 days ago
Nice comparison.

But makes me think we'd be better off if we all just focused on a single one, and grew it, made it better. Not having 4 versions of something almost identical. Fragmentation can hurt adoption.

3 comments

That’s what Common Lisp is.
You got downvoted, but you're correct. Obligatory XKCD: <https://xkcd.com/927/>

Personally I prefer lisp 1 languages, like scheme. Even there, though, there was a split over r6rs, so we got a bunch of mostly-like-r5rs schemes and racket.

Maybe the problem is that lisps are no longer popular enough to have a winning implementation! If there is one, though, then it's Common Lisp on SBCL.

There are deep reasons for the variations, especially around (reader) macros.
They are as different from one another as Java is from C# is from JavaScript.
So, not by much?