[reeses]

I'd say that this is usually the case for many languages, but Lisp IDEs have been refined, unrefined, GMOd, and subjected to all kinds of prodding that you generally want to pick one of the approved environments (Emacs, LispWorks Emacsish, Allegro I-wanna-be-Genera-Emacs).

The main reason for this is that so many of the tutorials will assume emacs for your repl management beyond the basic "(car '(foo bar baz))" and any emacs will have a well-defined "manage the indentation and parens"-mode.

Getting help from other people will often involve Emacs-specific instructions as well. "C-c C-e at the end of the sexpr and eval the result..." which may or may not be the binding in Eclipse or whatever IDE the person is using.