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Guile
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Easy to customize and extend applications
Guile makes it easy for users of your application to write extensions without needing to understand the plumbing of your program.
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Con
Weak copyleft
LGPL
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Pro
GNU's official extension language
Chances are a system running enough GNU software will already have it installed.
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Pro
Excellent documentation
The documentation provides conceptual overviews, tutorials, and a detailed reference for all commands, functions, and operators.
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Pro
Fantastic interface to C, C++ in both directions, embedding guile in C/C++ and embedding C/C++ in guile
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, Windows, OSX
Current stable version:
3.0.0
Typing discipline:
Dynamically typed
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13
Racket
All
9
Experiences
Pros
8
Specs
Top
Pro
Realm of Racket is an excellent entry-level guidebook
Realm of Racket teaches the big-bang approach for managing world state. It does so by walking the reader through the development of small games. There are few guidebooks that are as useful and entertaining.
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Pro
Racket was designed to teach functional programming from the start
Racket is based on Scheme (LISP Family) and is very similar to Clojure. So there are a ton of (). The reason it is easier to learn is that it is not trying to be "Pure" if there is even such a thing in terms of Functional Programming. The great thing about Racket is it has everything included. You get DrRacket for developing programs. You want to add a picture to your software you can insert pictures. If you want to add libraries just open the package manager. The Syntax is an opinion but it really does feel easier to see what is happening since everything is in brackets) Racket is a really a Programming Language for making Programming Languages. So there are smaller syntax Racket called Student Racket which makes things easier to pick up.
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Pro
Free resources to Learn
Includes several free online books and great documentation.
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Pro
Great RPEL IDEA included Dr. Racket
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Pro
Active community
Racket has an active community of users/developers that makes it easy to get help when needed.
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Pro
Syntax fits to functional programming
Although syntax is different from that of mainstream languages, S-expressions are a perfect match to functional programming.
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Pro
Subtly encourages functional programming
Racket makes it inconvenient to pursue imperative habits while encouraging functional programming by Lisps's syntax. For example, the syntax for defining a function is almost the exact same as defining a variable. In addition, Racket has a strong set of higher-order functions built in to the language.
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Pro
Easily embeddable
Racket is famously embedded in the game engine underlying Naughty Dog's Uncharted and The Last of Us games, because it proved to be so easy to embed.
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Specs
Platforms:
Linux, Windows, OSX
Price:
Free
Current stable version:
8.5
Site:
https://racket-lang.org
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182
80
MIT/GNU
All
4
Experiences
Cons
4
Top
Con
Not made to run as standalone
Cannot be compiled to a standalone executable, only to byte code that can be run from the interpreter; and cannot be conveniently interpreted by the interpreter from the command line.
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Con
Not very well-documented
The documentation is very sparse.
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Con
Poor Windows support
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Con
Ill-designed interpreter's interface
The interpreter does not support the use of the left and right arrows to move the cursor in the code and the use of the up and down arrows to navigate through the history.
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20
12
Gambit
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Can be easily embedded into an existing C/C++ codebase
Gambit has a built-in compiler that generates C code, which then is passed to your system's compiler which in turn compiles it to native code. This makes it easy to integrate Gambit into existing C/C++ projects.
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Con
Lack of SRFIs
Gambit natively implements few SRFIs. Additional SRFIs are available through the Black Hole and Snow third-party systems.
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Pro
Actively maintained
The maintainers are continually working on improving the implementation in a variety of areas: multicore, modules, backends for x86, ARM, RISCV, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, and go in addition to the current mature C backend.
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Con
Documentation is poorly formatted
The Gambit documentation directs you to further resources, depending on what you're looking for. Because things are separated into different places, it can be difficult to find what you need. Some documentation is only available in HTML or PDF formats that are hard to read/follow.
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Pro
Good performance
Gambit is fast/efficient, you can see benchmarks here.
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Pro
Very portable
It is very portable as it has no external library dependencies. It will build as long as the platform has a C compiler.
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13
0
Hy
All
3
Experiences
Pros
3
Top
Pro
Python interop
Hy compiles to Python's abstract syntax trees. Python can import Hy modules, and Hy can import Python modules.
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Pro
Easier to read
Distinguished between arrays (or vectors) and function calls by using [] and (), respectively.
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Pro
Copyfree and open source
Uses the MIT (expat) license.
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11
1
Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL)
All
8
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Heavily developped
Has active contributors, including Google and some quantum computing companies engineers.
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Top
Con
Confusing error messages
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Pro
Type inference and type checking
Incorrect type declarations are treated as errors. SBCL can deduce types quite well.
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Top
Con
Produces large binaries
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Pro
Actively maintained
Bug-fixes, performance improvements, refinements. New ports.
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Pro
Fast native code compiler
SBCL (and CMUCL)'s compiler, Python, produces optimized native code.
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Pro
Easy install
Portacle makes it easy to install SBCL, Emacs and SLIME.
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Pro
Free Open Source Software
Parts of SBCL are licensed under a BSD-Style license. The rest are in the public domain.
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30
3
ClojureScript
All
12
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Live interactive programming with figwheel 
Figwheel builds your ClojureScript code and hot loads it into the browser as you are coding! Every time you save your ClojureScript source file, the changes are sent to the browser so that you can see the effects of modifying your code in real time.
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Top
Con
Tooling is horrible
I've never seen worse tooling before. Writing tests and getting test coverage reports is near impossible. Tooling is brittle and clunky. Feels prehistoric.
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Pro
Simple syntax
Lispness makes ClojureScript trivial to comprehend after an initial learning overhead.
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Con
Syntax may seem cryptic to people not used to Lisp
Lisp is sometimes called "syntax-less" and this is bewildering to those steeped in Algol-type syntax (Java, Javascript, C, etc). Being a dialect of Lisp, ClojureScript's syntax may seem cryptic and hard to understand for people not used to it. While Lisp has very little syntax compared to other languages and it's generally considered pretty terse, there's still an initial overhead in learning the language.
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Pro
Easy to use existing JavaScript libraries 
Clojure and ClojureScript are designed to be able to interact with their host. So the language by design makes it is easy to use existing JS libraries.
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Pro
Targets Google Closure-ready JavaScript for immense optimizations
Google's Closure Library converts regular JavaScript into a highly optimized form - including dead code analysis/elimination. It can even remove pieces of unused code from 3rd party libraries (eg, if you import jQuery but only use one function, Google Closure includes only that piece).
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Pro
Share application logic between browser and Clojure server 
Clojure is also able to run web servers, so one can reap similar benefits to NodeJS in terms of sharing code between client and server.
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Pro
Can be used with React out of the box
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Pro
Excellent build tools
Both Leiningen and Boot are great build tools that manage code dependencies and deployment.
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Pro
Excellent tools for web development
ClojureScript has superb wrappers around React.js (see Reagent) that make building single-page apps a breeze. With figwheel, it's a web dev experience unlike any other -- hotloaded code, repl interaction, and instantly reflected changes make good development fun and fast. You can add things like Garden to make CSS-writing part of the same holistic experience and suddenly all development is a pleasant, smooth process.
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Pro
The Spec core library
From the creator of Clojure: Spec is a new core library (Clojure 1.9 and Clojurescript) to support data and function specifications in Clojure. Writing a spec should enable automatic: Validation, Error reporting, Destructuring, Instrumentation, Test-data generation and Generative test generation.
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Specs
Current stable version:
1.9
GZipped size:
32 kB
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Experiences
Open Source
148
40
Clojure
All
18
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
5
Specs
Top
Con
Confusing error messages
Clojure's error messages more often than not are very confusing. They usually involve stack traces that do not thoroughly explain where the error was caused or what caused it.
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Pro
Immutability is the default
Clojure programmers are highly encouraged to use immutable data in their code. Therefore, most data will be immutable by default. State change is handled by functions (for transformations) and atoms (an abstraction that encapsulates the idea of some entity having an identity).
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Con
Code tends to be nightmare to maintain for non-authors
Tendency to devolve into difficult to manage mess of styles. Not recommended for professional use.
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Pro
Minimal syntax
Being a LISP, programs are simple: they're just functions and data. That it doesn't get bogged down with syntax or the loftier FP concepts like monads makes it one of most approachable functional languages for beginners.
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Con
Too cult-ish
Way too niche and in-group behavior, while trying to trash other languages. Only pays for select few, who run the "game" on others.
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Pro
Tries to solve problems as simply as possible
Simplicity is one of the pillars on which Clojure is built. Clojure tries to solve many problems in software development as simply as possible. Instead of building complex interfaces, objects or factories, it uses immutability and simple data structures.
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Con
Tied to the JVM and it's limitations
Some language constructs were obviously created as workarounds for JVM limitations. This makes the language much less elegant than it could have been. Also, the JVM has a very cumbersome FFI.
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Pro
Good for writing concurrent programs
Since Clojure is designed for concurrency, it offers things like Software Transaction Memory, functional programming without side-effects and immutable data structures right out of the box. This means that the development team can focus their energies on developing features instead of concurrency details.
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Con
Syntax can be alien / jarring for those used to other Lisps
Perhaps some may consider this attribute an advantage, but I do not. Clojure does not attempt to maintain significant compatibility with other Lisps. So, if you already know a Lisp or are used to the way Lisp works in general, you'll probably be confused if you take a look at Clojure. See these resources for more details on this subject: https://clojure.org/reference/lisps http://stackoverflow.com/q/6008313/2636454 http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2015/01/one-major-difference-between-clojure.html http://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/153128/166211
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Pro
Huge ecosystem of libraries to work with
There's a very large ecosystem of high-quality Clojure libraries which developers can use. One example is Incanter. It's a great data analytics library and a very powerful tool for dealing with matrices, datasets and csv files.
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Pro
Cross platform
Clojure compiles to JVM bytecode and runs inside the JVM. This means that applications written in Clojure are cross-platform out of the box.
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Pro
Rich Hickey
The creator is so awesome, he's a feature. Just look up his talks and see why.
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Pro
Dynamic language
A superb data processing language. While rich type and specification systems are available they are optional.
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Pro
Extensible
Clojure has an elegant macro system which enables language additions, Domain-specific languages (DSLs), to be created much easier than most other languages (with the exception of Racket, perhaps).
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Pro
Great tool used in automating, configuring and managing dependencies available
Leiningen is a very useful tool for Clojure developers. It helps wiht automation, configuration and dependency management. It's basically a must for every Clojure project.
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Pro
No C/Java syntax
Refreshing, BTW!
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Pro
Game is available with which you can learn Clojure
Nightmod is a tool used to make "live-moddable" games. It displays the game's code while you are playing and allows you to inject new code using Clojure. This can be a fun and useful experience for people trying to learn Clojure.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Current stable version:
1.10.1
GZipped size:
3.7Mb, requires JAVA
Site:
www.clojure.org
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536
173
Common Lisp
All
5
Experiences
Pros
5
Top
Pro
Carefully designed for interactive use
Almost all aspects of the language are designed with interactive/repl use in mind.
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Pro
Very Powerful REPL with SLIME
SLIME (Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs).
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Pro
Condition/restart system
It is easy to recover from errors. Error resolution can be determined by the user at the REPL.
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Pro
Image based runtime
The state of the program may be saved and reloaded as an image, supporting safer modification of the running program. New code may be compiled into the image as the program runs, while late binding ensures that symbol redefinitions take effect throughout the program.
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Pro
Almost as fast as, or faster than, C
Some compilers such as SBCL can be faster than C or other low-level languages, and most compilers can generate fast native code.
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165
64
PicoLisp
All
6
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Integrated database and Prolog engine
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Con
Lack of Floating point data type
The language does not have floating point numbers only scaled fix-point numbers. Scaling of numbers is more work than directly working with floats.
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Pro
Fast code execution speed
One of the fastest code execution speeds compared to other Lisp dialects.
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Pro
Simplicity
Compared to other Lisp dialects, it's simple and doesn't have unnecessary features.
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Pro
Tacit
Code written in is short and easier to understand most of the time.
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Pro
Foreign function interface
The language has built-in FFI for C and also interfaces with java(via ersatz)
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12
8
Armed Bear Common Lisp
All
4
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Can be integrated into java programs for scripting capabilities
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Con
The java API isn't always enough
Some of its features are made private and can't easily be modified from java.
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Pro
Fairly simple to learn and use
Written and interoperable with Java.
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Con
Can be slow and clunky because of the java overhead
It is using java. Java is slow. Ergo: abcl is slow.
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