Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real world programming ?

[Antti "Andy" Ylikoski]

10.6.2010 23:14, bolega kirjoitti:
> Which is the best implementation of LISP family of languages for real
> world programming ?
>
> http://wiki.alu.org/Implementation
>
> Kindly pick one from commercial and one from open-source .
>
> The criteria is :
>
> libraries, gui interface and builder, libraries for TCP, and evolving
> needs.
>
> Please compare LISP and its virtues with other languages such as
> javascript, python etc.
>
> I put javascript in the context that it is very similar in its
> architecture (homoiconic ie same representation for data-structures
> and operations, ie hierarchical, which means nested-lists<=>  n-ary
> tree<=>  binary tree<=>  linked-list<=>  dictionary<=>  task-subtask,
> and implicitly based on what C calls pointers, and at machine level
> the indirect addressing of memory) to lisp family.
>
> I put python in the context that it has the most extensive libraries
> and shares the build-fix virtue of lisp highlighted by Paul Graham in
> his books. Python is touted for its rapid prototyping of guis. It
> syntax enforces stable format which guards against programmer malice
> or sloppiness - so that there is a certain level of legacy code
> readability.
>
> Both have eval but not clear what is the implementation efficiency to
> justify the habit of excessively using it.
>
> Certainly, lisp/scheme are excellent for learning the concepts of
> programming languages due to its multi-paradigm nature and readily
> available code of the elementary interpreter.
>
> Is there an IDE for these lispish-scheming languages ? Is there
> quality implementation for Eclipse ? Emacs pre-supposes some knowledge
> of these so that newbie can get stuck. Also, emacs help is not very
> good.
>
> Is there a project whereby the internal help of emacs (analogous to
> its man pages) are being continuously being updated AND shared ? I
> have never seen updates to the help. Perhaps, the commercial people
> are doing it, even from the posts of the newsgroups, but the public
> distros or these newsgroups have NEVER made such an announcement.
>
> Explanations integrated into the help are more important than the
> books - its like the wikipedia incorporated into emacs.
>
> Is there support for the color highlighting of the code by hovering as
> on this page ?
>
> http://community.schemewiki.org/?lexical-scope
>
> Which book/paper has the briefest minimal example of gui design along
> XML nested/hiearchical elements with event-listeners for lisp/scheme ?
>
> Thanks

I have used several available LISP systems such as the Gigamonkeys CLISP 
Lispbox, and the Clozure Common LISP.

The system which I currently am using is the Franz Allegro Common LISP. 
  It is a commercial product; and so far I have had no problems with the 
Allegro.  (NB: I am using the Express version.  I feel that the full 
scale commercial license is not exceedingly expensive.)

(Right now I'm studying and working with the exercises in Peter Norvig's 
book Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming.  I have done 16 
of the 25 chapters.)

This is not an advertisement.  If someone wishes to criticize that 
product, or if someone would like to suggest some other equally usable 
implementation, of course please feel free to do so.

regards, Antti J. Ylikoski
Helsinki, Finland, the E.U.