Common Lisp vs Scheme

[tekk]

(display "Do you prefer the ease of reading and simplicity of Scheme?")
(format t "Or perhaps the power of common lisp?")
(display "For me I must admit I much prefer scheme, it's just so much....cleaner and better")

[Xanthir]

If you do any significant hacking in Scheme you'll end up rewriting half of Common Lisp, only slow and ideosyncratic. If you like the simplicity of some of Scheme's naming, you can duplicate that easier than you can duplicate the efficiency of a CL built-in.

Scheme does have a few things going for it, namely native continuations. But still, I'd just go with CL.

[hrasdt]

Schemer here, I'm considering learning CL for fun though. Scheme is much smaller, which is a definite plus in my books.
Are we going to include elisp in this discussion too?

[modularblues]

I'm biased toward Scheme because of an unhealthy relationship with it freshman year of college.

[qbg]

CL. Scheme has the TCO guarantee and continuations, but most CL implementations support TCO, and continuations are often needed.

[Dream]

Common Lisp because Common Lisp Music. Not only is it incredibly important in the history of computer music, it is actually still more powerful and useful than many other computer composition environments developed since.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

Common Lisp because Common Lisp Music. Not only is it incredibly important in the history of computer music, it is actually still more powerful and useful than many other computer composition environments developed since.

Speaking of music programs, I go Scheme because that is what powers my favourite typesetting software

[Dream]

Actually, Common Music is now being developed in Scheme, and Lisp may not be supported in future. Oh well.

[today's special]

no brainer: scheme. every scheme comes with libraries nowadays and no one uses lisp anymore. hell, even paul graham uses scheme now.

[lalop]

bump because i could use info on this. What's the most python-like "batteries included" version of either?

[EvanED]

Actually at this point I'd go for Clojure. It's not really Python-like, but there are a number of things I like about its computational model more than either CL or Scheme. (In particular, the far more restricted capability of set! and its ilk -- especially as compared to CL and R5RS.)

[Derek]

For someone only vaguely familiar with the Lisp family, what is the difference between the two?