Re: [tlug] Functional Programming Group Meeting

[Evan Monroig <evan.monroig@example.com>]

"Daniel A. Ramaley" <daniel.ramaley@example.com> writes:

> What LISP and Scheme interpreters are the best to use? I learned
> Scheme in college courses 10 years ago and it is still my favorite
> language even though i don't use it much today. Every once in awhile i
> consider writing small programs in it to develop a better familiarity
> with it and functional programming, but the first question that comes
> to mind is always which interpreter to use, as there are several.

I cannot advise you for Scheme, but I'll assume that by LISP you mean
Common Lisp.

If you are more inclined towards free software I would advise you to use
SBCL [1] or clisp [2].  SBCL is a compiler (in interactive mode it will
compile every form before loading it), compiles to very fast code, and
clisp is an interpreter so it is slower.  Personnally I use SBCL because
I mainly do numerical computations, but I've seen people recommend clisp
also.

If you prefer commercial software, there are lispworks [3], corman
common lisp [4] and allegro [5].

Hope this helps,

Evan

[1] http://www.sbcl.org/
[2] http://clisp.cons.org/
[3] http://www.lispworks.com/
[4] http://www.cormanlisp.com/
[5] http://www.franz.com/