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Hyperpolyglot Lisp: Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, Emacs Lisp

2026-05-18 | original

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Why This Matters

This article highlights the versatility and interoperability of various Lisp dialects, emphasizing their relevance for developers seeking to leverage multiple Lisp environments like Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, and Emacs Lisp. Understanding these dialects enhances the ability to develop, script, and automate tasks across different platforms, benefiting both industry professionals and consumers interested in Lisp's powerful features.

Key Takeaways

Different Lisp dialects have unique features and use cases, from scripting in Emacs to building standalone applications with Racket.
Interoperability and version management are crucial for effective Lisp development across environments.
Practical examples like scripting with Emacs Lisp and compiling Racket code demonstrate Lisp's flexibility in real-world applications.

Lisp: Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, Emacs Lisp

ca side-by-side reference sheet

grammar and execution | variables and expressions | arithmetic and logic | strings | regular expressions | dates and time | lists | fixed-length arrays | dictionaries | user-defined types | functions | execution control | exceptions | streams | emacs buffers | files | directories | processes and environment | libraries and namespaces | objects | lisp macros | reflection | java interop

Versions used to verify examples in the reference sheet.

How to determine the version.

racket

Compiling a.ss creates the byte-code compiled file a_ss.zo, which will be used by mzscheme in preference to the source code if it encounters

(require a)

racket

In order for code to be compiled as a standalone executable, it must be packaged as a module. This can be accomplished by putting the #lang scheme shorthand the top of the file. All functions that are defined in the module will be executed in order. Here is a simple example:

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Explore topics: common lisp racket emacs lisp mzscheme scheme