[racket] Common Lisp or Racket?

Dnia 2013-11-12, wto o godzinie 10:56 -0600, Lawrence Bottorff pisze:
> I'm your typical newbie who is hand-wringing over what direction to go
> in the general functional programming world. Lisp, Scheme, or Haskell?
> 
> 
> Of late I've been trying to get through the Barski book, "Land of
> Lisp," but I'm really seeing now why Scheme was created: CL seems to
> have a ton of gnarl that is part-functional, part-whatever, leaving me
> wondering and neurotic.

Historically, Scheme was created first.  CL is based on first Scheme
experiences, but had to be ,,industry'' oriented (the editor of first
CL standards was one of the creators of Scheme).  This explain some
compromises, which had to be done.

>  And so I'm trying to understand some esoteric, arcane Lisp
> printing/file management weirdness -- which I'm told is not proper
> functional style -- after I've just been introduced to yet another CL
> map variation, after (funcall thunk). So I guess I'd like your advice
> vis-a-vis Racket. Q: Is Racket "cleaner," or is full of pork too? Or
> have I just got the wrong book for a beginner?

Depends.  The full standard of Scheme (r6rs) is more than 200 pages,
but large part of it is taken by libraries.  Common Lisp included 
them from the beginning.

Superficially, Scheme is simpler, e.g. single namespace, simple 
printing etc.  On the other hand, Scheme contains full continuations,
which are probably the most advanced control structure.

My advice (if you have time): try both (and may be Ocaml or Dylan too)
and compare which fits you best - they all come from the some set of
concepts.  

Regards

ZJ