What is Common Lisp
A powerful Common Lisp dialect with dynamic typing, macros and an ANSI standard. Around since 1984 and still actively developed.
Indispensable for complex systems, AI, symbolic computing and experiments.
Why Common Lisp
- Macros - code that generates code
- REPL - interactive development
- One dialect, decades of stability
- Powerful ASDF build system
- Rich Quicklisp ecosystem
- This site is written in and runs on Common LispOUR SITE
Implementations
SBCL
Steel Bank Common Lisp. The most popular implementation. Fast compilation, high performance, active development.
CCL
Clozure Common Lisp. Fast and mature. Great macOS (Cocoa) integration, supports Linux, FreeBSD, Windows.
ECL
Embeddable Common Lisp. Can be embedded as a library in C applications. Generates C code.
ABCL
Armed Bear Common Lisp. Runs on the JVM. Integration with Java libraries.
LispWorks
Commercial implementation with an IDE. Powerful debugging and profiling tools.
Allegro CL
Commercial implementation by Franz Inc. Enterprise systems and big data.
Editors and IDEs
Ready-made bundles
Self-contained development environments
- Portacle — Emacs + SLIME + SBCL + Quicklisp + Git. Portable, no install needed
- mine — a terminal IDE for CL and Coalton. One program — everything included NEW
- Lem — an editor written in Common Lisp, supports LSP, ncurses/WebGL
Extensions and plugins
Integration with existing editors
- SLIME — the classic plugin for Emacs, the industry standard
- SLY — a SLIME fork with extended features (stickers, inspector, macrostepper)
- OLIVE — a VS Code extension built on Swank NEW
- Alive — a VS Code extension built on LSP
- Slimv — a plugin for Vim
- Vlime — a plugin for Vim and Neovim
- SLT — a plugin for JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ and others) Experimental
- Slyblime — an extension for Sublime Text