What are the actual differences between Scheme and Common Lisp? (Or any other two dialects of Lisp)

Question

Note: I am not asking which to learn, which is better, or anything like that.

I picked up the free version of SICP because I felt it would be nice to read (I\'v

Answer 1

That's a hard question to answer impartially, especially because many of the LISP folks would classify Scheme as a LISP.

Josh Bloch (and this analogy may not be his invention) describes choosing a language as being akin to choosing a local pub. In that light, then:

The "Scheme" pub has a lot of programming-languages researchers in it. These people spend a lot of attention on the meaning of the language, on keeping it well-defined and simple, and on discussing innovative new features. Everyone's got their own version of the language, designed to allow them to explore their own particular corner of programming languages. The Scheme people really like the parenthesized syntax that they took from LISP; it's flexible and lightweight and uniform and removes many barriers to language extension.

The "LISP" pub? Well... I shouldn't comment; I haven't spent enough time there :).