What is the best Scheme or LISP implementation for OS X?

Question

I am looking for a version of Scheme or even LISP that I can use to recover some lost Lisp development skills. Some web capabilities would be nice but not essential.

I

Answer 1

I have found that Chicken works well for Scheme and is available through homebrew.

brew install chicken

Most of the code from SICP works with minor modifications.

Answer 2

Go with Racket. I'm very happy with it!

Answer 3

For Scheme, DrRacket is awesome (included in Racket).

For Common Lisp, Ready Lisp is great. A single dmg with SBCL, Aquamacs and Slime working out of the box.

From the Web site:

Ready Lisp is a binding together of several popular Common Lisp packages especially for Mac OS X, including: Aquamacs, SBCL and SLIME. Once downloaded, you’ll have a single application bundle which you can double-click — and find yourself in a fully configured Common Lisp REPL.

It’s ideal for OS X users who want to try out the beauty of Common Lisp with a minimum of hassle. It could also be used by teachers to give their Mac students a free, complete Common Lisp environment to take home with them. Requirements

The current version of Ready Lisp is 20090127 and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

It includes the following component software versions:

Aquamacs  1.6
SBCL    1.0.24
SLIME   2009-01-23
CL-FAD  0.6.2
CL-PPCRE    2.0.1
LOCAL-TIME  0.9.3
SERIES  2.2.10
CL HyperSpec    7.0
paredit.el  20
redshank.el     1
cldoc.el    1.16

Answer 4

If you are looking for Scheme you can take a look at just released JazzScheme.

Answer 5

I've been asking myself the same question lately. Having used DrScheme on OS X it would be my first choice of Scheme distribution for any platform. Very nice IDE, debugging features and a good set of libraries/frameworks (including a very nice GUI toolkit that 'just works... even on Mac' ;-) )

However, I'm now looking for a similarly comfortable environment for Common Lisp. It came down to CCL (OpenMCL) versus SBCL. SBCL seems to be the popular choice but I read that on OS X is doesn't support threading. (Is this really an issue?). Clozure CL, on the other hand, boasts good support for native threads, the obcj-bridge, etc...

I'm finding CCL a little odd but I'm going to stick at it for a while - It still looks like the logical choice for integration.

I use Emacs 23 (built from source using --with-ns) and Slime as an environment and this works well for me. :-)

Answer 6

You might want to look at what's at the Association of Lisp Users or the Common Lisp Wiki to see what's there. I set myself up with Steel Bank Common Lisp and Emacs, but have done little with it so far.