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Racket Lang VS Common Lisp

Compare Racket Lang VS Common Lisp and see what are their differences

Racket Lang logo Racket Lang

Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) is a modern programming language in the Lisp/Scheme family, suitable...

Common Lisp logo Common Lisp

The modern, multi-paradigm, high-performance, compiled, ANSI-standardized descendant of the long-running family of Lisp programming languages
  • Racket Lang Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30

We recommend LibHunt Racket for discovery and comparisons of trending Racket projects.

  • Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-18

We recommend LibHunt Common Lisp for discovery and comparisons of trending Common Lisp projects.

Racket Lang features and specs

  • Metaprogramming
    Racket excels at metaprogramming, allowing developers to easily create domain-specific languages and macros to suit their specific needs. This makes it highly flexible and powerful for developing complex programs.
  • Rich Libraries
    Racket comes with a large standard library and an active package ecosystem, providing a vast array of tools and frameworks for different types of applications from web development to scientific computing.
  • Educational Use
    Racket is widely used in academic settings, particularly for teaching computer science and programming. It offers a pedagogic environment designed to help learners understand fundamental principles easily.
  • Interactive Development
    Racket's REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) allows for interactive development, making it easy to test and debug code snippets on the fly. This can speed up the development process and facilitate rapid prototyping.
  • Cross-Platform
    Racket is a cross-platform language and runs on various operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. This ensures that programs written in Racket can be easily shared and executed on different systems without modification.

Possible disadvantages of Racket Lang

  • Performance
    Racket is generally not as performant as lower-level languages like C or Rust. This can be a limitation for applications requiring high computational efficiency, such as real-time systems.
  • Smaller Community
    While Racket has a dedicated user base, its community is relatively small compared to languages like Python or JavaScript. This can make it more challenging to find resources, tutorials, or third-party libraries.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Racket's unique features and advanced concepts such as continuations and macros may present a steep learning curve for beginners who are not already familiar with Lisp-like languages or functional programming paradigms.
  • Limited Industry Adoption
    Racket is not as widely adopted in the industry as some other languages, which can limit job opportunities and its overall presence in commercial software development.
  • Verbose Syntax
    Racket's syntax can be verbose and complex due to its Lisp heritage, which uses extensive parentheses. This can make the code harder to read and maintain, especially for those not accustomed to it.

Common Lisp features and specs

  • Powerful Macro System
    Common Lisp offers a robust macro system that allows for metaprogramming, letting developers easily extend the language and create domain-specific languages.
  • Dynamic Typing
    Common Lisp supports dynamic typing, which allows for more flexibility in coding and prototyping, reducing the amount of boilerplate code needed.
  • Interactive Development Environment
    It provides a powerful REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) that aids in interactive and iterative software development, enabling quick testing and debugging.
  • Portability
    Code written in Common Lisp can be run on different platforms without modification, thanks to its standardized specification and portability across implementations.
  • Rich Standard Library
    Common Lisp comes with a comprehensive standard library that includes a wide range of utilities for data manipulation, I/O operations, and more.

Possible disadvantages of Common Lisp

  • Steep Learning Curve
    The language has an extensive set of features and a unique syntax, which can be difficult for beginners to learn and master.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more modern languages, Common Lisp has a smaller ecosystem of libraries and community support, which can hinder development speed and resources.
  • Performance Variability
    Performance can vary significantly between different implementations of Common Lisp due to variations in optimizing compilers and runtime environments.
  • Obscure Syntax
    The syntax can be difficult to read and understand, especially for those coming from more conventional languages like Python or JavaScript.
  • Commercial Use Challenges
    Common Lisp's licensing and support can be less favorable for commercial use compared to other mainstream programming languages.

Analysis of Racket Lang

Overall verdict

  • Racket Lang is a robust and flexible language that is particularly appreciated within academic circles and by those interested in functional programming. It has a strong community and is praised for its ability to facilitate rapid prototyping and language creation.

Why this product is good

  • Racket Lang is considered good because it is a versatile and functional programming language designed for creating a wide range of applications, from web development to scripting and research. It provides excellent support for functional programming paradigms, including features like first-class functions, powerful macro systems, and modules. The extensive set of libraries and its IDE, DrRacket, make it beginner-friendly and suitable for educational purposes.

Recommended for

    Racket Lang is recommended for programmers who are interested in learning functional programming, educators who wish to teach programming concepts, researchers working in computer science, and developers looking to create domain-specific languages or rapidly prototype solutions.

Racket Lang videos

🏸 Top & Best Selling Badminton Rackets 2020 (review of Year 2019) 🏆

Common Lisp videos

Common Lisp Study Group - A In-depth Look into CLOS (part 1)

More videos:

  • Review - Common Lisp Study Group - Closures and Macro Basics

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Racket Lang and Common Lisp)
Programming Language
69 69%
31% 31
OOP
70 70%
30% 30
Generic Programming Language
Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Racket Lang should be more popular than Common Lisp. It has been mentiond 95 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Racket Lang mentions (95)

  • Cloudflare Topaz: formal verification to prevent conflicts in DNS configuration
    Racket! https://racket-lang.org/ “Whenever an engineer changes one of these programs, we run all the programs through our custom model checker (written in Racket + Rosette)”. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • The Little Typer (2018)
    Friedman's books are all great. All of them. But they don't work for everybody. If you can be relaxed and think of the interaction as play, they're very good. If you're feeling more of a "serious business" mindset, it can be hard to get in the groove of his style. There are a lot of jokes about food and encouragement to take breaks. If you can get into the learning as play mindset, I'd strongly encourage taking... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: What programming language should I learn?
    - pipe operator It compiles to either erlang or JavaScript, so I was able to jump right into building something fun with a new language. >I previously gave Clojure a try, that was a pretty good fit, but the JVM / ecosystem put me off. I felt similarly w/ leiningen (too much boilerplate) but was lisp-curious still so gave racket (https://racket-lang.org/) a try and appreciated the batteries included philosophy of... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Ask HN: Which language is easiest to get started with functional programming?
    Biased recommendation: Try racket https://racket-lang.org/ It's not pure functional, but the preferred style is to use mostly functional constructs. (But you can cheat when it get's too difficult or you need some extra speed.) (And you can download packages like Qi that enable a new language inside Racket that has more support for functional style.) (Most Schemes have a similar mostly-functional style, so you can... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Racket–the Language-Oriented Programming Language–version 8.12 is now available
    Racket—the Language-Oriented Programming Language—version 8.12 is now available from https://racket-lang.org See https://racket.discourse.group/t/racket-v8-12-is-now-available/2709 for the release announcement and highlights. Thank you to the many people who contributed to this release! Feedback Welcome. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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Common Lisp mentions (11)

  • Origins of the Lisp logo
    The yin-yang logo with lambdas was designed by Guy Steele, and he has granted permission for its use to Common Lisp Foundation (the entity which runs common-lisp.net website and the gitlab.common-lisp.net repo). Source: about 2 years ago
  • New open source Common Lisp 3D graphics project -- call for participation
    A wiki and pm tool I personally like a lot, simple, lightweight, is trac but there is no free hosting available — but I could work on hosting on AWS for instance. MoinMoin is also a good and simple wiki. You are using Medium a lot, which could also be a sensible option but it is more a publishing platform than a collaborative platform. Gitlab is also a popular choice I believe and we could use the instance on... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • common-lisp.net down
    Does anybody have information how the content on common-lisp.net is handled? Source: about 3 years ago
  • common-lisp.net down
    Any insight into the current down-time for common-lisp.net? Source: about 3 years ago
  • What should be my next programming language?
    Python seems like a popular option these days and it is different enough from C++ in that it may teach you to think about programming in a different way. You could also try a functional language such as Lisp, Scheme) or Haskell -- they too will make you think differently about programming. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Racket Lang and Common Lisp, you can also consider the following products

Clojure - Clojure is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming.

C++ - Has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing the facilities for low level memory manipulation

Guile - Guile is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions, the official extension language for the GNU operating system.

D (Programming Language) - D is a language with C-like syntax and static typing.

Rust - A safe, concurrent, practical language

Go Programming Language - Go, also called golang, is a programming language initially developed at Google in 2007 by Robert...