Lisp -> Scheme Lisp -> CHICKEN Scheme

This is a short and opinionated overview on why using a Lisp, a Scheme, or particularly CHICKEN Scheme is the thing.

Why Lisp

• Simple Syntax: Everything is essentially a list, syntactically bounded by parenthesis with elements delimited by whitespace, known as S-expressions.
• Functional Language: Functions are first-class data types (lambda), recursion instead of iteration, support of closures, map/filter/fold higher order functions: Lisps make functional programming easy.
• Garbage Collected: Memory management is taken care of, as it should be.
• Dynamic Typing: Python and JavaScript, very popular languages, are dynamically typed, so this must be good.
• Easily Implemented: Many tutorials for building your own Lisp are available.

Why Scheme Lisp

• Minimal Lisp: Schemes provide a minimal set of core forms and functions.
• RnRS Standards: Scheme is a standardized language, so standard implementations are compatible.
• SRFIs Extensions: The Scheme Requests For Implementation are reviewed proposals for extensions.
• Semantic Naming: Predicates should have the suffix ?, mutations the suffix !.
• Tail-Call Optimization: Schemes have to support tail-call recursion.

Why CHICKEN Scheme

• R5RS Standard: With 50-pages, this is a programming language definition one can understand, cf. C++.
• Cross Platforms: Due to the sole, minimal libc dependency, CHICKEN is available on many platforms.
• Open Source: CHICKEN Scheme is BSD-licensed and thus usable for all purposes.
• Included Modules: Various often-used SRFIs and non-standard utilities are part of the package.
• Extension Repository: More than 500 eggs (extensions) are listed in the offical repository.