4 ms·

Call it only Lisp, if it is actually compatible with Lisp. Otherwise you will confuse people. Scheme compatible languages usually have Scheme in their name (if

• garmaine 9y ago
  What does “compatible with Lisp” mean? Compatible with the Lisp 1.5 meta interpreter? Compatible with Emacs Lisp? Compatible with Common Lisp? People generally refer to “Lisp”, unqualified, as referring to the family of languages inclusive of all of the above.
  • lispm 9y ago
    It means somehow compatible with the Lisp 1.5 implementtion. Which is an interpreter/compiler, and a base library. It's the first widely used Lisp implementation. This implies cons cell based lists, s-expressions, and a whole bunch of basic control structures and facilities. The first Scheme dialects were quite similar to that, but deviated and extended this in their own direction with a series of language standards RNRS. If a langage is a Scheme dialect, call it Scheme. Basic rule: use the nearest (!) language name, one is compatible with. This strives to be a R7RS Scheme. Thus name it Schwme. Then the Scheme literature and the Scheme source libraries apply. If it is a Scheme, I would best get myself a Scheme tutorial to learn using it - reading the Lisp literature is of less direct help. For example typically Common Lisp implementations have 'Common Lisp' or 'CL' its name, and are not called SchemeSomething. SBCL, CCL, GCl, Allegro Cl, MCL, ECL, ... Exceptions are CLISP or the product LispWorks. To avoid confusion a language should call itself Lisp, when it is practically (syntactically) a Lisp, not just in the unspecified family of 'Lisp': Logo, Scheme, Clojure, MDL, Dylan, SKILL, ...
    • garmaine 9y ago
      Scheme most certainly is a Lisp. I agree that the OP should have called it SchemeKit or some such, but I would not agree on a categorization that excludes schemes from the category of “Lisp”.
      • lispm 9y ago
        It's a Lisp which is now called Scheme and not Lisp anymore. Scheme has now its own name and family.