>Have you seen the Common Lisp specification?

Yes, it is huge and gigantic, but worth it's weight in gold. The stuff "just works" and has almost no limits. I'd say that spec is a masterpiece.

Common Lisp is big because it's a bridge between MacLisp and InterLisp communities of the 80s. There are much smaller (and just as powerful) Lisps like Scheme or ISLISP.