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> Like building out of clay and firing the parts you are happy with. > Could even have a three step - Python-esque -> Go/Java-esque -> Rust/C++esque.

We do exactly that with Common Lisp. It compiles to different languages/frameworks depending on what we require (usually sbcl is more than enough, but for instance for embedded or ML we need another step. All dev (with smaller data etc) is in sbcl so with all the advantages.

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Is there somewhere I could read more about this? I've always wanted to learn Lisp but lacked a specific need for it.

We don’t necessarily do good lisp things; we use Common Lisp because macros and easy DSLs allows us to use CL for everything we do while using, for us, the best dev and debugging env in the world. So we want to do the exploration, building, debugging all in CL and after that compile, possibly, to something better depending. We trade for that a little bit of inconvenience (as in; leaky abstraction), but it’s worth it the past 30+ years.

For learning cl, the reddit lisp subreddit is good and has the current best ones on it. Lately there is a guy making a gui (clog) who is doing good work for spreading general lisp love by making it modern. Including tutorials. And there are others too.

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