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I just wanna throw myself in here and get some advice. I’ve started using lisp recently mostly for emacs configuration but also doing a bit of recreation game programming in Fennel. If I wanted to learn a lisp for general programming/application stuff like writing a shell, a compiler, something more user facing, what would be good to check out?

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It doesn't matter. Just start with a Lisp, any Lisp. Grok the idea of being REPL-driven, pick some structural editing idioms. That's all you need. Then, you pick a runtime for your needs. Depending on the runtime semantics you can choose a Lisp dialect for that runtime. Pick up some Clojure, it's enormously practical for any kind of data manipulation and analysis - small or big data. I don't even use jq anymore - studying http response in Clojure REPL is so much more convenient - you sort, filter and group data anyway you like.

I prefer the schemes.... Chicken scheme for standalone programs, s7 for embedding into larger systems. They're simple and easy to mold to whatever shape you want in my experience

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