Lisp

Lisp is a programming language originally created by John McCarthy in 1958. Despite its age, it is still a popular choice for modern programmers. Lisp has proven itself flexible enough to evolve to meet the needs of modern programmers. Modern implementations often come "batteries-included", meaning that the programmer has access to powerful libraries for databases, regular expressions, networking, and more.

Lisp comes in different dialects, which are divided into different implementations. Three important dialects are Common Lisp, Emacs Lisp, and Scheme.

Dialects

Emacs Lisp

Emacs Lisp is used to script Emacs. Programmers who swear by Emacs should learn to use Emacs Lisp.

Scheme

Scheme, created by Guy L. Steele and Gerald Jay Sussman, is the dialect used in SICP.

Two of the most popular implementations are Chicken and GNU Guile, both of which include a developed C API.