Lisp in the real world

Question

I have experimented with Lisp (actually Scheme) and found it to be a very beautiful language that I am interested in learning more about. However, it appears that Lisp is n

Answer 1

I was quite impressed when I found out that the PRISM («The Prism project is a long term project to build software tools for radiation therapy planning, including artificial intelligence tools as well as manual simulation systems.») is written in Common Lisp.

At my job I am writing software that uses DICOM and I must say that writing good DICOM implementation is a hard task. In their report they describe how Common Lisp let them build a good DICOM implementation that is better (at least in some ways) than other implementation with lesser effort.

Answer 2

The GIMP's plug-in system is based on Scheme, I believe. I don't know if this is completely "real world", but it seems to be a practical application of Lisp, at the very least.

Answer 3

Well, it's hardly mainstream, but I use lisp for as much of my research code as is manageable. It's by far the best language I've found for the balance of dynamism & expressiveness while still generating decent performance for numerics, etc..

Answer 4

GNU Make is extensible with scheme. A case for real world programming :)

https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Guile-Integration.html

Answer 5

If I started up my very own major software project now, I would make my language decision based on the criteria above. Sure, I love Lisp, CLOS is awesome, real lexical scoping rocks, Lisp macros are way cool (when used as directed), and personally I really like Lisp syntax. […] But it would take a lot, or require special circumstances, to persuade me to choose Lisp for a major software project, if I were in charge of making the choice. - Dan Weinreb

Answer 6

For the AutoCAD application AutoLISP/Visual LISP are used a lot for real projects and there is a large community of users.