Top all-time · #2064
Lisp journey
Personal blog · lisp-journey.gitlab.io · on HN as vindarelprogramming
Lisp journey is a personal blog at lisp-journey.gitlab.io about programming. Since 2019, 38 different Hacker News readers have linked it 98 times, most often “Python vs Common Lisp, workflow and ecosystem (2019)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-11, and you can follow it by feed.
Discovering the Common Lisp language and ecosystem… and being highly productive in it.
Most-linked posts?
- Python vs Common Lisp, workflow and ecosystem (2019)4 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2019-11-06
- Discovering the Lispworks IDE4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-05-25
- Years in Common Lisp: 2022 in review3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2023-01-09
- Hacker News now runs on top of Common Lisp3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-05-26
- State of the Common Lisp ecosystem, 20203 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-02-08
- Oh no, I started a Magit-like plugin for the Lem editor3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-03-14
- Who’s Using Common Lisp?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-27
- Kina Knowledge, using Common Lisp extensively in their document processing stack2 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2021-10-22
- /blog/pro-mailing-list-on-common-lisp-and-parallel-gc/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-12-16
- These years in Common Lisp: 2023-2024 in review2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-02-18
What Hacker News says?
I can give you example snippets I was able to write for Nyxt, that I find quite exciting, as premises of an integrated platform, bluring the lines between a web browser and other applications. I don't agonize in not having them in other browsers, yet, but I still find the Nyxt capacities they illustrate exciting. - first, there's a simple file manager in Nyxt (Webkit's), the open file command is bound to C-x C-f, ju…
Comment linking /pythonvslisp/
on “Show HN: Nyxt Browser 2.0.0”Submitted Hacker News now runs on top of Common Lisp as a story · 663 points
HN discussionArc was re-written to Common Lisp (SBCL) around last year, for performance reasons. > [Clarc] is much faster and also will easily let HN run on multiple cores. It’s been in the works for years, mainly because I rarely find time to work on it, but it’s all pretty close to done. > there’s now an Arc-to-JS called Lilt, and an Arc-to-Common Lisp called Clarc. […] > open-sourcing the Arc implementation (i.e. Clarc) would…
Comment linking /blog/hacker-news-now-runs-on-top-of-common-lisp/
on “Racket v9.0”Submitted State of the Common Lisp ecosystem, 2020 as a story · 311 points
HN discussionSome companies: https://github.com/azzamsa/awesome-lisp-companies/ An interview: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/lisp-interview-kina/ Hint: all Quantum computing companies, Google for ITA Software, the NASA for James-Webb's planning and scheduling system, smaller companies (Kina), solo devs that find they are more productive than in Python (like myself).
Comment linking /blog/lisp-interview-kina/
on “Tutorial Series to learn Common Lisp quickly”Submitted These years in Common Lisp: 2023-2024 in review as a story · 205 points
HN discussionYes, Python's REPL speeds up development, but Lisp's REPL (we should say image-based development model) is even more interactive! We never wait for a server to restart, our test data is live on the REPL, we compile our code function-by-function with a keystroke and we get instant warnings and errors, when there is an error we get an interactive debugger that pops up and allows us to inspect the stack, go to the bugg…
Comment linking /pythonvslisp/
on “Why Lisp?”Submitted Common Lisp Resources as a story · 200 points
HN discussionhttps://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/overview-of-documentatio...
Comment linking /blog/overview-of-documentation-generators/
on “Common Lisp vs Racket”Submitted Kina Knowledge, using Common Lisp extensively in their document processing stack as a story · 192 points
HN discussionI suggest: do you find yourself often quitting the debugger and re-running the same test, the same task from the start? You can avoid that in CL. Just leave the debugger open, go to the buggy line ("v" on a stacktrace in Slime), fix the function, re-compile it on the fly (C-c C-c in Slime), come back to the debugger, resume the program from the stackframe you want, now it passes. If the first steps were taking 10 mi…
Comment linking /images/debugging-python-VS-lisp.png
on “A Road to Common Lisp (2018)”Submitted Python vs Common Lisp, workflow and ecosystem (2019) as a story · 135 points
HN discussionHere's a nice interview of a company using CL for their document processing stack: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/lisp-interview-kina/ (edit: not a pure CL web stack: Ruby to CL logic via websockets to a lispy client side) Example apps I can think of: Screenshot bot: https://github.com/screenshotbot/screenshotbot-oss Webcheckout: https://webcheckout.net/ (they were hiring recently) Math Pastebin: https://github…
Comment linking /blog/lisp-interview-kina/
on “Building a Startup on Clojure”Submitted Why Turtl switched from Common Lisp to JavaScript (2019) as a story · 85 points
HN discussionWe have a number of libraries that are easy to use together for the backend, no fancy web framework (build your auth page yourself), no fancy client-side lispy libraries. We might have a Fighweel-like tool, but no one is interested (Trident-mode for Emacs). There's one framework that looks promising to build fully dynamic apps in pure CL with one code base (websockets inside). It provides a GUI-like experience to bu…
Comment linking /blog/lisp-for-the-web-deploy-with-systemd/
on “Building a Startup on Clojure”Submitted Who’s Using Common Lisp? as a story · 50 points
HN discussionSome pointers: Scorecloud ( https://scorecloud.com/ ), a music composition software (you sing, it writes music) comes from research, and is built in Common Lisp. pgloader was rewritten from Python to Lisp: https://tapoueh.org/blog/2014/05/why-is-pgloader-so-much-fas... because of Python's poor performances and threading capacities. A theorem prover used in the industry: https://github.com/acl2/acl2 A Lisp vendor sel…
Comment linking /blog/pro-mailing-list-on-common-lisp-and-parallel-gc/
on “Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?”Submitted Python vs. Common Lisp, Workflow and Ecosystem as a story · 41 points
HN discussionCLOS is great, but CL also supports pure typed FP with https://coalton-lang.github.io Coalton progress is discussed briefly in the OP: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/these-years-in-common-li...
Comment linking /blog/these-years-in-common-lisp-2023-2024-in-review/
on “These years in Common Lisp: 2023-2024 in review”Submitted State of Common Lisp Web Development (2022 Update) as a story · 6 points
HN discussion> A real killer feature would be some kind of emacs-lisp compatibility layer so that you could load existing third-party emacs modules, but I imagine the complexity of that is so off the charts that it would be unrealistic. Yeah while completely unrealistic some way to make interfacing with emacs packages would be nice. There seems to be a magit like interface in the works: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/oh-no-…
Comment linking /blog/oh-no-i-started-a-magit-like-plugin-for-the-lem-editor/
on “Lem: Emacs-like editor written in Common Lisp”Submitted Nice looking GUI for Common Lisp: nodgui now comes with a surprisingly nice loo as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI try to explain diffirences with Python here: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/pythonvslisp/ + there is more in this thread.
Comment linking /pythonvslisp/
on “Common Lisp Resources”Submitted Functions Tutorial: Arguments, Multiple Values, funcall and apply, closures as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOld Lisp posts are cool, then if you want a refresher of what's happening in the CL ecosystem (tools, libraries, compilers…) here's an overview of the last two years (shameless plug): https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/these-years-in-common-li... and very cool new projects appeared in 2025.
Comment linking /blog/these-years-in-common-lisp-2023-2024-in-review/
on “Lisp: Notes on its Past and Future (1980)”Submitted Years in Common Lisp: 2022 in review as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHere's a comparison of CL and Python: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/pythonvslisp/ and CL can be super performant btw. CL allows for live/REPL programming, unmatched elsewhere, and still has features not found elsewhere too. Happy discovery!
Comment linking /pythonvslisp/
on “GNU Guile 3.0”Submitted Python VS Common Lisp, workflow and ecosystem as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWorkflow wise, that's my answer: https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/pythonvslisp/
Comment linking /pythonvslisp/
on “Julia and the Reincarnation of Lisp (2020)”Submitted Discovering the Lispworks IDE as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
