Need suggestions for most popular Scheme implementations

[findinglisp]

Okay, I just added Scheme to the list of Lisp dialects we'll be talking about. For Common Lisp, I added a series of forums for implementation-specific discussions. This could be anything from developer-related stuff to "how do I do sockets on implementation <foo>."

Unfortunately, I'm much more familiar with Common Lisp implementations than Scheme implementations. Schemers.org points to this list of implementations at schemewiki: http://community.schemewiki.org/?scheme ... mentations
Which of these would be the most used and most active? My guess would be PLT, MIT, Bigloo, Gambit, and Scheme48. But that's just my view of Scheme world from Common Lisp world and it's undoubtedly wrong.

[wm.annis]

Chicken! It has a pretty active development community and an enviable collection of libraries.

It's not clear they lack for a place for user community, though.

[Flatlander]

I think all Scheme implementations have very active and helpful mailing lists so I'm not sure if there is a point in implementation specific subforums. One general Scheme subforum should be enough. FWIW I also think same holds for Common Lisp.

[findinglisp]

Okay, so maybe I'll whack the various implementation forums for now and create them again if needed. I wasn't wild about creating them in the first place since they take up a lot of vertical space in the top-level listing and they will tend to fragment the discussion. The main goal with doing is was to prevent one particular implementation from taking over the general forums or forcing people to wade through lots of implementation-specific detail for an implementation they aren't using (SBCL and PLT were the main concerns there, since they have such high usage).

[findinglisp]

Okay, so maybe I'll whack the various implementation forums for now and create them again if needed. I wasn't wild about creating them in the first place since they take up a lot of vertical space in the top-level listing and they will tend to fragment the discussion. The main goal with doing is was to prevent one particular implementation from taking over the general forums or forcing people to wade through lots of implementation-specific detail for an implementation they aren't using (SBCL and PLT were the main concerns there, since they have such high usage).

It's done.

[hilbertastronaut]

Anybody used tinyscheme? I was thinking about using it as an embedded language but have been following ECL instead and am pleased with that.

[findinglisp]

Anybody used tinyscheme? I was thinking about using it as an embedded language but have been following ECL instead and am pleased with that.

How is ECL working out for you? I had been thinking about using that for one of my projects. It seems to have one of the lowest footprints of all the CL implementations, at least before you start loading a lot code and data (just the startup footprint); CLISP might be smaller once you reach the full application working set size, but I never went so far as to measure it.

[hilbertastronaut]

Anybody used tinyscheme? I was thinking about using it as an embedded language but have been following ECL instead and am pleased with that.

How is ECL working out for you? I had been thinking about using that for one of my projects. It seems to have one of the lowest footprints of all the CL implementations, at least before you start loading a lot code and data (just the startup footprint); CLISP might be smaller once you reach the full application working set size, but I never went so far as to measure it.

Sorry about the delay in replying -- I use ECL as an embedded language in my C programs, so it's C that eats most of the cycles. However, for this application I find ECL very easy to use, and the performance is sufficiently good not to make an impact on interactivity (e.g., I don't notice the Lisp boot time when I launch my executable). Also, ECL's project lead is very responsive and helpful.

mfh