>>15Here's my rationale: If Racket were a lisp, it would call itself a
Lisp. Does Java call itself a C? No, because it's not a C.
Moreover, if Racket were a lisp, then ML would be a lisp. As would
scheme, dylan, logo, perl, ruby, and lots of other languages which have
closures and recusive functions. ML and Racket are far more similar to
each other than either is to Common Lisp.
I think it's a small group of insecure Racket users who think that
they should be considered "A Lisp" so that they get all the
"publicity" that Lisp does along with the publicity that Racket does.
Additionally, they get to defame the name of Lisp by making people
think that it's as limited at Racket. That's what I had thought from
my prior education, before being informed by Skyrim Krishnamurthi and
c.l.l that Lisp really is very different from Racket. Turned out that
the language I had been building and semi-specifying was a subset of
CL, and I effectively replaced the copy of that language's spec with
the Hyperspec and never looked back. :)
What those Racketers get from defaming Lisp beats me. Probaby some sort
of jealous envy. If they really like Racket, I don't see why they
should need to dupe others out of wanting to learn Lisp.