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Concerning implementations, *all* commercials implementations are well supported and comes with a lot of recent features, like XML, RPC, graphics, GUI, etc...
Concerning the Common Lisp community, it's really amazing to be able to talk with the masters just about anything about computing. This is an exceptional opportunity to have such experimeted people here!
This is not the case with, say the Java community.
Concerning Free implementation, SBCL is a growing one. With a lot of refactoring and a lot of availables features. Working with a Debian system is a plus because every Common Lisp library is packaged within the system.
My suggestion. Start learning and using Common Lisp.
I totally agree with you that there is a lot of valuable material in the community but I'm just saying that some recurrent problems keep plaguing the community and the credibility of Common Lisp.
The different implementations of the language is one of the issues. The lack of packaging and bad API design of some modules (i.e: ASDF) is another one. Some people like Edi Weitz are very sensitive to these "social" aspects of software and take care of users. As a result, its libraries have all been quickly adopted (i.e: [CL-PPCRE](http://www.weitz.de/cl-ppcre/)) by the community. Other communities understood that for a long time.
I have big respect for guys behind SBCL and I really hope it will become the open source reference implementation of Common Lisp.
That said, I also came by another blog post that share my points "[Why Lisp Still Hasn't Won](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8721)". These comments should be taken as advices for improving Common Lisp.
In 2003, I though I would see big changes in 2005 and I've spent a lot of time to evangelise Common Lisp all around me. Actually I'm quite dissapointed to see where we stand today and what other communities manage to build in the same time.
Yours,
Rob Lally
Thank you.