PRINCIPLES OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES: COMMON LISP VS. SCHEME Gary T. Leavens, Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1040 USA leavens@cs.iastate.edu $Date: 1995/09/23 18:38:01 $ The table below highlights the important differences between Common Lisp and Scheme for those that know a more standard Lisp dialect. Only the differences are highlighted here, there are many more similarities. Common Lisp Scheme ------------------------------------------------------- () ; eq to nil () nil #f t #t (eq x y) (eq? x y) (equal x y) (equal? x y) (atom x) (not (pair? x)) (consp x) (pair? x) (null x) (null? x) (symbolp x) (symbol? x) (zerop x) (zero? x) (setf (car x) y) (set-car! x y) (setf (cdr x) y) (set-cdr! x y) (mapcar #'f l) (map f l) (map 'list #'f l) (map f l) (mapcar #'(lambda (x) (g x)) l) (map (lambda (x) (g x)) l) #'(lambda (x) y) (lambda (x) y) (setq var y) (set! var y) (setf var y) (set! var y) (cond (cond ((null x) 0) ((null? x) 0) ((eq x y) (f x)) ((eq? x y) (f x)) (t (g y))) (else (g y))) (defun square (x) (define (square x) (* x x)) (* x x)) ; or (define square (lambda (x) (* x x))) (funcall (g f) x) ((g f) x) (defun compose (f g) (define (compose f g) #'(lambda (x) (lambda (x) (funcall f (f (g x)))) (funcall g x)))) Acknowledgments Thanks to Erik Naggum and Richard Gabriel for correcting my ancient LISP accent. Of course any errors are not their responsibility but mine.