this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Lisp
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Janet.
It's not a lisp or lisp dialect because it is not built around lists. It doesn't even have cons cells.
I don't know that much about Lisp, but I don't understand this obsession with cons cells and (linked) lists. A cons cell is nothing more than a 2-tuple, which is equivalent to a 2-element array (and Janet has arrays!).
From a programmer's perspective the difference between an array and a list is also, I would say, very minor. So why is using linked lists instead of arrays a critical part of a Lisp?
I am pretty late to the Lisp world myself, but this cons obsession doesn't make any sense to me either. I think it is useless gatekeeping.
My personal definition is if someone saw it would they call it a Lisp? Janet is definitely closer to a Lisp, than an ML or C-styled language. Therefore, it is a lisp.