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Scheme is not a single alternative. Racket [0] is a Scheme, which can be compared to things like Python or Ruby. There are other implementations, which should be used for different uses. For example, Chibi Scheme [1] is a nice alternative to Lua, but not to Python or Ruby.

Given your other two Lisps, I rather make this list:

* Common Lisp (which implementation?)

* Racket

* Clojure

[0] http://racket-lang.org/ [1] http://synthcode.com/wiki/chibi-scheme



I think Chicken[1] is a very attractive Scheme alternative. It's full-featured, fast, compiles down to C, has a very nice library (egg) system, and a relatively large and active user community (as far as Schemes go).

[1] - http://call-cc.org/


Hear, hear; I've been using Chicken for commercial and personal projects for about five years now. It keeps getting better.

Occasionally, Racket has a package that I'd like to port (e.g. datalog); but I find it otherwise overbearing.

Chicken has found some local maximum of efficiency and availability of useful libraries.


I would add Tiny Scheme as an embedding scripting language or as base of a DSL




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