<p>As much as we would all like to say it is a benefit to programmers to be language agnostic, is it really feasible to support multiple enterprise Web applications of the same type all written in different languages? Think about how complicated a CMS or e-commerce system can be -- now imagine supporting three different CMS platforms all written in different languages. I would hate to be known as a .NET or Java or PHP shop, but I also don't want to be the vendor who says they can support a solution they have never worked with, upsetting a client who wonders why we can't get something done right on time. Can anyone speak from experience on this? Does your company usually just suck it up, and try and to learn a new platform on the fly? Do you bill up-to-speed, or eat those costs?</p>

[{'answer_id': 59434, 'author': 'infinitetape', 'author_id': 4601, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4601', 'pm_score': 6, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p><a href="http://racket-lang.org/" rel="noreferrer">Racket</a> (<a href="http://racket-lang.org/new-name.html" rel="noreferrer">formerly Dr Scheme</a>) has a nice editor, several different Scheme dialects, an attempt at visual debugging, lots of libraries, and can run on most platforms. It even has some modes specifically geared around learning the language.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 64223, 'author': 'Eli Bendersky', 'author_id': 8206, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/8206', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://plt-scheme.org/" rel="noreferrer">PLT Scheme</a> (DrScheme) is one of the best IDEs out there, especially for Scheme. The package you get when downloading it contains all you need for developing Scheme code - libraries, documentation, examples, and so on. Highly recommended.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 69845, 'author': 'Jonathan Arkell', 'author_id': 11052, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/11052', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>LispMe works on a Palm Pilot, take it anywhere, and scheme on the go.  GREAT way to learn scheme.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 69987, 'author': 'Peter de Laat', 'author_id': 11327, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/11327', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>If you just want to test your scheme code, I would recommend <a href="http://plt-scheme.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PLT Scheme</a>. It offers a very complete environment, with debugger, help, etc., and works on most platforms.</p>\n\n<p>But if you also want to get an idea of how the interpreter behind the scenes works, and have Visual Studio, I would recommend <a href="http://www.kenrawlings.com/pages/Tachy" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Tachy</a>. It is a very lightweight scheme interpreter written in c#. It allows you to debug just your scheme code, or also step through the c# interpreter behind the scenes to see what is going on. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 76249, 'author': 'Erick', 'author_id': 8697, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/8697', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'ve used PLT as mentioned in some of the other posts and it works quite nicely.  One that I have read about but have not used is <a href="http://www.franz.com/downloads/allegrodownload.lhtml" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Allegro Common LISP Express</a>.  I read a stellar review about their database app called Allegro Cache and found that they are heavy into LISP.  Like I said, I don\'t know if it\'s any good, but it might be worth a try.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 76321, 'author': 'baudtack', 'author_id': 10738, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/10738', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I would highly recommend both <a href="http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/" rel="noreferrer">Chicken</a> and <a href="http://practical-scheme.net/gauche/" rel="noreferrer">Gauche</a> for scheme. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 91455, 'author': 'Stephen', 'author_id': 17398, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/17398', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>It doesn't matter, as long as you subscribe to the mailing list(wiki/irc/online-community-site) for the associated community. It's probably worth taking a look at the list description and archives to be sure you are in the right one.</p>\n\n<p>Most of these are friendly and welcoming to newcomers, so don't be afraid to ask. </p>\n\n<p>It's also worth searching the archives of their mailing list(or FAQ or whatever they use) when you have a question - just in case it is a frequent question.</p>\n\n<p>Good Luck!</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 232737, 'author': 'Robert Vuković', 'author_id': 438025, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/438025', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Just for the record I have to mention  <a href="http://www.codeplex.com/IronScheme" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IronScheme</a>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>IronScheme will aim to be a R6RS conforming Scheme implementation based on the Microsoft DLR.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Version 1.0 Beta 1 was just released. I think this should be good implementation for someone that is already using .NET framework.</p>\n\n<p><strong>EDIT</strong><br>\nCurrent version is <strong>1.0 RC 1</strong> from Oct 23 2009</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1919620, 'author': 'John Clements', 'author_id': 90559, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/90559', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>Google for the book's authors (Daniel Friedman and Matthias Felleisen).  See whether either of them is involved with a popular, free, existing Scheme implementation.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 12446488, 'author': 'dtg', 'author_id': 768446, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/768446', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I am currently working through the Little Schemer as well and use <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" rel="nofollow">Emacs</a> as my environment, along <a href="http://www.neilvandyke.org/quack/" rel="nofollow">Quack</a>, which adds additional support and utilities for scheme-mode within Emacs.</p>\n\n<p>If you are planning on experimenting with other Lisps (e.g. Common Lisp), Emacs has excellent support for those dialects as well (Emacs itself can be customized with its own dialect of Lisp, appropriately named Emacs Lisp).</p>\n\n<p>As far as Scheme implementations go, I am currently using <a href="http://www.scheme.com/petitechezscheme.html" rel="nofollow">Petit Chez Scheme</a>, which is an interpreted, freely distributable version of Chez Scheme (which uses a compiler and costs money to obtain a license).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 28646769, 'author': 'haziz', 'author_id': 714232, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/714232', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Guile</a> running under <a href="http://nongnu.org/geiser/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Geiser</a> within <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacs</a> provides a nice, lightweight implementation for doing the exercises. <a href="http://racket-lang.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Racket</a> will also run under <a href="http://nongnu.org/geiser/geiser_2.html#Installation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Geiser</a> and Emacs, though I personally prefer <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Guile</a> and <a href="https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chez Scheme</a> a bit more.</p>\n\n<p>Obviously installation of each will depend on your OS. I would recommend using <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Emacs version 24</a> and later since this allows you to use <a href="http://melpa.org/#/getting-started" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Melpa</a> or <a href="https://marmalade-repo.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Marmalade</a> to install Geiser and other Emacs extensions.</p>\n\n<p>The <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/geiser/geiser_2.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">current version of Geiser</a> also works quite nicely with <a href="http://www.call-cc.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chicken Scheme</a>, <a href="https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chez Scheme</a>, <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MIT Scheme</a> and <a href="https://github.com/ashinn/chibi-scheme" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Chibi Scheme</a>.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/59436', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1/']