Comment by reikonomusha
20 hours ago
What evolution in particular do you think? The developers use it for commercial products in quantum computing and defense [1]. That doesn't mean it's done in some complete language ecosystem sense (which is discussed in [1], and one could argue Haskell also never feels "finished"), but it also doesn't seem like an unfinished hobby project. Given that it's embedded in Common Lisp, there's always a way to fill in the library gaps, sort of like how if a "native" library doesn't exist in Clojure, one can always reach for Java.
[1] From Toward Safe, Flexible, and Efficient Software in Common Lisp at the European Lisp Symposium, "[Coalton] has been used for the past 5 or so years [...] first in quantum computing and now a serious defense application." https://youtu.be/xuSrsjqJN4M&t=9m14s
I am an avid sbcl and coalton user (and sponsor of both when I can) and never said it was not a great thing; comparing it to Haskell is, outside the theoretical type system roots, just a bit early type system wise.
I agree with you further and you did an excellent promotional comment for Coalton and CL; keep doing that please. I have said many times here before that I did not like my time away from CL and Coalton makes it even better.