I've also spent a bit of time with LISPs, when learning Clojure I ported the Clojure 101 LINQ Examples [1] and did appreciate a lot of niceties that Clojure brings with it where the additional syntax actually added to its readability, e.g. the usage of vector syntax for function params provided a welcomed visual separator from its implementation body. Basically all its additional syntax improves readability over a LISP's typical clumped sea of parens where you can more quickly discern different constructs from a glance which would otherwise take me a lot more time & effort trying to determine the boundaries of each expression whilst evaluating them in my head, effectively conveying that the minimal s-expression syntax that's optimal for the compiler isn't optimal for humans.
So when it came time to implementing a .NET LISP [2], I adopted much of Clojure's additional syntax for improved readability & interop with .NET APIs [3]. But you can only improve LISP's syntax so far, e.g. its Template libraries for HTML generation [4] make for horrible HTML DSL's which looks nothing like the HTML it's supposed to generate. The solution to overcome this was basically to not to use LISP for templates, instead create a multi-language scripting language [5] that embeds lisp into it allowing it to Combine strength's of all languages [6], e.g. use LISP for algorithms and Handlebars / JS Expressions for templating.
The REPL is definitely one of its super powers which is one areas where it shines & basically the primary use-case where I still use it. I've created a live "watch" mode & deep integration with .NET libs that I use for discovery, e.g. run DB queries, call HTTP APIs, execute shell scripts, etc. [7]. It especially shines for being able to open a REPL session with a remote production .NET instance letting me inspect its live running state & invoke system functionality like querying its configured RDBMS, executing redis commands, send tweets, emails, etc [8], I've even got it to Live Script Unity objects in-game :) [9], which speaks to the power & elegance of LISP that's able to achieve so much with so little code.
At the same time I don't think REPL-based programming is all that useful during normal development, you can execute encapsulated code fragments fine, but most of the time I'll need my whole environment constructed before being able to inspect it as I would when debugging, so I find it useful for opening a REPL session into a live running instance, but not using the REPL to construct the live instance. So for my dev workflow, static analysis & typing, great IDE, tooling + debugging is a lot more useful.
So when it came time to implementing a .NET LISP [2], I adopted much of Clojure's additional syntax for improved readability & interop with .NET APIs [3]. But you can only improve LISP's syntax so far, e.g. its Template libraries for HTML generation [4] make for horrible HTML DSL's which looks nothing like the HTML it's supposed to generate. The solution to overcome this was basically to not to use LISP for templates, instead create a multi-language scripting language [5] that embeds lisp into it allowing it to Combine strength's of all languages [6], e.g. use LISP for algorithms and Handlebars / JS Expressions for templating.
The REPL is definitely one of its super powers which is one areas where it shines & basically the primary use-case where I still use it. I've created a live "watch" mode & deep integration with .NET libs that I use for discovery, e.g. run DB queries, call HTTP APIs, execute shell scripts, etc. [7]. It especially shines for being able to open a REPL session with a remote production .NET instance letting me inspect its live running state & invoke system functionality like querying its configured RDBMS, executing redis commands, send tweets, emails, etc [8], I've even got it to Live Script Unity objects in-game :) [9], which speaks to the power & elegance of LISP that's able to achieve so much with so little code.
At the same time I don't think REPL-based programming is all that useful during normal development, you can execute encapsulated code fragments fine, but most of the time I'll need my whole environment constructed before being able to inspect it as I would when debugging, so I find it useful for opening a REPL session into a live running instance, but not using the REPL to construct the live instance. So for my dev workflow, static analysis & typing, great IDE, tooling + debugging is a lot more useful.
[1] https://github.com/mythz/clojure-linq-examples
[2] https://sharpscript.net/lisp/
[3] https://sharpscript.net/lisp/#net-interop
[4] https://www.cliki.net/HTML%20template
[5] https://sharpscript.net/docs/syntax#language-block-modifiers
[6] https://sharpscript.net/docs/syntax#combine-strengths-of-all...
[7] https://sharpscript.net/lisp/#run-and-watch-lisp-scripts
[8] https://sharpscript.net/lisp/#techstacks-tcp-lisp-repl-demo
[9] https://sharpscript.net/lisp/unity