Mark: So how do I get started in Common Lisp?

Nolan: That's the neat thing—you don't.

One of the interesting and, depending on your perspective, perhaps unfortunate side effects of LLM-assisted development becoming the standard is that LLMs almost completely disincentivize choosing an unpopular language for serious work. Due to the much higher volume of training data, you're better off using TypeScript, Go, or Rust (or Swift if you're in Apple-land or Kotlin if you're in Android dev hell). Those languages with an LLM will make you far more productive than even an "expressive" language like Lisp.

Plus there are complete, modern IDEs for those that let you get started right from the jump, rather than having to build your own IDE out of Emacs and assorted parts before you can actually develop your application.

I use Elixir every day with Claude Code and I haven’t had any issue regarding syntax, ecosystem and BEAM specific knowledge yet.

If anything I perceive a bit more mistakes when I have to do things in TS (and in a way simpler domain, in a way smaller project).

I'm currently working on a game (SBCL & OpenGL) and Claude had no problems helping me with rendering pipeline issues in SBCL.

Claude has been doing a pretty good job at writing newlisp code, reasonably idiomatic too. newlisp is a niche language.

The right way to start is with LispWorks or Allegro Common Lisp, exactly the surviving Common Lisp IDEs, instead of building your own IDE out of Emacs and SLIME.

However I do agree with the AI part.

And yet: current state of the art models are also great at navigating and trying language ecosystems that aren't as mainstream. So if you're curious it's now great to explore topics, languages, concepts that — even if not mainstream — were so far a bit out of reach.