>>13
I shouldn't have mentioned the "Lisp" part, except as follows:
Which free Lisp is usually recommended nowadays? SBCL. But SBCL doesn't even run on Windows. How can anybody take SBCL seriously if it doesn't run on the largest of the three major PC operating systems?
Anyway, since we're on the topic of Lisp: Allegro and Lispworks have rather low limitations on their free versions, and Corman has its own thing going on. Since they're neither OSS nor huge corporate, that means the likelihood of a sizable community forming to propel them forward is nonexistent.
So now, if you write something in any of them, your code won't be trivially portable to some other Common Lisp implementation if you use anything useful (aka: DB, threads, stuff not from the stone age). Great for the future!
I hold little hope for Common Lisp for the above reason. The mindset is still stuck in the failed 1980s. At least
some interesting things are going on in the Scheme world.