Which Lisp should I learn?
Which Lisp (dialect) should I learn, and why?
The fragmentation between CL and Scheme slows uptake (at least for me!).
So, give me the "true answer", please!
I have tried to read feature comparisons, and they seem to get bogged down in esoterica (that I don't fully understand) like whether the dialect is fully tail-recursive, and the like. I'm hoping you all (collectively) can make the opaque differences clear.
Things I like
Good library support, good environments, and Unicode support.
Things I dislike
Flamewars. Features that are useful at the beginning, but interfere with long-term learning.
Updates
I've been mostly using MzScheme, which I'm enjoying just fine, once I got readline support going. I don't run a GUI on Unix, so it seemed to be a fine environment option for me.
I'm also very happy that Clojure has an easy to install .deb package on debian, so it's much easier to play with. This is a big win. Despite the hostility of some rather easy-to-anger below, low barrier to entry is a win. I like being spoonfed.
After reading a lot more of SICP, I do understand the issues around tail recursion much better.
Answer
Clojure is an actively developed, modern dialect of Lisp. It's based on the JVM, so all the Java libraries are immediately available, and therefore also has Unicode support.
This is one alternative, not the One True Answer.