How to embed a common lisp interpreter into a gui application

Question

I want to know how to embed a lisp interpreter into a gui application, i.e. something like what pyshell does for Python.

Answer 1

Some options:

1. Write the complete application including the GUI in Lisp: lots of Lisp systems support that
2. Write the application in Lisp and link C code to it, if you need to call some external GUI libraries: Lisp systems can load and call C (and compatible) libraries.
3. Embed Lisp into your application: ECL (Embeddable Common Lisp) is an obvious choice. LispWorks (commercial) and Allegro CL (commercial) can deliver Lisp code as shared libraries. You can then load such a shared library into your program.

Answer 2

I've had success with GNU Guile, if you're OK with Scheme instead of Common Lisp