You might have already noticed that there are bunch of "command line interface" libraries for Common Lisp. What's the difference!?
Below is a brief comparison of different libraries. The evaluation thoroughly depends on my (Masataro Asai aka guicho271828) personal taste and not subject to rigorous tests, however I hope it would give you a grasp of the relationship / dominance between these libraries.
See also: State of the Common Lisp Ecosystem, 2015
| Feature | Roswell | CIM | cl-launch | buildapp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| --- Implementation Management | ||||
| Launching a script with different lisp impls | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ⚠ |
| Managing (install, switch) lisp impls | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Managing (install, switch) lisp impls+versions | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| --- Supported Impl | ||||
| sbcl | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ccl | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ecl | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| clisp | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| lispworks | ✔ | |||
| abcl | ✔ | ✔ | ✔2 | |
| cmucl | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| alisp (allegro) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔1 | |
| gcl (obsoleted, not ANSI anyway) | ✔1 (ANSI mode) | |||
| scienner (who cares?) | ✔1 | |||
| xcl (seems dead: last update 2010 Oct) | ✔2 | |||
| --- Scripting | ||||
| Script templates | ✔ | |||
| Managing several script templates | ✔ | |||
| Managing scripts | ✔ | |||
| Bundling/installing a script to/from a quicklisp library | ✔ | |||
| Shell integration (e.g. bash completion) | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| --- Dumping | ||||
| Dump feature | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Managing dumped images | ✔ | |||
| --- CI integration | ||||
| Local installation (no sudo) | ✔ | |||
| Helper scripts | ✔ | ⚠ (via cl-travis) | ||
| --- Quality | ||||
| Documentation | ✔ organized manpage | ✔ organized man page | ⚠ Overlength manual @ --help / cliki | ✔ web page |
| Code Quality | clean? | "sh circus" (シェル芸) (keens) | "Hard to Hack" (fare) | clean? |
| CI-Tested | ✔ | |||
| --- Others | ||||
| Windows support | ✔ | |||
| Easy Upgrade | ✔ cim get | |||
| Practical Use Case (reputation) | good | mainly on CI? | fair? | good |
| Implemented in | C+lisp | sh+lisp | sh+lisp | lisp |
Re: Shelly, the author (Fukamachi) declared (to be precise, "I think I heard him saying") it as deprecated and "dead" by himself.