What's your favorite LISP for a PC or Linux machine?


#1

A little off-topic, but which LISP do you all like the best for use on a PC or Linux machine?


#2

For me, it’s Common Lisp with sbcl. To fetch libraries i use quicklisp, and my
editor of choice is emacs. In emacs i use slime to test / run my code in sbcl.

note: i’m not a lisp hacker - i am more in strongly typed fp languages


#3

Which strongly typed fp languages?


#4

haskell and scala. not really a fp language, but rust as also a nice type-system.

none of them works on the esp.
if you have an arm board (most of them have no wlan or are expensive),
then you can also use rust on this boards.

because i’m a emacs user, a know lisp - so i use ulisp for my esp things.

and you?


#5

For me: practically a lot of SBCL, though Chez-Scheme is what I would pick for speed and Racket’s IDE for bug-hunting. I am very fond of Gambit-C and Chicken Scheme for compiling, too.

repl.it/languages/scheme allows for quick experiments whenever you have a browser.

On an Android, ECL stands out: it is both the base for the popular REPL in the Play Store and is moreover available on Termux. ECL is your vest bet in practical portability, it seems.

For DOS-based machines I recommend MuLisp (which I got to run even on an Atari Portfolio with 128K RAM, which is not easy, as many systems simply reserve four 64k areas for data, data, code and stack, and thus simply crash if a machine has less than 256k), and XLISP (the variant YLISP runs on the HP 95LX, too).

XLISP is your best bet if you’re on CP/M, too. The others can be awkward syntax-wise, as ypu’re then clearly in Ancient LISP territory.

My heart belongs to uLisp, though. The feeling of letting it run on bare metal with nothing but a serial connection is incomparable. Nothing pleases me so much as a REPL in a microcontroller.


#6

On a PC, just python. I’m looking forward to trying common LISP or maybe scheme on a PC though. Haskell also sounds very promising.

On microcontrollers I had tried uPython but I’d rate it lower than uLisp because C-extensions were difficult to write and because, at least without further optimization, it seems to run rather slow.

At the moment I’m trying out mecrisp FORTH, but it is the complete opposite of strongly typed. However, it has a built-in optimizing compiler that seamlessly generates native machine code, so code runs fast. It’s more of a bare metal programming experience, which may make it a good choice for a microcontroller, but probably not so much for a PC or linux machine, because those already have much richer programming environments to choose from.


#7

If Python, then “Hy” (“Hylang”).


#8

Usually Chicken Scheme on Linux. Som Common Lisp (SBCL usually) at times. Or one of my own making (usually Scheme flavoured).


#9

I have some scripts in newLISP. It isn’t Common Lisp compatible, but it is small, reasonably fast and easy to bundle with scripts for stand alone use.

I am currently looking at making uLispZero working on Linux and possibly as .wasm on browsers. Too early to decide whether it is feasible. I like the idea of having the same tools available on all environments.


#10

For couple years it was SBCL (and ECL on ocasion). But then I moved to scheme side of lisp. Guile Scheme now. And Emacs as IDE.