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CLISP VS Practical Common Lisp

Compare CLISP VS Practical Common Lisp and see what are their differences

CLISP logo CLISP

CLISP is a portable ANSI Common Lisp implementation and development environment by Bruno Haible.

Practical Common Lisp logo Practical Common Lisp

Learning Resources
  • CLISP Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-03-19
  • Practical Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-12-25

CLISP features and specs

  • Cross-platform compatibility
    CLISP is available on multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux, which makes it versatile and accessible for developers across different operating systems.
  • GNU Licensing
    Being licensed under the GNU General Public License, CLISP is free to use, modify, and distribute, which is beneficial for open-source projects and encourages community contributions.
  • Interpreter environment
    CLISP offers an interactive interpreter environment, allowing for rapid testing and prototyping of code, which can speed up development and debugging processes.
  • ANSI Common Lisp compliance
    CLISP adheres to the ANSI Common Lisp standard, ensuring that programs written in CLISP are compliant with the standard and thus more portable and reliable.

Possible disadvantages of CLISP

  • Performance limitations
    Compared to other Lisp implementations like SBCL, CLISP might exhibit slower performance, which can be a drawback for computation-heavy applications.
  • Limited support for external libraries
    CLISP may have limited or less convenient access to certain external libraries or advanced features compared to other implementations, potentially making integration with other systems or technologies more challenging.
  • Outdated documentation
    Some of CLISP's documentation and resources might be outdated, which can pose challenges for new users trying to learn and resolve issues using the available materials.
  • Less active community
    Compared to more popular Lisp systems, CLISP might have a smaller or less active community, which can result in fewer community-contributed resources or slower developments and updates.

Practical Common Lisp features and specs

  • Comprehensive Introduction
    The book offers a thorough introduction to Common Lisp programming, catering to both beginners and experienced programmers by covering the basics and advanced topics.
  • Practical Approach
    It emphasizes practical applications of Lisp, with numerous examples and projects that illustrate real-world usage, making it useful for learning how to write practical and efficient code.
  • Engaging Writing Style
    The author maintains an engaging and accessible writing style that keeps readers interested while explaining complex concepts in an understandable manner.
  • Free Access Online
    The book is available for free online, providing easy access to anyone interested in learning about Common Lisp without financial barriers.

Possible disadvantages of Practical Common Lisp

  • Assumes Prior Programming Knowledge
    The book may assume that readers have some programming background, which might make it challenging for complete beginners to grasp certain concepts quickly.
  • Dated Examples
    Given its publication date, some examples might be somewhat outdated in terms of current technological standards and might not represent the latest best practices in programming.
  • Focus on High-Level Understanding
    While it covers many aspects of Lisp, the book might not delve deeply into certain advanced technical details, which could be a downside for those seeking in-depth technical expertise.
  • Limited Coverage of Modern Libraries
    The book might not address newer libraries and tools that have emerged in the Lisp ecosystem since its publication, potentially missing out on some modern practices.

CLISP videos

GNU CLISP - Brief introduction to install and setup of an artificially intelligent environment

Practical Common Lisp videos

Practical Common Lisp

More videos:

  • Review - Practical Common Lisp

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to CLISP and Practical Common Lisp)
Programming Language
55 55%
45% 45
Education
0 0%
100% 100
OOP
52 52%
48% 48
IDE
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Practical Common Lisp seems to be a lot more popular than CLISP. While we know about 52 links to Practical Common Lisp, we've tracked only 1 mention of CLISP. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

CLISP mentions (1)

  • What are the advantages for an imperative language to not be expression based?
    CLisp is an unfortunate contraction, also naming an implementation, but yes, the Common Lisp spec is that big. Source: over 2 years ago

Practical Common Lisp mentions (52)

  • I Chose Common Lisp
    I began learning Common Lisp (CL) from the Common Lisp HyperSpec (CLHS): https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Contents.htm When I began learning CL about two decades ago, I did not know of any other source, so CLHS was my only source back then and I think it has served me well. A popular recommendation these days is Practical Common Lisp (by Peter Seibel): https://gigamonkeys.com/book/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Holding a Program in One's Head (2007)
    A quote originally (AFAIK) from the wonderful (and free!) book 'Practical Common Lisp'. https://gigamonkeys.com/book/. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Defense of Lisp Macros
    The Giga Monkeys Book, Practical Common Lisp is also excellent: https://gigamonkeys.com/book/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • The Loudest Lisp Program
    > So it's really pick your poison; either the child controls the call, at the risk of doing it wrong or not at all, or it doesn't but then certain things become impossible. CL lets you do both in various ways: the typical way to define a constructor is an :AFTER method that just sets the slots (fields in other languages) of the object and having a lot of behavior in constructors is unusual. You can also define an... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • The Loudest Lisp Program
    There are a bunch of things to learn from Lisp: * list processing -> model data as lists and process those * list processing applied to Lisp -> model programs as lists and process those -> EVAL and COMPILE * EVAL, the interpreter as a Lisp program * write programs to process programs -> code generators, macros, ... * write programs in a more declarative way -> a code generator transforms the description into... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing CLISP and Practical Common Lisp, you can also consider the following products

Steel Bank Common Lisp - Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) is a high performance Common Lisp compiler.

Land of Lisp - Learning Resources

CMU Common Lisp - CMUCL is a high-performance, free Common Lisp implementation.

Racket Lang - Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) is a modern programming language in the Lisp/Scheme family, suitable...

Hy - Hy is a wonderful dialect of Lisp that’s embedded in Python.

Real World Haskell - Learning Resources, Programming Courses, and Learn Programming