Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Common Lisp VS Perl

Compare Common Lisp VS Perl and see what are their differences

Common Lisp logo Common Lisp

The modern, multi-paradigm, high-performance, compiled, ANSI-standardized descendant of the long-running family of Lisp programming languages

Perl logo Perl

Highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over 26 years of development
  • Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-18

We recommend LibHunt Common Lisp for discovery and comparisons of trending Common Lisp projects.

  • Perl Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-21

We recommend LibHunt Perl for discovery and comparisons of trending Perl projects.

Common Lisp features and specs

  • Powerful Macro System
    Common Lisp offers a robust macro system that allows for metaprogramming, letting developers easily extend the language and create domain-specific languages.
  • Dynamic Typing
    Common Lisp supports dynamic typing, which allows for more flexibility in coding and prototyping, reducing the amount of boilerplate code needed.
  • Interactive Development Environment
    It provides a powerful REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) that aids in interactive and iterative software development, enabling quick testing and debugging.
  • Portability
    Code written in Common Lisp can be run on different platforms without modification, thanks to its standardized specification and portability across implementations.
  • Rich Standard Library
    Common Lisp comes with a comprehensive standard library that includes a wide range of utilities for data manipulation, I/O operations, and more.

Possible disadvantages of Common Lisp

  • Steep Learning Curve
    The language has an extensive set of features and a unique syntax, which can be difficult for beginners to learn and master.
  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more modern languages, Common Lisp has a smaller ecosystem of libraries and community support, which can hinder development speed and resources.
  • Performance Variability
    Performance can vary significantly between different implementations of Common Lisp due to variations in optimizing compilers and runtime environments.
  • Obscure Syntax
    The syntax can be difficult to read and understand, especially for those coming from more conventional languages like Python or JavaScript.
  • Commercial Use Challenges
    Common Lisp's licensing and support can be less favorable for commercial use compared to other mainstream programming languages.

Perl features and specs

  • Text Processing Power
    Perl is renowned for its strong text processing capabilities, making it ideal for scripting and automating tasks involving text manipulation.
  • Mature Ecosystem
    Having been in existence since 1987, Perl boasts a robust ecosystem with a vast array of libraries and modules, easily accessible via CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network).
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Perl is highly portable, running on almost any operating system, which provides flexibility in deployment and development.
  • Community Support
    Perl has a long-standing and active community, providing extensive documentation, tutorials, and forums for support.
  • Flexibility
    Perl allows developers to write code in various styles (procedural, object-oriented, functional), giving them the freedom to choose the best approach for the task at hand.

Possible disadvantages of Perl

  • Readability Issues
    Perl's syntax is often criticized for being complex and difficult to read, especially for beginners or for those maintaining legacy code.
  • Declining Popularity
    Despite its strengths, Perl's popularity has waned over the years with the rise of newer languages like Python and Ruby, leading to fewer new developers and projects in Perl.
  • Performance
    While Perl is efficient for scripting and text processing, it may not perform as well as other languages in tasks requiring high computational speed or resource efficiency.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its intricate syntax and the flexibility that comes with 'There's more than one way to do it' (TMTOWTDI) philosophy, beginners might find Perl challenging to master.
  • Outdated Perception
    Perl suffers from an outdated perception among some segments of the programming community, leading to its decreased adoption for new projects.

Common Lisp videos

Common Lisp Study Group - A In-depth Look into CLOS (part 1)

More videos:

  • Review - Common Lisp Study Group - Closures and Macro Basics

Perl videos

CARPRO PERL REVIEW ON TIRES!!! FANTASTIC PRODUCT!! MULTIPLE USES! WINNER IN MY BOOK!

More videos:

  • Review - CarPro PERL Application & Durability | Auto Fanatic
  • Review - Obsessed Garage TIRE DRESSING : Better than CarPro PERL or Chemical Guys VRP?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Common Lisp and Perl)
Programming Language
37 37%
63% 63
OOP
31 31%
69% 69
Development
46 46%
54% 54
Generic Programming Language

User comments

Share your experience with using Common Lisp and Perl. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Common Lisp and Perl

Common Lisp Reviews

We have no reviews of Common Lisp yet.
Be the first one to post

Perl Reviews

Top 5 Most Liked and Hated Programming Languages of 2022
Perl is yet another complex language to learn. Though this programming language caters to a wide range of applications prototyping, large-scale projects, text control, system administration, web development, and network programming, the very fact that it is on the complex side to deal with makes it one of the most hated programming languages.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Common Lisp should be more popular than Perl. It has been mentiond 11 times since March 2021. 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.

Common Lisp mentions (11)

  • Origins of the Lisp logo
    The yin-yang logo with lambdas was designed by Guy Steele, and he has granted permission for its use to Common Lisp Foundation (the entity which runs common-lisp.net website and the gitlab.common-lisp.net repo). Source: about 2 years ago
  • New open source Common Lisp 3D graphics project -- call for participation
    A wiki and pm tool I personally like a lot, simple, lightweight, is trac but there is no free hosting available — but I could work on hosting on AWS for instance. MoinMoin is also a good and simple wiki. You are using Medium a lot, which could also be a sensible option but it is more a publishing platform than a collaborative platform. Gitlab is also a popular choice I believe and we could use the instance on... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • common-lisp.net down
    Does anybody have information how the content on common-lisp.net is handled? Source: about 3 years ago
  • common-lisp.net down
    Any insight into the current down-time for common-lisp.net? Source: about 3 years ago
  • What should be my next programming language?
    Python seems like a popular option these days and it is different enough from C++ in that it may teach you to think about programming in a different way. You could also try a functional language such as Lisp, Scheme) or Haskell -- they too will make you think differently about programming. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

Perl mentions (5)

  • CamelFace
    But what would be a better symbol? I just saw, that perl.org also has a littel camel face on the site :-). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What are your coolest tools for one-liners ?
    And just while I wrote this I saw this on perl.org which may be an interesting read (although I prefer writing some things in Bash despite being a 20 year+ perl user). Source: over 2 years ago
  • Precedence
    I'm going through the textbook "Beginning Perl" located at perl.org, and I'm having a confuse with one of the example questions. I'm supposed to determine the order of operations for 26 + 3 ^ 4 * 2. According to the precedence table in the textbook, + and * come before ^. So I think the answer should be ((26 + 3) ^ (4 * 2)), but the book says the answer is 26 + (3 ^ (4 * 2)). Can anyone help me figure out what... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • How to run/debug perl from Vs:code
    See "A regularly updated compendium of Perl IDEs to be hosted on perl.org" at https://grants.perlfoundation.org/. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • Perling and Curling
    Use Net::Curl::Easier; Use Net::Curl::Promiser::Mojo; Use Mojo::Promise; My $easy1 = Net::Curl::Easier->new( url => 'http://perl.org', followlocation => 1, ); My $easy2 = Net::Curl::Easier->new( username => 'hal', userpwd => 'itsasecret', url => 'imap://mail.example.com/INBOX/;UID=123', ); My $easy3 = Net::Curl::Easier->new( username => 'hal', userpwd => 'itsasecret', url =>... - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

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

C++ - Has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing the facilities for low level memory manipulation

Python - Python is a clear and powerful object-oriented programming language, comparable to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, or Java.

D (Programming Language) - D is a language with C-like syntax and static typing.

Go Programming Language - Go, also called golang, is a programming language initially developed at Google in 2007 by Robert...

F# - F# is a mature, open source, cross-platform, functional-first programming language.

Lua - Powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language