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Hy VS Practical Common Lisp

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

Hy logo Hy

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

Practical Common Lisp logo Practical Common Lisp

Learning Resources
  • Hy Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-04-30
  • Practical Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-12-25

Hy features and specs

  • Python Interoperability
    Hy seamlessly integrates with Python, allowing you to use the entire Python ecosystem while writing your code in a Lisp-like syntax. This interoperability makes it easier for developers familiar with Python to experiment with Lisp's syntax and ideas.
  • Lisp Syntax and Macros
    Hy provides Lisp's powerful macro system and syntax, enabling more expressive and concise code. The ability to create macros can lead to highly customizable and domain-specific solutions.
  • Readability
    For those familiar with Lisp, Hy offers increased readability due to its minimal syntax and symbolic expressions. This can lead to more straightforward reasoning about the code and reduced syntactic noise.
  • Compiles to Python
    Hy code is compiled to Python bytecode, allowing it to run on any environment where Python is available. This ensures good performance and compatibility with existing Python tools and utilities.

Possible disadvantages of Hy

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For developers not familiar with Lisp, Hy's syntax and concepts (like macros) can be difficult to grasp initially. This can slow down development time as developers need to learn new paradigms.
  • Limited Adoption
    Hy is not as widely adopted or supported as some other languages or even other Lisp implementations. This can lead to less community support, fewer third-party libraries written specifically for Hy, and potentially more difficulty finding solutions to problems.
  • Debugging Complexity
    Debugging in Hy can sometimes be more challenging because errors may occur in the compiled Python code rather than the original Hy code, which can complicate traceback and error understanding.
  • Macro Overuse
    While macros are a powerful feature, their misuse can lead to code that is hard to read and maintain. This can become a con if developers do not exercise restraint and best practices in their use.
  • Performance Overhead
    While Hy compiles to Python, the added layer of abstraction and translation may introduce small performance overheads compared to writing natively in Python, especially for performance-critical applications.

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.

Hy videos

HY-IMPACT muscle massager review (incredible)

More videos:

  • Review - Cleveland Launcher XL Hy-Wood Review
  • Review - HY Extracts (Jack Herer) Review

Practical Common Lisp videos

Practical Common Lisp

More videos:

  • Review - Practical Common Lisp

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Hy and Practical Common Lisp)
Programming Language
56 56%
44% 44
Education
0 0%
100% 100
OOP
53 53%
47% 47
IDE
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Practical Common Lisp should be more popular than Hy. It has been mentiond 52 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.

Hy mentions (9)

  • Python's “Disappointing” Superpowers
    Hy: https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/ I tend to stick to vanilla python though, mainly because Hy is too much of an hassle for my use cases. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Why Lisp?
    Q: is there any game dev happening in Lisp? A: https://kandria.com/ and https://itch.io/jam/lisp-game-jam-2022 Q: how do I write a website with Lisp? A: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/web.html#easy-routes-hunchentoot and https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/Web-Examples.html Q: do I have to use emacs for developing Lisp? A: No, https://github.com/vlime/vlime and... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • How trying new programming languages helped me grow as a software engineer
    I really like Hy because it's fully inter-operable with Python. But its documentation is insufficient for anything moderately complex, and its tooling support is pretty basic. If Hy were well documented and supported I'd use it for all my throwaway scripts and prototyping -- today I use Python for that. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Every programmer ever.
    You're looking for https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Val on Programming: What makes a good REPL?
    I've been using the Hy REPL[0] whenever I've wanted to drop into a python REPL. The lack of whitespace formatting with Hy is great, but it still has access to all of python's libraries. [0] - https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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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 Hy 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

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

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

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

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