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OCaml VS PicoLisp

Compare OCaml VS PicoLisp and see what are their differences

OCaml logo OCaml

(* Binary tree with leaves carrying an integer.

PicoLisp logo PicoLisp

Programming Language
  • OCaml Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

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

  • PicoLisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-26

OCaml features and specs

  • Strong Type System
    OCaml's type system is robust and supports type inference, which helps catch errors at compile time and increases code maintainability.
  • Functional Programming Features
    OCaml provides strong support for functional programming paradigms, which can lead to more concise and expressive code.
  • Performance
    OCaml compiles to native code, making it suitable for performance-critical applications while retaining the high-level language benefits.
  • Interactive Top-Level
    OCaml provides an interactive top-level or REPL (Read-Evaluate-Print Loop), useful for quickly testing code snippets and prototyping.
  • Pattern Matching
    OCaml's pattern matching is powerful and expressive, allowing for cleaner and more readable code when dealing with complex data structures.

Possible disadvantages of OCaml

  • Steep Learning Curve
    OCaml can be challenging to learn for developers unfamiliar with functional programming or type inference systems.
  • Limited Libraries
    Compared to more popular languages, OCaml has a smaller ecosystem of libraries and tools, which might limit its applicability in some domains.
  • Documentation
    The documentation for OCaml and its libraries can be sparse or insufficient, which can be a barrier for new users.
  • Verbose Syntax
    OCaml syntax can be verbose and may require more boilerplate code compared to some other functional languages.
  • Lack of Parallelism Support
    OCaml's support for parallelism and concurrency is limited compared to some other languages, which could be a disadvantage for highly concurrent applications.

PicoLisp features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis of OCaml

Overall verdict

  • OCaml is considered a good choice for developers who value type safety, performance, and functional programming paradigms. Its unique blend of features and strong community support make it a reliable option for building scalable and maintainable applications.

Why this product is good

  • OCaml is a functional programming language known for its powerful type system, type inference, and pattern matching capabilities. It combines functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming features, making it versatile for various applications. OCaml's type safety and performance, due to its efficient native code compilation, make it a robust choice for developers. The language's module system and rich library support further enhance its utility for complex software development.

Recommended for

  • Developers interested in functional programming
  • Projects that require strong type safety
  • Performance-critical applications
  • Academia and research-focused software development
  • Developers looking for a language with strong module and type systems
  • Those who appreciate a combination of functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming features

OCaml videos

Uncommon Languages: OCaml

More videos:

  • Review - What is Ocaml?
  • Review - OCaml – The Best Coding Language for Blockchain – Dr. Dray at Tezos LA

PicoLisp videos

PicoLisp VIP Auto-Load and ASCII Diagrams

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to OCaml and PicoLisp)
Programming Language
85 85%
15% 15
OOP
88 88%
12% 12
IDE
0 0%
100% 100
Generic Programming Language

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, OCaml should be more popular than PicoLisp. It has been mentiond 32 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.

OCaml mentions (32)

  • TypeScript's Lack of Naming Types and Type Conversion in Angular
    Elm, ReScript, F#, Ocaml, Scala… it’s just normal to name your types, then use them places. In fact, you’ll often create the types _before_ the code, even if you’re not really practicing DDD (Domain Driven Design). Yes, you’ll do many after the fact when doing functions, or you start testing things and decide to change your design, and make new types. Either way, it’s just “the norm”. You then do the other norms... - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • ReScript has come a long way, maybe it's time to switch from TypeScript?
    Ocaml is still a wonderful language if you want to look into it, and Reason is still going strong as an alternate syntax for OCaml. With either OCaml or Reason you can compile to native code, or use the continuation of BuckleScript now called Melange. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Bringing more sweetness to ruby with sorbet types 🍦
    If you have been in the Ruby community for the past couple of years, it's possible that you're not a super fan of types or that this concept never passed through your mind, and that's totally cool. I myself love the dynamic and meta-programming nature of Ruby, and honestly, by the time of this article's writing, we aren't on the level of OCaml for type checking and inference, but still, there are a couple of nice... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Notes about the ongoing Perl logo discussion
    An amazing example is Ocaml lang logo / mascot. It might be useful to talk with them to know what was the process behind this work. The About page camel head on Perl dot org header is also a pretty good example of simplification, but it's not a logo, just a friendly illustration, as the O'Reilly camel is. Another notable logo for this animal is the well known tobacco industry company, but don't get me started on... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • What can Category Theory do?
    Haskell and Agda are probably the most obvious examples. Ocaml too, but it is much older, so its type system is not as categorical. There is also Idris, which is not as well-known but is very cool. Source: almost 2 years ago
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PicoLisp mentions (10)

  • Everything Picolisp can do, and more
    Gotta admit, the author has a nice sense of eDSL https://picolisp.com/wiki/?taskDB. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • The Landscape of Lisp
    It doesn't grow from cons cells, which some people think is crucial for an authentic Lisp. They also tend to exclude Clojure. I think maybe the Janet designers don't want to get bogged down in the language wars, and don't really care whether lispers enjoy their language or not. A language with Lisp in the name and cons cells that a purist might argue isn't an authentic Lisp is Picolisp, e.g. Because it has FEXPR:s... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Ask HN: Am I crazy or is Android development awful?
    Build your Apps in PicoLisp without an Android SDK "PilBox (`PicoLisp Box') is a generic Android App which allows to write Apps in pure PicoLisp, without touching Java, and without the need of an Android SDK. "You do not need to root your device. And - if you prefer - you do not need a separate development machine (PC or laptop): All can be done in a terminal on the device, and even in a Lisp REPL while the App is... - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Anyone got a contact at OpenAI. They have a spider problem
    A similar thing happened in 2011 when the picolisp project published a 'ticker', something like a markov chain generating pages on the fly. https://picolisp.com/wiki/?ticker It's a nice type of honeypot. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • PicoLisp Tutorials
    I love(d) PicoLisp. I have run Windows, Linux (many flavors on many machines), and MacOS, but my working OS is Windows, and I could not get the x64 PicoLisp running on Windows back then without using Cygwin or MinGW. I can run it on WSL[1], however, it still requires a POSIX environment. Is there a way to compile a Windows binary without the POSIX required for a working PicoLisp environment? I know it switched to... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing OCaml and PicoLisp, you can also consider the following products

Rust - A safe, concurrent, practical language

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

Poly/ML - The Poly/ML implementation of Standard ML – full multiprocessor support in the thread library and garbage collector, interactive debugger, fast compiler.

Chicken - A portable and efficient cross-platform Scheme implementation that compiles to C.

Elixir - Dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications

Guile - Guile is the GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions, the official extension language for the GNU operating system.