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Practical Common Lisp VS Haskell

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

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Practical Common Lisp logo Practical Common Lisp

Learning Resources

Haskell logo Haskell

An advanced purely-functional programming language
  • Practical Common Lisp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-12-25
  • Haskell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-01

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

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    Given its publication date, some examples might be somewhat outdated in terms of current technological standards and might not represent the latest best practices in programming.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.

Haskell features and specs

  • Pure Functional Programming
    Haskell emphasizes pure functional programming, meaning functions have no side effects. This leads to code that is easier to understand, test, and maintain.
  • Strong Type System
    Haskell's type system is strong and expressive, allowing developers to catch many errors at compile time. This results in more reliable code.
  • Lazy Evaluation
    Haskell uses lazy evaluation by default, which can lead to performance improvements by avoiding unnecessary computations and enabling the creation of infinite data structures.
  • Immutability
    In Haskell, data is immutable by default. This leads to simpler reasoning about code behavior and reduces bugs related to mutable state.
  • High-Level Abstractions
    Haskell provides powerful abstractions like monads, functors, and applicative functors, which can lead to more concise and expressive code.
  • Concurrency
    Haskell has excellent support for concurrency and parallelism through its lightweight threading model and software transactional memory, making it suitable for concurrent applications.
  • Community and Libraries
    Haskell has a dedicated community and a rich set of libraries and tools, which can help accelerate development and provide solutions to common problems.

Possible disadvantages of Haskell

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Haskell has a steep learning curve, particularly for developers who are new to functional programming or coming from imperative and object-oriented backgrounds.
  • Performance Concerns
    While Haskell can be efficient, its performance can sometimes lag behind other languages like C++ or Rust for certain use cases, especially those requiring low-level optimization.
  • Limited Industry Adoption
    Haskell is not as widely adopted in industry compared to languages like Java, Python, or JavaScript, which can limit job opportunities and community size.
  • Compilation Times
    Haskell's compilation times can be long, especially for large projects, which can slow down the development process.
  • Tooling and IDE Support
    While improving, the tooling and IDE support for Haskell is not as mature as for some other popular languages, potentially affecting developer productivity.
  • Complexity of Advanced Features
    Some of Haskell's advanced features, such as monads and type-level programming, can be complex and difficult to master, which can be a barrier for new developers.
  • Library Gaps
    Although Haskell has many libraries, there might be gaps or less mature libraries for some specific use cases compared to more mainstream languages.

Analysis of Haskell

Overall verdict

  • Haskell is good for certain types of projects and developers, especially those interested in functional programming and academic exploration. It may not be the best choice for every use case, particularly where performance-critical applications or system-level programming is required, due to its steep learning curve and relatively smaller community compared to more mainstream languages.

Why this product is good

  • Haskell is a purely functional programming language known for its high level of abstraction, robust type system, and lazy evaluation. These features make Haskell an excellent choice for academic research, complex algorithm design, and scenarios where concise and maintainable code is paramount. It encourages a different way of thinking about programming problems, which can lead to more elegant and robust solutions.

Recommended for

  • Developers interested in functional programming paradigms
  • Projects focused on academic research or algorithm development
  • Software requiring high-level abstractions and strong type safety
  • Enthusiasts wishing to learn a different approach to thinking about software design

Practical Common Lisp videos

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Practical Common Lisp

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Haskell videos

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Functional Programming & Haskell - Computerphile

More videos:

  • Review - Marloe Haskell Review
  • Review - Marloe Watch Company - Haskell - Watch Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Practical Common Lisp and Haskell)

Practical Common Lisp

Haskell

Education
100 100%
Education
0% 0
Programming Language
26 26%
Programming Language
74% 74
OOP
34 34%
OOP
66% 66
Learning Resources
37 37%
Learning Resources
63% 63

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Practical Common Lisp should be more popular than Haskell. It has been mentiond 55 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.

Practical Common Lisp mentions (55)

  • Why vibe code in Common Lisp?
    I suggest Practical Common Lisp by Seibel https://gigamonkeys.com/book/ I now generate ALL of my hobby projects in CL (SBCL on windows). I tell the LLM to 'over-comment' the code, so I get to learn as I read the output. It has been glorious. I generally use the web browser on an unused port on localhost for user IO (beautiful pages), and the app just hooks to Hunchentoot to serve. Any 'real' programming... - Source: Hacker News / 23 days ago
  • Microsoft makes Zork open-source
    You're kind of in luck. For a while, it was trendy (because MIT was doing it) to teach Intro to Programming with Lisps, especially Scheme. Because of this, there are quite a few "learn programming with Lisp" books and resources. The famous "SICP" book was the textbook for the MIT course and all of the examples were Lisp (there's a newer version that uses JavaScript, I think). There are loads of fine online books... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Which Lisp? Beginner
    I recommend starting with this free book which covers Common Lisp: https://gigamonkeys.com/book/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • 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 / over 1 year 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 / almost 2 years ago
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Haskell mentions (21)

  • Is there a programming language that will blow my mind?
    Haskell - a general-purpose functional language with many unique properties (purely functional, lazy, expressive types, STM, etc). You mentioned you dabbled in Haskell, why not try it again? (I've written about 7 things I learned from Haskell, and my book is linked at them bottom if you're interested :) ). Source: over 3 years ago
  • Where to go from here?
    Where you go is entirely up to you. According to haskell.org, Haskell jobs are a-plenty. sigh. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Haskell.org now has "Get Started" page!
    Should they be part of haskell.org or something else? Source: over 3 years ago
  • Haskell.org now has "Get Started" page!
    Haskell.org now has a big purple Get Started button that takes you to a nice short guide (haskell.org/get-started) that quickly provides all the basic info to get going with Haskell. It is aimed for beginners, to reduce choice fatigue and to give them a clear, official path to get going. Source: over 3 years ago
  • dev environment for windows
    I just jumped into the wiki "Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 hours" which looks pretty good. (although some of the text explanation is hard to understand without context).. I used cabal to set up the starter project. Sublime editor seems to work OK and I just use the git Bash shell on windows to compile the program directly on the command line. So maybe this is all good enough for now (?). It seems installing... Source: almost 4 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

Land of Lisp - Learning Resources

Rust - A safe, concurrent, practical language

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

JavaScript - Lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions

On Lisp - Learning Resources

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

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