Everything Picolisp can do, and more

by damiron 3/16/2025, 7:49 PMwith 14 comments

by mijoharason 3/17/2025, 10:35 AM

So, one thing I'm not seeing obviously in this list of articles (which seem great in general!) is an explanation of how picolisp contrasts to other lisps? Something explaining why I might reach for picolisp instead of, say, scheme or common lisp?

Can anyone share something showing that, or explaining a little bit more about picolisp for someone unfamiliar with it? (I thought the pros/cons list on the page might describe it a little more, but it didn't make things immediately clear to me).

by tony-allanon 3/16/2025, 10:12 PM

I initially confused this with Lisp for microcontrollers [1]

[1] http://www.ulisp.com/show?3J

by agumonkeyon 3/16/2025, 10:20 PM

Gotta admit, the author has a nice sense of eDSL https://picolisp.com/wiki/?taskDB

by actionfromafaron 3/16/2025, 11:36 PM

PicoLisp is like an ancient technology or species which somehow survived to this day. It always felt to me like on the cusp to mainstream acceptance.

by Regenaxeron 3/17/2025, 5:49 AM

No floats, yes, but it has fixnums with infinite precision

by Archit3chon 3/17/2025, 7:20 PM

I love it, but no floats is a practical limitation.