The focus of this category is on the family of computer programming languages known as Lisp.
Originally written as LISP, with all caps, its name was later changed to avoid confusion with Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol, which is not a programming language.
Created in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language still in widespread use, after Fortran. John McCarthy is credited with developing the language while he was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it was first implemented by Steve Russell on an IBM-704 computer, creating a Lisp interpreter that could be used to run Lisp programs. The first complete Lisp compiler was implemented in 1962, also at MIT.
Lisp proved to be difficult to implement on the general-purpose computers of the 1970s, which led to the creation of specialized Lisp machines, with dedicated hardware designed for running Lisp environments and programs.
Lisp is particularly suitable for artificial intelligence programs because it processes symbolic information efficiently.
During the 1970s and 1980s, there were several projects to implement new Lisp dialects. In an attempt to unify the work of these implementation groups, Common Lisp was created. Still very much in use, Common Lisp serves as a common language that can be easily extended for specific implementations. Programs written in Common Lisp are not dependent on machine-specific characteristics, such as word length.
Nevertheless, there are other implementations of the language.
CLISP is a GNU implementation of Common Lisp that was originally developed for the Atari in 1987. Today, it supports Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms. Written in C and Common Lisp, it is available under the GNU General Public License.
Today, the most well-known Lisp dialects are Common Lisp, Clojure, and Scheme. Others include, or have included, Arc, AutoLISP, Emacs Lisp, EuLisp, Franz Lisp, Hy, Interlisp, ISLISP, LeLisp, LFE, Maclisp, MDL, newLISP, NIL, Picolisp, Portable Standard Lisp, Racket, RPL, Shen, SKILL, Spice Lisp, and Zetalisp.
Topics related to the Lisp programming language or any of its dialects are appropriate for this category. Any, such as Common Lisp, Clojure, or Scheme, for which we have enough websites, may be placed in a subcategory.
Categories
ArcClojureCommon LispEmacs Lisp | Hy (language)SchemeShen |
Recommended Resources
AutoLISP is a dialect of the Lisp programming language that was created specifically for use with the full version of AutoCAD and its derivatives. AfraLISP is a tutorial on the use of AutoLISP, with content for AutoLISP beginners as well as for programmers with various levels of expertise. The capabilities and benefits of AutoLISP are outlined, along with a history of the project, tutorials for beginner, intermediate, and advanced programmers, as well as application tutorials.
https://www.afralisp.net/
Chez Scheme is a reference both to the programming language and an implementation of that language, with its supporting tools and documentation. Chez Scheme supports all of the standard features of Scheme, as well as extensive support for interfacing with C and other languages, support for multiple threads, non-blocking I/O, and other features. The open-source language is available as a free download from GitHub, including legacy release and documentation.
https://cisco.github.io/ChezScheme/
CHICKEN is a compiler for the Scheme programming language, itself a dialect of Lisp. It produces portable and efficient C and supports the R5RS and R7RS standards, and several extensions. The language is distributed free, including the source, under the BSD License, and may be freely downloaded, along with CHICKEN eggs, which are extensions for the system. Development notes, a user’s manual, API, and the results of automated tests are presented.
https://call-cc.org/
In business since 2000, Clozure Associates offers Common Lisp consulting services and development, offering desktop applications, cloud-based services, and embedded services, with expertise in Clozure Common Lisp, Steel Bank Common Lisp, LispWorks, Allegro Common Lisp, Linux, Macintosh, Windows, x86, and ARM. Its services and capabilities are highlighted, and Clozure Common Lisp may be downloaded from the site. Development notes are included.
https://www.clozure.com/
Developed by Clozure Associates in 2017, Clozure CL (CCL) is a Common Lisp implementation that implements the full ANSI Common Lisp standard with several extensions, a command-line development environment, and an integrated development environment (IDE) for Mac OS X using the Hemlock editor. Distributed under the Apache License 2.0, CCL is available for the Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, or Windows platforms. A documentation page is included.
https://ccl.clozure.com/
Held yearly since 2008, the European Lisp Symposium provides a forum for the discussion of all aspects of design, implementation, and application of Lisp and Lisp-inspired dialects, such as ACL2, AutoLisp, Clojure, Common Lisp, Dylan, ECMAScript, Emacs Lisp, Hop, ISLISP, Racket, Scheme, SKILL, and others. Its scope is highlighted, and submissions of papers, demonstrations, or tutorials are invited. Upcoming events are posted, and past events are archived.
https://european-lisp-symposium.org/
The site features a side-by-side reference for various dialects of Lisp, including Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, and Emacs Lisp, comparing such variables as the version, compiler, standalone executable, interpreter, shebang, command line program, word separator, end-of-line comment, multiple line comment, identifier, quoted identifier, local variable, global variable, remove variable, null, null test, identifier as value, identifier test, identifier equality test, logical operators, and others.
http://hyperpolyglot.org/lisp
Also written in all caps as ISLISP, ISLisp is in the Lisp family of programming languages, and was the result of the work of an international group of developers to bridge the gap between several dialects of Lisp, which was primarily influenced by Common Lisp, EuLisp, Le Lisp, and Scheme, standardizing the featured shared between these dialects. Iris is an ISLisp implementation on Go and JavaScript and is available for download without charge.
https://islisp.js.org/
Established in 1997, ISLisp is the ISO standard for Lisp languages, and an alternate solution to the de facto standard, Common Lisp. The language was designed to include the fundamental concepts of Common Lisp and to consider the language features of EuLisp, Le Lisp, and Scheme. This site features information on ISLisp and associated software, and provides an ISO standard compliant ISLisp processor, OK! ISLisp, as free software. A history of the project is included.
http://www.islisp.org/
Once the official site of the Association of Lisp Users, the site later became a memorial to John McCarthy, who developed the programming language. Included is his obituary, as well as a copy of his former home page when he was Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Stanford University, which includes slides for his lectures, a discussion of artificial intelligence, published AI papers, and papers on programming languages in general, and Lisp in particular.
https://www.lisp.org/
Joxa is a small, semantically clean, functional Lisp. Designed as a general-purpose language, Joxa encourages interactive development and a functional programming style. As in other Lisps, Joxa treats code as data and has a full macro system. The official documentation for the language includes an introduction, installation instructions, a quick start, and a description of the language, its standard library, and a style guide. Information on contributing is included.
http://docs.joxa.org/
In his e-book, Adam Tornhill identifies the strengths of Lisp, particularly in its use in developing a web application. Beginning with a blank page, the book takes the reader through the development of a three-tier web application, utilizing open-source libraries to express HTML 5 and JavaScript in Lisp, developing an embedded domain-specific language tailored for the application, and so on. The book may be downloaded for free, but a $5 price is suggested.
https://leanpub.com/lispweb
MIT/GNU Scheme is an implementation of the Scheme programming language that includes an interpreter, compiler, source-code debugger, integrated Emacs-like editor, and a large runtime library. Hosted on the GNU website, sponsored by the Free Software Foundation, current and past releases of MIT/GNU Scheme are available for downloading, and documentation is provided in HTML and PDF format. License, development and its bug-reporting system are included.
https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/
The Lisp-like, general-purpose scripting language is suited for applications in artificial intelligence, simulation, natural language processing, machine learning, statistics, and big data, and is ideal for embedded systems applications because of its small resource requirements. Released under a General Public License, it may be freely downloaded. Documentation, development notes, tips and tricks, questions and answers, and a list of features are included.
http://www.newlisp.org/
The user group site features an online discussion forum for newLISP, an open-source scripting language based on Lisp. Using a phpBB script, registration is required in order to participate in discussions, but the forum content may be viewed by anyone. Topics include newLISP news, the philosophy behind the language, its use, and machine-specific discussions. Others include using graphics and sound, and the sorts of programs that can be accomplished with it.
http://www.newlispfanclub.alh.net/
Sponsored by the Lisp-powered Pixel Speech Bubble site, Planet lisp is a metablog that collects the contents of various blogs related to the Lisp programming language. Blog subscriptions represent several people who are involved in various Lisp development projects, and the blog posts include development notes, news about applications developed by Lisp, meetings of Lisp groups, Lisp-related conventions, and other events. Monthly archives are available.
http://planet.lisp.org/
Created specifically to run on microcontrollers with a limited amount of RAM, uLisp currently supports the Arduino ATmega-based boards, Arduino ARM SAM/SAMD-based boards, Adafruit ARM SAMD51-based boards, BBC Micro Bit, STM32-based boards, ESP8266/ESP32-based boards, MSP430-based LaunchPad boards, and other platforms that are listed here. The same uLisp program can be used, regardless of the platform. It may be downloaded from the site.
http://www.ulisp.com/
