Pico Lisp

     _PI_co Lisp is not _CO_mmon Lisp

http://picolisp.com

PicoLisp can be viewed from two different aspects: As a general purpose programming language, and a dedicated application server framework.

(1) As a programming language, PicoLisp provides a 1-to-1 mapping of a clean and powerful LispLanguage derivate, to a simple and efficient virtual machine. It supports persistent objects as a first class data type, resulting in a database system of Entity/Relation classes and a PrologLanguage-like query language tightly integrated into the system.

The virtual machine was designed to be

   Simple
      The internal data structure should be as simple as possible. Only one
      single data structure is used to build all higher level constructs.
   Unlimited
      There are no limits imposed upon the language due to limitations of the
      virtual machine architecture. That is, there is no upper bound in symbol
      name length, number digit counts, or data structure and buffer sizes,
      except for the total memory size of the host machine.
   Dynamic
      Behavior should be as dynamic as possible ("run"-time vs. "compile"-time).
      All decisions are delayed till runtime where possible. This involves
      matters like memory management, dynamic symbol binding, and late method
      binding.
   Practical
      PicoLisp is not just a toy of theoretical value. PicoLisp is used since
      1988 in actual application development, research and production.

The language inherits the major advantages of classical Lisp systems like

   - Dynamic data types and structures
   - Formal equivalence of code and data
   - Functional programming style
   - An interactive environment

PicoLisp is very different from any other Lisp dialect. This is partly due to the above design principles, and partly due to its long development history since 1984.

You can download the latest release version at http://software-lab.de/down.html. It is also available in DebianLinux - apt-get install picolisp

(2) As an application server framework, PicoLisp provides for

   NoSQL Database Management
      Index trees
      Object local indexes
      Entity/Relation classes
      Pilog (PicoLisp Prolog) queries
      Multi-user synchronization
      DB Garbage collection
      Journaling, Replication
   User Interface
      Browser GUI
      (X)HTML/CSS
      XMLHttpRequest/JavaScript
   Application Server
      Process management
      Process family communication
      XML I/O
      Import/export
      User administration
      Internationalization
      Security
      Object linkage
      Postscript/Printing

PicoLisp is not an IDE. All program development in Software Lab. is done using the console, bash, vim and the Lisp interpreter.

The only type of GUI supported for applications is through a browser via HTML. This makes the client side completely platform independent. The GUI is created dynamically. Though it uses JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest for speed improvements, it is fully functional also without JavaScript or CSS.

The GUI is deeply integrated with - and generated dynamically from - the application's data model. Because the application logic runs on the server, multiple users can view and modify the same database object without conflicts, everyone seeing changes done by other users on her screen immediately due to the internal process and database synchronization.

PicoLisp is free software, and you are welcome to use and redistribute it under the conditions of the MIT/X11 License (see "COPYING").

It compiles and runs on current 32-bit GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X (Darwin), Cygwin/Win32 (and possibly other) systems. A native 64-bit version is available for x86-64/Linux, x86-64/FreeBSD, x86-64/SunOS and ppc64/Linux. The 64 bit versions have support for CoRoutines?.

There are two (free) Books about PicoLisp available online:

• PicoLisp Works http://github.com/tj64/picolisp-works
• PicoLisp by Example http://github.com/tj64/picolisp-by-example

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CategoryProgrammingLanguage CategoryLisp