Ask HN: Size and Syntactical Complexity of Haskell and CLisp

Posted by Armence on Monday May 30, 2011 @12:45PM
from the ask-hn dept.

Hello all. I am currently learning a bit of CLisp and Haskell. I am used (somewhat) to relatively small languages like C or (less small) Python with libraries to handle the rest and I like that.

My first dip into Lisp involved seeing things such as with-open-file and with-standard-io-syntax. Haskell on the other hand appears to be much smaller. Now, I don't mind common operations getting built-in. But I like being able to build up everything from simple building blocks.

How do Haskell and LISP compare on the size/complexity scale? Also, I'm interested in the words to symbols ratio. A couple of common symbols is fine, but past a certain point, it just makes things unreadable.

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Re:Ask HN: Size and Syntactical Complexity of Haskell and CLisp by _delirium on Monday May 30, 2011 @04:04PM (#2600278)

If you prefer a small-language, build-up-blocks version of Lisp, Scheme may be a better place to start than Common Lisp (clisp is a Common Lisp implementation). There are other pros/cons, but in general Scheme is the more minimalist branch of the Lisp family tree. Racket (http://racket-lang.org/), formerly "PLT Scheme", is one popular choice in the Scheme family. Clojure (http://clojure.org/) is another possibility, neither Scheme nor CL, that has recently been gaining popularity.

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