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Lisp for the Low Level Man: An Introduction to Liskell

So, you want to program Lisp on a slow/old computer? Use Liskell, it’s Haskell and Lisp combined into a new language.

The example given on the home page of Liskell in action is actually pretty interesting:

(define (fact n)

(if (== n 0)
1
(* n (fact (- n 1))))))))

Compare this to the old school Haskell:

fact n =

if n == 0

then 1

else n * (fact (n - 1)))

It has the beauty of Lisp and the speed as well as efficiency of Haskell. It’s a beautiful language for those that like functional languages (all eyes turn to John Armstrong :P).

This entry was posted on 26 July 2007 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Old Fashioned Coder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Lisp for the Low Level Man: An Introduction to Liskell”

  1. John Armstrong Says:
    26 July 2007 at 4:09 pm

    Actually I’ll forward it to a friend of mine who loves LISP, says Haskell is “one of the few languages that can teach LISP a thing or two”, and (oddly) is rather sour on category theory.

    Incidentally, did you notice that I finally defined a monad? :D

  2. angryphysicist Says:
    29 July 2007 at 8:36 pm

    Actually I’ll forward it to a friend of mine who loves LISP, says Haskell is “one of the few languages that can teach LISP a thing or two”, and (oddly) is rather sour on category theory.

    I keep mixing up Haskell with Forth for some strange reason, so this news is less exciting than I previously thought :(

    Although Forth is a fascinating language within its own right…I guess :P

    Despite being an avid Schemer, I’m not sure if I can tolerate the high levelness of Haskell. Being too high level is like being too drunk: you can’t do anything productive.

    Incidentally, did you notice that I finally defined a monad?

    I have actually been studying it, since I’m still trying to think about some sort of application for it.

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