When comparing Scala vs PicoLisp, the Slant community recommends Scala for most people. In the question“What are the best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages?” Scala is ranked 21st while PicoLisp is ranked 66th. The most important reason people chose Scala is:
The immutable values make it perfect for working with concurrency
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Immutable values
The immutable values make it perfect for working with concurrency
Pro Multiparadigm
Scala supports both Functional and Object Oriented styles of programming. Beginners can learn both paradigms without having to learn a new language, and experts can switch between the two according to what best suits their needs at the time.
Pro Type inference
Scala offers type inference, which, while giving the same safety as Java's type system, allows programmers to focus on the code itself, rather than on updating type annotations.
Pro Compiles to JVM bytecode
Aside from Java itself, Scala is by far the most popular of the many JVM languages. If you're developing for Android, or a similar JVM-only platform, or otherwise need out-of-the-box cross-platform compatibility, but the performance of a compiled language, Scala is the way to go.
Pro Very good online courses
On coursera you can find great introduction to Scala by Martin Odersky.
Pro Type inference leads to a simpler syntax
Pro Expressive functional programming abstraction for reusable and safe code
Pro Integrated database and Prolog engine
Pro Fast code execution speed
One of the fastest code execution speeds compared to other Lisp dialects.
Pro Simplicity
Compared to other Lisp dialects, it's simple and doesn't have unnecessary features.
Pro Tacit
Code written in is short and easier to understand most of the time.
Pro Foreign function interface
The language has built-in FFI for C and also interfaces with java(via ersatz)
Cons
Con Can be intimidating for beginners
Scala is an industrial language. It brings functional programming to the JVM, but not with a "start small and grow the language" perspective, but rather a very powerful language for professional programmers.
Con Way too complex for beginners
Even for seasoned programmers it's a difficult language.
Con Static type system inherits cruft from Java
The type system is too complicated yet still less powerful than Haskell's.
Con Lack of Floating point data type
The language does not have floating point numbers only scaled fix-point numbers. Scaling of numbers is more work than directly working with floats.