When comparing Red vs Pyret, the Slant community recommends Red for most people. In the question“What is the best programming language to learn first?” Red is ranked 40th while Pyret is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Red is:
Other languages have complex, multi-step setups that beginners often get stuck on. Red has no installer, no setup, no dependencies*, just a single small (~1MB) command-line executable with both the compiler and repl. On Windows, you don't even have to launch executable from the command line--it has a GUI-console.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple toolchain
Other languages have complex, multi-step setups that beginners often get stuck on. Red has no installer, no setup, no dependencies*, just a single small (~1MB) command-line executable with both the compiler and repl. On Windows, you don't even have to launch executable from the command line--it has a GUI-console.
Pro Very simple syntax
Red syntax is a lot like Rebol. It's easier than most languages for beginners to pick up.
Pro Both low and high-level
Red has low enough access to do systems programming, but it's expressive enough for high-level scripting.
Pro Low cognitive load
Red has very simple syntax that's easy to learn. It gets out of your way and lets you think about the problem instead, enhancing productivity.
Pro Online IDE
You can use the development environment without installation in your browser and share your programs via the Google Drive integration.
Pro Designed for education
A primary goal of Pyret is to be an excellent choice for a first programming language. This heavily influences the development of the language. For example: if it's felt that some aspect of the language could be made better for the language's users, The development team won't hesitate about implementing breaking (non backwards compatible) changes into Pyret for the greater good of the language. This makes Pyret an impressively "wart free" programming language.
Cons
Con Not production ready
Red is still under development and not considered stable.
Con Still in beta
It mostly works. It's good enough for building usable applications, but some planned features are missing.
Con Missing IDE features
For example: content assist, go to declaration, etc.
