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Add to SafariWhen comparing Red vs PicoLisp, the Slant community recommends Red 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?” Red is ranked 57th while PicoLisp is ranked 66th. 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.
Question 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 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 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 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.
