6 ms·

Reviving Lisp for smaller programmable machines

80 points by tankfeeder 11y ago

nine_k 11y ago
Earlier discussion of PicoLisp on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962795
- r0muald 11y ago
  Unfortunately the picolisp dot org website linked in that discussion is now a parked domain.
tankfeeder 11y ago
real mature lisp, number of 4clojure and rosetta tasks implemented. Wide OS support, 64bit version implemented on its own assembler. Perfect as Forth.
- dguaraglia 11y ago
  Mordin Solus?
  - bitwize 11y ago
    Had to be me! Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
mike_ivanov 11y ago
It would be nice to rename the 'de' form to 'le'. Imagine: (le delay () ...), etc.
- tankfeeder 11y ago
  you have all to do this yourself.
- nine_k 11y ago
  ...but we are le tired.
- mahmud 11y ago
  Well, there is a Le Lisp. http://christian.jullien.free.fr/lelisp/ http://christian.jullien.free.fr/lelisp/
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Kototama 11y ago
If you are interested in this, check also PicoBit: https://github.com/stamourv/picobit https://github.com/stamourv/picobit
eggy 11y ago
Normal PicoLisp has a lot built-in: database, Prolog, web server, and lots more at less than 600K for the OpenWRT distribution. The MiniPicoLisp distribution, sans all the libraries, is only 73kB. It is a very well-thought Lisp geared for decades for practical web and database applications. Check the rosetta code entries for it to compare to other languages, simply amazing!
fizixer 11y ago
> It is still the most favored programming language for artificial intelligence research. Correction: It is still the most favored programming language for GOFAI research. It's pretty clear at this point (to me and to most active AI researchers) that some massively parallel statistical system (like Deep Learning based neural network, or Hawkins HTM, or something similar) will be a key ingredient, probably the dominant paradigm, in achieving electronic general intelligence. And lisp is pretty much absent in communities involved with that paradigm.
- lispm 11y ago
  It's clear that 'statistical systems' are a hundred years or more away from 'achieving electronic general intelligence'. 'statistical systems', 'deep learning neural networks', ... are totally dumb. Even commercial systems with massive money invested like Google Translate are only showing how far away from 'intelligent' translations they are. It does not matter if Lisp is not used in those communities for AI research. The whole approach is limited and does not matter much in 'general intelligence research'.
  - fizixer 11y ago
    Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of lisp family and learning racket myself these days. I'm just saying that a statement along the lines of 'lisp is an artificial intelligence language' is really not valid anymore. You could do metaprogramming, metalinguistics, etc, all you want, and have top-notch productivity as a human programmer, but as it stands, these features have not panned out in the realization of an electronic intelligence. Massivel parallel statistical (or stochastic, pick your favorite term) systems, despite all their limitations (at the moment), appear to me to be headed in the right direction, simply because they attempt to mimic the massively parallel and stochastic nature of brain circuitry. Is that the only way? not necessarily, but the problem has stumped us for so many decades, and has manifested itself to be so complex, that the uphill task of reverse engineering the computational model of the only working example seems to be "the lesser of all evils".
    - lispm 11y ago
reidrac 11y ago
The paper refers to an ARM Cortex M4 with around a MB of flash and and few hundreds of KB of RAM; well that's perhaps a MCU, but to be honest that's quite powerful. Micropython[1] targets that type of MCU, and even runs in a PIC16, so I'm not impressed. When I was working on my AVR based 8-bit microcomputer (32KB of flash, 2KB of RAM) I did a lot of research regarding Lisp, and I gave up because it can't be done. 1: https://github.com/micropython/micropython https://github.com/micropython/micropython Edit: yes, I evaluated PicoLisp and Picobit (and many others).
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  What machine was the first lisp implemented on? Surely it was a micro/pico classed system by today's standards?
  - Kaizyn 11y ago
    According to Wikipedia, the first LISP was implemented on an IBM 704, however that compares to your small system.
  - reidrac 11y ago
    Not sure, all modern Lisp implementations require more RAM than I had available. The closest I've found was things like Lisp implementations for 8-bit microcomputers of the 80s, eg. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008718 http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008718 (Lisp in a ZX Spectrum 48K).
davelnewton 11y ago
Back when I did more embedded systems as a profession I used various Forths and Schemes and it was far and away my preferred environment. Those didn't run on a VM, though; while even the cheapest controllers are an order of magnitude (or two) faster than what I had back then I do wonder about the performance implications. For those types of systems portability wasn't really a concern, the worst case was that we'd upgrade the processor to a later family member, making the port almost always trivial. Still, great to see.

80 points by tankfeeder 11y ago

Earlier discussion of PicoLisp on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962795

r0muald 11y ago
Unfortunately the picolisp dot org website linked in that discussion is now a parked domain.

tankfeeder 11y ago

real mature lisp, number of 4clojure and rosetta tasks implemented. Wide OS support, 64bit version implemented on its own assembler. Perfect as Forth.

dguaraglia 11y ago
Mordin Solus?
- bitwize 11y ago
  Had to be me! Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

mike_ivanov 11y ago

It would be nice to rename the 'de' form to 'le'. Imagine: (le delay () ...), etc.

tankfeeder 11y ago
you have all to do this yourself.
nine_k 11y ago
...but we are le tired.
mahmud 11y ago
Well, there is a Le Lisp. http://christian.jullien.free.fr/lelisp/ http://christian.jullien.free.fr/lelisp/

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Kototama 11y ago

If you are interested in this, check also PicoBit: https://github.com/stamourv/picobit https://github.com/stamourv/picobit

eggy 11y ago

Normal PicoLisp has a lot built-in: database, Prolog, web server, and lots more at less than 600K for the OpenWRT distribution. The MiniPicoLisp distribution, sans all the libraries, is only 73kB. It is a very well-thought Lisp geared for decades for practical web and database applications. Check the rosetta code entries for it to compare to other languages, simply amazing!

fizixer 11y ago

> It is still the most favored programming language for artificial intelligence research. Correction: It is still the most favored programming language for GOFAI research. It's pretty clear at this point (to me and to most active AI researchers) that some massively parallel statistical system (like Deep Learning based neural network, or Hawkins HTM, or something similar) will be a key ingredient, probably the dominant paradigm, in achieving electronic general intelligence. And lisp is pretty much absent in communities involved with that paradigm.

lispm 11y ago
It's clear that 'statistical systems' are a hundred years or more away from 'achieving electronic general intelligence'. 'statistical systems', 'deep learning neural networks', ... are totally dumb. Even commercial systems with massive money invested like Google Translate are only showing how far away from 'intelligent' translations they are. It does not matter if Lisp is not used in those communities for AI research. The whole approach is limited and does not matter much in 'general intelligence research'.
- fizixer 11y ago
  Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of lisp family and learning racket myself these days. I'm just saying that a statement along the lines of 'lisp is an artificial intelligence language' is really not valid anymore. You could do metaprogramming, metalinguistics, etc, all you want, and have top-notch productivity as a human programmer, but as it stands, these features have not panned out in the realization of an electronic intelligence. Massivel parallel statistical (or stochastic, pick your favorite term) systems, despite all their limitations (at the moment), appear to me to be headed in the right direction, simply because they attempt to mimic the massively parallel and stochastic nature of brain circuitry. Is that the only way? not necessarily, but the problem has stumped us for so many decades, and has manifested itself to be so complex, that the uphill task of reverse engineering the computational model of the only working example seems to be "the lesser of all evils".
  - lispm 11y ago

reidrac 11y ago

The paper refers to an ARM Cortex M4 with around a MB of flash and and few hundreds of KB of RAM; well that's perhaps a MCU, but to be honest that's quite powerful. Micropython[1] targets that type of MCU, and even runs in a PIC16, so I'm not impressed. When I was working on my AVR based 8-bit microcomputer (32KB of flash, 2KB of RAM) I did a lot of research regarding Lisp, and I gave up because it can't be done. 1: https://github.com/micropython/micropython https://github.com/micropython/micropython Edit: yes, I evaluated PicoLisp and Picobit (and many others).

Kaizyn 11y ago
What machine was the first lisp implemented on? Surely it was a micro/pico classed system by today's standards?
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  According to Wikipedia, the first LISP was implemented on an IBM 704, however that compares to your small system.
- reidrac 11y ago
  Not sure, all modern Lisp implementations require more RAM than I had available. The closest I've found was things like Lisp implementations for 8-bit microcomputers of the 80s, eg. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008718 http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0008718 (Lisp in a ZX Spectrum 48K).

davelnewton 11y ago

Back when I did more embedded systems as a profession I used various Forths and Schemes and it was far and away my preferred environment. Those didn't run on a VM, though; while even the cheapest controllers are an order of magnitude (or two) faster than what I had back then I do wonder about the performance implications. For those types of systems portability wasn't really a concern, the worst case was that we'd upgrade the processor to a later family member, making the port almost always trivial. Still, great to see.