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  5. Common Lisp vs Elixir vs Haskell

Common Lisp vs Elixir vs Haskell

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Haskell
Haskell
Stacks1.4K
Followers1.2K
Votes527
Common Lisp
Common Lisp
Stacks269
Followers255
Votes145
Elixir
Elixir
Stacks3.5K
Followers3.3K
Votes1.3K
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks3.5K

Common Lisp vs Elixir vs Haskell: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this analysis, we will explore the key differences between Common Lisp, Elixir, and Haskell, three popular programming languages. We will highlight six key distinctions that set them apart from each other.

  1. Syntax: Common Lisp follows a prefix notation called S-expression, which can be initially challenging for newcomers. Elixir, on the other hand, uses a more traditional infix notation that resembles Ruby and other languages, making it more accessible. Haskell features a strong static typing system and uses its own unique syntax, known as Haskell syntax, with a strong emphasis on functional programming concepts.

  2. Concurrency Model: Elixir is built on the Erlang virtual machine and provides excellent support for building concurrent, distributed, and fault-tolerant systems with its lightweight processes and built-in message passing. Common Lisp, while also capable of concurrent programming, does not have the same level of built-in support for concurrency as Elixir. Haskell takes a different approach by embracing pure functional programming and offering a sophisticated concurrency model based on lightweight threads and software transactional memory (STM).

  3. Metaprogramming and Macros: Common Lisp is known for its powerful metaprogramming capabilities, allowing developers to modify the language's syntax and behavior at runtime. It offers a macro system that enables code generation and domain-specific language creation. Elixir also provides metaprogramming features but through a macro system inspired by Lisp and implemented as part of the language. Haskell, although not as popularly known for metaprogramming, does offer techniques such as Template Haskell for compile-time code generation.

  4. Type System: Common Lisp does not enforce static typing and adopts a dynamic typing approach, allowing flexibility but sacrificing compile-time type checking. Elixir follows the same dynamic typing approach as Common Lisp but with a clear preference for immutability and pure functions. Haskell, on the other hand, employs a strong static typing system that guarantees type safety and provides powerful type inference, allowing for rigorous compile-time checks and reducing the occurrence of runtime errors.

  5. Functional Programming: While all three languages support functional programming, Haskell is prominently a statically-typed purely functional language. Haskell enforces immutability and avoids side effects, enabling easier reasoning about programs and mathematical-like function composition. Common Lisp and Elixir offer a mix of functional and imperative programming styles, allowing for mutable state and side effects when needed.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Common Lisp has a long-established history and a dedicated community, but its ecosystem has relatively fewer libraries and frameworks compared to Elixir and Haskell. Elixir, being built on top of the mature Erlang ecosystem, offers robust libraries and tools for building scalable and fault-tolerant systems. Haskell has a strong and active community, known for promoting rigorous programming practices, and its ecosystem provides a wide range of libraries for numerous domains, including web development, cryptography, and parsing.

In summary, Common Lisp, Elixir, and Haskell differ in their syntax, concurrency models, metaprogramming capabilities, type systems, functional programming approach, and community ecosystems. Each language caters to distinct programming paradigms and use cases, and understanding these differences can help developers choose the most appropriate language for their projects.

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Advice on Haskell, Common Lisp, Elixir

Timm
Timm

VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH

Nov 10, 2020

Decided

We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.

As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:

Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.

PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.

We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.

Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.

Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.

682k views682k
Comments
Jakes
Jakes

Mar 21, 2021

Decided

#rust @{#elixir}|topic:null| So am creating a messenger with voice call capabilities app which the user signs up using phone number and so at first i wanted to use Actix so i learned Rust so i thought to myself because well its first i felt its a bit immature to use actix web even though some companies are using Rust but we cant really say the full potential of Rust in a full scale app for example in Discord both Elixir and Rust are used meaning there is equal need for them but for Elixir so many companies use it from Whatsapp, Wechat, etc and this means something for Rust is not ready to go full scale we cant assume all this possibilities when it come Rust. So i decided to go the Erlang way after alot of Thinking so Do you think i made the right decision?Am 19 year programmer so i assume am not experienced as you so your answer or comment would really valuable to me

284k views284k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Haskell
Haskell
Common Lisp
Common Lisp
Elixir
Elixir

It is a general purpose language that can be used in any domain and use case, it is ideally suited for proprietary business logic and data analysis, fast prototyping and enhancing existing software environments with correct code, performance and scalability.

Lisp was originally created as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs, influenced by the notation of Alonzo Church's lambda calculus. It quickly became the favored programming language for artificial intelligence (AI) research. As one of the earliest programming languages, Lisp pioneered many ideas in computer science, including tree data structures, automatic storage management, dynamic typing, conditionals, higher-order functions, recursion, and the self-hosting compiler. [source: wikipedia]

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Statically typed; Purely functional; Type inference; Concurrent
--
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
3.5K
Stacks
1.4K
Stacks
269
Stacks
3.5K
Followers
1.2K
Followers
255
Followers
3.3K
Votes
527
Votes
145
Votes
1.3K
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 90
    Purely-functional programming
  • 66
    Statically typed
  • 59
    Type-safe
  • 39
    Open source
  • 38
    Great community
Cons
  • 9
    Too much distraction in language extensions
  • 8
    Error messages can be very confusing
  • 5
    Libraries have poor documentation
  • 3
    No good ABI
  • 3
    No best practices
Pros
  • 24
    Flexibility
  • 22
    High-performance
  • 17
    Comfortable: garbage collection, closures, macros, REPL
  • 13
    Stable
  • 12
    Lisp
Cons
  • 4
    Too many Parentheses
  • 3
    Standard did not evolve since 1994
  • 2
    No hygienic macros
  • 2
    Small library ecosystem
  • 1
    Inadequate community infrastructure
Pros
  • 174
    Concurrency
  • 163
    Functional
  • 133
    Erlang vm
  • 113
    Great documentation
  • 105
    Great tooling
Cons
  • 11
    Fewer jobs for Elixir experts
  • 7
    Smaller userbase than other mainstream languages
  • 5
    Elixir's dot notation less readable ("object": 1st arg)
  • 4
    Dynamic typing
  • 2
    Difficult to understand

What are some alternatives to Haskell, Common Lisp, Elixir?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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