GNU Common Lisp

GNU Common Lisp

GNU Common Lisp (GCL) is a free and open source implementation of the Common Lisp programming language. It features an integrated development environment, debuggers, and tools for optimization and delivery.
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lisp functional-programming compiler ide

GNU Common Lisp: Free & Open Source Lisp Implementations

A free and open source implementation of the Common Lisp programming language with an integrated development environment, debuggers, and optimization tools.

What is GNU Common Lisp?

GNU Common Lisp (GCL) is a free, open source implementation of the Common Lisp programming language standard. It includes an integrated development environment (IDE) with debugging features, a native code compiler, tools for optimization and delivery, and interfaces to operating system services.

Some key features of GCL include:

  • Full implementation of Common Lisp, compliant with the ANSI standard
  • Native code compiler for performance-critical code
  • Interactive read-eval-print loop for rapid development
  • Debugger with trace and inspection capabilities
  • IDE for editing, compiling, and debugging Lisp code
  • Built-in HTTP server for web application development
  • FFI for calling C libraries from Lisp
  • Portable across many operating systems like Linux, Windows, macOS

GCL makes Common Lisp accessible for programmers on Unix-like and Windows systems. Its native compiler combined with an interactive environment enables both rapid development and good performance for real-world applications. The included IDE, debuggers, FFI, and HTTP server provide a lot of supporting functionality out of the box.

GNU Common Lisp Features

Features

  1. Full ANSI Common Lisp implementation
  2. Native code compiler
  3. Integrated development environment
  4. Debugging and profiling tools
  5. Foreign function interface
  6. Threading and multiprocessing support
  7. Portable across many platforms

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Free and open source

High performance through native compilation

Mature and feature-rich implementation

Cross-platform compatibility

Active development community

Cons

Limited documentation and learning resources

Not as widely used as some other Lisps

IDE is basic compared to commercial options

Some platform ports are less maintained


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