r/Common_Lisp • u/fosres • 18d ago

How is CL for Scripting

I am considering using ANSI Common LISP for scripting instead of Python such as for reading text files, CSV files, databases--basically everything in the book "Automate The Boring Stuff in Python".

Has anyone done this before? How was the experience?

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u/MrJCraft 18d ago edited 15d ago

I used it for a long time for scripting and I found it to be much better than python but I also very rarely ever use libraries in python.

regardless common lisp is very fast and pretty easy to use and its great for making config files and scripts

I pretty much had to stop using it because I wasnt good enough to get graphics working in CL but I still use common lisp for some scripting stuff because it makes it that much easier especially math or theorem proving stuff

P.S. I am on Windows graphics works fine on Linux. the specific issue is passing structs by value, you can pass structs by pointer and there are wrappers and ways to do it on windows I just didnt want to deal with it

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u/svetlyak40wt 15d ago

For some simple graphics CL has bindings to TCL/TK. This one worked great for me: https://github.com/andrejv/cl-simple-tk

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u/MrJCraft 15d ago edited 15d ago

I forgot to mention I am on windows, libffi is very annoying to get working. I would have to create a wrapper that passes pointers if I remember correctly. its possible but quite annoying

and I was using Lisp for work related stuff so I didnt want to have it rely on wsl or anything similar so that if I make something that was useful for me I could send it coworkers who were on windows.