02nov17abu (c) Software Lab. Alexander Burger

                                                      Perfection is attained
                                       not when there is nothing left to add
                                 but when there is nothing left to take away
                                                 (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
     The PicoLisp System
     ===================

 _PI_co Lisp is not _CO_mmon Lisp

PicoLisp can be viewed from two different aspects: As a general purpose programming language, and a dedicated application server framework.

(1) As a programming language, PicoLisp provides a 1-to-1 mapping of a clean and powerful Lisp derivate, to a simple and efficient virtual machine. It supports persistent objects as a first class data type, resulting in a database system of Entity/Relation classes and a Prolog-like query language tightly integrated into the system.

The virtual machine was designed to be Simple The internal data structure should be as simple as possible. Only one single data structure is used to build all higher level constructs. Unlimited There are no limits imposed upon the language due to limitations of the virtual machine architecture. That is, there is no upper bound in symbol name length, number digit counts, or data structure and buffer sizes, except for the total memory size of the host machine. Dynamic Behavior should be as dynamic as possible ("run"-time vs. "compile"-time). All decisions are delayed till runtime where possible. This involves matters like memory management, dynamic symbol binding, and late method binding. Practical PicoLisp is not just a toy of theoretical value. PicoLisp is used since 1988 in actual application development, research and production.

The language inherits the major advantages of classical Lisp systems like

• Dynamic data types and structures
• Formal equivalence of code and data
• Functional programming style
• An interactive environment

PicoLisp is very different from any other Lisp dialect. This is partly due to the above design principles, and partly due to its long development history since 1984.

You can download the latest release version at http://software-lab.de/down.html

(2) As an application server framework, PicoLisp provides for NoSQL Database Management Index trees Object local indexes Entity/Relation classes Pilog (PicoLisp Prolog) queries Multi-user synchronization DB Garbage collection Journaling, Replication User Interface Browser GUI (X)HTML/CSS XMLHttpRequest/JavaScript Application Server Process management Process family communication XML I/O Import/export User administration Internationalization Security Object linkage Postscript/Printing

PicoLisp is not an IDE. All program development in Software Lab. is done using the console, bash, vim and the Lisp interpreter.

The only type of GUI supported for applications is through a browser via HTML. This makes the client side completely platform independent. The GUI is created dynamically. Though it uses JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest for speed improvements, it is fully functional also without JavaScript or CSS.

The GUI is deeply integrated with - and generated dynamically from - the application's data model. Because the application logic runs on the server, multiple users can view and modify the same database object without conflicts, everyone seeing changes done by other users on her screen immediately due to the internal process and database synchronization.

PicoLisp is free software, and you are welcome to use and redistribute it under the conditions of the MIT/X11 License (see "COPYING").

It compiles and runs on current 32-bit GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS (illumos), HP-UX, AIX, IRIX64, Cygwin/Win32 (and possibly other) systems. A native 64-bit version is available for arm64/Linux, x86-64/Linux, ppc64/Linux, x86-64/FreeBSD, x86-64/OpenBSD and x86-64/SunOS (illumos).

Alexander Burger Software Lab. / 7fach GmbH Bahnhofstr. 24a, D-86462 Langweid abu@software-lab.de, http://www.software-lab.de, +49 8230 5060