Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log

Paolo Amoroso's weblog. Main interests: Lisp, astronomy (Moon), space exploration (Apollo and early manned programs)

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Online Lisp and Logo evaluators

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

I first approached Lisp -- via Scheme -- in the early 1990s, when the web was born. One of the first web sites I visited was an online Scheme evaluator developed at MIT and based on Scheme 48.

You could enter arbitrary Scheme expressions (modulo security restrictions) into a text field, submit the form via CGI, and get back the output and values in another page. Although at the time I had access to full Scheme development environments, that site looked like an impressive Scheme and web hack. I no longer have a link to the site, and I don't know whether it still exists.

A few years ago Franz, Inc. made available an online Common Lisp REPL based on their Allegro CL product. You get access to a full REPL, modulo the usual security restrictions. Type :exit to quit. This is an interesting way of trying Common Lisp without installing any software.

More recently I run across LogoWiki, an online evaluator for the Logo programming language. It is actually a simple Wiki-based, interactive development environment. There are text fields where you can enter source code. If you click the Run button, you can see the turtle moving and drawing in a graphics output pane and get any additional output from the program.

LogoWiki is pretty cool, but this is no surprise given that Alan Kay is also involved. Needless to say, it would be even cooler to have a similar online Lisp system.