Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Implementation of John McCarthy's AMB operator in Portable Common Lisp

An implementation of John McCarthy's ambiguous operator in portable Common Lisp. - phoe/amb

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Implementation of John McCarthy's AMB operator in Portable Common Lisp launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1IW
   I wrote a technical history book on Lisp▲252

   The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)). My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my…

   Feb 2026 · berksoft.ca · its alternatives →

2. 2MB
   My book, The Common Lisp Condition System▲177

   2020 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

3. 3IA
   Implementing a Lispy Language in Haskell: Part 1▲6

   Software Engineer in New York specializing in Apple platforms

   2015 · harlanhaskins.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   A hash array-mapped trie implementation in C▲171

   Long-simmering side project that is finally ready to see the light. HAMTs are a cool persistent data structure and implementing one has been a lot of fun. Beyond the code, there is likely some value in the extensive and largely complete implementation docs; basic benchmarks are linked in the README, too. Kind of aiming to be "the libavl for HAMTs". That is obviously a high and aspirational bar but a distinct possibility if it stirs up a little interest and/or contribution. Anyways, it's time for this to go out, collect feedback and maybe even some use outside of toy projects. Let me…

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   A modernized and annotated code companion to Paul Graham's “On Lisp”▲93

   A modernized and annotated code companion to Paul Graham's "On Lisp". - DalekBaldwin/on-lisp

   2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

6. 6IM
   I'm writing a leanpub book about Common Lisp web programming▲107

   2013 · lispwebtales.ppenev.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Eole, a Lévy-optimal lambda calculus evaluator written in Rust▲106

   Éole, a Lévy-optimal lambda calculus evaluator without oracle - HerrmannM/eole

   2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language▲60

   Stephen Wolfram's new book on the Wolfram Language

   2015 · wolfram.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Flippy Bit And The Attack Of The Hexadecimals▲78

   Bitwise operations and conversions to hexadecimals

   2016 · flippybitandtheattackofthehexadecimalsfrombase16.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Purely Functional Data Structures▲61

    A guide to functional programming

    2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Maybe Haskell▲60

    See what it’s like to program in a language without null.

    2015 · books.thoughtbot.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Snigl – Forth with a Lisp in C▲6

    2018 · gitlab.com · its alternatives →

13. 13AV
    A very simple Lisp interpreter in 250 lines of literate Python▲5

    2017 · khamidou.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Snigl – a Forth with a Lisp in C▲6

    2018 · gitlab.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Lambda Lessons▲6

    Pattern-matching, first-class functions, and more in Haskell

    2014 · stevekrouse.github.io · its alternatives →

16. 16
    Emacs Lisp▲4

    An Introduction

    2017 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

17. 17AA
    Awl, a toy Lisp language written in C and transpiled to JavaScript▲8

    2014 · skepsi.me · its alternatives →

18. 18
    A small Clojure-like Lisp on top of R▲5

    Lisp-like-R: A clojure inspired lisp that compiles to R in R - dirkschumacher/llr

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

19. 19AN
    A .Net Lisp interpreter with First Class Macros, Continuations▲7

    2012 · patient0.github.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Bad Language: A lisp-looking language with interpreter and JS compiler▲6

    A lisp-looking language with interpreter and compiler to JS - mcapodici/badlanguage

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    Lisp in Five Days▲9

    Hi HN! I kept hearing about Lisp and why it was special but didn't have a great place to start. I wanted something self-contained that helped me develop intuition rather than fluency. My hope is this is helpful for casual programmers, professionals from other fields who interact with code, or engineers who haven't had much exposure to interpreters or compilers. Hope this helps anyone else who's curious about getting a sense of Lisp and what makes it special with a limited time investment! Feedback or other cool Lisp things welcome :)

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

22. 22RA
    Recursi – a recursive memory/logic puzzle▲5

    2014 · lkozma.net · its alternatives →

23. 23FA
    Ferret – A Hard Real-Time Clojure for Lisp Machines▲7

    2016 · nakkaya.com · its alternatives →

24. 24PA
    Philip2 – an Elm-to-OCaml compiler▲8

    2019 · medium.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →