Why code in Python+C if you can code in Lisp+Zig? (DeclMed 2023 - Declarative Programming in Biology and Medicine (DeclMed) 2023) - ICFP 2023
icfp23.sigplan.org
Declarative Programming in Biology and Medicine (“DeclMed”) is a new interdisciplinary workshop that will explore declarative programming methods / paradigms and their applications in the life sciences and medicine. Given promising advances in using declarative approaches in areas such as precision medicine, bioinformatics, graph querying, modeling, and DNA computing, this workshop aims to advance the use of declarative approaches to solve complex problems in biology or medicine. The workshop will solicit abstracts, papers, tutorials, and presentations (including lightning talks). The tw ...

Another bit of gold from ICFP 2023 by Pjotr Prins of the University of Tennessee.

The actual title of the talk is “Why code in Python+C if you can code in Lisp+Zig?” but the “Lisp” in this case is actually Guile Scheme. I didn’t know this, but Zig uses the C ABI so it binds to any language that can do FFI bindings to C, including most Scheme and Common Lisp implementations. But why don’t I just post the abstract here:

“Most bioinformatics software today is written in Python and for performance C is used. Lisp has been around for over half a century and here I don’t have to tell how or why programming Lisp is great. I will talk about Zig as a minimalistic new language that is unapologetically focused on performance, tellingly with a blazingly fast compiler. It is advertised as a replacement for Thompson, Ritchie, and Kernighan’s C, but it may even replace C++ in places. Zig uses the C-ABI and does not do garbage collection, so it is ideal for binding against other languages. In this talk I will present combining GNU Guile Lisp with Zig. I’ll argue that everyone needs two languages: one for quick coding and one for performance. With Guile and Zig you get both at the same time and you won’t have to fight the Rust borrow checker either.”