Slope is very easy to pickup. It is concise. It has simple and easy package manager. You do not need to learn huge tooling around it, etc. You can quickly build a console or GUI app. You can write your modules and it's FOSS. I'd say that all this makes it an excellent small, hobby lang.

It’s a lisp, so it’s eminently hackable - you can do everything with it, and simultaneously nothing ;p

I love lisps. Why choose slope over something like racket or maybe clojure(script)?

> It’s a lisp, so it’s eminently hackable

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's missing one vital lisp feature for making it actually hackable: macros!

Couldn't find anything about it in the docs and couldn't search the source code for it either, via their git webpage either.

Meta programming is still “trivial” (for the lack of a better word) in a lisp without using macros.

> Meta programming is still “trivial” (for the lack of a better word) in a lisp without using macros

is there not a whole class of problems that are not trivial if you cannot control evaluation of forms / expressions? this is one of the things (non-reader) macros provide.

> if you cannot control evaluation of forms / expressions

Assuming quote works, you can do:

  (eval (macro-expand '(
  # rest of file goes here
  )))

which I think technically meets the standards for "trivial", albeit annoying.

(Edit: Although it'd have to be eval-with-macro-expand if you want proper first-class macros.)

“Trivial” is the wrong word, but it’s fairly known/common to write an embedded interpreter. The line between interpreting and just plain programming is very blurry in a lisp.

You can still somewhat control evaluation with quote and/or list.

I have limited experience with lisps, and for me a smaller language, that is easy to pick up, works well. I can finally do things in a lisp, without having to struggle with the full breadth and depth of the bigger guys (and I do not have to install e.g. jvm on my machine :). So for me it is a graceful way to work in a paradigm that I long like, but I somehow could not make my way to.

It seems like it's halfway between those things and Logo.

So, simpler but with some modern paradigms thrown in to make it more 'respectable'...

I would agree. Simple and old school, but with a dash of modern features was what I was going for. I used Logo a good bit when I was young, so I can appreciate the comparison.

Check what it says about the hobby language - it is not meant to attract huge crowds, so it does not need to be 'respectable'. For me it is good if it raises associations with Logo, though - as Logo was also providing way to computing for 'non-professionals' - thus keeping the fun and joy of computing.