Pixie is a Clojure-inspired lisp that has a quick startup time and nice FFI support that allows it to make use of existing C libraries, making it a nice option for working with the Raspberry Pi.
Installing Pixie
Meeting Dependencies
From a base Raspbian install, Pixie’s dependencies (as of eb5886ff95) except for libuv-dev can be satisfied using aptitude
sudo apt-get install libffi-dev libedit-dev libboost-all-dev
libuv-dev (and libuv) are available from the Jesse packages. Use the armhf builds.
Use wget to grab the packages and install with
sudo dpkg -i libuv*armhf.debBuilding the Pixie VM
make build_no_jit
It’ll run for about an hour. Enjoy the excellent ascii art the RPython build process produces.
Cross compilation from a faster machine may be an option as well.
Interfacing with the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO
Using Pixie’s FFI, I made a library called wiringPixie wrapping wiringPi. Follow the instructions on the README to install
https://github.com/stuarth/wiringPixie
and start hacking (or controlling LEDs :))
(require wiring-pixie.gpio :refer :all)
(def pin 7)
(wiringPiSetup) ;; required first!
(pinMode pin OUTPUT) ;; pin to OUTPUT
(digitalWrite pin HIGH) ;; set pin 7 to HIGH