femtolisp

Femtolisp

Femtolisp is a minimal Lisp interpreter and scripting language implemented in C. It is focused on being lightweight, customizable, and easily embeddable into other applications. It has a small memory footprint and provides basic Lisp semantics.
femtolisp image
lisp interpreter embeddable lightweight

Femtolisp: Minimal Lisp Interpreter & Scripting Language

A lightweight, customizable, and easily embeddable Lisp interpreter and scripting language in C, ideal for applications requiring minimal memory footprint.

What is Femtolisp?

Femtolisp is a lightweight and embeddable Lisp interpreter written in C. Despite its small size, it provides all core Lisp features like a REPL, variables, functions, macros, closures, and more. It compiles to highly optimized native code via libgcc.

With its minimal feature set and liberal license, Femtolisp aims to be embedded into other applications as a customizable scripting runtime. It weighs in at only about 6k LoC, has no dependencies outside of libc, and can compile down to a tiny executable size.

Femtolisp prioritizes C integration and tiny footprint over standardization or comprehensive features. It can be easily customized and extended by modifying or replacing the included base runtime.

Given its focus on small size and customizability versus standard compliance, Femtolisp may appeal to developers who need a scripting runtime for embedding where Lua or other options are too heavy. It provides a basic, customizable Lisp that compiles to native code.

Femtolisp Features

Features

  1. Minimal Lisp interpreter and scripting language
  2. Implemented in C
  3. Lightweight and customizable
  4. Easily embeddable into other applications
  5. Small memory footprint
  6. Provides basic Lisp semantics

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Lightweight and fast

Easy to embed and extend

Good for scripting simple tasks

Beginner friendly introduction to Lisp

Cons

Limited features compared to full Lisp implementations

Less mature and supported than other scripting languages

Not suitable for large applications

Limited libraries and ecosystem


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