Femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe parser of the Julia compiler is written in this dialect. It just goes to show how much power you have in a small package with lisps.
Fun fact, Julia's parser and part of its compiler are implemented in femtolisp, and you can access it using a not so secret option in the Julia CLI.
I think femtolisp powers Julia's code parsing and helps make Julia so lisp-like. Femtolisp can be run with as an argument to julia: `julia --lisp` > julia --lisp ; _ ; |_ _ _ |_ _ | . _ _ ; | (-||||_(_)|__|_)|_) ;-------------------|-----------------------
Used to implement the parser/lowering for Julia! It's probably on the way out at this point, but it's served us very well this past decade.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 456
- Total comments
- 93
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-06-03 | Femtolisp - 150kb, self-contained Scheme-like Lisp | rohshall | 2 | 0 |
| 2015-03-12 | A purely symbolic gesture [Scheme] | agi | 2 | 1 |
| 2016-06-03 | Femtolisp: lightweight, robust, scheme-like lisp implementation | sndean | 1 | 0 |
| 2017-08-12 | Femtolisp: A lightweight,robust,scheme-like lisp implementation | drdre2001 | 19 | 0 |
| 2019-05-14 | Femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation | tosh | 3 | 1 |
| 2019-06-05 | Femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation | auvi | 4 | 1 |
| 2020-01-19 | Femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementationFirst breakout · Best thread | lelf | 146 | 60 |
| 2021-12-20 | Femtolisp – A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation | thetwentyone | 133 | 15 |
| 2026-02-23 | femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementationLatest 20+ point return | tosh | 146 | 15 |