Femtolisp: A lightweight, robust, scheme-like Lisp implementation
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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.
Top comments
The 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.
HN stats
- 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 |