janet VS ferret

I first came across something like this in janet, which includes a PEG system in the standard library. It definitely changed how I think about text processing. Very much of the time what I find myself doing with regex is defining a grammar, but I didn't realize that. I wish more languages included the tools for it, it's a core operation of practical programming.

https://janet-lang.org

...I of course would rather embed Janet [1], but I realize what is going to have an easier time gaining popularity %) Also, Lua has Löve [2] which could be immediately usable, among other things.

[1]: https://janet-lang.org/

[2]: https://www.love2d.org/

I don't think it has absolutely all that, but janet might be close?

https://janet-lang.org/

> Would you write your own JSON parser, is it that easy in LISP?

I only dally with Lisp(s) but probably not, I'd reach for a library in quicklisp.

However, in Janet (https://janet-lang.org/) there's a PEG parser and I wrote a JSON parser for fun in 134 lines that passes most of the test suite by Nicolas Seriot.

So I'd say it's reasonably easy for a better-skilled programmer than I am.

Only tangentially related, but for anyone interested in the idea of a simple, quick Python-like scripting Lisp, there are two Clojure-style languages to look at:

1) Hy (https://hylang.org/, compiles to Python bytecode, usually slower than Python but compatible with all Python libraries)

2) Janet (https://janet-lang.org/, very light Lua-style embeddable VM ~1 Mb, roughly twice as fast as Python for similar ops, very easy C interop)

Seems like a perfect use-case for Janet. (https://janet-lang.org/) A fast minimal VM like Lua, but even more extensible than Lua by being a "Lisp" with macro and C extension capabilities. Not a true Lisp, it's very pragmatic and performance-oriented. But it keeps the good stuff.

You might be looking for: https://janet-lang.org/

It comes with a build tool `jpm` which installs dependencies globally by default, but you can have it be installed in your project folder as well.

I like Clojure, but I never had any good opportunities to use it other than for a few small hobby projects. It is unfortunate that it is so huge with tons of dependencies and no simpler native implementation. I started looking at various LISPs and Schemes to find something lighter to use instead and ended up settling for Janet that I think is Clojure-like enough to be comfortable to use, but in a small native binary with no dependencies and can be embedded in other native programs. I am sure for big, real, projects that Clojure makes more sense, but for my hobby projects and scripts I do not think I will install it again. I am still happy for the things I learned from learning Clojure. It was a real eye-opener for an old OO-programmer.

https://janet-lang.org/

Seems like there has been no development since 2020 - https://github.com/nakkaya/ferret

The whole of ferret's source code is in a single org-mode file, following the literate programming style: https://github.com/nakkaya/ferret/blob/master/ferret.org

fyi there's some middle ground via ferret if you want to mix the two in the future. I think janet lang is more full featured, borrowing ideas from clojure while targeting simple embedding alongside c.

Another commenter already mentioned Gambit Scheme. That provides for inline C and therefore very easy interop with external libraries. It still has a runtime and GC though - those might pose a problem depending on your platform and task.

Ferret (https://github.com/nakkaya/ferret) and Carp (https://github.com/carp-lang/Carp) are both Lisp-like low level languages. Both seem to be fairly experimental in nature though.

> anything but C

Taking you literally, Rust and D can both compile for bare metal. D in particular has a "Better C" subset. (https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html)

In the same vein, Terra is a C like language (manual memory management) that you metaprogram with Lua. (https://github.com/terralang/terra)

Taking you very literally, Forth is also an option.

Impressive. Wonder how the performance in Emacs will be with a file this big... org source file