lone VS janet-sh

I made something somewhat close to that: a freestanding lisp. It targets the Linux kernel directly. No libc.

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone

> register scanning isn't portable

Certainly not but it wasn't particularly hard to implement either. I just wrote some inline assembly for every architecture. Here's my programming language's x86_64 and aarch64 implementations:

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone/blob/master/architecture/x...

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone/blob/master/architecture/a...

Not too long ago, a project of mine was shared here on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38126052

In that thread I wrote:

> I have this vision in my mind: embedding lone modules into sections of the lone ELF and shipping it out. Zero dependencies, self-contained.

I've been working on that since that day. Proud to say I've gotten it to work and thought I'd make it the subject of my first Show HN. Some free software projects gained features along the way too.

The link is to an article with a proper demonstration, technical details and what happened in the past few weeks.

The complete repository itself can be found here:

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone

I've completely reorganized it since the last thread. Would be very happy if you guys tried it out.

To test my programming language. It's a freestanding lisp interpreter that doesn't link to libc. I wrote the code that handles the environment variables and in order to test it I needed full control over the program's inputs including its environment. The env utility provides this control by emptying the environment and setting only the variables I specify, solving 90% of the problem. Only thing I still can't control is argv[0]. With this new feature upstreamed, my test suite will be complete.

Here's the code if you'd like to take a look:

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone#testing

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone/blob/master/scripts/test.b...

> only to be confronted with the notorious 'incompatible glibc version error'. It's super annoying.

I started making my own freestanding Linux Lisp because of this exact issue. It's nowhere near as performant as something like SBCL but it's small and once compiled has no dependencies and will literally run on any Linux.

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone

I'm taking a break from this project but I plan to add a feature where I can put a Lisp script into the ELF itself so I can just copy it with the scripts included.

The kernel just puts the data contiguously on the stack. Obtaining pointers to them can seem somewhat magical if you're writing a nolibc program but I wouldn't call it horrible.

I implemented it for my programming language with some rather simple assembly code:

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone/blob/master/arch/x86_64.c#...

https://github.com/lone-lang/lone/blob/master/arch/aarch64.c...

Right now, the one that is most attractive is Janet, with its wonderful shell programming integration and built-in http request. Those are both things I'm working a lot with.

I use Janet most often as a glue for shell utilities using the sh package (https://github.com/andrewchambers/janet-sh). It's a great tool for building small containerized jobs. I think it has a ton of potential as the ecosystem grows and matures.

Some rough spots:

- No canonical http client. There are a few attempts at wrapping libcurl but nothing complete and well documented yet. However, the creator of Joy framework for Janet does have an http client library.

- The main http server circlet is MIT licensed, but it is built on top of Mongoose, which is GPL/paid commercial. Something to be aware of if you want to distribute binaries made with this library.

- I have never been successful getting any of the UI or drawing libraries to work.

- Naming of packages is a bit confusing even if you have watched the Good Place and are aware of all of the inside jokes.

The arguments I have seen are based on Janet using arrays/tuples rather than cons cells. Here is the author addressing this on reddit a while back. https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aqwedz/janet_i...

The debate continues in the thread. Either way, I think Janet is very useful for situations where you want something lisp like and also want/need small executables. I've experimented with it quite a bit and have found it really useful for putting together cli apps. The sh package is really useful for gluing together other shell programs. https://github.com/andrewchambers/janet-sh