Small languages (was Re: Lua, Lunatic and Python

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

>There are Scheme subsets like SIOD which are much smaller than either
>Guile or Lua.

I have just downloaded SIOD and after fixing several compilation
bugs (it looks awfuly linux-unfriendly), I got a 145kb shared
library. The language also seems to be unmaintained since 96.

>Forth is a little bit too contorted for my tastes, but

Agreed. I could even manage to learn it, but my main problem, at least
while looking for an embeddable language for APT-RPM, was that the
choosed language should be friendly to the users, not just to myself.

>there was once an Emacs-like editor that used something close to it as
>an extension language.  PostScript, of course, also strongly resembles
>Forth.  A minimal Forth can be even smaller than SIOD, but SIOD is
>pretty small and I'd probably use something like it in preference to
>Forth in any but the tiniest environments.

I'm aware that Forth has large usage cases in very small
embedded systems. This fact certainly increases my interest
in the language.

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net