Re:Lisp: it's not about macros, it's about READ (2012)
by lisper on Monday July 18, 2016 @02:48AM
(#12113546)
> Where is a good dynamic language that is always online and runs in <8K of flash/RAM?
Early in my career I wrote code for embedded systems (small autonomous mobile robots) that ran on 8-bit processors with memories around this size. The coding was done in Lisp-like DSLs with compilers written in Lisp. Because the DSLs were Lisp-like, there was no need to write parsers. READ was the parser. And from there writing the compiler itself was pretty easy.
BTW, the Lisp I was using (Macintosh Common Lisp) ran on a Macintosh II with 8 MB of RAM. (This was the late 80's, early 90's.) That was a huge amount of memory back then. Today, not so much. Before that, I ran Coral Common Lisp on a Mac Plus with 1 MB of RAM. I recently ported TinyScheme to run on an STM32. So yes, you can use Lisp in embedded systems.
Early in my career I wrote code for embedded systems (small autonomous mobile robots) that ran on 8-bit processors with memories around this size. The coding was done in Lisp-like DSLs with compilers written in Lisp. Because the DSLs were Lisp-like, there was no need to write parsers. READ was the parser. And from there writing the compiler itself was pretty easy.
BTW, the Lisp I was using (Macintosh Common Lisp) ran on a Macintosh II with 8 MB of RAM. (This was the late 80's, early 90's.) That was a huge amount of memory back then. Today, not so much. Before that, I ran Coral Common Lisp on a Mac Plus with 1 MB of RAM. I recently ported TinyScheme to run on an STM32. So yes, you can use Lisp in embedded systems.