edgelisp

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EdgeLisp is a Lisp for JavaScript.

There's no formal definition of the language at the moment, so your best bet is to look at the Lisp files in the lisp/ and client/ directories. EdgeLisp should feel familiar to Common Lisp programmers.

A REPL is online at:

http://manuel.github.com/edgelisp/repl.html

This REPL runs a stable version of EdgeLisp that lags behind the master branch. For a REPL with the newest code see INSTALL.

Features

• Class-based object system (DEFCLASS) (currently only single inheritance)

• Multiple-dispatching generic functions (DEFGENERIC, DEFMETHOD) (using Cecil-style symmetric method lookup)

• Separate function and variable namespaces (Lisp-2) DEFPARAMETER, DEFVAR, DEFUN, LET, LET*, FUNCALL, APPLY (FLET and LABELS currently missing)

• &OPTIONAL, &KEY, &REST, &AUX parameters as well as &ALL-KEYS receiving keyword args as dictionary

• Runtime type-checked function parameters and results (using same syntax as DEFMETHOD for parameters and -> arrow syntax for result)

• Basic control flow (IF, PROGN, LOOP, COND, CASE, ECASE), Nonlocal exits (BLOCK/RETURN-FROM, CATCH/THROW), UNWIND-PROTECT

• Condition system with restarts HANDLER-BIND, RESTART-BIND, SIGNAL, INVOKE-RESTART

• Numerical tower: real, rational, integer (small integers are represented as Number)

• Hygienic DEFMACRO (based on SRFI 72) with basic destructuring; #and #' for hygienic code quotation, analogous to and '

• Slot access through (overridable) generic functions; slots may be defined outside classes, with DEFSLOT.

• (Slightly) Generalized references SETF (appends "-setter")

• Inline JavaScript, with escaping back into Lisp, (and back into JS...) using #{ ... JavaScript code ... #} reader syntax.

• Dynamically-scoped (fluid-bound, actually) variables DEFDYNAMIC, DYNAMIC, DYNAMIC-BIND

Features TBD

• Multiple inheritance
• FLET, LABELS, TAGBODY, DESTRUCTURING-BIND, MACROLET
• CALL-NEXT-METHOD; before-, after-, around-methods
• Sequence protocol based on D's ranges
• Package system

Plan

• Implement missing features
• Documentation and better test suite
• Make faster, smaller

Compatibility

EdgeLisp is intended to compile to EMCAScript, 3rd Edition (JavaScript 1.5), but currently uses the nonstandard extensions proto (for inheritance) and function.caller (for debugging).

EdgeLisp is tested on Chrome 11, Firefox 4, and Opera 11.10.

Files

The major files are runtime.js, compiler.js, and lisp/boot.lisp.

runtime.js (together with reader.js) provides basic support such as object model, forms, multiple dispatch engine, and many built-in functions.

compiler.js translates Lisp to JavaScript, and also evaluates Lisp expressions at compile-time (DEFMACRO and EVAL-WHEN-COMPILE).

lisp/boot.lisp builds up the language from the special forms and built-in functions.

License

If you modify EdgeLisp, you must make the modified version available to your users under the AGPL. See file COPYING.

(Using EdgeLisp for your programs does not place them under the AGPL. You are free to choose any license for your Lisp code.)

Thanks

• Chris Double for parsing expression grammar https://github.com/doublec/jsparse
• Douglas Crockford for JSON parser https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js
• Danny Yoo for numerical tower https://github.com/dyoo/js-numbers